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Huntsman In The Wings

April 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

USA, mother f*ckers!

With “The Donald” getting all the coverage over his rambunctious pursuit of the GOP nomination and with the Republican field widening, as I have argued elsewhere, the most realistic scenario is one where Michelle Bachmann serves as a stalking horse for Mitt Romney.  Even if Mike Huckabee runs Bachmann will likely still win Iowa with Romney punting there.  Romney is a favorite son in New Hampshire so he will pour tons of money there and get results. Donald Trump will close in on him but fail to overtake him.

On to South Carolina.  Bachmann will pull out and will endorse Romney, who takes the state over Huckabee and Trump. The Establishment will plead for Mitch Daniels to get into it but he won’t.  Did I mention Tim Pawlenty?  Who is that? Even I don’t know. This will clinch the nomination for Romney with Bachmann on the ticket for vice president.  But can they win?

Pick me! Pick me!

Lurking on the sidelines is Sarah Palin who knows full well that if she slumps back to Alaska the big paydays will be over–no more gigantic lecture fees, no more big book advances, no more television gigs, except for some modest work on Fox News.  With a burning hatred for Bachmann, for whom Palin campaigned in the last Congressional elections, Palin will see Bachmann’s actions as a betrayal since she assumed Bachmann would back her for president.  Thus begins the fight to the death of the vipers.  Realizing that the Republican Establishment has done everything in its power to marginalize her she will, with a combined rage against both party and Bachmann, run as a Third Party Candidate. She will denounce the Establishment Republicans as sell-outs and call Bachmann a turncoat and an opportunist. Pretty rich, that.  She will blast Romney for his Romney Care and spend more time and energy attacking the party that spurned her after she lifted McCain’s sagging poll numbers than on attacking Obama.  If she can get Trump to run with her it could all get quite entertaining. But the likelihood of Trump taking a second spot is highly doubtful.  Maybe she could run with Glenn Beck. The real losers would be the writing staff of Saturday Night Live because any actual debate between these candidates will be funnier than anything those talented scribes could concoct.

Paul Ryan’s budget will give the Democrats fresh ammunition–the Republican intention to abolish Medicare whilst calling for tax cuts to the rich. This after attacking Obama in the last election for cutting five billion dollars from Medicare.  Although Ryan has said Social Security is off the table, why should anyone believe that after the Republicans’ about-face on Medicare?

This will give Obama an unintended push over the top with the Democrats making substantial gains in the House and Senate.

The Manchurian Candidate is my favorite movie!

Instead of taking back the country entirely the Republicans could easily find themselves on the verge of extinction.  Their only hope will be to return to the center, led by Jon Huntsman.  He is the 800-pound gorilla in the room for the 2012 Republican nomination.  By far the most telegenic of all their candidates, he is also the best qualified by far by virtue of being the only one with international experience, having served as ambassador to China and being fluent in Mandarin.  As a two-term governor of Utah, he proved his mettle on domestic issues, even if he did raise taxes. Moderate on social issues, he could still steamroll over the opposition.  He is also loaded with a great family fortune.  Besides, he hates Romney for taking over the Olympics in Utah when Huntsman expected to get that position.  He would love nothing better than to shatter Romney’s chances, one Mormon against another.  Huntsman is a Kennedy-esque Republican whose charm and charisma–something all the other candidates lack–make him a winner whatever his positions on the issues. And when young voters learn he dropped out of high school to join a rock band before returning and going on tto he University of Pennsylvania, they will follow him anywhere.  He is the one candidate Obama fears.  One way or another, his time will come.

But then again, there is Gary Johnson.  Tune in next time for more on that dude.

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The Council On Foreign Relations

February 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Richard Haass confidently predicts a stable Egypt under Mubarak for years to come... D'oh!

As I was watching events unfold in Egypt, I concluded that this was once again a gigantic failure by the American intelligence and foreign policy Establishments.  Obama sent State Department diplomat Frank Wisner to tell Mubarak to shape up and, instead, he announced that Mubarak was a bastion of stability in the Middle East.  Obama evidently blew his stack at this disobedience and before long, Mubarak was toast. On impulse, I sent an email to Richard Haass, the Director of the Council on Foreign Relations, to give him my observations. Haass has been president of the Council on Foreign Relations since July 2003, prior to which he was Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State and a close advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Senate approved Haass as a candidate for the position of ambassador and he has been U.S. Coordinator for the Future of Afghanistan.  In other words, he is a foreign policy Establishment type of the first order.  This is what I wrote in my email to him:

“I have often been puzzled by the membership. Who gets invited to join? What are the qualifications?  It seems to me that the Council is often a bit behind the curve.  When I was a professor of international law at the Haile Selassie I University in Addis Ababa, I was the only one who said there would be a revolution against the Emperor.  After I wrote an Op Ed in the New York Times about it when I was teaching at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, there was an uproar.  How could I say such a thing? The several publishers approached by my agent about doing a book, returned my proposal in a panic.  It was only years later that I learned that the Nixon administration had told American publishers that it didn’t want any books published on Ethiopia!  Incredible.  Of course, everything I predicted happened. There was a revolution and the country went Communist.

“One of my closet friends is Hussein Hassouna, currently the ambassador from the League of Arab States to the United States.  He is Egyptian and was at Cambridge with me, where we both did our doctorates.  I have always said that there would be a revolution in Egypt but even he disagreed.  Now,we learn that Mubarak and his family are worth billions of dollars.  When I was a lawyer for USAID, I had to draft an aid agreement for Jordan for a road that went into the desert.  William McComber, the head of the NESA region, explained to me that it was for the king, so he could drive his Cadillac convertibles out into the desert at night.  We have pandered to these Arab leaders to the detriment of their subjects, most of whom live wretched lives.

“I don’t believe I would ever want to be a member of the Council but you should, I think, ask dissenters to join, people who have experience living and working with the young of Third World countries.  I have the same degrees and experience of your usual Establishment types, Princeton, Columbia Law School, Ph.D. Jesus College Cambridge, but when I was in Ethiopia, something clicked.  It was during the Vietnam War and my students, who mostly admired America, hated its policies, including support for the autocratic and corrupt Emperor.  This sort of thing has gone on for ages now.  I have written extensively against the war in Iraq in various publications, including The American Conservative, predicting that our actions would end up giving Iran power in the country.  I was right.  No one listened.   I predicted a major terrorist attack in America.  No one listened.   I predicted what was going to happen to the ANC in South Africa.  No one listened.

“I think my friend Andrew Bacevich, is right.  In his book, The Rules, he explains how foreign policy orthodoxy works, how if you do not follow the rules, you will get nowhere.  It seems to me you really need some powerful voices to combat this mentality.  It is not working and never will.”

Of course, I never heard from him.  Several days later, Nicholas Kristof, in a column in The New York Times, argued

John 'Shaggy Dog' Bolton recently seen taking the 5th when asked where he got that hair piece.

that America needed better intelligence and that the only way to get it in a place like Egypt was to “hang out” with the locals.  Now, whom would the State Department get to do that?  Or CIA for that matter.  Americans these days get their intelligence from Glenn Beck, who, frothing at the mouth, declared the Egyptian revolution to be part of a great conspiracy of Communists and Islamic extremists in a plot to take over the world.  John Bolton, W’s ambassador to the United Nations, was seen on television sounding just like Beck, and he would most likely become Secretary of State should a Republican be elected president in 2012.

The foreign policy and intelligence Establishments are like the Bourbons.  They learn nothing and they forget nothing, as it was once observed of the French royal family that lost its collective heads during the French Revolution.  The world is going one way and the Americans are going the other way.  This is no longer a country fit to lead.

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Single Payer in Our Time – a guest post by B.H.J. Cummings

February 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Providing the nation's best health care since 1811.

Let us who supported the Obama Health Care bill assume the worst for a moment and accept that the Supreme Court may very well one day rule 5-4 that the Federal Government does not have the legal right to compel private citizens to purchase health insurance. This would nullify the act in its entirety and force the movement to reform our awful, inefficient, dangerous ‘sick care’ system back to square one. I, for one, say “Hooray!” Why, you ask? Because now we can have ourselves a good, efficient, less expensive, safe ‘health care’ system. And, what’s more, we can do this with the support of every single member of the House and Senate, be they Democrat and Republican, whilst we create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

First it should be understood, as it was made clear during the health care debate last year, that U.S. Government already has one of the best, most popular single payer health care delivery systems in the world: the Veterans Administration. The VA is run by the Pentagon by and for members of the armed services. Studies and articles about the success of the VA are innumerable.  Some of the best known features are that its doctors are paid by salary rather than per service, all records are electronic  which, along with good old fashion army checklist preparation, goes a long way towards preventing costly and deadly mistakes and, finally, preventative care is made paramount;  this keeps veterans out of the hospital and costs down.

What I propose is that the VA system be expanded to offer coverage for ALL federal employees as it can be argued that they are all responsible for our collective safety and well being. Read, “National Defense”. This is true of members of the FBI, the DEA, CIA, Customs, INS, NSA, TSA, NIH,  Secret Service, Federal Judges, the Postal Service and on and on.

Since this would be a matter of National Defense the budget for this health care system would continue to be included in that of the Pentagon. The program would continue to be administered by them. The Pentagon’s budget is considered sacrosanct by even the fiercest Tea Party deficit hawks. Those on the right will never cut it and could be talked into expanding it without too much difficulty.

Every member of the House and Senate, and their dependents, would be eligible for health care via this system. What’s more, this health care will be available to them FOR LIFE.  A pharma or health insurance lobbyist will have a hard time convincing any elected member to forgo a such a perk, worth perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in out of pocket expenses on the open insurance market, in favor of ‘for profit’ healthcare.

Good arteries for good health.

This expansion of the VA should work in tangent with the reconstitution of the FDR Administration’s Work Progress Administration, known as the WPA.  We are all aware of the woeful state of America’s transportation and energy infrastructure. Rebuilding and retooling it all is a project so massive that only government can undertake it. And doing so will be a matter of National Defense. This was how President Eisenhower pitched the Interstate Highway System to the American people in the 1950s. Eisenhower, though he knew the benefits would be economic, told the country that the system was needed to better transport nuclear weaponry around the country in an effort to more effectively defend ourselves against the Soviet threat during the Cold War. Those hired by this new WPA (and their families) would be eligible for federally delivered health care via the VA. Finally,  the same case could be made for municipal employees; cops and firemen in particular. This would expand the roles of the new system by hundreds of thousands. The system would eventually supersede those of the expensive, fraud-ridden, under-funded Medicare and Medicaid which could eventually be phased out.

Finally, with the majority of Americans signed up for this expanded VA-like system, the old,  for-profit system will wither and die. All citizens will be allowed to sign up with the new VA and will view doing so as their patriotic duty. In the future, with this system in place, charging exorbitant amounts for lousy healthcare will get you branded by the likes of Beck and Limbaugh as “Soft on Defense”. Oh, the shame!

How about some health care for this helpful fellow?

B.H.J. Cummings is a writer/director/producer and health care theorist. He is the son of The Fire Insider

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The Most Annoying Americans

January 26, 2011 By 4 Comments

With so many annoying people out there, it’s difficult to compile one’s own list.  Others have engaged in this exercise, each with his own conception of who is annoying and and why. This is The Burning One’s contribution, but feel free to add your own in the comments section.

Number one on anyone’s list should be Joe Lieberman.  Every time I see him on television, pontificating in his slimy sanctimonious manner, I cringe.  Where did this malicious troll come from?  How he has succeeded in politics is beyond comprehension.  His hypocritical piety is enough to make one ill.  Somehow, he got through both Yale and Yale Law School.  They invited him to join Skull & Bones.  Am I missing something here?  We have to endure him for two more years before his term expires and he retires from the Senate, but I can see him getting appointed to some major position like Secretary of Defense.  There is just no getting rid of him, one of the great mysteries of American history.

My number-two spot goes to David Brooks, the unctuous New York Times columnist who manages to be wrong about everything. This total opportunist started out on the left at the University of Chicago until William Buckley offered him a job at National Review. Buckley had read a satire of himself written by Brooks.  In no time flat, Brooks was waxing conservative in his smarmy prose as a pundit.  His columns for the Times elicit enraged letters to the editor pointing out his contradictions and inaccuracies, but he remains at his pulpit with no end in sight.

Ann Coulter has got to be high on anybody’s list.  This anorexic termagant has become a total parody of herself as she spouts her humorless clichés of right-wing babble. She was once funny, but that was long ago.  Her act has grown stale yet she plods on, her long blonde hair and manner of dress incongruous now, as though she is condemned to be an ever-aging undergraduate. The drivel that comes out of her mouth that passes for wit is insufferable, yet she, too, endures.  Is there some kind of conspiracy to inflict these people on us?

Barney Frank makes it onto my list.  He had his moment in the sun during the financial crisis and managed to offend just abouteverybody.  He got his name on the financial regulation bill aimed at stopping the very policies he urged, yet he remains a hero of the liberals.  Barney’s insufferability lies is his sense of entitlement to keep his seat in Congress forever, confident that his district will never turn him out. What are they thinking?

Charlie Rangel is so insufferable that even the Democratic Party turned against him when the Democrats in the House all voted to censure him for his corrupt activities.  He is a monument to mediocrity who holds up his heroism in the Korean War as a defense for all of his arrogant behavior.   Challenged in a recent primary, he trounced his opposition and handily won reelection.  We will be rid of him only when they carry him out of Congress in a box.

Glenn Beck stands out for his annoyingness.  With his puffy lips and watery eyes, he lectures on topics about which he knowsnothing, while scribbling on a blackboard as though he were a learned professor.   You can read right through him as he panders to the dumb goyim who watch his show, hanging on his every word.   This total nobody commands an audience in the millions and has gotten rich by virtue of the stupidity of vast swaths of Americans, yet he remains even more annoying than his followers.

Rush Limbaugh, the obnoxious fathead, who bellows for hours on the airwaves while waving his arms, is annoying to such a degree that he is in a class by himself.  Every day in hysterical rhetoric he warns of the coming Communist takeover by the liberals.  Given a chance to be a television football commentator, he claimed that the only reason the Philadelphia Eagles made Donovan McNabb their quarterback was because he was black.   I am bewildered constantly by his power and its source. He manages to have a voice as fat as his body; he paid Elton John a million dollars to perform at his latest wedding; he lives in a gigantic, ugly mansion, eats and drinks to excess and smokes expensive cigars even as he denounces the poor for dragging the country down.

The last name I will add for now is Sarah Palin, without explaining why.  If you can’t figure out why she deserves to be on this list, you believe in the proverbial tooth fairy.

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The Shooting of Gabrielle Giffords

January 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Jared Lee Loughner, the alleged shooter of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and others on Saturday may have ties to anti-Semitic, anti-immigration hate groups.  Arizona is a state in which anyone can buy a gun twenty-four hours a day, making gun control a more than justifiable issue.  But much more is at stake.

The fundamental question is whether or not the hate speech of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and the political ads by Sarah Palin targeting Democratic members of Congress or candidates for Congress, putting their photographs in crosshairs and calling on her supporters to “reload” constitutes protected speech.

The Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio, in a per curium decision held that “constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”  In the context of the Internet, this rule requires a conclusion that the kind of speech protected by Brandenburg may not be protected now.

Brandenburg, a member of the KKK, was an organizer of a rally that a news reporter filmed and which was shown on both local and national television.   This was the context of the rally as described by the Court:

They were gathered around a large wooden cross, which they burned. No one was present other than the participants and the newsmen who made the film. Most of the words uttered during the scene were incomprehensible when the film was projected, but scattered phrases could be understood that were derogatory of Negroes and, in one instance, of Jews. Another scene on the same film showed the appellant in Klan regalia making a speech. He declared:

“This is an organizers’ meeting. We have had quite a few members here today which are — we have hundreds, hundreds of members throughout the State of Ohio. I can quote from a newspaper clipping from the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch, five weeks ago Sunday morning. The Klan has more members in the State of Ohio than does any other organization. We’re not a revengent organization, but if our President, our Congress, our Supreme Court, continues to suppress the white, Caucasian race, it’s possible that there might have to be some revengeance taken.”  He concluded:

“We are marching on Congress July the Fourth, four hundred thousand strong. From there we are dividing into two groups, one group to march on St. Augustine, Florida, the other group to march into Mississippi. Thank you.”

Brandenburg was convicted under the Ohio Criminal Syndicalism statute for “advocat[ing] . . . the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform” and for “voluntarily assembl[ing] with any society, group, or assemblage of persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism.” He was fined $1,000 and sentenced to one to 10 years imprisonment.  He then challenged the constitutionality of the criminal syndicalism statute under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.  The Court reversed, finding the Statutes to be unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court found that, under its holding, the rally could not be found to be “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”  This was so because what was involved was a sparsely attended event and the speech, with its muddled language and projection of “four hundred thousand strong” marching on Congress and then, in two groups, marching on St. Augustine, Florida and Mississippi,  could  not be said to have been “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”  To say it was, was a stretch.  All you had was harmless grandiosity.

But if KKK members had been “ four hundred thousand strong” at the rally, the Court would probably have found differently, particularly if they had been armed and if there had been numerous buses ready to take them to their destination.  What the Internet does is to create a virtual mob capable of taking such action, particularly since so many Americans of certain political persuasions are more than likely to have guns.  And given the numerous unbalanced individuals with guns likely to respond to such incitement, such “imminent lawless action” starts to become increasingly probable. This is particularly so in an environment in which opponents, say of health care, have been intentionally whipped into a frenzied state and convinced that their rights are about to be taken away from them.

Jared Lee Loughner’s deranged Youtube videos demonstrated that he was such a person. He

"Don't retreat... reload."

showed his contempt for Congresswoman Gifford’s district in Tucson.  The fact that she is Jewish , in addition to her support for health care and immigration reform–positions that put her in Sarah Palin’s crosshairs–made her an even more likely target.

At the very least,  Attorney General Eric Holder should authorize an investigation of these circumstances involving a clearly coordinated effort to engender rage and hate in the age of the Internet directed against people the hate groups resent.  There have been any number of cases in which death threats have been made against public officials and rallies at which attendees carried weapons. Unknown people had fired on Congesswoman Giffords’ office in Tucson.  These people so fear socialism that they have begun to embrace National Socialism.  And when Republican Congressman John Boehner, the current speaker of the House of Representatives, in the debate on health care reform, calls the legislation “un-American” and when Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann calls for an investigative committee in Congress to determine which members of the House are “un-American,” you have the very environment likely to produced unlawful violence.  This is not protected speech any longer under the circumstances.  What these people are doing is criminal and should be treated as such.  It is already too late for Gabrielle Giffords and the others who were seriously wounded or who died, including a Federal judge and a nine-year-old girl. Oh, now they say how terrible this was and that they never meant anything like this to happen. But it did and they were responsible.

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Why the Democrats Lost

January 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Peace, love and tax cuts for the rich? That wasn't the deal, Dude.

Pundits keep giving all kinds of explanations for why the Democrats took a shellacking in the most recent election.  Most of them also predict that they will take a bath again in 2012, asserting that Obama will lose. But the fact remains that it was the Democrats who shot themselves in the foot as new polls on the issues reveal.  They surrendered before the election took place, allowing themselves to be put on the defensive, caving before attacks by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck instead of going after them the way Roosevelt would have.  But maybe – just maybe – that was because they never believed in what they were doing in the first place.

Over sixty percent of Americans think that taxing the wealthy is the best way to balance the budget.  A plurality thinks the best place to cut spending is the defense budget.  Yet Democrats snuck out of Washington before the elections without forcing a vote on extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.  Under Obama they have supported substantial increases in defense spending.  How can such obliviousness to the will of the majority of the American electorate be explained?

First of all, it is cowardice.  The reason for this is quite simple. While the Republicans only pretend to have principles, the Democrats don’t have the courage of theirs.  They live in fear. They cower and take the easy way out.  They are terrified that they will be accused of raising taxes and so they duck instead of giving a simple explanation as to why abolishing the tax cuts for the wealthy makes sense.

They also fear being called soft on defense and soft on terrorism, the kind of attacks in which the Republicans specialize.  This was Lyndon Johnson’s ultimate explanation for why he escalated the Vietnam War.  He said that he feared being called “soft on communism” by the Republicans (think Richard Nixon) and being unable to continue his “Great Society” programs.  It ended in disaster anyway, so what was the point?  Because they allowed themselves to be put on the defensive in 2010, the Democrats allowed the hysteria the Republicans deliberately engendered to sweep the country, even taking down someone like Russ Feingold, who stood his ground but got lost in the flood.

'Least they can't say I's soft on the commies.

Now Biden has pledged that the Democrats will campaign against renewing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in two years. But by failing to stand up for this principle during the election, the Democrats alienated their base.   A great many voters who gave the Democrats control of the presidency, the House and the Senate in ’08 stayed home and allowed the highly motivated Republicans to win.  The liberals proved to be soft, their candidates for Congress lame.  Suddenly they all looked old and tired. The Republicans managed to recruit many young candidates who had lots of energy while the Democrats started to look like a collection of old hacks.  That has always been the problem with the Democrats.  The liberals who run it are an elite, a Mandarin society that expects everyone in the party to bow and ask their blessing.  This discourages talented people who might go into politics.  It is no wonder that young people are moving away from the Democrats.  They are stale.

Obama generated high hopes that could not be fulfilled because he allowed himself to be pushed into orthodoxy by the party leadership.  He surrounded himself with the same team that caused the collapse of the economy and has only appointed Goolsbee after the fact.   It was as though the Democrats, including Obama, started to believe that the positions they had previously taken had become a liability so that the Democrats in Congress became convinced that if they ran on the issues they would lose.  In a number of races they resorted to ugly personal attacks, making them look spiteful and resentful. This was the case in Florida where a conservative black Republican won in spite of the vile and false attacks by the Democratic liberal incumbent.

Shallacked.

In the past the Democrats took the same money as the Republicans, which often determined how they voted. Now only the militant liberal Democrats remain in the House so corporate America has written them off as their perpetual enemies. There are a few Democrats in the Senate still on the take but it won’t be long before they are gone as well.  Right now the future belongs to the Republicans, a startling turnabout two years after the Democratic sweep.  Never let it be said of the Democrats that they have not known how to nab defeat from the jaws of victory.

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Unfair to Bismarck

January 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

"I hate to tell you I told you so, but..."

Largely because of F.A. Hayek’s THE ROAD TO SURFDOM, the legacy of Bismarck is in ill-repute. His “cradle to the grave” policies of providing a safety net to all Germans is somehow considered the origin of the destruction of human liberty.  But there is another interpretation of Bismarck that contradicts this and America would do well to heed its lessons.

Bismarck orchestrated the unification of the German Empire and became Chancellor under Wilhelm I. He detested Socialism so much that he drove Socialists from their homes.  His anti-Socialist Laws outlawed the Social Democratic Party.  He then concluded that the only effective way to defeat Socialism was through a limited form of self-government that provided sufficiently for its citizens in a capitalist society so they would never be tempted to adopt collectivism as a solution to their problems.  He had the good fortune to have an ally in the Kaiser, who was relatively enlightened and who trusted Bismarck.  When the Kaiser died, Frederick III, a representative of the great, now largely forgotten German liberal tradition succeeded him.  He had no desire to engage in aggressive war and renounced any intention by Germany to build a large and powerful navy, something Great Britain feared.  Germany was becoming a brilliant success, a leader in industry and commerce with the world’s greatest universities.  Tragically, Frederick died of cancer after ninety days and Willy, the one with the withered arm and a temper, succeeded him as Kaiser Wilhelm II.  One of his first acts was to fire Bismarck, who had warned him against starting another war in Europe.  He memorably remarked, “If another war starts in Europe, it will be because of some silly thing in the Balkans.”

The road to serfdom was not Bismarck’s fault.  Willy was responsible, bungling Germany into the Great War, leading to defeat and the ultimate rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany.  Unlike Bismarck, Hitler imposed a command model economy.  Had Frederick lived, none of this would have happened.

For a while it looked as if Germany was going to win.  The Germans humiliated Russia and the

Thanks, Willy!

Russians blamed the Czar who became hugely unpopular, ultimately enabling Lenin to stage the Bolshevik revolution.  Creating the world’s first Communist state, he set about nationalizing private property and creating a global threat to Capitalism.

It was in this environment that the Russian Communists seized Ayn Rand’s father’s pharmacy.  She never forgot that.  More than Hayek, Rand’s condemnation of any kind of state action, including social welfare, shaped the minds of countless Americans. For Rand, the solution to the problems of the human condition was laissez-faire capitalism.  Her influence can be felt very much today amongst the Tea Party activists who condemn every program offered by Obama as Socialist.  He is denounced as a Marxist, determined to lead America on the road to serfdom.  It was Glenn Beck’s calling attention to Hayek’s THE ROAD TO SERFDOM that drove it to number one on Amazon.com, which surely would have delighted the old-school Austrian gentleman. But they are wrong and Bismarck was right.

Capitalism can only succeed if there is a safety net for the citizens of a country in which a free market economy prevails.  Unemployment insurance and Social Security both help in a time of economic contraction and recession by enabling great numbers of people to keep spending.  Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s most conservative prime minister, supported the National Health as well, recognizing that in the end it is cheaper than having vast numbers of people unable to work because of illness. Ronald Reagan, America’s most conservative president and a close friend of Margaret Thatcher, endorsed the safety net.  He worked closely with the Democrats in Congress, particularly Patrick Moynihan, in rescuing Social Security.

In this context it should be remembered that Hayek supported Social Security as well, even going so far as to say “probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all the principle of laissez-faire capitalism.” (Here he is referring to the 19th-century free market liberalism). Hayek writes that the government has a role to play in the economy through the monetary system (a view that he later withdrew), work-hours regulation, social welfare, and institutions for the flow of proper information. Hayek even dedicated THE ROAD TO SERFDOM to “my fellow socialists.” So, to a certain extent, Hayek argues against the very basic premises of his own book.   In any event, it would appear that Beck and his ilk have never read it. Which is terribly unfair to Bismark… and to America.

Okay, I didn't read the damn thing! It's really long and confusing!

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Progressives, Go On Strike!

December 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

It is getting extremely tiresome opposing the Right. They seem to have a total grip on the American consciousness with Americans

Progressives Shrugged

believing their allegations that the health care reform is a government takeover of medicine, that Obama was not born in the United States or is a racist who hates white people, or is a socialist.  They also believe the myth that cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans will end up balancing the budget, notwithstanding that this was tried by Reagan and George W. Bush and failed.  Einstein said that insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, but Americans don’t seem to grasp that.

Consequently, there is but one solution and that is for progressives to go on strike. Don’t say another word.  Don’t support another candidate.  Don’t contribute any more money.  Refuse to participate. The result will be that the Republicans and their Tea Party allies will control the country without opposition.  Who will Rush Limbaugh be able to rail against?  Or, for that matter, Glenn Beck, Hannity, Ann Coulter. Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham and the rest of the rat pack of the Right.  Let the Republicans redistrict so they have no opposition in Congress.

The result will be that the Republicans will not only run Washington but most of the state governments as well.  Watch and see what will happen.  They will run everything into the ground, the deficit will explode, unemployment will get worse and all sorts of benefits like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will vanish.  People will be yelling and screaming. Where is the opposition?  Why are they being allowed to get away with this?  But don’t respond. They will get what they deserve and will have no one to be angry with but themselves.

At some point this anger will turn into blind rage.  They will look everywhere for some hope but will find none.   They will start begging progressive Democrats to run for office but there will be no response.  But because these Americans are also couch potatoes, they won’t get off their butts to do anything themselves.  They will stuff their mouths with fast food and get fatter while the super-rich, the hedge fund managers, the bankers, the top one percent, will own ninety nine percent of the wealth. They will have nothing more to spend it on.  They will all have fleets of private jets, seven homes, all the clothes they can possibly wear, all the best wines they can store in their cellars and all the art they can possibly put anywhere, including in storage.   They will be paying zero taxes. What then?  They will have nothing to fear. There will be no one threatening them.  There will be no new way to be greedy and selfish and no new way to show off.  They will die of boredom and their spoiled rotten children will all become drug addicts at the most expensive schools.  And there will be no need to fork up fortunes to back phony candidates to beat back the reformers, and no need to pay lobbyists.

And there will also be no environmental movement, so everything will go to hell entirely.  Carbon emissions will increase.  Water will become more polluted. Farmland will disappear. The Koch brothers will have nothing more to spend their money on as there will be no more environmental measures to defeat. They and their ilk will start to develop more environmentally related diseases.  Their fortunes notwithstanding, their quality of life will deteriorate.  At this point, Michael Bloomberg’s net wealth will be forty five billion dollars and he will personally own eight private golf courses around the world.

Had enough?

Because there will be no more government assistance for college, millions of unemployed young people will be milling about, smoking weed.  They will start selling more drugs to support themselves and the country will be like China after Britain imposed all that opium on them.  People will be so drugged up that very few will be able to work.  Crime will be rampant, with gangs taking over cities and imposing their will because, without taxes, there will be no police.

The economy will grind to a complete halt but Mitch McConnell and John Boehner will rule unopposed.  McConnell, destroying Ronald Reagan’s legacy, will kill START and enrage Russia, starting a new arms race. The Sarah Palin-Newt Gingrich administration will hold gigantic public prayer meetings that will be mandatory.  People will be praying in the streets in their tattered clothes and with only garbage to eat. But that will be readily available as without budgets, cities will be unable to pay sanitation workers and the refuse will pile up.

With the entire country flat on its back, the progressives can then come out of the woodwork and tell everyone that they are prepared to save them.  On condition that Fox goes off the air as well as Rush Limbaugh, that the leaders of the banks and the Republican Party are arrested and sent to prison and the key is thrown away by an enlightened progressive president. It’s that or it’s no deal.  The troops will be finally pulled out of Afghanistan and Iraq and the new Congress will slash the military budget in half.  There will be a public option for health care and gays will serve in the military with honor. Minorities will be able to go to better schools and colleges. That will all be great until everything is fine again.  No more deficits, the debt paid down and unemployment down to four percent. But at that point, the Right will resurface and attack the progressives for creating socialism. And the American people?  Why they will believe them, of course, and it will all start again.

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Nomination by Fox

November 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Thanks! Now I own your political process.

Some seventy percent of Republicans are reported to watch Fox at least six times a week.  This will now be a major factor in deciding whom the Republican nominate for President for 2012.   Instead of allowing American citizens in Iowa and New Hampshire to decide who is viable and who is not, Rupert Murdoch intends to change the process.

Starting long before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary Fox will start giving exposure to potential Republican candidates so their viewers can start to develop opinions about them.  As this goes on Fox will conduct polls amongst its viewers to see who are the favorites and who is going nowhere.  Those doing well in the polls will start to attract money, enabling them to wage serious campaigns in Iowa and New Hampshire.  The exception to this will be Mitt Romney who intends to fund his own campaign and rely on contributions from the LDS (Later Day Saints, or Mormons).  But no amount of money will help him just as it didn’t last time.

One can easily surmise that this will make Sarah Palin the favorite especially since Rupert will rely on his vast media empire to get her the nomination and enable her to be elected.  One wonders what the Wall Street Journal writers must experience as they write their slavish praise for Palin.  Surely they gag when they do it but a job is a job, and in this economy we all take what we can get.

If  things go according to plan Palin will have the highest polls and a considerable amount of money without having to spend time going to fundraisers or making phone calls to wealthy contributors.  She will knock off Romney in Iowa and pull an upset in New Hampshire just as McCain bested Romney there last time.  In all probability only Huckabee will be left standing besides Palin and she will crush him in South Carolina. Momentum will build and she will have locked up the nomination by the time of the convention.  Polls will  show her carrying the Solid South including Texas and Oklahoma.  Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, South and North Dakota, Nevada and Utah will fall into line as will Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, West Virginia, Wyoming and Montana, with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin leaning.

It doesn’t matter what gaffs she will make.  When she referred to North Korea as an American ally on the Glenn Beck Show no one cared.  Beck whispered “South Korea,” and responded, “Yeah, South Korea.”

Season's greetings from your ally North Korea!

She has denounced Michelle Obama’s effort to get young people to exercise and have a healthy diet as unjustifiable government interference with parents as they raise their children.  Never mind that one in three Americans is obese and that one in three will suffer from diabetes and that the military has to reject one in three recruits for being overweight.

John McCain has recently said that Palin is like Ronald Reagan. Whatever one may think of Reagan’s policies, he served as governor of California for two four-year terms which is akin to running a medium-sized country.  By itself California has the eighth largest economy in the world.  Palin, on the other hand, was the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska then resigned before completing her term as governor because she chose not to defend herself against a myriad of ethics violations charges.

But her book tour will take her all over the country and she has her show on Fox as well as her “Sarah Palin’s Alaska”.  She is everywhere, raking in the money and greeting her adoring fans.  Rupert understands what no one else does; that politics in America has been transformed by the phenomenon of celebrity.  Palin has become the Kim Kardashian of politics; she is famous for being famous. She has enormous name recognition, unlike Tim Paulenty who has to keep explaining who he is to the sparse crowds who come out to see him.

The fact is no one cares what Palin stands for as long as she is against “the government” without ever having to specify what programs she would cut or reduce or create.  She is the candidate that Nathanael West might have invented, that iconic semi-dominatrix adored by conservative men and resented by conservative women.  Not to worry; those resentful conservative women will do as they are told and vote for Palin as well. The odds favor Palin’s election, even if she thinks North Korea is an American ally. Why? Because Rupert says so. And what he says goes.

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What Is To Be Done, II

November 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Before there can be an examination of the flawed fundamentals of the American economy, it is imperative that the Fed’s second quantitative easing, QE2 (the purchase of long term government debt)  and the raising of the debt ceiling must both happen.   That is the only way to provide breathing room so that further action can be taken in a context of deliberation rather than hysteria.

Separated at Birth?

That said, a failure to extend unemployment benefits to those whose benefits are scheduled to run out would be the most Scrooge-

like action the Republican’s in the House and Senate could take just before Christmas.   Proud working people would be obliged to seek relief from Social Services and go on welfare, relying as well on food stamps at the same time the Republicans force an extension of the Bush tax cuts for America’s wealthiest.

Separated at Birth?

In advising the American poor what to do in such circumstances one might do well to revisit Jonathan Swift’s  satirical  work, A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC.  In it he suggests that the way to eliminate the melancholy spectacle of such miserable poverty is for the Irish to eat their own children.  One can easily imagine the jowly, bespectacled Mitch McConnell, surrounded by Lamar Alexander, John Kyle, John Thune and Jim DiMint, making this suggestion on television at a news conference.  He would, most certainly, invoke his Christian faith as a justification for such a proposal, with the aforementioned senators nodding solemnly in agreement.

In the face of such hypocrisy, professing faith while denying the very teachings of Jesus, they might wish to consider a particularly relevant passage in the Gospels, Luke 19:17:  “And as for those who were against me, who would not have me as their ruler, let them come here and be put to death before me.”

Who amongst the Christian Right would step up to the plate and do the job?  Glenn Beck?  Oh, yes, they don’t believe Mormons are Christians, so he would not do.  Jerry Falwell is dead and Pat Robertson is old and feeble, so it would have to fall on others.  Perhaps George Reckers, who took a rent a boy with him on a trip to Europe, would be appropriate.  Or maybe Frank Schaeffer, Johm Whitehead or Cal Thomas.  No, they won’t do either because they have all recanted. Thomas because the Christian Right has allowed itself to become an appendage of the Republican Party.   James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, might do but he has retired. And besides, he still endorses the most hypocritical Republicans imaginable.

Because they won’t do it, that leaves the poor and unemployed themselves.  They should start asserting their Second Amendment rights, as the Christian Right insists, the ones who  bring guns to church as a sign of their devotion to the Prince of Peace.  They should arm themselves and take the first bus to Washington, where they should demand the extension of  their unemployment benefits.  Once that is accomplished, they should start marching to the headquarters of America’s wealthiest corporations, including the banks, and take them over, passing out the cash and giving themselves jobs.  Then, en masse, they should call on all elected officials and judges to resign, guaranteeing that neither legislation nor judicial action could declare their actions to be illegal and no one would be able to call out the national guard to stop them.  As for the police, there are far to few of them to stop it. Besides, aware as they must be that drastic cuts in their salaries are in the cards,  they would most likely be persuaded to join the  unemployed, amongst whose ranks some of them are destined  to be once the axe falls on the budgets when aid to the state and local governments is eliminated. And so on, and so on.

Of course, for those who are unaware, “What Is To Be Done” was the title to a pamphlet  written by Lenin in 1901, inspired by the novel of the same name by the nineteenth century Russian revolutionary, Nicolai Chernyshevsky. In it, Lenin argued that Marxists should form  a political party or “vanguard” of dedicated revolutionaries to spread Marxist political ideas among the workers. Well, we all know how that ended up and it would end up the same way here.  But with jerks like Mitch McConnell running things, desperation could lead to this.  Besides, Jesus advocated much the same thing.  Welcome to the new world of Leon Trotsky.

In Lenin We Trust?

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