'Corporate Efficiency', 'Emergency Rationing', and the Irony Deficit

This piece serves two purposes; I want to make a real (if snarky and highly ironic) comparison between the 'greater efficiency' of the private sector that conservatives love to rattle on about and how the real world actually works. I also wish to make a misanthropic and cynical observation about people, regardless of their politics.

Opponents of substantive health care reform always talk about the superior quality and efficiency of service offered by the 'free market.' Indeed, many individuals on both sides of the political fence are in love with the 'efficiency' of the corporate model. They believe that corporate administration is less bureaucratic than government administration (it's not), that the private sector is more accountable for its failures than government (ha!), and that the corporate management model is streamlined to produce more immediate results. They fail to understand that today's corporate model is top heavy with a bloated management structure that exists to guarantee its own success and always cuts the product end of operations in the name of 'efficiency' while management acts as if nothing has changed at all within their own corner of the company.

A case in point:

Kellogg Co. says there will be a nationwide shortage of its popular Eggo frozen waffles until next summer because of interruptions in production at two of the four plants that make them.

The company's Atlanta plant was shut down for an undisclosed period by a September storm that dumped historic amounts of rain in the area. Meanwhile, several production lines at its largest bakery in Rossville, Tenn., are closed indefinitely for repairs, company spokeswoman Kris Charles said in an e-mail.

Corporate efficiency, that's the ticket. Kellogg, a tremendously successful company that could serve as a working model for corporate success, is is unable to adapt to unforeseen difficulties any better than the government might. Just as one plant is seeing production lines shut down 'indefinitely' for repairs, a storm shuts down another for an 'undetermined' period. Now the storm is truly a freak act of nature which cannot be completely predicted and about which very little can be done. However, regular maintenance schedules should avoid the need for 'indefinite' shut-downs for repairs. More importantly, there are very few conceivable reasons for a repair shut-down to be 'indefinite.' Estimates for repair time and costs are not difficult to obtain... unless one is looking to cut corners by taking too much time to shop the price in the interests of the 'bottom line.' Ultimately, a shortage of one of their most popular products could damage the brand in the long run... unless, of course, the joy of full availability leads to a massive buying spree as soon as Eggo returns to the market. If this happens, they could end up making a significant profit from the shortage.

I want to be clear that I am not suggesting a conspiracy to create a deliberate shortage of a popular product during economic difficulty in order to generate increased demand. I am simply noting that a corporation could end up profiting from the results of a shortage caused by poor planning and a lack of alternative plans.

This is a point that bears consideration. When a mistake of this magnitude is potentially without consequence because of the increase in sales created by the increase in demand during the shortage, it offers no incentive to take precautions to avoid such a mistake. So much for the superiority of 'corporate efficiency' trumped by conservatives. This is precisely why the government needs to be involved in the social sector and why regulation is necessary for that range of corporate activity more serious than a waffle shortage. This circumstance illustrates just how far from perfect the 'free market' is and just how dangerous it is to assume its automatic superiority.

I want to add a hat-tip to stay-at-home mom and blogger Joey Rescinti. Though the Associated Press noted her comments about the 'waffle shortage' and even interviewed her, they failed to include a link to her blog or even its name. This is a good example of the kind of sloppy journalism we must deal with today.

I also want to note the deficiency of humor/irony in the world today and the generally judgmental and nasty turn of mind many people find the internet allows them to over-indulge. Mrs. Rescinti made a nicely turned barb about 'rationing' her child's waffles and found herself attacked in cyberspace by random jack-asses. I don't know anything about Mrs. Rescinti's politics and they are entirely her business. Regardless of politics (and considering the nasty 'health food' tone of some of the attacks I am sure that the snots in question were liberal snots), this is just disgusting.

I can understand why tempers get heated when discussing serious political issues or controversial social topics. I have been very upset with people on occasions myself and can be very harsh with people I believe show a lack of intellectual capacity, a failure of common sense, a deficit of honesty, or simply strike me as mean-spirited and callous. I plead guilty. Likewise, I am sure I come off as snotty and superior to many people who disagree with me because of my own confidence in my own moral structure and view of religion and philosophy.

All of that is very different from taking time out of one's busy day to be unnecessarily vicious to a random blogger because you don't like that she feeds her child Eggo waffles or believe an ironic barb about 'rationing' during the 'shortage' is anything but a very clever joke.

Such people are fools.

A Brief Moment of Self-Expression

Thanks to the hat tip from Southern Beale a few days ago, I've been experiencing an increase in traffic lately. If my stat counter is to be believed, a small but significant number of new readers are checking me out. I have some new commentary being offered by people who've never commented before. All of this is great and makes me smile.

Since I have been getting this new attention, I thought I would take the time to blather on about myself and my blog for those who aren't quite sure what's up.

First, a brief autobiographical essay:

I was born in Southern California and grew up in the Greater Los Angeles metroplex. My parents have been registered Republicans all their lives, but don't let this fool you. My father, despite his fiscal conservatism, is very libertarian on social issues and a strong believer in an improved (as opposed to merely expanded) social safety net. My mother is, and always has been, a straight-up liberal Rockefeller Republican. Couple this with the communal and collectivist sociology of the Mennonite Church in which I received my religious education and you can see that it's only natural I ended up on the left, regardless of the political party to which my parents belonged on paper.

Despite where I ended up, as a teen I flirted with conservative and libertarian politics because of my belief in certain elements of common sense economic and constitutional principles. The problem is that those common sense principles, which conservatives and libertarians rhetorically espouse, had nothing to do with actual right-wing politics. As I learned more about economics and political science, I was drawn more and more to the left. I changed my registration to the Democratic Party in my very early twenties and now, like my parents, my party registration is largely on paper; I am significantly to the left of most mainstream Democrats.

It was also in my early twenties that I met my partner, whom I love very much. For reasons of economics, we moved from California to East Tennessee and I now live in the Tri-Cities roughly half-way between Kingsport and Bristol. In Tennessee, we have had our own experiences with poverty before our circumstances finally stabilized.

It's a lot easier to describe what I believe and oppose than to fit myself into an easy political niche. I believe in free will and reject any notion of predestination, which immediately separates me from the religious right on pretty much every social and moral issue. We enjoy the freedom of individual conscience as long as we respect the natural rights of our fellow human beings. This puts me at odds with libertarians and economic conservatives whose version of individual liberty is simply a lack of regulation that places no limitation on the rights of those with the money and power to do so to shamelessly violate the rights of others. Real individual freedom is impossible in a social and economic environment in which one's degree of liberty is increased by one's wealth and those with less wealth do not enjoy equality before the law with the rich. I would describe myself as 'libertarian' only so far as I believe in the importance of personal freedom. I do not place particular faith in the natural superiority of the 'free market.'

Indeed, it is the nature of the 'free market' where my real left-wing thinking begins. I have written, in the past, about the nature and varying definitions of freedom. It is a word with many shades and meanings that means different things to different people. When speaking about freedom in the political and economic sense, I find it most useful to abandon English and instead make use of the more clear distinctions between definitions of freedom in Russian.

There are two entirely different words for freedom in Russian and they mean two entirely different things. The first word, which represents the freedom advocated by many on the right wing and among the most active anti-statists, is volia. In English, the literal translation of volia would be less 'freedom' and more 'license.' It is the absolute negative freedom espoused by libertarians, the freedom from outside authority. One can do as one pleases and can only be stopped by force. One has the absolute right to respond with force in the face of such an attempt to restrain one's chosen activities. There are no limits to volia, no responsibility to respect any authority or law. It is the ideal freedom of bandits, buccaneers, corporations, Cossacks, and libertarians.

The are some obvious problems with this concept if one examines it closely. First and foremost, volia is not for everyone. It is a Nietzchean or Orwellian freedom for the favored few; the ubermensch is not bound by the same moral laws as the average man and some animals are more equal than others. This form of freedom is for those with the will and power to make it real and everyone else who tries to exercise it gets ground into the dust. When the right-wing in America talks about 'freedom', 'free markets', or 'individual rights' they mean volia. This is freedom for the 'special' people who 'deserve' it, something else I've written about.

The next time one reads a conservative writer going on about 'liberal elitism' or 'arrogance', I hope they keep all this in mind.

The second Russian word for 'freedom' is 'svoboda.' Where volia is absolute and unlimited in scope, and thus very specifically limited to those able to take it and hold it by force, svoboda is something in which everyone shares. No one person can possess svoboda alone, svoboda is the freedom shared by a social body aware of each other's rights and their own responsibilities to each other. It's the freedom that the Apostles talk about in the Bible, shared by the early Christian communities who practiced their own form of democratic socialism. It is the freedom that the tragic Russian Revolution was intended to bring to Russia and the freedom that we, as Americans, brag about but rarely appreciate or protect.

To put it simply, I am utterly opposed to volia and dedicated to the reality of svoboda and its expansion to include the entire American community. That is what this blog is about.

The New Elitism: Yes, right-wingers think they are better than you.

In a couple of my recent offerings (On Truth and 'Is Conservatism Brain Dead?') I've made mention of 'populism' and 'elitism' in the same phrase. I know that 'populist elitism' sounds like an oxymoron. It is, however, the defining cornerstone of Republican political strategy. It is also the defining cornerstone, specifically, of the motivations of the religious right.

The right has accused the left of 'elitism' for years, generations even. Thomas Jefferson, in many ways the founder of 'neoconservatism', was accusing Alexander Hamilton of seeking to foster an aristocracy before the ink on the constitution was dry. I've drawn attention to the irony of Jefferson's claims on behalf of 'the common man' and his attacks on Hamilton as an 'aristocrat' before and I probably won't ever get tired of it. Jefferson's own deeply ingrained elitism was plain to see in the fact that the straight-forward effect of Jeffersonianism is to protect the entrenched wealth, power, and privelege of the upper classes. The fact that Jefferson himself may have been ignorant of this and genuinely believed himself to be a 'yeoman' is open to debate, much of his writing and policy suggest a naive utopianism that makes this very possible. It does not change the effect of Jeffersonianism on society.

So, as we can see, even the tactic of steeping elitism in populist rhetoric is not new. What is new and interesting is the growing practice, on the religious right, of cultural elitism coloring every aspect of a populist movement. The core facet of this is, of course, an absolute faith in their own moral superiority.

There are those on the right who deny this aspect of the modern conservative movement and who occasionally seek to distance themselves from it. Yet they consistently buy into its key tropes; from the victimization of Sarah Palin to the idea that the words 'Democrat' and 'liberal' are somehow interchangeable because nearly everyone who doesn't accept core conservative dogmas has already been run out of the GOP. There are quite a few Americans who are far from 'liberal' who have gravitated to the Democrats not because of their 'liberalism' but because they don't believe that the ideas espoused by the 'conservative' and 'libertarian' blocs of the GOP are either conservative or libertarian. As a pragmatic democratic socialist and a philosophical anarcho-socialist, I can assure you that the Democratic Party is a very long way from being a 'liberal' party... let alone 'communist.'

The issue is not about 'communism' or even 'liberalism' as much as some right wing crackpots would like you to believe that it is. It is not even about 'secularism', though secularists are naturally going to drift away from religious extremism of any kind. It's about the belief that one American subculture has the right to force its interpretation of religion and morality onto the rest of American society.

With a tiny number of possible exceptions, the majority of the leaders of today's conservative movement (and the Republican Party, either actively or by their association with and defense of the movement) are concerned with one of two objects:

The first is the furthering of this brand of populist elitism and establishing the 'proper' stamp on American moral values. They would establish this by law and thus deprive all those who do not believe as they do of key constitutional rights. One doesn't just have to look at Proposition 8 in California for proof of this. One can look at the activities in school boards and educational associations all over the nation as they seek to 'democratize' the classroom to conform to their moral totalitarianism. As a Christian, I believe their view of religion is incorrect and dangerous. As a believer in American values, I believe their agenda is totally at odds with constitutional government and natural human rights.

The second is the exploitation of the former brand of 'populist' elitism to further genuinely elitist aims. As I mentioned above, aristocrats have been exploiting populism since Jefferson. It is only natural that today's elitists (who are 'managers' rather than 'aristocrats') seek to do the same thing. Many forms of 'individualism' and 'libertarianism', by placing too much faith in the free market and ignoring coercive power other than that of government, naturally further this kind of oligarchy. Indeed, supporting an oligarchic 'managerial' system of government and society through populist rhetoric is an even older tradition than Jefferson. It goes back to the Roman Senate of the Roman Republic. The modern neoconservative movement is more brazen, as they embrace the managerial culture and its bureaucratic elitism in naked and dirty hands.

One of the best examples of this embrace of the cultural, moral, and religious elitism embraced by this populist conservative movement is this: so far, of the various potential, declared, or projected candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 only one has not either expressly committed to a personal belief in literal Biblical creationism or advocated its teaching in schools. The lone holdout, Mitt Romney, has presumably not done so because the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (along with the Roman Catholic Church and those other Catholic churches in communion with it and Orthodox Judaism) acknowledges scientific evolution as one of its doctrinal tenets.

The 'elitism' feared by the religious right and many conservatives who have whole-heartedly embraced their tropes is best summed up by someone whose views on religion were at least as wrong as theirs:

“From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.” -- Mikhail Bakunin

After all, let's face it. Those on the right who are terrified by science, education, individual freedom of conscience and believe their moral standard should be applied to all Americans of all faiths regardless of their beliefs?

They aren't geniuses.

'Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?'

The question above was asked by Steven F. Hayward in this Sunday's Washington Post. Heyward is not a liberal attacking conservatism's philosophical and intellectual foundations but, rather, a conservative bemoaning the lack of intellectual heft among the ideological leadership of the movement. The spirit of Mr. Hayward's article is best summed up in this quote from his last paragraph:

The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level, in particular over the meaning and nature of progress. In response to the left's belief in political solutions for everything, the right must do better than merely invoking "markets" and "liberty."

This is, in somewhat altered words, the very same indictment leveled against today's conservative writers, television and radio pundits, and political leadership by the left. The right is suffering from a drastic drought of thought and policy. There is, increasingly, far less 'idea' in its 'ideology' than ever before.

I know I'm not alone on the left in wanting to see an intellectually robust conservative movement challenging assumed truths among the liberal establishment. A viable opposition gives Americans freedom of choice and it challenges liberals to deliver on their promises and reevaluate their dogmas. The current state of American politics is a shambles. An intellectually vital liberal movement is weighed down by the accumulated emotional baggage of twelve years of cynicism with GOP control of the House, Senate, White House, or all the above. The GOP has lost all touch with its conservative and its progressive roots. Instead it has become the battleground between a neoconservative movement which combines the worst qualities of conservatives and liberals while neglecting the core philosophical values of both and a twisted populist movement entirely opposed to intellectualism or individual moral freedom.

The problem is that Mr. Hayward's idea of intellectualism starts well enough, but then falls short of the mark. I certainly have a great deal of respect for the late William F. Buckley Jr. and his undeniable intellectual heft, but the examples that Mr. Hayward cites of modern bright spots in the search for new conservative intellectuals fall short.

About the only recent successful title that harkens back to the older intellectual style is Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism," which argues that modern liberalism has much more in common with European fascism than conservatism has ever had. But because it deployed the incendiary f-word, the book was perceived as a mood-of-the-moment populist work, even though I predict that it will have a long shelf life as a serious work.

Citing Jonah Goldberg's work of intellectually dishonest political polemic as the scholarly heir to the work of Buckley, Friedman, or Fukuyama is evidence that Mr. Hayward himself is part of the same conservative intellectual wasteland he bemoans. Goldberg does not propose policy or advance theory, instead he busies himself with the attacking of a fascist strawman given a liberal label so as to avoid having to think for himself. It's not even his strawman, it's one borrowed from Ann Coulter. The fact that Coulter is one of the 'sound bite conservatives' listed as poor substitutes for the great conservative thinkers in Mr. Hayward's own piece casts some doubt on the sound intellectual basis for Goldberg's work.

Hayward also cites Glenn Beck as a sign of hope for the future of conservative intellectualism. Glenn Beck?

So Hayward is correct in his assessment of conservatism's problems but falls short on finding solutions because he himself appears to be part of that problem. "Better than invoking 'markets' and 'liberty'"would appear to mean comparing liberals to fascists by means of intellectual dishonesty. It is worth noting that the 'intellectual work' of his own whose poor sales performance he bemoans is not a work of theory or policy. It is a political history of the Reagan years in two volumes.

The reason for the dearth of intellectualism in the conservative movement is because neither of the two fundamental conservative ideological wellsprings of today are particularly friendly toward intellectualism.

On the one hand we have the neoconservative movement. This movement can best be defined, politically, as 'corporate populism.' In an economic sense, it is fundamentally mercantilist rather than capitalist. The idea is that state sponsorship of business (and the wealthy corporate managerial class that runs business) and the inclusion of business into the governmental circles of economic policy will ensure prosperity. The goal of the neoconservatives is the 'ownership society' advocated by Republicans not too many years ago and could be far better described as a 'management society.' Managerial types find intellectuals useful but are dismissive of real individualism, which they believe undermine corporations and states alike. Intellectuals are just another 'human resource.'

On the other hand is the religious right. For obvious reasons, the religious right is entirely hostile to any intellectualism that contradicts its own dogma. The embrace a nasty 'populist' streak that indicts all dissenters as 'elitist.' Their advocation for 'ordinary Americans' is dubious at best. Their 'populism' is itself elitist. Only those who share their views can claim any legitimacy at all and those who disagree with them are automatically wrong because they disagree. They are rooted entirely in what Ayn Rand called the 'Argument from Faith' and the 'Argument from Tradition.' Religious dogma and 'traditional values' are inherently superior to anything new. Thus anything new or anything that threatens to contradict dogma are automatically evil. Rand's 'Argument from Logic', on which she based the fundamental pinions of libertarian capitalist conservatism as she saw it, is itself suspect because of the threat logic presents to dogma. Anyone arguing from logic or expressing rational basis for why their ideas are better is an 'elitist' who considers themselves better than their opponent. This last is particularly ironic as the fundamental assumption of the religious right is that they are inherently superior by dint of salvation and dissenters are inherently wrong and likely inherently damned.

This 'populist elitism' has become the grass roots of the conservative movement and the base of the Republican Party. Its leaders attempt to assert themselves over the movement as a whole while neoconservatives seek to manipulate the grass roots to their advantage.

So we have a conservative movement with two heads. The first head is fundamentally opposed to what could be properly called 'conservative priniciples' and is instead an authoritarian and utopian ideology of 'management.' The second head nurtures many core conservative principles but is entirely opposed to intellectualism. Both are inherently hostile to individuality, the first being hostile to anything that threatens the corporate body and the latter being hostile to individual moral freedom.

Add this to the inability of theauthor to properly differentiate intellectual vitality from either self-referential politico-historical scholarship or intellectually dishonest polemic and it's hard to see a solution to the problem that Mr. Hayward describes.

Note: Thanks to the blog Delaware Liberal and blogger 'Unstable Isotope' for bringing Mr. Hayward's piece to my attention.

On Truth

Note: This article originally appeared on Wednesday in different form. The original article contained factual errors that I was unwilling to leave in place. Responsibility for those errors is mine and I apologize to anyone who read the incorrect article. I offer this rewritten piece in its place, hopefully as some amount of compensation.

- Chris

The moral outrage of the immoral, the ethical standards of the unethical, the intellectual chauvinism of of the intellectually bankrupt, and the calls for truth of liars began to bore me in the 1990s. I am less dismayed now by the fact that the basic rhetoric and tactics of the right have not changed than I am that even people ON the right can still tolerate it.

I've been spending this week commenting on the most active of the two liberal blogs I follow (Dr. Ron Chusid's Liberal Values and The Anonymous Liberal... a doctor and a lawyer, which I find immensely poetic) and doing web research for a piece on poverty. In the course of both of these activities I was struck by two things. The first of these was the pure shamelessness in which 'thinkers' on the right present a specious argument with bald-faced purity even as they accuse the left of great evil and dishonesty. The second of these was the strange sense of innocence (or perhaps glee) with which these statements are made.

One of part of the process of researching an article on poverty was the attempt to find out what conservatives have to say about it. The answer was, 'not much.' Nearly every right wing blog reference to poverty online is connected in some way to an attack on policies perceived as 'liberal' by the writer. There is very little writing about actual poverty, whether or not it is a problem, or what should be done about it. The intellectual desert of conservative thoughts and writing on poverty surprised me a great deal, though in retrospect I should have expected it.

Christ, whom many on the right claim tells them what to do and when to do it on a personal basis, had a great deal to say about poverty. He spoke of charity, of caring for the poor, and of society's responsibility to its least members.

He also had interesting things to say about wealth, things which do not sit next to right wing policies very well.

'Now behold, one came and said to him, "Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?
So He said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments."
He said to Him, "Which ones?"
Jesus said to him, "'You shall not murder'; 'You shall not commit adultery'; 'You shall not steal'; 'You shall not bear false witness'; 'Honor your father and your mother'; and 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"
The young man said to him, "All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?"
Jesus said to him, "If you want to be prefect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."
But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

-- Matthew 19:16-24'

As you can see, the Jesus of the Gospels saw wealth and poverty very differently from the politicians who would marshal the forces of the religious right on their own behalf today. When a faction that claims Biblical and Godly authority for their every action ignores the words of scripture, just how trustworthy are they?

The Anonymous Liberal describes House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's response to a constituent at a health care town hall meeting. The following transcript of the exchange is from his site, but is originally from Alan Colmes.

"CONSTITUENT: I have a very close relative, a woman in her early forties, who did have a wonderful, high-paying job, owns her own home and is a real contributing member of society. She lost her job. Just a couple of weeks ago, she found out that she has tumors in her belly and that she needs an operation. Her doctors told her that they are growing and that she needs to get this operation quickly. She has no insurance.

[...]

CANTOR: First of all I guess I would ask what the situation is in terms of income eligibility and the existing programs that are out there. Because if we look at the uninsured that are out there right now, there is probably 23, 24% of the uninsured that is already eligible for an existing government program [...] Beyond that, I know that there are programs, there are charitable organizations, there are hospitals here who do provide charity care if there’s an instance of indigency and the individual is not eligible for existing programs that there can be some cooperative effort. No one in this country, given who we are, should be sitting without an option to be addressed."

As the Anonymous Liberal says aptly:

"Faced with this all too common scenario, Cantor has nothing to offer. The suggestions he eventually comes up with are profoundly unhelpful and deeply hypocritical. This outspoken opponent of government-run health care suggests, feebly, that perhaps the woman might qualify for an existing government program. This, of course, is highly unlikely given that she owns her home and just recently lost her job..."

The irony of this, of course, is that Cantor and other conservatives would cut existing government programs if their views of health care prevailed in House and Senate. I have written about this before.

The party that claims to be the guardian of American morality has abandoned basic moral values. There are no facts behind their 'truth.' There is no Jesus in their 'Christianity.' There is no logic in their 'common sense.' There is no patriotism in their worship of all things 'American.'

This is immensely dangerous. While, in recent years, this appears to have caused many sensible people of moderate and conservative views to step away from the Republican Party and movement conservatism it has also enflamed the passions of those who desperately want to believe they are better than their neighbors. The right has kindled a populist elitism that combines the worst features of both and sells authoritarian truth with anti-authoritarian lies of the worst kind while shamelessly pointing to the very facts that prove their intellectual bankruptcy.

Yet they have faith to move mountains.

Can you think of anything more dangerous than a lunatic with faith?

Reality Based Politics: How do you fight people who don't live in the real world?

Everyone has heard, by now, about the decision to strip ACORN of federal funding. Republicans have been crowing about it. The way the news media has fixed on one non-profit political action group whose entire agenda is about helping poor Americans fully integrate into economic and political society is fascinating. It shows that the 'Reagan Revolution' really has fundamentally changed the way America views the problem of poverty. The political debate is no longer about poverty. It's about demonizing and criminalizing the poor and those who would help them.

The way that the majority of the Democrats in Congress jumped on the conservative bandwagon in this case is more disturbing. The House voted 345-75 to strip ACORN of federal support. 345 congressmen of both parties believe that scapegoating this one organization is the best solution to the Republican attacks that haven't stopped since the election? It all points to one basic fact: political perception is more important to politicians than reality.

Republicans, sadly, are still better at reframing reality to fit their political perceptions than are Democrats. In one sense, this is a good thing. We don't want both sides undertaking the same effort to warp reality to suit their political purposes. It would be great, however, if the Democrats put more effort into finding a way to frame reality as it is and communicate the facts of policies that are better fitted to the world in which we live. This problem eludes them repeatedly.

The reaction to the Republican victory over a tiny, underfunded organization that is entirely dependent on donations and federal assistance to function is a bit over the top. Not only was the enemy entirely non-threatening, but it was entirely unequipped to defend itself against the attacks of a national political machine. Even after the victory has been won, the enemies of ACORN continue to attack. Jenn Q Public writes a vociferous assault on 'child sex trafficking' and manages to somehow make ACORN the villains of the modern world of white slavery. I am certain she believes she is calling it as she sees it, which is the scary part.

Those interested can find the best answer to this kind of manic trampling on the corpse of the beaten enemy here, penned by the Anonymous Liberal:

"That the GOP and its conservative supporters would single out this particular organization for such intense demonization is telling. In September of last year, the entire world came perilously close to complete financial catastrophe. We're still not out of the woods and we're deep within one of the worst recessions in U.S. history. This situation was brought about by the recklessness and greed of our banks and financial institutions, most of which had to be bailed out at enormous cost to the American taxpayer (exponentially more than all of the tax dollars given to ACORN over the years). The people who brought about this near catastrophe, for the most, profited immensely from it. These very same institutions, propped up by the American taxpayer, are once again raking in large profits.

But rather than focus their anger on these folks, conservatives choose to go after an organization composed almost entirely of low-paid community organizers, an organization that could never hope to have even a small fraction of the clout or the ability to affect the overall direction of the country that Wall Street bankers have. ACORN's relative lack of political influence was on full display yesterday, when the U.S. Senate (in which Democrats have a supermajority) not only entertained a vote to defund ACORN, but approved it by a huge margin (with only seven Democrats opposing)."

Since he defends those who cannot defend themselves, and condemns those who would play the role of the bully so effectively, I'll move on to the real problem.

Ron Chusid of Liberal values has written about what he calls 'reality-based politics' for a long time. In a post from January of this year, he very effectively highlighted the problem with the modern political right:

"Currently the sets of views which primarily separate liberals from conservatives are 1) support for liberty by the left and opposition to the authoritarian views of the right and 2) having a reality-based viewpoint as opposed to the anti-intellectualism of the right."

It's very hard for me to disagree, and I'm not the only one who gets it.

On Huffington Post, attorney/author/psychologist Bryant Welch attacks the problem head on and holds nothing back in a shockingly clinical description of conservative political tactics and their victims.

Welch says:

"We take our sense of what is real and what is not real for granted. We shouldn't. We each actually form our own unique "reality sense" with our mind that assimilates an infinitely complex bombardment of stimuli from outside us and from within. It is no simple task, and the most miraculous part of the human mind is that it is able to create a coherent reality at all.

The problem is that in times of extreme uncertainty the mind has a hard time creating this reality sense. The mind becomes confused. This can be caused by external events in our world, such as rapid change or inner psychological states -- for example, when we are experiencing strong emotions like paranoia, envy, or challenges to our sexual identity."

Much of this is fairly straight-forward empiricism, with a touch of Immanuel Kant. It's important to keep it mind, however. While 'reality' certainly exists in an objective sense, it is very true that our perceptions of reality can vary widely from what is peering back in at us.

"And this is where things go awry. Current right-wing politics is an art form that is designed to re-define reality for a class of people who are increasingly unable to establish their own sense of reality. Instead, they succumb and become increasingly dependent on someone else to tell them what is real and what is not real. In their regressed psychological state, under certain conditions, many people will accept as real whatever they are told by an authoritative sounding figure be it Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Bill O'Reilly."

This is extremely cogent, and does very well to describe why otherwise intelligent people can believe that Sarah Palin is a strong feminist figure victimized by misogynist culture for her strength. It also does well to show why the dark fantasies of Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck are so appealing to people who feel adrift in a world that can't possibly be 'real' as they define reality. However, while Welch offers a clear solution:

"So what should progressives do? Do we have to be like the far right and beat them at their own game? No, not at all. But we do have to hoist them on their own petard. We have to expose the manipulations and the manipulators with a torrential counterattack that is focused on the manipulations, not a message that emphasizes some irrelevant "positive" message such as how important health reform is.

Instead, we need to harness the rage that is ubiquitous in this country because of all the uncertainty and the confusion. That is the energy that is driving health care and most political life in America at the present time. We need to harness it for constructive purposes, exposing the puppeteers and the corporate interests that are behind them. Health care is ultimately a populist issue, but we are not igniting the populist rage that drives all populism. Until progressives learn this lesson they will lose"

While I certainly agree that we are not doing enough to harness the anger in Americans, the reason the left is not engaged in this activity is because most of us on the left want to solve problems and soothe that anger. We don't want to make it worse or to exploit it. We fail to understand, too often, the difference between addressing anger legitimately and indulging it. If we can address that populist anger legitimately, then we might have a chance.

Can we do it?

I have to admit that, as I read more and more of the lies and insanity being spouted on the right, I am becoming more and more angry myself. I am sure that I am no the only one. We need to focus that anger into practical action. We are not in a debate. We are in a fight to establish a view of the real world in those who can still see it and to prevent a genuinely dark force from establishing hold of America. I hate to use that kind of mystical language, but that is the only description I can find accurate anymore.

What can one call an attempt to rewrite reality for political gain?

That's evil on the level of a comic book villain, here in the real world.

What are you going to do to fight it?

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryant-welch/why-obama-had-to-have-bee_b_262639.html

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryant-welch/why-obama-had-to-have-bee_b_262639.html

Yes, I'm Going to Pile On Max Baucus and Kent Conrad Too

Prior to day's piece, I've written six pieces about health care this year. More of them have been critical than not. I've attacked specific elements of reform bills. I've attacked whole reform bills as intellectually dishonest attempts to defund Medicare and exposing the Republicans as the only people actually advocating rationing. I've posted frank criticisms of many of the core 'religious' elements to arguments about free market health care. I've even proposed my own national health care bill. Clearly, I feel fairly strongly about the issue.

I've not been a fan of the Senate Finance Committee bill for some time. One of the early pieces I wrote critiquing the reform process was in reference to the original Senate bill as it left Teddy Kennedy's committee. I was already less than completely happy with it.

Well, Senators Max Baucus and Kent Conrad have gone and come up with something even worse. Dr. Ron Chusid of Liberal Values pointed out key problems with the Finance Committee bill back in early August and suggested it might actually be worse than no reform at all. As Bob Cesca and RJ Eskow both write on Huffington Post, the final Finance Committee bill is possibly even worse. Ryan Grim writes that the Baucus bill is already facing signficant resistance among Democratic senators and most of the Democrats in the House.

I'm going to pile on too. I'm not going to rehash every point that Cesca and Eskow make, except to say that I agree with their view of many aspects of the bill. It has the potential to do considerable economic damage to American business, seniors, and the working class. A provision to tax 'Caddillac' insurance benefits will double the burden already laid on older consumers by a fee scale that allows older customers to be charged as much as five times as much as younger consumers... a fee scale that completely wipes out the benefits provided by eliminating restrictions against and fees for consumers with pre-existing conditions. 'Health reform', if the Baucus bill passes, could actually end up making it more expensive for the average American to purchase insurance. At the same time, the individual mandate has not been dropped. The public option, of course, is gone.

The real damage done by the Baucus bill is in a provision that chop-blocks what would otherwise be the best provision in the bill before the bill even leaves Committee. Instead of a public option, the bill would empower health consumers to form their own co-ops to insure their own health care costs. I've more than once admitted to a strain of a certain kind of socialism, and that part of me certainly likes the idea of health insurance co-ops having the power to compete aggressively with the private insurance market. It would give many ordinary Americans an alternative to private insurance that could actually be superior to a government run plan. Conservatives have understood just how powerful co-ops could be in lowering health care costs and empowering health care consumers. That's why Ed Morrissey took the time to rail against them on Hot Air. Legitimately empowered health insurance cooperatives would be a very serious competitor for the insurance industry.

The trouble is that the Baucus bill kills co-ops before they get started. While allowing consumers to form cooperatives to cover their health care costs, it specifically denies those cooperatives collective bargaining power over fees. So the insurance companies would enjoy a huge advantage in competition, while the co-ops would be hampered in their ability to provide quality coverage at an affordable cost. When the single best part of the bill is so badly crippled by its own language, it becomes difficult to support the bill at all.

Baucus and Conrad become the real villains of this affair. Baucus has written a bill that gives the insurance companies everything they have asked for in order not to oppose reform. Yet the bill does not include enough comprehensive reform of the system to justify the concessions. If the bill contained a public option, a robust subsidy for those who cannot afford insruance but do not qualify for Medicaid, or a robust strengthening and widening of Medicaid to cover those unable to otherwise comply with the individual mandate then one could argue that the concessions might be worth it. Instead there is no public option, the subsidy is depressingly shallow, and the Medicaid benefits made available for those unable to otherwise comply with the mandate has been described as 'Medicaid lite.' When one considers how inferior Medicaid already is, this is simply unconscionable.

While Republicans have lied about the threat of any reform, Baucus has completely castrated reform in the hopes of winning Republican support. He has utterly failed to do so. Not one of the three Republicans in the 'Gang of Six' has signed on to the Baucus bill, not even Olympia Snowe... who is arguably more liberal than Baucus. Despite this, Baucus claims a belief that the bill will pick up support from Republicans on the Senate floor. I don't know what motivates this fount of optimism. Perhaps it is the same kind of 'we hope it is true therefore it must be true' thinking that impelled the Bush Administration to tell us all how easy the Iraq war would be.

Max Baucus needs to be run out of the Senate. He needs to be challenged by an aggressive liberal primary opponent who makes health care reform and the Baucus bill the central issue of the primary campaign. With this bill, with his lack of regard for the needs of the country, he has single-handedly stepped up to the plate for the role of scapegoat if this round of reform fails. If his excrable brand of 'reform' passes, he's clearly the man to blame.

Either way, we all need to make sure he becomes the face of Republican resistance to reform. It's what he has chosen to become in his quest for 'bi-partisanship.'

The Economics of Health Care: Bank Bailouts, Insurance Bailouts, and Health Care Reform

In an article written last night, Arianna Huffington made an interesting attempt to conflate the bank bailout with health care reform and advance the idea that President Obama's handling of the former has created opposition to the latter. I'm a fan of Arianna Huffington, and I enjoy her writing (when reads her facility with the English language in print one entirely forgets her 'deer in the headlight' traffic accident guest hosting the Rachel Maddow Show) very much. However, I am afraid that she is more comfortable criticizing than analyzing and more practiced in finding fault and making complaint than she is in serious political policy or theory. I tend to view her as an excellent political critic, but not always the best political analyst.

Here analysis in this piece strikes me as wanting. Her thesis is that President Obama's handling of the bank bailout is at least partly responsible for public opposition to health care reform. It is true that the bank bailout is deserving of criticism. Rather than bail-out small banks, the government bailed out the biggest banking concerns (in some cases mandating or bank-rolling mergers) and the result was that the banking cartel is smaller and more powerful than it was before the credit crunch. Ms. Huffington is correct to note this, but is not entirely correct to blame it on President Obama in its entirety. While many of the executions of policy went into action while he was President and he did argue for a bail out as a senator and presidential candidate (and thus is certainly not absolved entirely of responsibility for the bailout either), TARP was passed on President Bush's watch in response to the aggressive lobbying of President Bush's Secretary of the Treasury. TARP is a Bush administration bill and it can be argued that Senator Obama and other leading Democrats in both houses of Congress were responsible for inserting the few redeeming features the bill contains.

I should note, in the interest of full disclosure, that I am not philosophically or ideologically opposed to bank bailouts. Other socialists, such as Senator Bernie Sanders (I - Vermont), are. I have a very high regard for the senator and his knowledge and opinions, but I respectfully disagree with him on this issue. I am very much opposed to the ultimate form the bailout took, and to its effect of concentrating control of the financial market into an even smaller cartel of big banking concerns than had controlled it previously. I would have rather seen some of the worst offenders forcibly turned over to the control of their stockholders as credit unions, with the bank executives kicked to the curb, and then the bailout money given to the new credit unions (and to the remaining banks with significant strings attached.) Dwelling on my preferences overlong, however, is sort of useless. What is done is done.

I don't think any of this really has much to do with opposition to health care reform. Why not? Well, the very same people most opposed to the 'way President Obama handled the bank bailout' fall into two categories:

1.) Hardline paleoconservatives and libertarians who view any government intervention in economic and business matters as absolutely verboten.

2.) Equally hardline populists, New Dealers, radicals, and socialists (four widely disparate groups who do not always have anything else in common but a few basic areas of economic agreement) who view banks and corporations as 'the enemy' and thus believe government's job is to 'keep them in line' so they don't screw up rather than to bail them out when they do screw up.

The first category includes all the Republicans opposed to TARP when Bush was president (among others), and the latter category includes people like me as well as genuine lefty Democrats like Dennis Kucinich. However, regardless of whether these people fall into category 1 or 2, they will have ideological reactions to health care reform entirely unrelated to their opinions on the bank bailout. Indeed, their ideological reactions to health care reform are far too strong for the bailout to affect them either way.

The people in Category 1 (and some of the populists in Category 2) will be opposed to health care reform because it is health care reform. They will be against it on principle. There would be no way to make them support it, because they are opposed to the very idea on basic ideological principle. Blaming their reaction to health care reform on the bank bailout would be like blaming a hurricane on Microsoft. It's simply entirely ridiculous. Category 1 and those members of Category 2 who think like them on 'welfare' and 'entitlements' will simply always oppose health care reform. Period. They may say (as Roy Blount did) that they have no intention of offering any ideas at all, or the may say (as Judd Gregg and John McCain did) that they have an idea for 'reform' that merely makes the biggest problems with our current system worse. Either way, they will oppose real reform of the health care market designed to give access to health care to more Americans because doing so would raise their taxes. As it will.

The people in Category 2 (save some of the populists mentioned previously) are going to be four-square in favor of health care reform for the exact same reasons they are pissed off about the bank bailout. They are pissed off about the health insurance industry, as they have every reason and right to be. They want to see meaningful health care reform pass, and they want to see it pass fast. Some of them have wanted health care reform since the 1930s, some since the 1960s, and some since the 1970s or 1990s... but they have all wanted meaningful health care reform to pass for at least 15 years. They aren't going to oppose health care reform now because of the bank bailout.

Indeed, the people involved in the health care debate who may have been most influenced by the bank bailout are Democrats in both houses of Congress. While there is no discussion of direct handouts of easy cash to the health care industry yet, certain aspects of both HR 3200 and the bill the Senate Finance Committee is currently mangling (most notably the individual mandate that those not otherwise covered purchase private insurance) have the tone of an insurance industry bailout.

It is this fact, combined with poor media parsing of presidential comments on the subject, that have contributed to the large degree of ambivalence toward health care reform among the general population that widely favored it before the debate began and the increasing hostility toward the particular ideas being advanced by those most strongly supportive of reform in principle. The addition of virulently divisive Republican propaganda does not help, but I believe the majority of the individuals cooling on health care are doing so less because of Republican propaganda (which is primarily believed by those receptive to it, which is to say those opposed to health care reform) than because of the haphazard and mismanaged way in which Democrats are handling the reform ball and the media coverage of same. To be fair, however, the media also deserves a great deal of criticism for the manner in which they are handling the current Republican propaganda barrage. Can you imagine how history would have gone if the media had covered Republican opposition to Medicare in the same kind of irresponsibly serious manner in which they are handling the Republican claims about the extremely moderate bills Democrats are tossing around now? Not to refute such lies whenever mentioning them is to give those lies credence in order to maintain an appearance of neutrality in politics. That is an egregious violation of journalistic ethics.

'Opposition' to health care as it stands now is currently lumped into three groups:

A.) Those members of Category 1 in our previous breakdown, plus some populists with similar views on 'entitlements', who are ideologically opposed to serious health care reform. Period.

B.) The members of Category 2 in our previous breakdown who are having difficulty accepting the reform ideas on the table as 'serious', question the White House commitment to serious reform, or both.

C.) Those people who (because of the ineffective salesmanship of liberal Democrats, the ridiculous shilly-shallying of moderate Democrats, the propaganda of Republican opponents of reform, and the incompetent coverage of the debate by the mainstrea media) do not have a genuine grasp of the issue. Some of these people are truly 'opposed' to health care reform because of misconceptions they have drawn from the smoke and mirrors surrounding the debate. Most, however, have gone from strongly supporting health care to being deeply ambivalent about health care because not enough of a concerted effort has been made by anyone (either the reformers or the media) to educate them about the factual details therein. A few others have misconception of the entire issue for a variety of reasons.

Group A and Group C include some people who likely cannot be won over at all. This is most all of Group A, though there are some populists who could possibly be won over with a strong and honest indictment of the health insurance industry. Most of Group C should be amenable to direct, honest, forceful, passionate arguments on behalf of health care reform by advocates who believe strongly in it. The exceptions are fools with such a desperate miscomprehension of our health care system that they believe making insurance companies pay for doctors educating Americans to eat bran flakes will lower health care costs so much that insurance premiums will fall and universal coverage will just happen. Even they, however, might be reached if someone could actually educate them on the realities of our health care system.

Group B might be harder to win over with the bills currently on the table, but a strong commitment to meaningful reform and a serious ear turned to their concerns... and a little bit of input into the legislative process for them would not hurt... and I believe the White House would see a lot of positive response. The biggest complaint from the single payer and national health service advocates on the left is not that they are not getting their way, but they have been left out of the equation entirely and their views unsolicited. Even if Congress ultimately decides upon an individual mandate, the single-payer and nation health service advocates have a great deal of valuable input about the economic facts of health care which need to be considered in serious reform proposals. The right dismisses proven economic practice in favor of economic theory that is best described as a religious cult and the center is dangerously close to wading into that same water on the issue of health care. The real economics on this issue are on the left and the real economics are necessary to the debate even if the solutions of the left are not adopted at this point in time.

Of course, the same sincere expression of serious commitment that could close the sale with Group B would also succeed in educating many in Group C. The putative excuse for excluding Group B, winning over at least some part of Group A, is useless. To win this fight, all the advocates of serious health reform must be brought on board and then they should work together to inform the uninformed and educate the uneducated. Most people who don't know what's going on or what it is all about want to know. Badly. Their lack of knowledge is the reason for their ambivalence.

Case Study of An Immigrant: Abner Mares

It's only fair to start out with an obvious comment: Abner Mares did not come to the United States to pick fruit, wash dishes, clean someone's house, or work in a meat packing plant.

On the contrary, Abner Mares is a professional boxer who represented Mexico in the Olympics when he was an amateur. All the same, he is the perfect archetype of the Mexican immigrant to the US. He came to the States to get a job and to escape poverty. His mother brought him (along with his six siblings) to Hawaiian Gardens, CA (a mix of working class/lower middle class neighborhoods and barrio in otherwise affluent Orange County) and worked two jobs to support them. Mares became a boxer in hopes of something better for himself and his family. He was good enough to become an Olympian, and he has parlayed that into a professional career. He has overcome adversity (a detached retina suffered in the course of his career) and has persevered in his chosen profession. He has learned lessons of life and experience and has certainly not asked the United States to pay his tab. His mother worked two jobs to pay her tab. He has fought, literally, to pay his own.

Naturally, most Mexican immigrants to the United States are not gifted athletes with professional careers ahead of them. Nor is Mares' success in his chosen career guaranteed, anymore that of any other professional plying their trade in America. He has that in common with his countrymen. They have something in common with both him and his mother:

As I have said before, Mexicans come to the United States to work. More of them come illegally than not, because of the restrictions on immigration to the US from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Like Mares' mother, they work hard. Most of them use their earnings to start businesses that become part of and help to support the American economy. Their children, like Mares himself, seek to further develop their gifts and take advantage of the opportunities that comparative prosperity (the barrio in Hawaiian Gardens is still safer and more affluent than any barrio in Mexico) offers and strive to succeed beyond their parents. Mares grew up in Hawaiian Gardens, but now he lives in Norwalk, CA. While Norwalk is not Beverly Hills, it is a step up the ladder.

Of course, this is the history of America. Immigrants from foreign lands (whether they be debtors fleeing imprisonment, as the founders of Georgia; or religious refugees, as the founders of New England, Pennsylvania, and Maryland; or simply looking to make a buck, as the founders of Virginia and the Carolinas) have come to America and worked their asses off to make good. While more of them have failed to build the American Dream than have succeeded, they have nearly always succeeded in building a better life for their children. Whether or not they have failed to build the American Dream, they have always succeeded in helping to build America itself.

They do so to this day, even when they aren't here legally.

Politics and Race: Does 'the Left' or 'the Right' Have A Moral Monopoly?

Strangely enough, the fact that we have a president who happens to be a black man has not ended the discussion of race in America despite that president's high-minded 'post-racial' attitude on the subject.

That was sarcasm, yes.

Obviously, a black president is going to guarantee that race is very much on everyone's minds for the four-to-eight years of the Obama Administration. That would be true even if that president's name were 'Barry Huntley Owens' instead of 'Barack Hussein Obama.' The first black president is a big deal, and people of all kinds and all racial attitudes are going to be talking about race constantly as a result. Some of this may be good and some of it may be bad, but it's all unavoidable. Anyone who actually believes a bi-racial president with an African father and a lifetime steeped in white American culture magically brings on an instant sea change in American racial politics is really, really naive. High minded post-racial rhetoric is good and a post-racial world is a worthy goal, but we're a long way from it.

That said, while dirty racial politics is to be expected and exacerbated under the current conditions, we don't have to like it. One of the constant ploys from the right is the desire to deliberately cast the left as racist, as devoted to stirring up racial hatred for political purposes, or both. One of the constant ploys from the left is to repeatedly bring up individual examples of racists on the right in an attempt to paint all conservatives with this brush. Both of these moves are 'politics as usual'... which means each side considers their own activities to be entirely above reproach and the other side's to be vicious and inhuman.

The fact is that both sides' attacks on the other tend to be more inaccurate than accurate. Today, here and now, racists are more likely to be Republican than Democrat because the 'traditional American values' championed in many red states include unfortunate racist legacies. However, President George W. Bush (this may be the only time you ever see me say anything good about the man, so keep reading) advocated amnesty for undocumented immigrants as part of his flawed immigration reform package. He was defeated by a bi-partisan hue and cry of aggressive nativism with both conscious and unconscious racist implications. Moderate and conservative Democrats are as guilty of such pandering as Republicans, and Hillary Clinton specifically attacked other candidates for the Democratic nomination who supported Bush's amnesty and immigration reform package. The locales in which the attack was given suggest a deliberate pandering to nativist white voters. Racism is a two-party problem.

There is, however, a fundamental difference between the approaches of the mouthpieces of both sides of the left-right debate to racism. Liberal writers nearly all agree that racism is a genuine problem. Conservative writers dismiss it as an occasional aberration. Liberals believe that action taken to ameliorate the effects of racism and to protect individual civil rights is desirable and necessary in a free society, while conservatives dismiss such action as unnecessary or attack such protections as unfairly depriving whites. The debate over Sonia Sotamayor's confirmation, the publicity surrounding the overturning of the case brought most prominently into the press by her nomination, and many of the absolutely moronic attacks on her person and character by conservatives included baldly ugly racist overtones that can't be dismissed or denied and these aspects were not disavowed by many (if any) conservatives.

I have been, and will continue to be, critical of the Democratic Party's approach to civil rights issues. I believe that treating black issues, Hispanic issues, women's issues, and LGBT issues as separate and independent agendas is fundamentally counterproductive. If the goal is increased protection of individual rights, then the narrow focus this approch creates is potentially disastrous. Civil rights issues are civil rights issues, and one coherent approach to individual civil rights is the only way to attack the problem. However, liberal Democrats are correct in acknowledging that there is a problem and seeking to take action to address it.

The single biggest problem (which conservatives recognize, though they support and perpetuate the problem rather than attacking it boldly) is the economic problem. Institutional racism is frequently unconscious, due to the simple fact that disproportionate numbers of black and Latino Americans are poor and that our society has gone out of its way (especially in the last twenty-five years) to stigmatize poverty and scapegoat the poor. Conservative 'reforms' intended to change the way the government address poverty have exacerbated the problems of the inner city. The Randian ethic of prosperity/virtue vs poverty/sin embraced (ironically) by both secular libertarians and Christian conservatives is tremendously damaging to minority Americans and serves to buttress institutional racism that has been slow to die.

In one sense, liberals are to blame. In 1865, the Republican government that freed the slaves decided against compensating freed slaves in order to attempt to preserve the support of pro-Union conservatives in slave states. This perpetuated a huge inequity between black and white Americans that has never been addressed properly since and may be impossible to fully rectify now.

However, it is conservatives who argue against even trying.

Pope, Cop, Nanny, or None of the Above: A left-libertarian critique of the American political landscape.

Conservative Republicans all along the spectrum, from socially liberal fiscal conservatives to the most frightening religious demagogues and neoconservative economic and social Darwinists, expound on the threat posed by the 'liberal nanny state' (as advocated by moderate Democrats and some moderate Republi) that would deprive individual Americans of the right to manage their own risks in return for exonerating them of responsibility for their own lives and success or failure. The popular movement among libertarians, at least for the most part, has been roughly parallel to conservative Republicans: the nanny state is a dangerous threat to individual freedom and responsibility. Indeed, the Libertarian Party has nominated two different 'rogue' conservative Republicans (Congressman Ron Paul of Texas and former Congressman Bob Barr of Florida) as its presidential candidate in recent memory. Though both join with libertarians in opposing the nanny state and strong central government (and Paul, at least, shares many libertarian economic principles), neither is a great advocate of individual personal freedoms in areas where conservative Republicans would restrict them in the social sphere. Barr is an outright right wing culture warrior, while Paul shares many of their tendencies and can be linked (either through direct authorship or allowing his name to be used as endorsement) to questionable racial views.

Liberals (and some centrists and some few conservatives), on the other hand, tend to express strong opposition to the 'police state' advocated by neoconservatives and many of their allies within the Republican Party. They view many law enforcement and national security measures advocated by the right as violations of individual civil liberties and violating constiutional republican protections of individual freedoms and privacy and unconstitutional extensions of government power without writ or warrant. They see habeas corpus, right to fair trial in the legal system, protections from cruel and unusual punishment, and proper procedure by law enforcement and national security personelle as inviolable and suspensions of these rights or extensions of government power that supersede these rights as extremely dangerous.

Liberals (and many centrists) also oppose what they see as the extension of religious doctrine into civil law and the establishment of a state church (or at least a state governed on principles of religious and cultural chauvinism as dictated by a specific group of churches) to the exclusion of believers of all other stripes and non-believers from full participation in the American system and full rights under the American constitution. They see such reform as fundamentally opposed to their view of the American spirit of freedom of conscience and antithetical to the freedom of religion granted by the First Amendment. They see the threat of Dominionism and greater restriction of American freedoms in the name of religious belief inevitable if such reform is established on a national level.

All of these arguments have some validity. Certainly, the nanny state imposes constraints on choices Americans should be free to make. Seatbelt laws and motorcycle helmet laws for adults able to make their own decisions, smoking restrictions that remove elements of choice from the owners of bars or restaurants and their patrons, auto insurance mandates (which are always unfunded and provide no assistance for those forced to buy auto insurance to avoid criminalization), certain gun control laws (I favor handgun licenses for self-defense, as long as criminal codes against gun violence are enforced, but support assault weapons bans) and other similar 'nanny state' laws do restrict personal freedom in return for questionable or negligible protection of society at large... and unfunded mandates forcing everyone to comply regardless of financial ability, without providing necessary assistance for those without the financial freedom to comply do not really do anything to protect society because those who cannot afford to comply with the law simply violate it. Society is no safer and the working poor are criminalized.

Since it is the advocates of the nanny state who claim to be the defenders of the 'have nots', this makes a great deal of nanny state legislation (such as auto insurance mandates) particularly offensive. Of course, much of this 'nanny state' style legislation is actually supported as much by centrists of both parties and even some conservatives as liberals when it comes time to actually vote for or against it. Conservatives are as likely to support mandates that support corporate industries as liberals, and campaign donations are often more important than political ideology in developing and supporting these mandates. The government mandate forcing the entire country to switch to digital television transmission enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

However, many elements of the 'nanny state' (such as child protection laws and agencies to enforce them) serve an important purpose. The welfare state, health care reform, food stamps, social security, unemployment, and other key elements of any society's economic safety net are frequently decried as being part of the nanny state as well. In many of these instances, the conservative defense of 'personal responsibility' is really a defense of economic and social Darwinism. No one is 'personally responsible' for a recession, for corporate layoffs, for corporate outsourcing, or for catastrophic illness in such a manner that they are undeserving of society's support and assistance. Indeed, such a social safety net ultimately strengthens society. Nor does it threaten individual liberty if properly administered, and those alleging it is improperly administered do not wish to administer it properly. They allege it is improperly administered as part of a campaign to scrap it.

One can clearly, then, oppose real restrictions on personal freedom and personal choice without choosing to abandon those genuinely in need of assistance. It is also clear that while there is a real encroachment on personal freedoms by well-meaning laws written 'for everyone's good', this danger is being heavily exaggerated in many areas. If one is worried about the nanny state, one can oppose stupid measures with intelligent fact rather than railing against the dystopian future in which the government changes all our diapers.

On the flip side, the threat of the police state has proven very real at more than one point in our nation's history. The internment of Japanese and German Americans (not aliens, but American citizens, and in the former case frequently many American citizens who had never seen Japan or spoken Japanese) during WWII showed the damage a paranoid government can do to its own. Indeed, there is evidence that the post-war growth of the American Nazi Party was in part due to young German-American internees in camps like Crystal City feeling that the only people standing up on their behalf were the Nazis who led protests against camp administration. During the 1950s, the Cold War led to the Red Scare and the era of McCarthyism, HUAC, and the black list. Americans were prosecuted, lost their jobs, or were placed under government surveillance because of suspect political beliefs. The number of Americans actually involved in subversive activities was relatively tiny, and even some of the guilty verdicts are suspect in the eyes of objective history. The government's more recent domestic security programs undertaken as part of the So Called War on Terror, or earlier (and ongoing) violations of civil liberties as part of the ridiculous Sitzkrieg on Drugs, show that this danger has not at all receded.

On levels closer to home, law enforcement strategies undertaken by Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York City and Police Chief William Bratton of Los Angeles (who served as Giuliani's police commisioner before mocing to LA) have shown dramatic results that have justified violations of proper police procedure and civil liberties in the eyes of many Americans. Making the trains run on time justifies quasi-fascism for those whose only concern is getting to work on time. Aggressive, intimidating police tactics in low income neighborhoods are praised by the middle class if it makes them feel safer.

California's Proposition 8 stands out as the most jarring example of the attempt to establish the religious state. That it occurred in the midst of seeming positive reform in the direction of gay rights only magnifies the dangers inherent in fundamentalist demagogues seeking to outflank legislatures and courts by appealing directly to the population by the means of misleading and disingenuous ad campaigns. It is an excellent example of why republican government is often superior to direct democracy... the ballot initiative allows the majority to force its will on the minority regardless of moral perogative. Liberals advocating term limits and greater legislation by direct democracy should be aware of the warning implicit in Proposition 8.

It is not the only example, however. Though the religious right appeared to lose power across much of the nation during the recent presidential election, it appears to be establishing a greater stranglehold on control of the Republican Party. Local and state governments have seen bitter fights to establish anti-educational measures undermining the school system by seeking to force the teaching of junk science embraced by idealogues in the areas of biology and climatology.

I think it is fair to say that the forces behind the police state and the state church are much more powerful than those behind the nanny state. While the nanny state should be repudiated by civil libertarians, priority should be given to the real and long-term dangers to freedom posed by the human urge for security and the very human desire not to have one's misconceptions challenged by facts.

Food for thought.

Proof, once again, that the Dems really are the misogynistic party...

Yes.

That was sarcasm.

In my recent downturn in activity during May and June, I took the time to write about health care. Since my return to a slightly higher level of activity this month, I've waxed philosophical, explained why I'm not wasting my time piling on Sarah Palin until 2011, and re-posted a comment I made about religion on another blog. While I have naturally been free with my views of the health care plans being kicked around Congress, I have not really let go with full vitriol on any subject just yet.

For those of you who read me for angry polemical rants, this is your lucky day.

It is popular in many circles on the right, especially since Hillary Clinton's defeat in the most recent Democratic Party and the rallying of many socially liberal-to-moderate feminists (both among Democrats and 'Tammy Bruce Republicans') to the McCain-Palin ticket in response, to argue that the Democrats are the racist and misogynistic party and the Republicans are truly the most palatable to genuine feminists. Geraldine Ferraro, the most notable example, spent the election venting a great deal of personal rage and hurt against Obama and the Democratic Party on Fox News in what must have been Rush Limbaugh's dream come true. I certainly understand the disappointment of feminists in one of their most revered public figures failing to win the nomination of 'their' party, but I can't help but disagree with their final conclusions. As someone who voted for Carol Mosley Braun in the 2004 Democratic primary and the son of parents who voted for Shirley Chisholm on the ERA Party ticket in 1976, I did not vote for Hillary Clinton in the most recent Democratic primary. Senator Clinton, iconic standing among many feminists aside, ran as the single most neoconservative candidate for the Democratic nomination and made votes on foreign policy issues, as a Senator, that I personally could not ever approve. I did not vote for someone else because Senator Clinton was a woman and I would not have voted for Senator Clinton had she been a man.

I would have voted for Carol Mosley Braun again. I would have voted for Hilda Solis. Were she younger and in better health, I would have voted for Anne Richards. They are all individuals whom I admire and respect to a great degree and whose politics I find quite acceptable, though naturally very few Democrats meet my ultimate ideal. I did not vote for Senator Clinton for the same reason I did not vote for then-Senator Obama, that I did not vote for John Edwards or Joe Lieberman in 2004, and that I chose Bill Bradley over Al Gore in 2000. Neoconservative foreign and business policy, however 'electable' it may make a Democrat in a general election, is not something that will win my vote in a Democratic Party primary. I am absolutely certain I am not the only Democratic primary voter who felt this way this past election cycle. I have little sympathy for the claim that misogyny defeated Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton defeated herself with her record, her positions, and her character and Senator Obama defeated her by being a more skilled political performer, a more skilled political operator, and more impressive ethical, oratorical, and intellectual figure.

Why do I bring up all of this very old news?

As it happens, I knew I wanted to write today but was uncertain what I wished to write about. So I did what I always do when stumped for a topic. I looked for the most offensive Republican blog post I could find this morning and found inspiration.

Robert Stacy McCain (along with his co-bloggers and much of his actively commenting readership) is an excellent example of what is wrong with the Republican Party in the United States today and represents the 'real America' to which Republican strategists pitch their election campaigns. In April, when McCain was comparing gay marriage advocates and other gay rights activists to anti-Semites, I wrote about him not once but twice. He is an excellent example of the moral and ethical failure of the rump of today's Republican Party, which is the overlap between the 'Moral Majority' bloc of conservative Christian Dominionists and the social Darwinists of the corporate commercialist bloc of neoconservatives. As a person of faith, the combination of Christianity and social Darwinism is something I find particularly offensive.

In the above linked post, McCain singles out for his particular attention and abuse... a 24 year old girl. His particular reason for making her his target of the moment? Well, apparently, she wants the GOP to be less prejudiced.

""Does it sound campy to say I love gay men?" says Meghan in typical fag-hag fashion, since this is the only way she has of getting affection from men."

An excellent example of the feminism of the GOP, yes?

McCain continues:

"What Meghan does not fully comprehend is the special contempt that exists within gay male culture for such desperate female hangers-on otherwise known as fish."

I'm sure an expert of gay subculture and 'public intellectual' like McCain would know exactly what gay men think of their female friends. Naturally.

He even copies a page from Laura Ingraham's book, showing just how creative original he is.

"And, unlike Meghan, Jamie is attractive."

Wow, not only is she one of those horrible people with that most un-American and immoral of traits, tolerance for her fellow humanity, but she's ugly to boot!

Clinton Democrats and Tammy Bruce Republicans alike should pay closer attention to bloggers like R.S. McCain. They speak for the priveleged men of the Republican Party whose worlds revolve around their country club and their church and who are entirely out of touch with what people in the real world, outside of either, think. They are not content to attack Democrats and liberals (though they are happy to call the reasonably conservative Meghan McCain and the very conservative Andrew Sullivan 'liberals' when turning on their own) but must also seek and destroy those in their own party (that 'big tent' Republicans like to talk about) who show the slightest bit of tolerance for those they hold in contempt. To them, Christian charity is something practiced by and for Christians who meet their own standard of Christianity and freedom is something members of their own religious and economic circles enjoy exclusively. The only natural rights are those they enjoy, which are only available to those that meet their standards.

In his vicious and destructive rant, this 'public intellectual' manages to be both homophobic and misogynist in one snarl while displaying his ignorance and bigotry for everyone to see. This is not unique to R.S. McCain. This has been demonstrated repeatedly by many Republicans during the most recent election, during interviews and talk radio and television shows, during congressional sessions, and in blogs (and the commentary offered by readers of said blogs) all over cyberspace. What is more, movement conservatism considers this the 'mainstream' thought and opinion of the 'real America.'

In the end, that last fact may be the most insulting and bigoted belief of all.

A Moment of Radical Reflection

I do not have a great deal of faith, as those who have read my last two postings already know, in the direction that congressional health care reform is headed. Both leading Democrats in both houses of Congress and the White House are refraining from committing to systemic reform of American health care, and systemic reform is what American health care needs. Most Republicans, of course, mean something entirely different by 'health care reform'; they mean the thorough gutting of government health care entitlements for the benefit of private insurers and an essentially unfunded (the tax credit proposed in the one Republican plan I have seen is not going to help anyone who actually needs help to pay for their health care) mandate to require Americans to fork money over to same. The depressing part of the mire into which health care reform is sinking is how close to one another the plan advanced by Teddy Kennedy and the plan advanced by Judd Gregg really are. They are closer to agreement than disagreement and this should make us all worry.

This, however, is not a post about health care. It is a post about thinking and thought. I am sure everyone who follows this blog has noticed my output has shrunk significantly over the last month or two. This is not because of a lack of topics on which to write, but the fear of boring repetition and the desire to clarify thought rather than merely regurgitate it. We live in a nation in which corporate entities with no official standing wield amazing political and economic power. In many ways, these corporate entities are the extended Department of the Economy. They donate massive amounts of money to politicians and claim protection under their right to 'free speech', when the issue is not speech but institutionalized bribery. Anyone claiming that this is not a factor in the health care mire, the labor mire, or the question of economic bailouts is either guilty of intellectual dishonesty or extreme naivete. This not to say that everyone in Washington is corrupt, though it can certainly be argued convincingly that Washington culture is too forgiving of corruption, but rather a critically realistic appraisal of the facts of American political life.

'Critical realism' is a philosophical term coined by and associated with scientists of religious bent who do not consider scientific fact as we know it and divine revelation to be mutually antagonistic, but this does not necessarily give full credit to the words and this certainly not how I mean the term, though I agree with the 'official' critical realists in their argument that God and science are not mutually exclusive. I choose to redefine the term in the same way that political liberalism has been redefined in some ways from classical liberalism.

'Realism', in my parlance, is the refusal to fall into utopian forms of thought but rather to see the world as it is and will most likely remain whether that sight is pleasant or unpleasant. Anarcho-capitalism, libertarianism, neoconservatism, and Jeffersonianism/Jacksonianism paleoconservatism are all utopian forms of thought. So is the Dominionist theocratic conservatism of the contemporary religious right. All of these systems make fundamentally incorrect assumptions about reality and human nature. Democracy does not magically make human beings enlightened superhuman creatures speaking in the voice of God as Rousseau and Jefferson would have us believe. Democracy is a more equitable method of apportioning decision-making, but it does not guarantee the decisions will be better. In the same vein, while capitalism is an excellent way of producing wealth, it does not guarantee the wealth will be fairly distributed nor does a free market guarantee that everyone with the ability who makes the effort will have an equal chance to compete in that market. Many people of superior ability will never become rich or successful (Charles Goodyear never received a cent for his name on the tires and died broke long before anyone got rich off of rubber and Nikola Tesla died in a tenement in New York City) while many people will achieve wealth and fame for dubious merit (Paris Hilton and George W. Bush, anybody?) because that is the reality of life. A free market will not change that, and the complete lack of regulation that 'free marketeers' advocate is not genuine free market capitalism but corporate fascism.

Likewise, communism, syndicalism, anarcho-socialism, and anarcho-communism are also utopian modes of thought. They are dependent on human nature being far better than it is. While I believe socialist thought is necessary in a civil society, it is ludicrous to believe that enforcing a socialist system will change human nature anymore than a capitalist system or a democratic system.

Nor does the Randian justification of the morality of the dark side of human nature and the evils of altruism and socialism inherent in objectivism present a solution. Then we face a dystopia in which up is down, black is white, good is bad, and predatory anti-social impulses are ultimately justified. In a very real sense, we are living in that world now, painting it in objectivist colors won't change it but simply make us all feel good about our greed and hate. Neoconservatives already preach a Randian morality when they rail against the welfare state, and Kenneth Copeland has already drawn Ayn Rand up in frightening Christian colors with the 'prosperity doctrine.' Ultimately, as horrified as she would be to hear the argument, Ayn Rand offers nothing more than John Calvin minus God, plus a happy, smiley face.

So, having rejected utopian forms of thought, where does that leave us? I'm not always sure. Democracy may not be a magic bullet to solve the world's ills, but it is (as Ben Franklin and Winnie Churchill reluctantly conceded) better than all the other choices. Citizens must have an equal voice in society in order for society to be equitable. History has shown that the little people can make a difference, for good or ill, and we Americans must embrace that part of the American dream rather than surrender to the economic fantasy of the house, car, spouse, and two kids. That is not only a dream that not everyone will realize, it is a dream not everyone even shares.

Conservatism, especially, has a proud history of rejecting realism. Both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush dismissed concerns about the real costs of their philosophy of greed gone mad with platitudes about 'optimism.' Optimism is not simply faith that everything will turn out for the best in ignorance of real problems. That's willful denial of reality, or schizophrenic delusion. Nor is a critical, realistic examination of the real problem America and Americans face (coupled with the concomittant belief that those problems need to be addressed and there must be an effort to solve them) 'pessimism.' Yet liberals (whose fundamental flaw in recent years is their stubborn insistence on seeking a fair compromise with the unreasonable right) are the ones viewed as living in a fantasy world by many Americans. I will agree that they are to a certain point: the point that American liberals believe that an American politician who shares their principles necessarily shares their desire to realize their principles in the field of policy. I have harped on this before, but American 'progressive' Democrats chose overwhelmingly to vote for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the presidential primary rather than a liberal candidate such as Dennis Kucinich. Both candidates were on the record as being extremely conservative (in the genuine sense of the word, the unwillingness to risk or waste effort or resources but instead to hold them in reserve) on the issues which liberals cared most about, and Senator Clinton especially had a long record of voting with the Bush administration when it really mattered.

So we must see the world as it is, not as we want it to be or wish it were, to be 'realists.'

However, being realist is not enough. We must also be 'critical.'

We must examine the world, address its strengths and its flaws in a forthright and honest manner, and seek to buttress those strengths while repairing the flaws that can be repaired and doing our best to ameliorate those that cannot to the best of our ability. Economics teaches us that, because of scarcity, there will always be an inequity of wealth. Rather than make utopian claims that the free market, a totalitarian government, a democratic form of government, or a communist system can solve those problems we need to admit that those inequities are real and inherent in the finite world in which we live and work to reduce those inequities as much as possible in the name of a stronger, juster society and to ameliorate the conditions of those most deprived. A critic speaks the truth as he sees it, and strives to see the truth and know it as best he can from his perspective.

Capitalism is the best form of economy, just as democracy is the best form of government, but neither will solve America's problems or the world's. Socialism is a fundamental need of any civil society as well, for a society that does not serve its members will not find any loyalty from its members. The Chinese believed imperial dynasties enjoyed the 'mandate of heaven' and that crimes against society would cause an emperor to lose that mandate. Democrats, republicans, and radicals have spoken of the right of revolution for many years. A society must serve its members equitably or it must be reshaped.

American political society requires reshaping. The Republican Party of today does not represent a genuine free market, or civil libertarian ethic anymore than the Democratic Party of today represents a genuinely egalitarian or inclusive ethic. Those of us loyal to such ideals must strive to better both parties for in our current political system we have no alternative, and our current political structure gives those parties control over the political system.

Freedom requires responsibility and judgment and, as much as the hard right wishes to deny it, Orwell was right... in a free society some animals cannot be more equal than others if the society is to remain free. Human nature is stacked against a free society and we must be aware of that fact and strive against it.