On the Contrary

Now this one is really rich. Newt claims he has the torch from the Reagan Revolution passed to him by Ronnie. Now there are two ironies here. The first, which the press is all over, is that this is a total fabrication and misrepresentation of the relationship which is true enough, but not the real issue.

The second irony is that the real issue is that the way Conservatives see Reagan is a fabrication of their ideological needs.  Although he made us feel good, he started this country’s long slide into me-first and not investing in tomorrow. This is a torch that should have been extinguished 20 years ago with a massive fire fighting response.   Don’t you just love a discussion to nowhere by the Republicans and the media?

When you finally understand that the government is the problem, greed is good, and less regulated business is our savior with low taxes and no investment in our infrastructure is how we got into this mess, you understand that Ronnie was a nice man, but was a disaster for the direction of our country.  Remember, he thought Medicare was the end of capitalism as we know it.  Let those old people die.

In Mitch Daniels’ Response he began by saying, “The status of ‘loyal opposition’ imposes on those out of power some serious responsibilities: to show respect for the Presidency and its occupant, to express agreement where it exists.“  What a boldfaced lie.  There is no “loyal opposition”, just a group of people who want to see the President fail.  One only has to look at what has occurred over the last three years to draw that conclusion.  There are a record number of filibusters, holding the country hostage to their debt demands, and defeating any attempt at improving the unemployment picture.  We have an ideological divide that does not allow the taking of prisoners anymore.  I wish the President would have made that point far more emphatic in his remarks.  We all know nothing is going to happen and now the critical battle is whether we are going to allow the Republicans to eviscerate government and turn us into a two-class society.  It is as simple as that and there is no middle ground.

On Republican leadership, I think we saw it at its most naked form when Rick Santorum was confronted by a woman who again raised the outrageous nonsense about President Obama being a Nigerian Muslim and Santorum pandered to her beliefs (and the amazing crowd of know-nothings around him).  Mitt shows us his leadership when he panders to positions he has rejected in the past, but anything to get by the primaries.  Newt?  Well if lying, deceit, obfuscation, and generating hate is leadership, then bring on the rope and we can call ourselves the lynch mob country.  Ron Paul at least shows some backbone on his unpopular positions on drugs, wars, and sex, but his racist comments and his zany ideas about anarchy as a way of governing lead us to wonder if he thinks deeply about complex problems.  Some leadership when you lie and pander to mob instincts to lead the nation.

I listened to Eric Cantor (ever notice that most of these people are not very bright?) explain how the State of the Union speech (before he had heard it) was just more of the same failed policies.  Really?  Eric and company have never let the President have his policies without being watered down by booby traps that make them ineffective.  But what really ought to make Americans think is that the same old policies are more tax cuts and less regulation.  That is where we have been for the last 30 years and the result is for all of us to behold.  One of the best offensives is to project your weaknesses on your opponent.  This is one giant example of calling what we have not tried except after WWII when our economy was booming, old worn out policies, while calling more of the same that has brought us down and created a two class society change.  You got to love their chutzpah.  But if we listen and follow them, well kiss you kid’s future goodbye.

The President began to throw down the gauntlet, but he should have learned something from Newt’s rise in the polls.  The rabble like clear lines and firm opposition.  Let’s hope this speech was simply a stepping off point for beginning to draw clear lines, confronting failed ideology, and not the lines themselves.  They need to be much more clear and abrupt or the middle class and the appropriate role of government will be lost.

In a work, yes.  Okay, I will explain.  With the coverage of the South Carolina primary, there was the required interview with a Tea Party leader about which way the Tea Party would lean.  My thought was run crazy candidates and then see which the crazies prefer.  This is rational?  Then I thought, who cares what these people think, it is all nonsensical.

The Tea Party sprang up from pure anger.  That is what distinguished these folks was that “they were mad as hell and were not going to take it anymore.”  Take what was the question.  It was in my opinion a reaction to too many changes and they were terrified little people.  First you have the crashing of the economy and the dawning of the idea that things might not be better for our children than they were for us.  Then you have the election of a black President who wanted to bring change to government.  Finally you have the recognition that government wasn’t working for them.  Bring on irrational fear and a claim to take back their government, which nobody took from them.  This was highlighted by their blaming government for everything bad and telling politicians to keep government’s hands off their Medicare.  Duh.

The present day Tea Party seems to be divided into three groups.  The first are the social conservatives and read this as evangelical Christians.  They want government to enforce their idea of religious values on the rest of us.  They are the ones who can’t vote for Mitt because he is a Moron and think Rick Santorum is making sense with banning contraception.  They are a little confused about the “Enlightenment” and the Founder’s brilliant move to create a government devoid of religion (or maintaining a balance so no one religion could dominate).  They have been busy reinventing history to claim we are a Christian nation.  They would bring us theocracy and restart religious civil wars.  So much for this group.

Then there is the libertarian group that would like to return us to the 19th century.  They love Ron Paul.  Once again we have a failure to think deeply.  They want government out of their lives (unlike the last group that wants government to their enforce their religious views), but they haven’t thought it through.  These are the people who love their Social Security and Medicare (they earned it!) but think government is the problem.  They are the group most responsible for the election of those in Congress who have stopped anything from happening.

All you have to do is to question these folks closely on their views and policy choices and then ask hard questions about the consequences of those policies that might impact them to show the irrationality of their policies.  Let’s cut taxes, stop regulation, and reduce government, and then all the complex problems that face us will just go away and the deficit will just magically disappear?  Who will build the infrastructure?  Who will ensure that higher education is affordable?  Who will ensure clean air and water? And it goes on and on.  These are the people who are totally out of touch with the reality of what government has already done for them and they simply do not want to uphold their end of the responsibility bargain.  The lessons of history are lost on them.

Then there is the last group that understands that government isn’t working for them and they are mad as hell and are lashing out at government.  They are the ones who are really aligned with the 99%.  They are neither Progressives or Conservatives in the sense that they are not pushing a political agenda, but really just want to throw the current bums out.  They are the only ones who are making sense in this group although unless their anger is channeled toward effective changes in government, just throwing the bums out and electing other angry people doesn’t really fix the problem.  This is the Mitt crowd because they want to throw Obama out and replace him with the most likely candidate to do that.

The bottom line here which no one seems to want to examine is that the Tea Party and their “choices” are irrelevant to addressing the problems that face us.  None of these people are offering policy choices or candidates who represent these policy choices that address the reality of our situation.  So what they think or where they are leaning should only be news in the sense that we want to make just the opposite choices if we hope to do anything effective.  Many writers have commented at how decent and earnest these people are and they are serious.  All that is true, but their choices are moronic.  I have very good friends whose political choices defy logic and good sense.  They stay good friends because I don’t challenge their thought process, but the media in this election must do just that if we are to understand that being mad is not a political policy that will help the country.

Note:  Where does Newt fit?  Newt is sort of the the default candidate of all these groups if their preferred candidate falters.  We must not forget that there are non-Tea Party conservatives that for the most part will either vote for Mitt as the most electable or Newt as a fall back.  Where is Jon Huntsman?  He is rational so he has no chance whatsoever.

Dylan Ratigan, in his new book, Greedy Bastards, distinguishes between two types of “capitalists” in our current era, the capitalists who use money, resources, and human potential to nurture the nation’s health and growth through creating goods and services (aka a capitalist who makes), and the capitalists who drain our capital away into private bank accounts and foreign investment, to use the system to game it for commissions and exorbitant profits (aka a capitalist who takes).  Dylan calls this latter activity extraction and refers to the companies who do this as vampire industries because they are sucking the capital for reinvestment and strengthening our whole economy out of us. He points out the unholy alliance with politicians and these capitalists who take, rigging the system and making the taking possible.

What brings all this to mind today is the attack by other Republican candidates on Mitt Romney’s “job creation” at Bain Capital.  To quote from the NYT’s story (Advisers Work to Put Positive Spin on Romney Career in Corporate Buyouts):

Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina joined the growing chorus of Republicans who expressed discomfort with the Republican attacks on the buyout practices exercised by Bain when Mr. Romney was there.

Speaking on the Mark Levin radio show immediately after Mr. Romney gave his acceptance speech, Mr. DeMint, who endorsed Mr. Romney in 2008 but has not endorsed anybody this year, said, “He’s hitting a lot of the hot buttons for me about balancing the budget, and frankly, I’m a little concerned about the few Republicans who have criticized some of what I consider the free-market principles here.”

What is so very instructive about this is the symbiosis of DeMint and vampire industries like Bain Capital which is just what Dylan Ratigan was pointing out.  Even more to the point is that DeMint apparently lacks any understanding of the two types of capitalists and how one sucks the life blood out of us and leaves less capital for the other, who creates our vibrant economy.  Then again, people like DeMint are heavily on the payroll of vampire industries.  Isn’t it great to see the 1% in full focused optics?  It would be nice to think that the other candidates including Gingrich, Huntsman, and Paul see this distinction, but in reality I think they are just opportunists, feeding at the same trough as Romney and DeMint.

Thanks Dylan.  It is nice to have a logical framework and a whole new vocabulary to understand how we are being screwed.

After watching the Republican debates and the Iowa primary, here are some initial lessons we might all have learned;

• There must be a lot of really confused and fooled people who live in Texas to elect Rick Perry.  The stature of Texas dropped significantly every time he opened his mouth.  It really is the state of good old boy politics and a race to the bottom for the economy
• The only other elected politician in this group was Michele Bachmann and again, her district must be a halfway house for the mentally impaired.  If a majority of the residents in her district in Minnesota believe what she does, we should send in the peace corp.  This really has to shake your confidence in representative government
• Isn’t it good to know that a quarter of the caucus electorate find Rick Santorum viable even though he would outlaw contraception.  He is not an evangelical, he is a catholic.  Remember when the great fear was that John Kennedy would be a pawn of the pope.  Well Rick is the pope.  Welcome to theocracy
• Ron Paul reminds me of a high school pep rally where everyone is chanting we are number one.  It is the same intellectual process that informs all his policies.  And the Iowans (especially young people) who support him really like what they are hearing without any real thought about how it would play out in the real world
• Mitt appears to have a campaign philosophy that says, say anything, the press is too stupid or lazy to point out that my claims are false.  He is on to something here
• Newt taught us that negative ads work really well and need to be responded to.  If he follows through on his threats, he may teach us and Mitt in New Hampshire that pay back is a bitch
• Finally, it appears that what conservative Iowans want is religious intolerance, homophobia, misogyny, and 19th century economics.  Another place never to visit

In case you were confused, yes we are living in George Orwell’s 1984.  Any doubt of that was dispelled listening to Newt Gingrich try to walk back his comments about the Ryan Budget Plan.  “So let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.” Don’t look behind the curtain!  No one in the Republican Party can speak truth to power which is their religious belief in the nonsense in the Ryan Budget.  For a party that is against big government, they seem to have no problem with big brother.  (Daily Kos).

“The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.”  Oh gee.  Is our ideology that the private sector can do everything better than government flawed?  Clearly we will need to send our “experts” down there to massage the data to get the right answer.  Reality raises its ugly head on Republican nonsense.  Turning incarceration over to the private sector is putting people in charge of punishment and rehabilitation with all the wrong incentives ($).  (NYT).

“Employment rates for new college graduates have fallen sharply in the last two years, as have starting salaries for those who can find work. What’s more, only half of the jobs landed by these new graduates even require a college degree, reviving debates about whether higher education is “worth it” after all.”  Gee whiz Batman.  With the lowest tax rates in 50 years and businesses flush with money, this doesn’t seem to make sense.  Maybe we need to activate the confidence fairy by cutting more and then with less money and jobs people will start getting jobs.  You know, the flow down thing.  Okay maybe it doesn’t make sense, but you have to believe.  It is working out so well for the top 2%. (NYT).

Two oil related nonsense stories.  First the Democrats sans Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and Mark Begich, voted to strip big oil of their tax subsidies, but the Republicans, sans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, who are so worried about the deficit, voted against it.  Can’t have the most profitable industries in the world not getting their stipend so they can turn around and buy all these people off.  One other note, it was the filibuster again which prevented the majority from majority rule.  This system works so well doesn’t it.  (Huffington Post).  In the meantime those same Republicans tried to strip regulation from the oil companies to make it easier to have another BP oil spill.  Talk about not making sense.  We care about the deficit, but we need to give money away to our friends, and let’s reduce regulation because the oil companies have proven they can act responsibly?

And then while railing against big government, in Florida they are requiring all women who want an abortion to pay for a sonogram and if they choose, have a description of it read to them before they can then, after waiting 24 hours, proceed with the abortion.  In South Dakota they are requiring mandatory counseling by anti-abortion political organizations before an abortion can be performed.  Oh, I get it, we want to keep big government out of anything that is working the way we think it should, and if it is not, use big government to make others do what we think they should, but we don’t believe in big government.  Don’t you just love these people?

Republicans have a constitutional “expert” (David Barton) who does what their climate deniers do, selectively look at history (science).  The point here is to look only at what you want to in order to prove your view of reality.  It is the opposite of good logic and good science but those things turn up inconvenient truths at odds with their ideology.  John Stewart on his Daily Show brought on a real Constitutional expert (Richard Beeman) to show the gaps in the logic of this fool. (The Daily Show).  Who needs facts when your ideology is your religion?

So we have the Republicans not making sense, clearly demonstrating that the things they are for, they are against*, and generally the outcome of most of their policies are against everything recent experience has indicated doesn’t work.  So why do we keep electing them and then treating them like they make sense?  I haven’t a clue.

*Want deficit reduction but the Ryan Plan increases the deficit (CBO).  Want deficit reduction but are against cutting needless subsidies to their corporate sponsors.  Are against big government, but use thought police for their candidates, and are instituting big brother government in the private decisions of women.  Will not raise taxes even though all independent experts point out that there must be a balanced approach if deficit reduction is your goal.