Mick Arran's Open Salon Blog

Where Have We Seen This Before?

Tue, 17 May 2011 08:05:49 -0400

I must admit that I'm having difficulty with this Dominique Whosis thing. On one hand, it does the heart good to see the head of the often-criminal IMF perp-walked in handcuffs and denied bail. 'Bout time somebody in the predatory globalized financial community was. On the other hand, the whole thing smells of the Julian Assange take-down. A socialist who imposed severe restrictions on Greece's out-of-control aristocracy as part of the price for bailing the country out after decades of right-wing authoritarian thievery and brutality toward its own citizens, economically and otherwise, Strauss-Kahn's appointment to head up the International Monetary Fund made a lot of rich and powerful people very angry.

And what do r-and-pp do these days when they're angry? They have their opponents arrested on some trumped-up sex charge. The French think it was a setup, and S-K's lawyers say they can prove he was somewhere else at the time of the alleged incident having lunch with his daughter.

Even if he was, it doesn't matter. He may be innocent but the damage has already been done, and that's what's important. This wasn't mere revenge. The r-and-pp are under attack in France for the resource rape and outright thievery we've become so familiar with in this country, where they routinely steal the State treasury blind, ignore inconvenient laws, and demonize anybody who notes, however mildly, that we're all getting screwed. S-K was probably going to be the next president and he isn't awed by the majesty of money, having so much of his own. In fact, he's been downright snippy to the r-and-p.

Now S-K's potential populist run against right-wing authoritarian French President Nicholas Sarkozy is history. Even in open-minded France, he's done. Thus the candidate most favored to win against the "deeply unpopular" Sarkozy has simply been removed from the board. That doesn't make the election a slam dunk for Nicky but it probably makes it a fight instead of a walkover.

How convenient for you-know-who.

Makes you wonder.

Candidate Gingrich Wants a "Conversation" About Medicare

Mon, 16 May 2011 08:05:29 -0400

Is Newtie Gangrene actually running for president this time instead of pretending he is as a way of boosting his new book or his lecture fees (which has always before turned out to be his real agenda)? Seems it may be so given that yesterday he backed off his long-term support for privatising Medicare and attacked the House Pubs' plan as "too radical".

Mr. Gingrich, the former speaker of the House who led a conservative resurgence in the 1990s, said the Republican Medicare plan was “too big a jump” for Americans and compared it to the health care overhaul championed by President Obama.

“I’m against Obamacare, which is imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change,” Mr. Gingrich said on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”

“I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” he said. “I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.”

Leaving aside for the moment that the Great Thinker of the modcon movement has repeatedly proved he has no idea at all how free societies operate, in light of his past beliefs his stance would seem to make sense only if he is actually positioning himself to run as a "centrist". As far as the Village is concerned, I suppose, he may be a "centrist". After all, he believes we should humanely send seniors out on ice flows where we won't have to watch them die rather than execute them in the town square, which is what passes for centrism in the corporate press.

Unfortunately, the real center is way to the left of Gangrene and only slightly to the right of socialism. Take, oh, I don't know, healthcare par example.

After facing waves of protests in public meetings after introducing the Medicare proposal in early April, House Republicans have begun signaling that they are prepared to shelve it, at least for now.

In leveling criticism at the Republican Medicare proposal, Mr. Gingrich appeared to be acknowledging the political difficulties and risk of abruptly changing a highly popular entitlement program.

“I think we need a national conversation to get to a better Medicare solution for seniors,” Mr. Gingrich said, suggesting that any Medicare overhaul would have to include a system in which beneficiaries voluntarily opt out of the program.

Newtie may want to have a "conversation" but in fact the rest of us have already had it and decided years ago what we want. Polls have been running steadily 70-80% in favor of a national health system like Canada's for nearly 10 years, not that Newtie has any intention of acknowledging that. I mean, how do you have a "conversation" with someone who starts by saying that all options except the one he favors are off the table? That's not a conversation, Newt, that's strong-arm intimidation.

Like I said, he doesn't really know anything about how a free society operates.

A Calm, Rational Conversation

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:04:39 -0400

From Digby, who really ought to know better by now.

And once we cut the deficit by doing nothing and everyone has pulled themselves together after this collective panic attack, we can all sit down and have a rational discussion about long term health care costs and fixing that little shortfall in Social Security.

Isn’t that cute? She thinks we can still have one of those. She thinks there’s enough left of our brains after 20 years of Fox that we still remember what rational discussion is.

Of course, it’s possible she’s being sarcastic. I hadn’t thought of that.

The Rich Win. Always

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 17:03:32 -0400

It occurred to me when I was reading a book on the beginning of the Civil War that we, us ordinary shlubs, have been under the thumbs of the rich since the beginning of what we are foolishly pleased to call "civilization". From the very beginning of socialized tribal life, the guy with more cows, more otter skins, more chickens, thought he should be the one to tell everybody else what to do - mainly to give him all our cows, otter skins, and chickens. Sure, they've thrown us a few bones now and again, especially after we took a few of their heads off with swords and clubs, but basically they've kept the goodies for themselves and thrown us scraps.

For several thousands of years.

Now they want us to like it and their media plebes explain it all with logic that makes Alice in Wonderland seem like algebra.

The United States was an experiment, the first of its kind, birthed by "haves" in the midst of a revolution of thought and attitude unlike any before or since, an era not called The Enlightenment for nothing. That experiment is now over and the results are mixed. Democracy was never completely in control but it at least restrained the worst of the predators and greedheads from vampirishly sucking the lifeblood of the society down to the very last drop. It promised to do even better a few decades ago, so of course the p's and g's panicked and joined forces to drive back the threat and now they own the joint. (Via Mark)

General Electric Co., the nation's largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, GE claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

So both the US as a democracy and mathematics as a science are dead and GE killed them. Oh, not by itself. The rich can buy whatever help they need.

Support on Capitol Hill for saving Social Security must be stronger than I thought: Pete Peterson’s flying monkeys are working overtime dropping dungbombs on anyone who opposes gutting the government program that lifted elderly Americans out of the grinding poverty that was their standard fate before 1935.

On Wednesday we saw the New York Times’ David “Mr. Peterson’s a great guy, really” Leonhardt favorably citing a WaPo piece by Robert Pozen that was a half-baked Sachertorte of anti-Social-Security myths, all of which CEPR’s Dean Baker had effortlessly punctured when Pozen had circulated them via the Boston Globe back in December. Friday, we see Charles Blahous, co-author of a “kill it to save it” report on Social Security that was (surprise!) funded in part by Pete Peterson, telling Americans yet again that anyone who defends Social Security from Peterson stooges like him is actually hurting America:

Predictions in politics are dangerous, but I make one here for the record: If Social Security repairs are delayed several more years, then within one generation from now we will witness the end of Social Security as we have long known it. The irony would be that the program was done in by its supposed defenders.

Will all due respect, Mr. Peterson Shill, you are spewing used food.

Which is how they maintain and always have maintained control over us peasants. Since the earliest times of trade, acquisition has meant power and power has meant the ability to coerce more acquisition. Ancient Greece, a democracy? Only when the people revolted against greedy oligarchic rule, which of course all oligarchic rule is. That's a feature, not a bug. And somehow the democratic phases never lasted nearly as long as the ruling phases of the rich. Go figure.

The Roman Empire isn't Karl Rove's favorite period of history for nothing. It is an era that slithers with the power of wealth, is defined by it, by its excesses and violence. Just the kind of time that a Rove would feel kin to, would do hid best to bring back without realizing that if he did he'd be little more than an ass-kissing factotum. Pretty much what he is now, come to think of it, so I suppose he'd be comfortable.

The Rennaissance, the Middle Ages, even the Enlightenment were run and raped by the rich of every country, every time. The rest of us have been cannon fodder and worker bees for the rich so they don't have to be. The Civil War, fatuous rationalizations of states' rights notwithstanding, was about the South maintaining an inhuman base to a stuttering economy and killing millions to do it. They started the war to maintain slaves and as horrendous as that sounds it fits nicely into the reasons the rich do everything and have since the caves.

Throughout time.

Now, for instance.

And the only time it stops is when we stop it.

These people deserve no respect, no admiration (John Galt, my ass), and no quarter. Take them down or continue to suffer the consequences they dish out as a matter of course, uncaring and unconcerned about the effects on "the punks".

Socialism - It's Not Just For Crackpots Any More

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 16:03:26 -0400

Socialism. It's scary just to say it, ain't it?

You might think that's a Bad Thing. I mean, hasn't everybody been shying away from terms like "liberal" and "progressive" and "socialist" because we've been taught they represent frightening, evil people and anti-American values? But in fact it's a Good Thing, and the reason is simple.

We need to scare the Dems. They need to be frightened, preferably of us. They have control, and we are a negligible factor. They think they've got us buffaloed. They think we will behave because we're more afraid of Sarah Palin and we'd vote for a Dem-type Palin with less meanness and not so stupid but exactly the same priorities as Sarah and her TP GOP. They've said it out loud: They don't care what we think because we've got nowhere else to go. The only solution to that kind of arrogance is to show them we do have somewhere else to go.

My friend Thomas Nephew thinks it's time to challenge Obama directly in the primaries. He quotes Michael Lerner to the effect that "that Obama has little chance of winning reelection unless he enthusiastically embraces a populist agenda and worldview - soon. Yet there is little chance that will happen without a massive public revolt by his constituency that goes beyond rallies, snide remarks from television personalities or indignant op-eds." Lerner of course goes on with the usual twaddle about what a disaster a Republican victory would be, as if Obama hasn't been even worse than Bush in every area but speechmaking. Thomas is prepared to challenge but even he isn't sure it would work.

Lerner believes — and I agree — that a challenge could galvanize activism on the left going into the 2012 general election. And the point need not be to sink Obama’s ship — it will be good just to board it for the general election campaign; that might mean, say, switching Vice Presidents, or getting commitments for other cabinet posts. And of course getting commitments to reverse the disappointing policies of his first term. If none of that turns out to be possible, though, there’s a real question in my mind whether electing a Republican in Democrat’s clothing is really all that preferable to electing one the left can actually organize against.

As fetching as that bolded part sounds, I doubt it would change anything or even threaten to at this stage. The DINO's of the Third Way control the party and they've proven they only have to crack the whip to get everybody in line. They won't surrender a thing. They don't have to. They know they can control whoever is elected. They have the donor list.

No, there's no way to turn the Democrat party left when their corporate sponsors are on the right by workiong from within. The challenge has to be a threat and the threat has to come from the outside. Thomas has no problem with that except that he doesn't see a "credible" 3rd party, a common complaint. It's probably true but it misses the point.

We don't need "credible". We need scary. We need to threaten them with a party they're scared of. Do you know what would happen if even one dreaded socialist candidate won and could form a duo with Bernie Sanders? Do you know how they would shake and fumble and fume if even one socialist candidate came close to winning?

Pandemonium.

Think of yourselves as guerrilla voters, backing a loser today to get a winner tomorrow and concessions the day after. This is a war and we're losing it. We need to start strategizing from outside. The inside is closed and the outside is all we've got left.