Politics of Fear – Page 40 – The Wrongologist

America: Fearful and Dysfunctional

It didn’t take long for America’s pollsters to get feedback about the CIA’s torture program. Pew interviewed 1001 people from December 11-14. 500 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 501 were interviewed on a cell phone. About a third each were Republicans, Democrats and Independents. The results are surprising:

• 51% of the public think the CIA methods were justified.
• 56% believe that torture provided intelligence that helped prevent terrorist attacks.

Here are the top line results:

So, according to a bare majority of the American people, torture is justified, and it works.

Before 9/11, most Americans were against torture. Yet here we are. The drumbeat of propaganda and our deep need to justify what America does (America is good, therefore America does not do evil), has coarsened the country.

And the public is less concerned about the methods used by the CIA, and way more about the Senate committee’s decision to release the report: As many call the decision to publicly release the findings the wrong decision (43%) as the right decision (42%).

A large majority of Republicans (76%) say the interrogation methods used by the CIA after 9/11 were justified. Democrats are divided – 37% say the methods were justified, while 46% disagree. About twice as many liberal Democrats (65%) as conservative and moderate Democrats (32%) say the CIA’s interrogation techniques were not justified.

Young people also are divided over the CIA’s post-9/11 methods: 44% of those under 30 say that the torture methods were justified, while 36% disagree. Among those 50 and older, 60% think the methods were justified. The over 65 group had the highest agreement at 62%. You can review the detailed survey results here.

While we could quibble about the form of the questions asked, every demographic had at least a plurality in favor of torture: men and women, young and old, white and non-white. The exception was Democrats, who did not believe that torture was justified, although they believed it was helpful.

• 65% of liberal Democrats said torture was not justified
• 25% said torture was justified

The opinions of conservative and moderate Democrats were much different: 48% say the CIA interrogations were justified compared with 32% who say they were not.

What does this say about America?

The physical damage done on 9/11 was nothing compared to the psychological damage to the US population. It has seemingly unleashed a latent fascism. We got nuked emotionally, we haven’t recovered, and we may never recover.

We are propagandized to an incredible degree. While people must ultimately take responsibility for their own opinions and actions, the media industry is bent on shaping perception and they are very good at it. Think television isn’t influential? Last night, the Wrongologist’s local TV news covered the hostage situation in Sydney, Australia. But the facts were used only as a jumping off point: The vast majority of the talking head’s time was spent quoting people from the DC security apparatus regarding how such attacks could happen here, how such attacks mean that we should to be hyper vigilant. This continual spinning up of average American’s fears about terror creates a response that isn’t easily calmed.

In post 9/11 America, our politicians have decided that the ends justify the means. They understand that instilling fear pays dividends politically. Their message to the people is that “any means necessary” is acceptable in order to keep us safe. At first, it was the gradual erosion of free speech and habeas corpus. Then, the “collect everything” mode of the NSA.

Now, for the majority of Americans, its “OK, torture if you have to, just keep me safe.”

Those people who think torture is justified are good people who have lost their moral compass, or whose compass points only in a bad direction. This is the dark side of moral relativity: the greater good can lead to terrible outcomes like torture. People do bad things all the time, particularly when they think the good produced outweighs the bad. If a few people’s suffering creates enough “good” (for the rest of us) and that good outweighs the suffering of the few, then, we guess that we should have no issue with it. Thus, torture is now acceptable to the majority of Americans.

And when you look closely at the Pew numbers, although “only” 51% think torture is justified, 20% didn’t have an opinion, so only 29% really think torture is wrong.

Ain’t that America: Fearful, and Dysfunctional.

Smell that American Exceptionalism!

Why Are Police Looking for Apologies?

What’s with the police union presidents in New York City, St. Louis and Cleveland? All are outraged by fairly tepid comments on the recent and controversial actions of their members, and all want apologies now, dammit. Let’s start with Cleveland.

TPM reports that the Cleveland police union has demanded that the Cleveland Browns football team apologize for a player who wore a T-shirt before last Sunday’s game protesting the police shootings of two black people. Here is the T-shirt:

That’s Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins wearing a shirt reading “Justice for Tamir Rice and John Crawford III” during pre-game warmups.

To refresh your memory, Rice was the 12 year old kid killed last month when a Cleveland police officer shot him when he mistook the boy’s toy gun for a real weapon. John Crawford, 22, was killed by police in August at a Cleveland area Wal-Mart while he was holding an air rifle. Crawford was shot while doing absolutely nothing illegal. He was not threatening anyone. He was on his phone in Walmart carrying an item that’s sold at the store. Cops showed up and shot him.

So, seeing the T-shirt, Cleveland Police Patrolman Union President Jeff Follmer reacted:

It’s pretty pathetic when athletes think they know the law…They should stick to what they know best on the field. The Cleveland Police protect and serve the Browns stadium and the Browns organization owes us an apology.

So, nice stadium ya got there. Be a shame if something happened to it. The Browns did not apologize.

On to St. Louis, where the police overreacted earlier this month after a few Rams players entered their stadium making the “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture popular with protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. The St. Louis Police Association called the gesture “tasteless, offensive and inflammatory”, asked the Rams team for an apology, and called on the NFL to punish the players who ran on to the field using the “hands up” gesture.

And in New York City, the city’s Patrolman’s Benevolent Association (PBA) have been angered by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s reaction to the killing of Eric Garner. And NYC’s cops are now telling the Mayor to stay away from cop funerals. The PBA distributed a flier to members, blaring: “DON’T LET THEM INSULT YOUR SACRIFICE!” Cops were encouraged to sign and submit the “Don’t Insult My Sacrifice” waiver to ban what they see as a cop-bashing mayor from their funerals. The NYC mayor traditionally attends all funerals for fallen officers.

De Blasio basically said that he didn’t think the NYPD should be chokeholding its citizens to death, a matter that may require a seasoned NYC lawyer Mitchel Ashley or others to intervene for the families left behind. PBA President Patrick Lynch reacted by accusing the mayor of throwing cops “under the bus.”

De Blasio then went further, speaking about his 17-year-old mixed race son Dante:

We’ve had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him…

That was too much, and PBA president Lynch replied: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

We have to teach our children, our sons and our daughters, no matter what they look like, to respect New York City police officers, teach them to comply with New York City police officers even if they think it’s unjust.

Three cities where cops use questionable tactics. Three cities where using those tactics caused controversial deaths. Three cities where the police are thin-skinned when their tactics are questioned.

These thin-skinned reactions seem totally natural, and consistent with a culture of “comply or die”.

And the police union presidents, by jumping on the comments of athletes and the NYC mayor, make a clear case against public-sector unions. They are not there to serve or protect the greater community, they are there to serve and protect their members, right or wrong. The presidents also are making the case that the police are not part of the community, but exist in a world above the community, since they deserve the community’s respect and legal immunity, regardless of their actions.

And it’s remarkable to see just how incredibly insular, tone-deaf and hyper-sensitive these police union presidents, and at least some of their rank and file, seem to be.

In Cleveland, the union president should be more concerned about the recently completed two-year Justice Department study that found the Cleveland police have a pattern of “unreasonable and unnecessary use of force”. Will different tactics emerge as the Cleveland police adapt to their consent decree?

We need to rein in our police. There is way too much “comply or else” out on the streets. We see weapons meant for warfare pointed at people trying to exercise the small shred of their free speech rights that remain. All of these cops who killed in these controversial cases have said that in the same circumstances, they would shoot/choke again.

Who should receive the apologies? Hint: it’s not the cops.

UPDATE:

The column above needs to be updated with the news that on Monday, the Supreme Court decided that our police don’t have to know the law when they stop or detain a citizen. The message is that ignorance of the law is not a barrier to policing. From Think Progress:

There is one simple concept that law students learn in their very first weeks of criminal law class: Ignorance of the law is no excuse. This principle means that when an individual violates the law, it doesn’t matter whether or not they knew what the law said. If it’s a crime, and they are found to have committed the elements of that crime, they are guilty.

But now, that rule doesn’t apply to the police. On Monday, the US Supreme Court in an 8-1 ruling, found that North Carolina cops who pulled over Nicholas Heien for a broken taillight were justified in a subsequent search of Heien’s car, even though the reason he was pulled over was not a violation of the law.

The case involved the 2009 arrest of Nicholas Heien near Dobson, North Carolina. Sgt. Matt Darisse pulled Heien over for having only one working brake light, then found a bag of cocaine while searching his vehicle and charged him with attempted drug trafficking. However, state law only requires motorists to have one brake light working at any time. Heien’s attorneys argued that this made Darisse’s search unlawful. They lost.

So, our Supremes failed to draw a line limiting the scope of police stops, at a time when they are rampant and racially disproportionate. Now, police have more leeway to stop passengers on the road, even in jurisdictions that had previously said cops are not justified when they make mistakes of law.

During the past weeks, we have heard a lot about Grand Jury procedure and the “latitude” our legal system affords police and prosecutors. That latitude apparently now includes their right to be ignorant, of our laws. That goes along with:

• Their latitude in discerning what may be a threat to their person.
• Their latitude in the use of fire-power.

Now, they have latitude not to know the laws they enforce.

Is Our System More Like Huxley, or Orwell?

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. – Judge Learned Hand

Yesterday was Human Rights Day. Maybe, with all that has happened to our human rights in post-9/11 America, it is a good time to look very carefully at the current spate of bad outcomes for people who draw attention from our police. One question is, who still believes in our system? Below is one answer that points to where we are:

Here is the poll question that produced the above response:

How much confidence do you have in police officers in your community to not use excessive force on suspects: A great deal, a fair amount, just some, or very little confidence?

Note that “no confidence” was not an option for your answer. One way to look at the poll is that it shows that our system is working exactly as it is intended to work. From Ian Welsh: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

If a police officer tells you to do anything, you do it immediately. If you do not, anything that happens to you, up to and including death, is your problem. The legal system exists today to ensure compliance.

And if you fail to do what is asked, the police will say, “He/she was non-compliant.” That is a way that this part of the American system performs as designed. It rewards compliance, it identifies those who will not obey laws, or who will fight or organize against the system, and then it works to push them down.

In our system, the wolves and the sheep self-identify, they know which group they belong to. If an injustice is committed, if people protest, the most aggressive protestors, even if not violent, are arrested. Our oligarchy is built on the idea that we must keep people from effectively resisting. More from Ian Welsh:

Any part of the population which is inclined to resist, must be taught that it cannot resist. Get out millions to demonstrate against the Iraq war: it will not work. Protest against police killings of African Americans, it will not work.

Occupy Wall Street? That didn’t work either. The system operates in two ways to repress and control people. America’s system has been 80% Huxley and 20% Orwell for decades, but now, the ratios are approaching 50/50. Let’s unpack the Orwell vs. Huxley worldviews: (h/t highexistence.com)

• Orwell feared the government would ban books.
• Huxley feared that there would be no reason to ban books, because no one would want to read them.
• Orwell feared the government would deprive us of information.
• Huxley feared they would give us so much information that we would be reduced to passivity.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be invisible in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture.
So, we became the trivial culture that Huxley feared. Now, the powers that be are tilting to Orwell to nudge us toward a captive culture.

Huxley’s vision of how human nature or human aspirations could be manipulated for the purposes of the controlling elite rings true in the US. But, Orwell’s depiction of the controlling/interlocking elites of allegedly opposed factions (R’s vs. D’s, government vs. private sector, Wall Street vs. Main Street) is truer than ever before.

So, both are right. Orwell’s fear is already a reality in the East (North Korea, China, Iran) and Huxley’s fear is reality in the West (US, Scandinavia, UK).

Look at how easily the citizenry acquiesced to militarized police in Boston a couple of years ago. Tanks rolled down the streets and officers dressed like they were in Afghanistan demanded that people go inside their houses, for their “safety”. This “army” then searched for the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. This took place over a huge area—whole towns. Was this just the police testing their new toys? Or was it also something darker… like a test of how far the government can go with the Security State? It didn’t hurt that the people got to say they were “Boston Strong” and got the rest of the country to buy in to that.

Power and information are continua. The Orwellian vision tends towards power, while the Huxleyian view tends toward information. However, they are neither separate, nor divisible. Human history has always used deceit as a tool, backed by power, while the biggest bullies have tried to control things since prehistory.

Both manifest legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, wherein the government becomes the largest organized crime syndicate, controlled by the best organized criminals. Welcome to America.

These “crime syndicates” are destroying the foundations of our society, creating the twin near-religions of the State and the Corporation.

The system will not change until the people who want change have enough power to force change. But first, they have to open their eyes to what is happening: Ordinary citizens cannot change the system if the elites don’t agree with the changes the plebes want to make. If they try, they will be arrested or killed at the scene. This must change first.

After that, we can begin working to restore the fundamental systemic change that we brought about during the times of FDR through LBJ.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 7, 2014

Still thinking about the string of police cases, their very similar nature and outcomes. It isn’t a secret that America has a broad, diverse population and a terrible past trying to deal with our diversity.

Our past isn’t going away. Our diverse population isn’t going away either. It’s who we are. We occasionally celebrate it, boasting that we are a melting pot. But, we might be more accurately described as a smorgasbord, not a one pot dinner. That means you can avoid the pickled herring if you don’t like it.

But it’s always rude to ridicule people who like pickled herring. And many of us have moved way beyond rude to outright hostile, and the whole buffet table could be pulled down right in front of our eyes.

The food fight is already in progress, except it has real casualties. We are many kinds of American, and this is our home. Can we find a way to keep it?

It is all about your perspective:

More perspective:

Other perspectives:

Media explains how to spin the unspinable:

Some kids’ Xmas lists are out of reach:

Friday Music Break – December 5, 2014

Thinking today about the fact that the New York grand jury did not indict NYPD’s Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the July 17 chokehold death of Eric Garner, who died gasping “I can’t breathe” while in the custody of police outside a Staten Island convenience store. Here, from the indispensable MuckRock, is a screen shot from NYPD’s use of force policy:

You can read the entire policy at MuckRock.

So today’s question is: Are we having the oft-promised national conversation? Is there a fundamental contempt for the law among the people empowered to enforce it? And have we gone beyond just needing a discussion? We already have policies which should have prevented what happened to Amadou Diallo from happening to Michael Brown or to Eric Garner.

Police officers kill too many black people, and then too often, face little or no accountability, particularly when there’s no video to show America what went down.

To help you meditate over the weekend, here is Randy Newman’s “Jolly Coppers on Parade”. His music is a counterpoint to the images. Call it irony, call it disrespect by demonstrators or by the police, call it whatever you need. Obviously not all cops are like the ones we’re seeing in this video, but we all know they are out there:

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke Wednesday onto the media about the matter, talking about his 16 year old biracial son Dante: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

This is profoundly personal to me…I was at the White House the other day, and the president of the United States turned to me, and he met Dante a few months ago, and he [the president] said, ‘I know you see this crisis through a very personal lens.’ And I said to him, I did.

De Blasio went on to note that he and his wife, Chirlane McCray, who is black, “have had to talk to Dante for years about the dangers that he may face.” More from de Blasio:

Because Chirlane and I have had to talk to Dante for years about the dangers that he may face. A good young man, law-abiding young man who would never think to do anything wrong. And yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face, we’ve had to literally train him—as families have all over this city for decades—in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.

This has been going on for centuries, folks. Throwing both hands up in the air signals either “Don’t shoot” or simply despair for changing the way things are.
It’s impossible to tell the difference anymore.

See you on Sunday.

Ferguson Points to Our Real Problem

This is not a column about Ferguson, except by extension. In August, after Ferguson, the images of cops climbing out of armored vehicles with military-grade weapons caused some in both Houses of Congress to push for change in the program. Lawmakers vowed changes to the 1033 Pentagon program that provides military-grade equipment to local police. The Obama administration called for a policy review of the 1033 program, but on Monday, they backed away from substantive changes to the program.

There was a White House meeting on Monday to address the issues raised by military-style policing and Ferguson. Yet, the evidence shows that the meeting has changed nothing. This was The Guardian’s Monday headline:

Obama resists demands to curtail police militarization calling instead for improved officer training

Mr. Obama did call for a $263m, three-year spending which, if approved by Congress, could lead to the purchase of 50,000 lapel-mounted cameras to record police officers on the job.

Sounds good, but there are 765,000 state & local law enforcement officers in America, so you better hope that you are stopped by one of the 6.3% of local police officers that will have a federally-funded camera three years from now. Oh, and hope that the digital file of your brush with the law hasn’t been accidentally erased.

The Institute for Public Accuracy made comments from Peter Kraska available. Kraska is considered a leading expert on police militarization. He said yesterday: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

From my meeting at the White House, frankly, they — like most political players — were interested in a quick fix. They want to hear that by somehow tweaking the 1033 program (which transfers equipment from the Pentagon to local law enforcement) that they can have an impact. That program is important symbolically, but there’s an entire for-profit police militarization industry that wouldn’t be affected.

We also have to review the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant program which provides far more to local police than does the DOD. DHS grants are lucrative enough that many defense contractors are now turning their attention to police agencies — and some new companies focus solely on selling military-grade weaponry to police agencies who get those grants.

That means we’re now building a new industry whose sole function is to militarize domestic police departments. Which means it won’t be long before we see pro-militarization lobbying and pressure groups with lots of (mostly taxpayer) money to spend to fight just the reforms the Obama administration and some in Congress say are necessary.

Say hello to the military/police/industrial complex.

And why have we entered a time of “shoot first” in our cities? It must be because our police feel that their lives are more in danger than ever. Sorry, that isn’t supported by the facts: The number of law enforcement officers killed as a result of criminal acts:

2004: 57
2009: 48
2012: 49
2013: 27

So, if there are 765k in local law enforcement that equates to a 2013 death rate from criminals of 3 per hundred thousand per year. Also, 2013 incidents are equal to the lowest level since 1887. Yet, nationwide, America’s police kill roughly one person a day:

The Economist, August 2014

And evidence exists that this number is dramatically understated. The FB page, Killed by Police says the number of deaths at the hands of police as reported to them since their launch in May 2013, is 1450. In 1994, Congress instructed the DOJ to “acquire data about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers” and “publish an annual summary”. They have yet to do that. There are over 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the country, yet fewer than 900 report their shootings to the FBI.

Radley Balko in The WaPo concludes that militarization of police and their use of military-style force to suppress protests are bad mistakes. He quotes the Salt Lake City chief of police, Chris Burbank:

I just don’t like the riot gear…Some say not using it exposes my officers to a little bit more risk. That could be, but risk is part of the job. I’m just convinced that when we don riot gear, it says ‘throw rocks and bottles at us.’ It invites confrontation. Two-way communication and cooperation are what’s important. If one side overreacts, then it all falls apart.

We have bulked up America’s police. With DOD’s assistance, they developed units trained and equipped in military-style tactics. They demonstrate a consistent picture of organizations evolving from community-based law enforcement to security services whose primarily focus is maintaining public order. They see protests by minority or politically dissident elements as inherently illegitimate and potentially violent. The police can pretty much do whatever they want, to whomever they want, whenever they want. And it’s gonna be your fault.

Order, not justice is the new goal of our police, a significant shift in emphasis. As such, displays of overwhelming force are considered a logical way to prevent organized protests from happening. If demonstrations occur in spite of police presence, then massive use of force is a logical way to quell its impact and prevent its re-occurrence.

Many things demonstrate the evolution in America of police from “Protect and Serve” to a quasi-military force. This creates an emotional distance from the communities they patrol. We see this most clearly in their casual use of force, often disproportionate to the situation, and with a near-total lack of accountability.

That is an ugly symptom of our Republic’s weakness. The crushing of the Occupy Movement’s camps and the militarized response to the Ferguson protests are the natural outcome of our new policing.

When the country was founded, there were no organized police departments, and there wouldn’t be for about 50 years. Public order was maintained through private means, in worst cases by calling up the militia. The Founders were quite wary of standing armies and the threat they could pose to liberty, but they concluded (reluctantly) that the country needed an army for national defense.

They feared the idea of troops patrolling city streets — a justified fear colored by the antagonism between British troops and residents of Boston in the years leading up to the American Revolution.

The Founders couldn’t have envisioned police as they exist today. It is probably safe to say they’d be appalled at the idea of police, dressed and armed like soldiers, breaking into private homes in the middle of the night, as happens on drug busts on most nights in America. Using militarized police to roust demonstrators would likely be appalling to them as well.

Let’s close with Radley Balko:

We got here by way of a number of political decisions and policies passed over 40 years. There was never a single law or policy that militarized our police departments — so there was never really a public debate over whether this was a good or bad thing.

It’s time to have that debate.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – November 30, 2014

Thought for today: “We are what we repeatedly do.” Aristotle

And some things, we repeatedly do over and over. Take Ferguson, possibly becoming a new Selma. Or take our bad economy, or take Afghanistan.

This month, Americans got some news the media spun as good: The US unemployment rate fell to the lowest level since late 2007. The 5.8% unemployment rate has been seen as proof of economic recovery. But, the jobs created were mostly part-time work, often at low pay. Yes, these jobs provided employment, but did little to improve the overall economy.

As a result, an increasing number of Americans – 800,000 more than last year – have taken a second or third job, according to the BLS. This is Americans taking jobs they don’t really want, unable to pay their bills despite work, and relying on food banks and welfare to make up the difference.

And the problem is growing. In October, about 7 million Americans had part-time jobs but wanted to work full-time. Over 2.1 million Americans rely on two part-time jobs to see them through. Another 4 million have one full-time job and one part-time job, a number that increased by 444,000 since last year.

These workers earn minimum or near-minimum wage, bringing home less than $1,000 a month. In 2013, 468,000 retail workers earned minimum wage or lower. According to Pew Research Center, 1.4 million cashiers – the most common part-time job – earn less than $10.10 an hour. Part-time Walmart workers often bring home between $200 to $400 every two weeks. This is a weak contribution to our economy. These workers, despite being employed, end up relying on government assistance in the form of food stamps and housing subsidies. And when the food stamps run out, they turn to their communities and the local food banks. So, there were Black Friday demonstrations atWalmart stores all across America, and some cities had this response:

Part of your taxpayer dollars are paying Wal-Mart employees the money that the Walton’s refuse to pay them. This isn’t complicated. If you have a job at Wal-Mart and you still need Medicaid, food stamps and subsidized housing, then you aren’t just getting shafted by the Walton’s. You’re also being paid your missing wages by the federal government. Another piece of your tax dollars supported military-style protection at Walmart as a partial response to the Black Friday demonstrations.

As Aristotle said, we are what we repeatedly do. Americans aren’t deadbeats. The Walton’s are the deadbeats.

Black Friday means something radically different to the homeless:

New normal on Thanksgiving:

Life in the Billionaire’s bubble:

Who gets the benefit of the doubt?

No need to attack America:

Today, Limousine Liberals are Neoliberals

Commenting on Monday’s post, blog commenter Terry McKenna closed with:

…we abandoned the worker for the limousine liberal.

You can read Terry’s blog here. Let’s pick up on his thought. “Limousine liberal” is a reference to the wealthy (including celebrities) who try to persuade others to their political and societal points of view. Critics assert that their wealth and status means they are out of touch with the American middle and lower middle classes they purport to support. Interestingly, its first use was in 1969, when a Democrat referred to Republican Mayor John V. Lindsay in his reelection campaign.

While Terry’s point is true, the “liberals” we need to be afraid of are the neoliberals.

“Neoliberalism” is a set of economic ideas that have become widespread since Ronald Regan. The term used rarely used in the US, but you can clearly see the effects of neoliberalism here as the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer. Neoliberalism is not “liberalism” or “liberals”.

“Liberalism” can refer to political, economic, or religious ideas. In the US, political liberalism has largely been a strategy to diminish the impact of potential social conflict that could arise from racial inequality, economic insecurity and lack of political power. It is described to the poor and to working people as a set of progressive values, compared to conservative values.

“Neo” means we are talking about a new form of economic liberalism. The liberal school of economics was based on Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, written in 1776. Smith advocated the abolition of government intervention in economic matters. No restrictions on manufacturing, no barriers to commerce, no tariffs. He said free trade was the best way for a nation’s economy to develop. Such ideas were “liberal” in the sense of no controls. This liberalism encouraged “free” enterprise,” “free” competition — which meant, free for the capitalists to make profits however they wished, using whatever means necessary.

In the 1930’s John Maynard Keynes’s theory challenged economic liberalism as the best policy for growing nations. He said that full employment was necessary for growth, and it could be achieved if governments and central banks intervened when necessary to do what they could to increase employment.

Keynes’s theories had considerable influence on FDR’s New Deal −The belief that government should advance the common good became widely accepted. But, over the last 30 years, the global corporate elite has revived economic liberalism as neoliberalism. That’s why it is “neo” or new. With the rapid globalization of our economy, we see neoliberalism flourishing on a global scale.

The main ideas of neoliberalism include:

1. The Supremacy of the Market: Liberating private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government. Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA, or the coming Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Lower wages by de-unionizing workers. In all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. It’s St. Ronnie’s “supply-side” and “trickle-down” economics − but somehow the wealth never trickles down.
2. Cutting Non-Military Public Expenditures: Reducing the safety net for the poor, reducing expenditures on public education, social services and welfare. Disinvesting in infrastructure (roads, airports, ports, the Internet) in the name of reducing government’s role.
3. Deregulation: Reducing government’s role in regulation of anything that could diminish profits, including protecting the environment and job safety.
4. Privatization: Selling state-owned enterprises, the commons, and provision of some services to private investors. This could include prisons, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, and even fresh water. Although usually promoted in the name of greater efficiency, privatization has mainly had the effect of making the public pay more for its services, while concentrating more wealth in fewer hands.
5. Eliminating the Concept of “The Public Good”: The “public good” is usually an application of a collective ethical notion of “the greater good” in political decision-making. Eliminating it pressures the poorest people in a society to find their own solutions to their lack of health care, education and social security by themselves — then blaming them, if they fail, as “lazy.”

In the US, neoliberalism is working to:

• Weaken social service programs by reducing benefits
• Attack the rights of labor (including immigrant workers)
• Cut back taxes to “starve the beast” of government
• Weaken the political power of the poor and lower middle class

The Republican “Contract” with America in 1994 was pure neoliberalism. Its supporters were attempting to move their agenda by saying it would “get government off our backs.” It worked. From Reagan in the 1980’s through Obama today, the neoliberal agenda has been strengthened. Banks, Big Oil, and the top .01% call the shots.

Neoliberalism and its buddy riding shotgun, neo-conservatism, are designed to assist large, mostly American corporations to harvest the wealth of our nation and that of others, and hide it in tax havens. For the vast majority, neoliberalism has brought lesser financial security, more debt, more underemployment and a smaller voice in government.

So, its neoliberals, not liberals, in those limousines.

Monday Wake Up Call – November 17, 2014

Today’s Monday Wake Up is for the Democratic Party. Trevor LaFauci at The People’s View compared Democrats to a bad first date:

They’re like a bad first date: They know what they want to say, they know they have a lot going for them but when it comes time to talk about themselves they do it meekly and awkwardly, so much so that the other person just assumes this person doesn’t have a lot going for them.

What’s worse is the Democrats try hard not to suck at funds-raising. The Wrongologist’s in-box is crammed with pleas by Democrats for more money, even after the Tuesday That Shall Not Be Named disaster.

As Seth Godin says:

I Need You. Three magic words. They light up our brain, they grab our attention, and they initiate action. But they’re being corrupted by the ease of reach and the desire by some organizations to grow at all costs… Political fundraisers have turned this from an art to a science to an endless whine.

A loyal reader of the Wrongologist, David Price, replied to an email plea for more money from Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, saying that more money wasn’t the answer for Democrats:

Running away from the progressive agenda may have seemed like smart politics, but it turned out to (1) make once attractive candidates look like phonies, (2) make our party seem apologetic for its accomplishments and ashamed of its ambitions, (3) demoralize those progressives who have traditionally identified the Democratic Party as the most effective vehicle for their hopes and (4) arguably have been bad politics after all, even in the shortest-run, most pragmatic, down-and-dirty sense.

What Have We Learned from 13 years of War?

“The Americans have all the clocks…but we have all the time” – Taliban Commander

On Veteran’s Day, the Wrongologist asked himself whether, after the last 13 years of war in the Middle East, conducted by four presidents, with the loss of many thousands of American lives, and the expenditure of trillions of dollars, what have we learned?

Maybe, not enough. So, here are three more credits in the Big Picture:

Syria became the 14th country in the Islamic world that US forces have invaded or occupied or bombed, and in which American soldiers have killed or been killed. And that’s just since 1980. Here’s the list:

Iran (1980, 1987-1988), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014), Somalia (1992-1993, 2007-present), Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-present), Sudan (1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-present), Pakistan (2004-present) and now, Syria.

We need to figure out what we have learned from all of this intervention in the Middle East. We need to total up what we have accomplished in the Middle East, and what a sustained war footing has cost us as a nation. Our veterans and the American people deserve an accounting.

On Tuesday, the NYT had an op-ed by Daniel Bolger, a retired General who fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Bolger wants us to stop saying that the surge won the Iraq War:

The surge in Iraq did not “win” anything. It bought time. It allowed us to kill some more bad guys and feel better about ourselves. But in the end, shackled to a corrupt, sectarian government in Baghdad…the surge just forestalled today’s stalemate. Like a handful of aspirin gobbled by a fevered patient, the surge cooled the symptoms. But the underlying disease didn’t go away. The remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Sunni insurgents we battled for more than eight years simply re-emerged this year as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

Please read Bolger’s book, “Why We Lost – A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars”. Its first paragraph:

I am a United Sates Army general, and I lost the Global War on Terrorism. It’s like Alcoholics Anonymous; step one is admitting you have a problem. Well, I have a problem. So do my peers. And thanks to our problem, now all of America has a problem, to wit: two lost campaigns and a war gone awry.

Americans have the problem, our politicians have the problem, and so do our generals. We think that we can: i) bring stability wherever it is needed, or ii) remake parts of the world in our image. Well, we can’t. And the world doesn’t want us to even try to do it. America has many fine attributes and things to be proud of, but there is a naïve and possibly purposefully ignorant side of the American psyche that gets us into trouble. It is the myth of American exceptionalism. It bleeds into our politics, our popular culture, and much of our military. You only need to look at Tuesday’s Concert for Valor to see how deeply we are infected by the Exceptionalism myth.

We need a debate. What are we doing in the Middle East? Andrew Bacevich, a professor and retired army colonel has said: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

You know, we live in a country where if you want to go bomb somebody, there’s remarkably little discussion about how much it might cost, even though the costs almost inevitably end up being orders of magnitude larger than anybody projected at the outcome. But when you have a discussion about whether or not we can assist people who are suffering, then suddenly we come very, you know, cost-conscious…

Has the Middle East become more or less stable? Has it become more democratic? Is there less anti-Americanism? The answer is “no” to all. So, it is time to recognize that US military intervention in the Middle East has failed us as a primary means of US policy.

Mr. Obama’s bet — the same bet made by each of his predecessors, going back to Carter — is that the application of US military power would solve the dilemma of the moment. All of them were wrong, and so is he. Without a real debate, when the 14th campaign runs its course, a 15th will be waiting.

One thing worthy of debate is whether we should return to a universal service based on a mandatory draft. Richard Nixon replaced the draft with a lottery. That morphed into our all-volunteer armed forces. And thus, the ideal of the citizen/soldier was another casualty of the Vietnam War.

Non-professional soldiers would assure that we debate what we are doing militarily. It would engage the public in our foreign military strategy, unlike their current engagement with an all-professional military.

Will Congress ever agree to a commission to examine our grand strategy in the Middle East? Not without real civilian pressure. Who in their wildest imagination, after Vietnam, would have thought we would commit to a military strategy and a foreign policy that produced the debacle we now have in the Middle East?

Then again, how long will Sisyphus continue to roll that rock up War Mountain?

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Politics of Fear