fatal flaw?

What does it say about America - or democracy in general - that elections can be "bought"? What does that mean? More money spent on a campaign doesn't buy better policies, nor better arguments or presentations, nor better candidates. It simply buys exposure - most importantly on tv - which is inevitably shallow and most often based on manipulating fear and insecurity, making copious use of logical fallacy. Most paid campaign publicity is an insult to the intelligence of the citizenry…and yet it works!

I’d like to put forth a question: is there any way to avoid the sad conclusion that Jefferson and his peers were simply naïve?

Sometimes one runs across the perfect quote. I just did...from a Matt Taibbi piece in Rolling Stone back in 2009:

...in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy...

Stunningly true.

let em eat cake with their tea

As the idiocy goes on - the people behind the NY Times lead online page seem to have completely lost their wits, with ideology-tinged blitherings leading the site for two consecutive days this week (one about Obama's "overreach" when dealing with corporations, the other stupidly wondering just how big is the Gulf oil disaster...smaller than it seems, they would have it)...with all this idiocy, there's always Frank Rich. He came up with this gem today: While the greatest environmental disaster in our history is a trying juncture for Obama, it also provides him with a nearly unparalleled opening to make his and government’s case. The spill’s sole positive benefit has been to unambiguously expose the hard right, for all its populist pandering to the Tea Partiers, as a stalking horse for its most rapacious corporate patrons. If this president can speak lucidly of race to America, he can certainly explain how the antigovernment crusaders are often the paid toadies of bad actors like BP. Such big corporations are only too glad to replace big government with governance of their own, by their own, and for their own profit — while the “small people” are left to eat cake at their tea parties.

Damn straight.

Once again, more neo-liberal foolishness from the NY Times. Today's lead "news analysis" is entitled "Obama's Twist of BP's Arm stirs debate on Frequent Tactic" - that frequent tactic being the exercise of public power over corporate incompetence and malfeasance. The writer - David Sanger, cites several examples of this "frequent tactic" - firing the CEO of General Motors after it was saved from bankruptcy by public funds, forcing Chrysler into a merger (again, after public wealth, or at least the chimera of public wealth saved it), curbing executive pay at banks that were bailed out (the overreach!...the overreach!)...all of this, in fact, being put forth in that irritating way the NYT has of displaying clear ideology in the guise of "objective reporting".

Finally Obama makes some moves - timid given the situation - to stop corporate power from pushing the USA off the edge towards total decline. And this raises the question of government overreach. This after weeks of articles analyzing the perception of Obama as weak and unable to tackle the barrage of problems facing the nation.

It is almost psychedelic that so many blithering idiots on the right accuse the NYT of having a "liberal bias"...meaning, of course, a left-leaning bias. Putting "neo" in front might save these people from their ignorance...if indeed they knew what neo-liberal means.

Textbook Case

A rapacious private sector (in this case that large part of it comprising the financial "industry") is unleashed from intelligent regulatory control. Over the course of a decade it artificially creates a massive amount of false wealth (for which it charges handsomely) that inevitably leads to an acute, worldwide economic crisis caused by the inevitable disappearance (or rather, realization of the non-existence) of that false wealth. Said crisis has a profound effect on the public finances of countries throughout the world - not solely due to severe drops in tax revenues (caused, again, by private sector mismanagement), but in part by the questionable practices of large financial players doing business with governments. In order to sanitize their budgets, governments must make substantial cuts in social spending, while increasing taxes where politically viable (read: social services, govt. employee salaries, etc.).

This then leads to an outpouring in the corporate media of questioning the viability of the "welfare state". Somehow, the evident failure of the "market" to properly and intelligently manage world finances is totally ignored, with the blame placed on public sector inefficiency (see the NY Times, http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/the-twilight-of-the-welfare-state/?scp=1&sq=welfare%20state&st=Search for a good example).

Clearly a textbook case of ideology (in this case, neo-liberalism) trumping reason and evidence.

Demonstrably false

Today's NY Times ran a front-page (or rather home-page) piece, the headline for which is demonstrably false. The headline claims that the "U.N. Climate Panel and Chief Face Credibility Siege".

Hmm, well that does sound like important news, given that these were the folks who shared the Nobel Prize some years back with Al Gore, and are probably the most public face for climate change science in the world. If they are facing a "Credibility Siege", well then, the reasonable reader might surmise, perhaps the credibility of global warming science should be placed into doubt.

A quick read of the piece, shows, however, that the "siege" is coming from a few far-right corporate news sources in Britain, from one Christopher Monckton, "a leading climate skeptic" (what makes him "leading", it would seem, is the propensity of these corporate news outlets to quote him), and from an organization called the Science and Public Policy Institute - clearly another cooked "news and opinion" factory paid for by the industries to be affected by any climate change legislation. In short, spin factories twisting the truth and contaminating the public debate, working directly for large economic interests.

It doesn't take many minutes of online research to determine this. However, the spin-makers know that this will not commonly happen - that this "news", blessed with the imprimatur of the NY Times, will be picked up by the rest of the corporate media and spread like wildfire - not to mention serving as more fuel for the idiocy-spouting hate-mongers of Fox, etc.

If you read into the 8th or 9th paragraph of the Times piece, it does give Dr. Pachauri (the head of the Panel "under siege") a chance to defend himself from the perverted smears being thrown at him. But in general, the story is a great example of the typical twisted use of "objective" journalism. Objective? Bullshit. Absolutely atrocious (and dangerous!) journalism by the so-called "liberal" (huh?) NY Times.

shit

I’m not keen on ascribing grand inevitabilities to the human condition, nor all but the most basic fixed qualities to human “nature”. After all, our most outstanding quality is that which places us in contrast to nature. “Man-made” tends to signify as an antonym to “natural”.

Why then, do I feel compelled to note the maxim that shit always rises to the top when thinking about the good folks acting as executives at Goldman Sachs or AIG, etc. Or about those smooth talkers and quick thinkers working as lobbyists for some amoral power group or another.

After floating up there a while, the shit does inevitably decompose and sink to the bottom. But alas, this metaphor is beginning to decompose itself…

Shame

Is there...has there ever been?...a more nauseating politician on the national scene than Joseph Lieberman?

I doubt it.

Men like this are the catalysts behind the decline and fall of the country where I was born.

Shame on this man.

Shame.

History outdoes parody

So in the end, it would appear that the Honduran "business class" (the euphemism most commonly used in the corporate press) has succeeded in simply removing an inconvenient president - inconvenient because he had an attack of scruples and social solidarity. Granted, it wasn't like the good old days, when such a leader would simply be killed, but effective in the long run. Send the military to carry the man out of the country in his pajamas, refuse to seriously negotiate with him or his representatives, a bit of the old "mano duro" applied to his supporters, and then a sham election that supposedly "brings back democracy". Impressive.

More impressive still was the Obama administration's (and State Department's) handling of the issue. Not heavy-handedly pro-coup as in the past...no, now we are supposedly in a new epoch. But even with mild pressure from Washington, the coup organizers would have had to yield. The Administration's utterly disingenuous response? - "you call the US imperialistic all these years, and now you want us to intervene in the internal politics of a sovereign nation...this is a problem for the Hondurans".

Right. For one of the first times in history, Washington has a chance to truly and effectively apply pressure to "defend democracy" in Latin America, and they are suddenly overwhelmed with concern for a nation's sovereignty.

And so does history once again outdo parody. The great "defender of democracy", the country that cynically and falsely employed that rationale for decades in support of tyranny, suddenly loses its taste for democracy-defending when the use of such a term could legitimately be applied. And this under Obama.

¡Hay que joderse!

A few years have passed now since the wave of anti-religious books written by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, et. al. appeared. Those works were guaranteed to stir up a sizable reaction - and indeed they have. In fact, the media is now trending towards the religious faith defenders - most of whom, curiously, do not seem to be conservative religious reactionaries. In general, rather, they seem to fall into the politically moderate-to-progressive camp, and may range from left-wing Christians to "tolerant" agnostics. All seem to conclude that Dawkins and the others offer simple, reductionist arguments, and many seem to be miffed by the atheists' apparent disrespect for people of faith. Given that "respect for people's faith" is a well-embedded part of what is considered to be "acceptable discourse" (except when that faith leads people to take out tall buildings), the media are naturally drawn to these "defenders of faith".

Now it is time for people of reason to respond. I would like to go into this in more detail in the future. For now, I'd like to quote a fellow named Troy Jollimore, from a book review on Truthdig: "In her more radical mode, Armstrong wants to preserve religious talk from questions of truth—in our ordinary sense of “truth”—by draining them of content. But when we lose content we do not only lose truth, we lose meaning as well. The apophatic retort to the skeptic, then, seems to reduce to: “You don’t know what you’re talking about—indeed, I don’t even know what I’m talking about. So how dare you contradict me!”

Here he is referring to the tired argument that religious concepts are simply beyond our understanding - humans cannot grasp the ways of God - that faith defenders offer when confronting reasonable challenges to the inconsistencies and absurdities abounding in all the major faiths. Thus, Dawkins etc. are "simplifying" the issue by ignoring the ineffable nature of the subject. One cannot deny what one cannot understand.

One is tempted to bang one's head against the wall when confronting such claims. That's why I find Jollimore's words so enjoyable...

Krugman begins his column in the NYT today as such: "At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program — but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, “wasn’t having any of it.”

Over the years I have encountered a wide range of willful ignorance. Usually such ignorance is related to something quite close to home - one's own behaviour or history (selective memory), the tendency to blind oneself to the negative qualities of loved ones, etc. Second-order examples would include religious and/or nationalistic beliefs that lead one to willfully ignore real-world evidence.

I am, however, astounded by the breathtaking ignorance shown by so much of the U.S. population concerning health care reform. This embarrassing blindness extends from the stop-think dismissal of national health programs in the rest of the industrialised world ("socialist...leading to lines and delayed care...lack of choice...inefficient,etc.") to the current proposals for U.S. reform. A sorry spectacle - millions upon millions of people frothily arguing against programs that would directly benefit them and their loved ones. Opposition to any changes in the current system is understandable from the elite - those wealthy enough to fly over the health care mess and not have their lives conditioned by health care worries, or those who are, and have been enriching themselves at the expense of the not-so-fortunate masses (the entire health care industry). One can understand the reticence of congress members (who belong to the above groups) to stand up to major sources of campaign funding. The moronic posturing, lies and manipulation of Fox news (and similar) is also comprehensible.

But regular Americans?

Yet another hang-over from the Cold War years. Anti-communism as a religion has had a remarkable effect on today's realities, even decades after that absurd ideological overreach has been able to work off any kind of foil. The entire worldwide radical Islam movement (and, consequently, the perversion of western democracy as a reaction) is clearly rooted in "Western" efforts to stimulate and support such movements against "Soviet" interests. Irrational anti-communism also provided political cover and fuel for the insane neo-liberal excesses that led to today's (and, alas, it would seem, tomorrow's) financial problems (in many ways, but most notably in the deregulatory excesses witnessed from the early 80's to last year).

Finally, the anti-communist overreach also created a Frankenstein of anti-government sentiment in the U.S. Just how far will it go, I wonder.

It would seem logical and quite in keeping with "nature" that the wealthy and the elite would find myriad ways of justifying greed and the lack of solidarity. It makes little sense for the powerful to feel guilt over their position (indeed, such guilt or shame is what keeps a multitude of capable people from accumulating such wealth). It also seems fitting that greed-justifying writers, intellectuals and politicians (who may or may not directly belong to the economic elite itself) would be handsomely rewarded, lavishly praised and supported in many ways by that elite. John Kenneth Galbraith famously wrote in this regard that the modern conservative was engaged in the pursuit of finding a superior moral justification for greed.

"Justify our place atop the pyramid...even if our official, religious-based morality reminds us that there is something terribly wrong about large accumulations of wealth in the face of extreme poverty and suffering", they might say... If only to alleviate their consciences and allow them to feel good about themselves. But the usefulness of greed justification obviously goes beyond helping the rich sleep better. When Naomi Klein insists that Milton Friedman's economic theories were quite "profitable" (indeed they were!), she is pointing out that not only are such intellectuals well-rewarded for their work, but that the elite they serve are also freed to accumulate far greater wealth and power. For this to occur, the greed-justification theories must also somehow appeal to the much larger numbers of poor and middle-classes.

Now this is quite a trick, given that the economic policies (including a war-like foreign policy) that free the elite to accumulate more wealth almost universally work at the expense of the poor and middle classes. The question for the powerful has always been: how convince the overwhelming majority of people to wholeheartedly support our right to cynically exploit them - even to the point that they are willing to kill and die for this right?

And that brings us back to yesterday's closing rant about the current anti-taxation movement. The Obama adminstration is working to lower taxes for the vast majority of Americans, and raise taxes on the wealthy (to a point that would bring them close to what they were under that great socialist Reagan). So we are treated to the spectacle of thousands (what some columnists are calling an Astroturf, rather than grassroots, movement - given that it would seem to be rather manipulated and artificial, the manufacture of consent, as Chomsky put it) of protesters out in the streets, in the guise of "patriots", many working and middle class people crying out against raising taxes on the rich. 

What?

...ok...so they're idiots. But all those folks working in the corporate media who are rousing them to action? The Fox News contingent? Are those people real? Did they come from outer space to fuck with our heads (the graphics and production style would seem to support this theory). In any case, as an athiest, this pains me...but since I simply cannot imagine what would make so many people work so hard towards such an utterly fucked-up end...I'm left with begrudgingly having to admit of the existence of evil. Only evil could let such things happen...But what the hell is evil? Is it possible to define that concept without immersing oneself in the religions again?

looking foward cross-eyed

Watching the television news at lunchtime…hmmm…a case of willing suspension of disbelief?...a cynical exercise in ironic distance?...well, here the satellite company offers quite a full menu, from Spanish public TV news to the Spanish version of CNN (much higher quality than the international version), to BBC international (better still)…down to the weirdly hallucinogenic, futuristically frightening, empirical-proof-of-the-existence-of-evil Fox News (apart from the twisted, perverted, hateful politics, it’s just so damn ugly!), to the international French news channel (quite good), to Al Jazeera (in general, journalistically outstanding)…

In any case, we come upon the news that the Obama administration, after fully admitting to the prisoner treatment atrocities and war crimes committed by the CIA, has also fully absolved all those involved in said crimes. No point in dwelling over the past, they say. Better to look to the future. I’ll bet those folks who sat on the hot seat at Nuremberg before swinging on the noose wish the world would have been so “forward looking” back then.

This was followed, almost in sequence, by another piece concerning the Administration’s approach to Cuba…loosening up a bit…ah, but of course no thought about lifting the embargo. Hell no. As mentioned by an Administration spokesperson, the Cuban government must make some human rights progress first. Now, while the (CNN) newscaster was reading this news, I watched her face. I may have been imagining this, but she seemed to go just ever so slightly cross-eyed. Talk about cognitive dissonance! Or, ahem…was there? Is the world so utterly stunned, dazed, atontado, ajillipollado…so as not to be knocked on the head by this painful piece of hypocrisy? And this not from the Bush Administration any more…but from the sainted Obama Administration. ¡Hay que joderse!

 

By the way, has anyone noticed that the project (best illustrated by the Republican Party in general, Fox News and other corporate media giants, etc., and many others) which involves trying to convince the lower-to-middle classes (the massive majority) that their interests are the same as the ultra-rich -  just keeps going on and on? I’ve always been amazed by this process. The elite have always done this - how else is less than 10 percent of the population going to lord over the other 90 percent?. But since the age of Reagan and Thatcher, I can’t help but marvel at how absurd and preposterous this project has been and continues to be. The latest example are these anti-taxation “Tea Parties”, organized, it would seem, by Fox News itself, but with substantial support from a good number of blithering idiots.  I don’t know…my bafflement and rage are quite beyond words for today…better to take up the subject in another entry.    

ontological rant in the court of the imagination

The defendant stood before the judge in the hushed courtroom. He began speaking.

“I plead not guilty, your honor. In fact, I cannot but plead not guilty. My “not guilty plea” is nothing but the product of neuronal activity within my head. Even though I do feel a bit guilty about having caused the death of my loved one with that chop stick, that guilt has no practical effect on my plea. Even though I would have preferred to avoid her death, I had no direct control over the act. In fact, every time I am using the word “I” in this sentence, it is only for semantic reasons, for there is no “I” in the sense that the court commonly understands it. There is only an agglomeration of cells functioning as a unit, said unit representing nothing more than the gross accumulation of causes and effects within, and without. In fact, as I shall show, the movements associated with the physical entity labeled “I” were nothing more than the utterly unavoidable series of causes and effects, emanating from outside this body, setting off the pertinent internal string of causes/effects, issuing in an overall external physical act which, in sum, was but another cause to the effect, or consequence, under the court’s current consideration.

I would like to remind the court of a number of issues pertinent to my defense. A cursory look at the legal record, as well as at prevailing punitive law, shows that society grants the existence of different levels of responsibility for the acts of its members. Different punishments are meted out for taking another life, depending on what the court assumes to be the degree of intent of the killing. Courts look upon premeditation as proof of the highest degree of intent, of responsibility. From there we move down to premeditation with certain levels of just cause (self-defense, hunger, etc.). Next on the descending scale of responsibility are killings done in a state of passion. From there we go down to the myriad levels of insanity pleas. Finally, there are killings that can be said to be entirely accidental. All imply a number of elements – a sense of control, independent will, a clearly defined and existent self – in formulating the level of intent and responsibility. Note that at the lower end of this scale, the element of choice, of individual, clear-headed decision making leading to the act, becomes less and less applicable…until, in the case of proven and unavoidable accident, it is inapplicable altogether.
I would like to submit to the court that the same lack of individual will, or free choice, applies also to the most cold-headed, thoroughly deliberated murder. I challenge the court to identify, in a pertinent and rationally acceptable manner, the element that distinguishes murder in the first degree from accidental homicide. The court will no doubt bring up the autonomous self, the “free will”. But can the court really show physical evidence of such phenomena? I claim that it cannot. Contemporary brain science is revealing the physiological functioning of the brain, and of its relation to bodily movement – or behavior. What we can clearly demonstrate is a highly complex system of neurological, electro-chemical activity, a universe of causes and effects. Yet there is nothing in science that has clearly identified the active, individual, “morally autonomous agent” within all this.
If I could claim that I was clinically insane at the time of the killing, you would lower my sentence. If I could claim that another person literally forced me to shove that chop stick up the nose of my wife, you would lower my sentence, or even declare me innocent.
If believe that I need no such countervailing claims. The body that is identified as “me” did indeed commit the act in question. However, you are unable to reasonably show that there is a “moral agent” within this body to assume guilt. The court has only shown a series of causes and effects.”

The judge looked on in increasing annoyance, as did the jury. “Sir,” said the judge, “do you really expect us to take that argument seriously?”
“I’m sorry, your honor”, replied the accused. “I was unable to argue in any other way. I am thoroughly determined to argue against free-will…I am thoroughly determined…it…I…the force…oneness…”
The eyes of the accused began to dart back and forth across the courtroom, as he quickly lost composure.
He continued, his voice growing louder and louder. “There is no I!...and all of you!!...there is no “you”…you fools!!...” A bit of spittle began to form on his lips. “Everything you do is determined…everything!!...it is all laid out…it is all there…!....IT IS WRITTEN!!!!

He was wrestled to the floor by several guards as the last words echoed throughout the chamber.

“We hold the defendant guilty as charged.”

I scream, you scream, we all scream for torture

So upcoming Attorney General Eric Holder becomes the first “official” (i.e., law-relevant) voice to admit that water-boarding is torture. A nice breath of fresh air, one would think. As the Times reporter puts it, “In the view of many historians and legal authorities, Mr. Holder was merely admitting the obvious.”

Right. Making people undergo atrocious physical and psychological suffering is torture. What do you know. After 8 years of reality-denial and the weird kind of reality-derangement of the ruling party in the U.S., finally, it would appear, we have people who tilt ever so slightly more towards respect for the empirical.

Ah, but let us remember, Times reporter Scott Shane writes, all the problems such an admission of reality entails…Ah yes, the stickiness…the problems. As in, employees of the United States government, with orders directly from the White House, committed empirically verifiable war crimes. War crimes – according to the treaties and laws to which the U.S is itself a signatory.

All this, of course, making people squirm…one could feel the reporter squirming for them…

Now, in any decent world, criminal investigations would immediately be initiated, very possibly involving most of the highest members of the Bush administration, and very possibly resulting in war crime prosecution, and prison for these people.

The establishment squirms…

Why do they squirm, one might wonder? Apart from the practical political inconveniences of seeing establishment figures treated as war criminals, I think the squirming results from a certain ambiguity about the acceptability of torture itself. In general, many if not most people believe that torture is an acceptable tool for getting information. Apart from the fact that most professional interrogators deny this, I think that most laymen intuitively believe that anything is justifiable if it may possibly uncover information leading to the avoidance of other violent acts against innocents. Ah, yes, when directly questioned, most will not admit this…especially anyone in positions of legal responsibility… Thus the absurd rhetorical twists and turns by officials when testifying about water boarding…thus the many statements by Bush and others in his administration that “we do not torture”. Of course they were fucking torturing!...as Cheney, to his minimal credit, now openly admits.

Frankly, I think that many in the power structure in Washington either openly or secretly believe in the acceptability, indeed necessity, of torture. And thus, the squirming…even on the part of the “liberal” NY Times…

This rather barbaric stance spurts out openly when the perpetrators of war crimes are not Americans – witness the almost universal Congressional support for Israel’s latest clampdown in Gaza – a sentiment that runs against the almost universal condemnation Israel is receiving around the world. Unqualified support for absolute barbarism is easy when others are engaged in it…no realty-rearrangement or violence against logic/semantics necessary. This is what the pride- and religion-drunk idiots of Hamas don’t seem to get. Neither the rulers in Israel, nor their North American patrons, could give a flying fuck about war atrocities if they can in any way be justified by “protecting the country from enemies”. And those idiotic missiles Hamas seems intent on shooting at Israelis are just the ticket.

One wonders why the world bothers with such concepts as “international law”, “human rights”, etc. Obviously, when push comes to shove, or when it is in the interest of some powerful elite, rights and law are quickly forgotten.

Oh that the new political power structure in Washington were able to investigate, prosecute and punish those who spent the better part of 8 years defecating on US and international law, on the US Constitution…the same power structure that gave carte blanche to those whose fevered greed and cynicism led to such wreckage in the US and world economy…ah, sweet dreams…

Alter-xmas

Well, it’s that time of year again…the time to celebrate something other than miracle, mystery and authority, guilt and submission (ie., xmas)…

 

This year I hereby proclaim the 1^st of February as “Celebration of Reality” day, wherein we celebrate the plenitude of life as we and those around us actually experience it. Wherein we celebrate all the joys and sorrows, all the triumphs and defeats, all the love and loathing that life offers us. Wherein we celebrate ourselves as decent beings, based on our acts, based on wanting to fulfill our desires without doing harm to anyone – at least as far as we are able. Wherein we realize that we are all worthy and good people deserving of love and respect – as long as we do not lose that worthiness through our own selfishness. That we start out neither better or worse, superior or inferior to anyone else. And wherein we realize that we do not have to invent whole other stories and explanations based on metaphysical fantasy and impossible-to-understand gods who tower above us and make us feel small, afraid, and bad about ourselves – not to mention hateful and distrustful towards others with other kinds of “god-stories”.

 

In short, “Celebration of Reality” day is a day for feeling ok with ourselves, with our world, in spite of all its faults and shortcomings, a day for reaffirming to ourselves, each and every one of us, our desire to be as decent and loving as possible, while recognizing ignorance and injustice, and being willing and able to work against it.

Dustbins and Weathermen

Ah, history will be the final judge...but who will judge history? Which ideas are in the "dustbin of history", preserved only by those guttersnipe thinkers who find truth in officially discarded concepts... and which ideas sit upon the mantle, nobly looking down upon those intellectual guardians of what the comfortable classes call "reality"?

The Times recently ran two illuminating pieces in this regard. The first was a yet another look at Milton Friedman’s work – a kind of half-hearted attempt by the “paper of record” to recognize the general world-wide rejection of free-market absolutism…although in the end, the article leaves us with the feeling that Friedman’s beautiful truth – that the “market”, on its own (read: those with economic power) will always function more effectively than an economy subject to government oversight and regulation - will in the end prevail. Poor Milton, the article suggests, would be filled with sorrow to see, after a few little economic storms, how quickly the world resorts to government interference.

Well, to hell with that. From the beginning, free-market doctrine was no more than a throwback to an earlier stage of capitalism, when crafty and unscrupulous elites erected massive fortunes on the backs of millions, and finally drove their own economic system into the ground…to a time before capitalism itself was saved by more intelligent and far-seeing leaders. The application of this “neo-liberalism” from the 70’s onward has caused untold suffering around the world, while leading to greater accumulations of wealth (and, importantly, media power) in the US, Europe, and among the tiny elites of developing countries. And finally it has come home to roost in Friedman’s home country, as first seen in the savings and loan scandal of the 80’s, driven clearly home by the atrocity of New Orleans during and after Katrina, and finally convincing even the Wall Street Journal types that uh, ok, government intervention was needed, now, to stave off a complete financial collapse. Free-market discipline for the mass of citizens, indeed, but instant government bail-out when the financial elite fuck up, which they inevitably do…

In short, it is quite difficult to understand how anyone at this point can still accept Friedman’s basic view. It simply goes against logic, common sense and repeated experience throughout history. Economic power, when left to itself, serves its own interests. And why not? That is indeed its purpose and goal – to increase itself, as fast as possible and to the greatest possible extent. Good arguments can be made that a corporation is not acting properly when it makes decisions based on any other criteria than that of the maximization of its profit, of the value of its shares (and of course of the pornographic remuneration amounts to its chief executives). Corporate social responsibility, corporate spending on “culture”, corporate charity, etc., corporate self-policing in terms of the social impact of its operations (fair pay to employees, workplace safety, local investment, environmental responsibility, financial prudence, etc.) – all of this makes sense only if these activities somehow reflect on the bottom line. And thus, we see what we see – a world in which humanity holds the key to universal well-being through reason, technology and cooperation, yet a world that plays host to massive unnecessary suffering, poverty, exploitation and injustice. The unfettered (or less-than-effectively-regulated) “free market” is driving us directly over the edge at breakneck speed. And one has to have those ideological blinders firmly locked in place to not see this…

What could possibly account for the willful wearing of such blinders?...one quite useful explanation can be found, if we are willing to go back to that “dustbin of history”…or as that haughty imbecile who also appears in the Times, William Kristol, put it the other day, to a book “that now must lie, unopened and un-remarked upon, on an awful lot of rec-room bookshelves.” He is, of course, referring to Marx, the memory of whom he hilariously resurrects when addressing Obama’s supposed elitism (old cold-warriors never die, they just get more and more absurd). Quickly taking the cue and acting on ideological reflex, Kristol equates Obama’s comment on how economically oppressed citizens “cling to guns or religion” with Marx’s famous “religion is the opiate of the people” line. Fantastic. Tacking Obama to the (albeit quite accurate) words of the preacher of his church (what the fuck?), and linking Obama with an ex-member of the Weatherman…hmmm, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing here…when all else fails, might as well red-bait the guy…even 20 years after the end of the cold war. For Christ sakes, have they no shame? Well, uh, no. They don’t. And the egregious Hillary is as bad or worse than the Republicans on the matter.

One looks upon all of this, at the state of political discourse in the U.S., and is simply dumbfounded. Why has the “official line”, or those parameters within which mass media discourse can occur, become so utterly incapable of seeing, hearing…feeling? Well, the Marxist would not find this at all difficult to understand. Elite power views things in its own interest. And elite power also has the ability to greatly influence, if not completely form, mass opinion. From this perspective, of course free-market doctrine makes so much sense – what elite wouldn’t want complete freedom to do what he or she wants with their power? What elite doesn’t trust his or her own judgment in doing things right? Governmental interference in the economic activities of the elite, by definition, goes against those interests.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how utterly idiotic it is to remove all kinds of objective (public) power from economic activity. It sounds and feels good to those whom that kind of freedom serves. And they are the very people who have the power of influencing mass opinion.

Yeah, Marxism can be pretty useful in understanding things. Unlike the irrational drivel that passes for admirable economic theory under the name of Friedman-inspired free-market doctrine.

Hyprocrisy and the Horror

As much as I try to defend "democracy" against the dismissals of my "anarchist" friends here in Spain, I am left continually aghast at what I see in the major political campaigns. The latest angst-inducing affair, of course, is the volcanic eruption of idiocy and perverse hypocrisy set off by Barak Obama's comments on the Democrats' problems with white, working-class voters. In answering why these people tend to vote again and again for manipulative, cynical politicians who then proceed (since the Reagan years until today) to ream them all up the ass economically, Obama reasonably explained that they were"bitter over their economic circumstances, and cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them". Well for fuck's sake, how true. Yet suddenly we've had to withstand an onslaught of judgments by comfortable politicians and journalists, accusing Obama of "elitism". And we've got the horrendous Hilary Clinton blathering on about her family's deep, sincere faith, about her fond memories of daddy showing her how to shoot a gun...etc. Absolutely nauseating. If there were any doubt before, none is left. If the Democrats are pathetic enough to nominate this woman, I will not be able to vote....this after spending the better part of last year pleading with my skeptical Spanish friends to...vote!

Writers refer to certain groups as "people of faith". Here they are referring, of course, to those who openly profess their religious belief. The contrary, logically, atheists, agnostics, etc., would be, I suppose, "people of no faith" (o ye of no faith!). Those of us who "believe" in what we see, hear, feel, taste, smell...in information that we read or are told which conforms to certain criteria of "believability" - acceptable (reasonably believable) empirical evidence presented in a reasonable manner so as to hang together (long live Mr. Rorty) in a reasonable way... are the "faithless"...No need for faith here, apart from a certain notion of "faith" in the workings of our brains in relation to the outside world, and in the apparent congruity between how my brain relates to that outside world, and how others' do.

People of faith appear to accept certain propositions (existence of God, in certain manifestations, with a certain cosmological, ethical, etc. system) with little to no evidence. Indeed, it seems that precisely the lack of clear empirical evidence and logical presentation/argument is what makes this particular acceptance something called "faith".

We are living within a macro-system (speaking especially in terms of economics) that would seem to be "reality", not "faith" based. Yet, upon an even cursory overview of the current situation, one can easily wonder...what the fuck are these people in suits all over the world thinking? Great gushes of wealth are spreading throughout the world (while still filling the bank accounts of those crafty slithering amoral freaks on top), enough to create ever-new markets of masses ravenous for the latest manifestations of "wealth"...based almost entirely on financial structures without a solid material base. The international financial system reaches a point of deep crisis, thanks to the need to fill the market with a glut of baseless credit...and the central banks simply shrug it all off, saying no problem, here's another 30 billion here, another 35 billion there. Huh? Do they have secret warehouses of this shit?

"A faith based economy". God help us.