old new lefty's Open Salon Blog

Our Incredible Shrinking President

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:05:27 -0400

It seems like a long time since January, 2009 when Barack Obama was inaugurated after a campaign of promising that he would be a combination of Abraham Lincoln and FDR to where we are today. A large percentage of the population's disappointment has been palpable. With the exception of Obamacare, it seems that rarely has so much been promised and so little has been delivered.

The trifecta of outrage over the "scandals" of Benghazi and the IRS, coupled with the real scandal of the Justice Department's two month snooping of the Associated Press has certainly diminished President Obama's reputation in the eyes of the American public. But the problems of the Obama administration can in fact be laid at the doorstep of a completely different, more complex trifecta.

A good part of Obama's problems certainly lie with the man himself. A wise man once told me that the hallmark of individual presidencies was the style and direction that they gave to America during their term in office. Another, less charitable evaluation of leadership states that the qualities of the leader depend on his/her underlying psychoses that inevitably out themselves in government policy and actions. And I would lay a good part of Obama's problems to his political background.

First, despite the propaganda, Obama came from a very elite, well connected family. His grandmother was the most powerful female bank executive in Hawaii, and she made sure that he went to the most elite school on the islands. When you follow up his college experience at Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard -- he certainly wasn't learning auto repair at a community college.

And when you look at Timothy Geithner and Robert Gates as his first two cabinet appointments, you can get a pretty good idea of whose interests he was most interested in serving from the very beginning. I hate to disabuse any serious Obama lover, but POTUS #44 has always been relatively comfortable in coddling banksters and defense contractors. And as I alluded to in my previous post -- that's the way the US government is structured.

Record Wall Street profits coupled with a stagnant Main Street economy will be an Obama legacy, but there's more than his elitism at play in his administration -- there's the Mayor Daley style leadership that he's demonstrated again and again and again. I had hoped that the good Mayor Daley would be operational for the Obama administration, but instead there was the day to day Daley style of governance that political scientists call transactional politics.

Transactional politics refers to the style of leading by being the little man on the wedding cake, and in many respects that style of governance has become more and more lethal as time goes on as government complexity gets worse and worse along with increasing income inequality and political influence in this country. By taking credit for what comes percolating up from below in the plutocracy or bureaucracy, a transactional politician can announce great changes. But he is ultimately only a final rubber stamp on a deal done long ago in some backroom.

Obama's transactional politics has shown itself in so many ways, from the surge in the Iraqi War (documented by Bob Woodward in his book) to the government's obsession with government surveillance that has seen the national security establishment metastisize since 9/11 to Bradley Manning just to name a few issues.

But there have been other crimes as well. President Obama's first day policies on Guantanamo and the ongoing scandals of the shabby treatment that returning veterans have had to endure by ineptness of the Veterans Administration are symptomatic of another Obama flaw. Unlike Bill Clinton (who actually made promises and did everything he could to keep them) -- the Obama administration has made big promises. And time has passed. And the issue disappears -- until it resurfaces again as a bigger, more persistent problem.

The fault of the Obama administration here is in the lack of competency and tenacity of the middle and lower levels of White House staffers. Perhaps because they were baptized in such an intensive campaign experience in 2008, I would characterize Obama staffers as being perhaps too political and not wonkish enough. The so-called massaging of Benghazi after the fact has supplied needless ammunition to the rabid, right wing conspiracy that has inflicted itself on the body politic through the Republicans in Congress.

But as the latest Newsweek on Guantanamo has pointed out, once Obama made a pronouncement on the issue, professional ass covering and bureaucratic infighting among the non-political ranks made sure that nothing happened. And there was no one in the White House staff to hold Obama's feet (and the feet of the staffers) to the fire on doing serious follow through.* A more ballsy leader in the Oval Office with a less transactional approach towards governing might have actually made a policy difference in those 1 out of 10 times when such a stance could have actually had an impact.

And unfortunately for Obama, the third leg of the trifecta has been the intransigence, demagoguery, and underlying racism of Congressional Republicans, the Tea Party, and the great white right wing conspiracy. As the House reaches towards its 40th symbolic vote on the repeal of Obamacare, Republican bad behavior is pretty much self-explanatory as far as I'm concerned.

There are several scenarios as to how all of this can play out over the next three years. First, things can continue just the way they've been. With the Republicans holding the majority of seats in the House that they do, I'd give better odds on the Chicago Cubs winning their division than seeing Democrats take back the House in 2014. Just as the George W. Bush administration only lasted eight years, although it wasn't forever -- it sure felt like it.

A second scenario is for the world economy to suffer another, greater meltdown between now and January, 2017. Given the various dangers lurking beneath the surface and our Death Star global economy, a real Great Depression II can't be ruled out of the question.

But the best scenario was found in the headline of the Huffington Post today. It's been revealed that President Obama has been talking privately about going "Bulworth" for his remaining time in office. If you don't know what that 1998 movie was all about, I strongly recommend that you go to the Huff Po article.

Although the odds against Obambi doing something like this are huge -- if he were to do this, it would certainly be a game changer! It would make a lot of people very angry at him, but his stature might start growing dramatically again with the majority of the American public.

* Valerie Jarrett, where are you???

Let's Throw the Constitution Out the Window!

Sun, 12 May 2013 01:05:35 -0400

Very few people openly advocate this in Washington, DC because it's important to pay at least lip service to the old document in our late Brezhnev period of empire. Massive levels of government spying on all of us must be justified because after all -- we are engaged in a global war on terror. And we must limit the freedom of citizens to exercise their voting privileges because of our fear of vote fraud. The continuing clown show of Congressional politics takes on Groundhog Day proportions as the House votes for the 40th time along party lines to repeal Obamacare, but nobody has any time to address issues of global warming or the minimum wage.

President Obama gives the Republicans something they have been clamoring for when he proposes to decrease Social Security and Medicare spending by the chained CPI. We must do our part to reduce the horrible deficit monster. Pay no attention to the fact that the government has actually been running a surplus lately. And both POTUS and Republicans know that chaining CPI is a big fat lie not only because it will do nothing about any imaginary deficits, but because the defenestration of Social Security is a wet dream of one obsessive billionaire -- Pete Peterson, who's literally bought up anyone with influence and a price tag in DC.

The problems of American government are bred into the bone. When people look back at what killed the United States of America in the 21st Century, they may find that the culprit was the Constitution. With money that makes the 19th Century robber barons look like penny ante poker players, our current K Street bandits are only acting in accordance with what the Founding Fathers meant for us.

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, the motto of our political system should be: Of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich -- the corporations shall not perish from the earth. After all, an examination of The Greatest Living Document reveals the 3/5ths clause that gave the Southern plantation owners their viggorish with their slave populations. And the Constitution today still gives all the advantages to the current set of Virginia plantation owners. To hell with the 99.9%!

And thanks to the nature of politics in the federalist system, any interest group with oodles of cash and high organizational skills can obtain a stranglehold on their own little corner of the world policywise. Look at AIPAC's monopoly on our foreign policy towards Israel. Or behold the wonder of Miami Cubans in our relations with Cuba 55 years after Fidel Castro took power. The same techniques of briefcases full of cash by the NRA, its gun company owners, and hundreds of angry single issue fanatics on elected officials in swing districts explains everything you need to know about incredibly tiny tails wagging gigantic governmental policy dogs.

Gays have adopted similar techniques, and the only reason they haven't been as successful as other interest groups that I've mentioned is that they've had to overcome the incredible homophobia that the majority of Americans once demonstrated. In our current political climate, prospects for immigration reform are dimming. Perhaps the reason is that Hispanics/Latinos just don't have the money and organization required to buy the influence right now, even though their demographic growth scares the bejeezus out of the Republicans.

Everyone decries the absolutely titanic scale of influence peddling that is Washington, DC these days. And there is almost unanimous agreement as to what must be done. The spiritual, moral, and actual corruption of DC can only be solved by public campaign financing for all and a limit on the length of elections. It should be against the law for anyone in public service to have a career plan of turning into a lobbyist. And yet, we have a better chance of Congress voting in favor of communism than we have of getting these measures even remotely considered.

Do not consider doing anything about Citizens United. Do not consider doing anything about the great right wing conspiracy that has given us Supreme Court Justices Alito, Scalia, and Thomas. Do not think you can do anything about our current policies on drones or Guantanamo. Pay no attention to those bankers behind the curtain. Everything is baked into the cake.

No, what is needed is for citizens to combine the issues of Citizens United with those people who are concerned about fracking in their communities. Throw in the abolishment of the Electoral College, and we can start cooking with gas. It's time for a Constitutional Convention.

SYRIA: Did We Just Get Pregnant?

Mon, 6 May 2013 05:05:06 -0400

The Israeli airstrikes near Damascus and Aleppo may have far reaching consequences . I hope that I am wrong.

The relationship between Israel and the United States can been seen as a sexual metaphor. After all, thanks in good part to AIPAC, America has been in bed with Israel for many decades, and in many respects Israel is the dominant partner. And unfortunately, in almost every case the USA has placed itself into the position of being the enabling female. We have supplied billions of dollars of weaponry -- often against our better judgement. And as much as Bill Clinton or Barack Obama has despised the likes of Bibi Netanyahu, we have willingly gone along with Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on all matter of things.

So obviously, the sex between us has been consensual. Although there are lefties like me who wonder if in fact statutory rape has occurred. This is where we are now. There is not a scintilla of doubt that the Israeli airstrikes are horribly significant, perhaps altering forever the course of history. But like that moment after intercourse is done, sometimes one cannot tell whether or not a zygote has been formed and fertilized. If it has -- Lord have mercy on us all.

Perhaps one analogy could be made with September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. People back then knew that some red line had been crossed. But there were many people who did not know whether the event would ultimately lead up to World War II as it did.

Isolationism in America was quite strong at the time, and excellent cases were made that the USA should not involve itself in foreign entanglements. Certainly, President Obama is personally of that same mind as far as his desire to commit to any kind of military action regarding Syria. Unfortunatley, he has already opened his mouth. Obama said that if Basher Assad used chemical weapons on his own people, this would cross "the red line." And Israel (our sexually abusive partner) has thoughtfully provided us with all of the seeming documentation already.

It makes no difference that in cases like this, more than You Tube videos are needed to authoritatively determine whether chemical weapons have been deployed by the Syrian government. And of course, let us not forget that our American foreign policy establishment was not hot to re-declare war on Iraq in 1991 on Saddam Hussein after he killed thousands of Kurds with his stockpile of poison gas.

And yet, we see the drum beats for war already at work, both among the neocon parts of our own foreign policy establishment, and certainly from our allies in the Middle East who are already up to their necks in the 53 sided factional fighting taking place in Syria, that godforsaken geopolitical cockpit of the entire area. I have listened to former neocon advisors in the State Department already natter on about America being the essential empire. It is our duty as the final arbitrater of justice and freedom in the Middle East to step up to the plate. They say that we must do something, and that requires an open display of military force some kind. Boots on the ground are not necessary, they say. But perhaps we could supply our own sorties against the Assad government from our aircraft carriers in the region.

Some analysts claim that strong military action on the part of the US might aid us significantly with our dealings with Iran. We would be showing them that we mean business. Pay no attention to the fact that Iran considers Syria its most important ally and is already aiding Basher Assad significantly. Also pay no attention to Russia, which has been consistently counseling against American involvement.

And of course, freedom loving Saudi Arabia and Qatar are also there with the Israelis, urging greater intervention on our part. Whether we should aid the Muslim Brotherhood faction in the 53 part civil war going on in that tiny country as Qatar would like us to do, or whether we aid the Salafist and Al Queda freedom fighters as the Saudis are doing up to their necks right now -- is immaterial.

Realistically for now, the most likely scenario is that President Obama will muddle on. Perhaps because of the continued pressure of our allies over there, Obama will make some symbolic step towards increasing the token shipments of aid and material that we are already supplying covertly to rebel factions over there.

The problem is -- we have dipped our toes into the giant pool of shit that this situation represents. And further proaction on our part in Syria would get our shoes covered. And as we've seen in World War I, World War II, and Vietnam -- American involvement deeper and deeper into Syria could be a very long term affair where we boil ourselves one tenth of a degree at a time until our frog is completely cooked.

Our entry into World War I extended from 1914 to 1917. Our involvement in World War II began in earnest at the headline in this blog, and it didn't finish until the day after Pearl Harbor. Vietnam took the longest time, from 1944 when FDR first realized that the French were going to have a nasty time with their colony in Southeast Asia up until the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964. All along, Presidents Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy were somewhat reluctant participants in their respective affairs. The attitude in DC at those times was to commit the minimum necessary to placate our allies without going fully into war. And what good did it ultimately do?

To go back to the sexual analogy, some women know immediately that they're pregnant. Others think things are still normal until they miss their period. No one in Washington right now can tell with any certainty what the future will bring regarding our military involvement in Syria.

I for one, hope that it was not our time of the month, or if it was -- then we should all be vigorously looking for that morning after pill. Hopefully, an abortion will not be necessary.

open call:WHAT IN HELL IS THE MATTER WITH THIS COUNTRY?

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:04:45 -0400

The outrages des jour are the conspiracy theories. They're taking your assualt rifles. 9/11. black helicopters. death panels. black flag...

When I hear people spout this kind of crap, my reptile brain tells me that I want to shake them. But I also have a cerebral cortex. With every post I write, I try to give some insight as to how the machinery of government actually works for those who don't know. Obviously, I'm penny ante -- nothing -- because there are soooo many successful small businessmen who've been making a tidy profit off of all of this fearmongering. I'm nothing because instead of making some serious jack -- I'm writing for free for my 3.7 loyal readers on Open Salon.

I mean. Gee, if I'd gone to the dark side I could be Alex Jones right now with my own TV show. I'd be a millionaire already. There are so many Sammy Glicks spewing this garbage all over the place, that they're actually successfully competing with Washington, DC in the sleaze department. Alex of course, is penny ante compared to masters like Glenn Beck. And how many other people have gotten rich off of the fearmongering? I could aspire to be the big kahuna like Rush Limbaugh.

The Becks and Jones of this world are in my opinion, human cockroaches. And when they die, I hope the worst place in hell is reserved for them. I know. I should tell you what I'm really thinking. I shouldn't keep my emotions so bottled up like this.

Think boy -- think.

Unfortunately, the conspiracy theories say way too much about the kind of society that we're all living in as well as the desperate condition of the people prone to such thinking. I find it highly amusing that conspiracy believers are quoting such reputable sources as Press TV, as just one example. I watch Press TV to get an inside view into Iranian propaganda, and it consistently tries to paint American society in the worst possible light. It's often amusing, as the Iranian government assumes that we're on the cusp of a violent revolution tomorrow. On an ordinary day, it's like looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Yes, things are there. But they're extremely distorted and ass backwards.

The Middle East is a hotbed of conspiracy theories. Raise your hand if you'd rather be living in Cairo or Tehran. Yeah, I didn't think so.

I can't begin to tell you how harmful conspiracy theories are to the fabric of society. Perhaps Tehran has so many conspiracy theories is because everyone is scared shitless of a truly despotic, authoritarian government. And if you tell me that we're equal to the Iranians in that respect, then you probably can't tell the difference between Sweden and North Korea either because they're both socialist countries.

Conspiracy theories are designed to make us more afraid. Conspiracy theories are designed to atomize us as citizenry. Get your gold and canned food and your assault rifles, and hunker down in your bunker. Yeah, an assault rifle will take out a US Army Abrams tank real good. The suckers just roll over and die when they see an AK-47.

Conspiracy theories rip the fabric of society even further apart. Conspiracy theories legitimize further erosion of our civil liberties, and empower the defense contractors who profit off of those fears. Conspiracy theories make us all crazy. Conspiracy theories make society more crazy. Conspiracy theories ultimately lead to more violence.

I'm going to get my assault rifle (or maybe I'll read the Koran) so I can be prepared when THEY are coming. I'll have a peaceful demonstration where I can wave it around in public, but nobody better tick me off more than I am already, because I just might want to go on a killing rampage and take out the next thirty school kids I see. Conspiracy theories encourage this kind of thinking.

Ask yourselves if this is the kind society that you actually want to live in. I can't begin to tell you how much the doctrine of actually getting involved in making your community a better place to live is the only antidote as I see it to the kind of thinking that conspiracy theories engender.

Why is it the conspiracy theorists are ignoring one of the greatest conspiracies of all time? I'm talking about the events surrounding December 12, 2000 when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that George W. Bush should be POTUS. You want a conspiracy theory? There it is -- as plain as the nose on your face. Where are the conspiracy theorists calling for campaign finance reform, totally eliminating the influence of private money in elections, and more restrictions on lobbying?

But let's look at the Tea Party,too. Now part of that in itself is a conspiracy theory because originally -- they were funded and promoted by Karl Rove, F*x News, and the Koch brothers. Can you connect the dots?

But I've got to hand it to the local members of the Tea Party in Ecotopia. Because as much as I've thought that they are a bunch of clowns, I'm actually beginning to agree with them once out of every fifteen times. Why? Because at least they're analyzing their local situation. And in the current tax election, the Tea Party actually made an intelligent analysis about local government. Why should the county/city give so much money away in tax breaks? If the government eliminated tax breaks, it could actually pay for the supposed deficit in local government.

Now, I still disagree with them. But they have been getting involved in the machinery of government. And in the process they're educating themselves. They are acting as true citizens of the United States of America. I will continue to disagree with them, I'm sure. But at the same time, I'm also certain that there are many issues that left and right both share in common on issues of government.

Instead of inflicting death by a thousand cuts to our society with conspiracies, we should be channeling that energy into meeting with our neighbors face to face to figure out what's actually wrong with our communities, and how we can collectively work together to make X Town a better place to live.

And that is what needs to be done instead of giving into fear. One of my operational mantras as long as I've had my hands on any government power is Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inaugural line of 1933, which is:

The only thing we have to fear is -- fear itself.

Deficit Spending as Billyclub (in Class Warfare)

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 04:04:51 -0400

Perhaps you saw the kerfuffle that Steven Colbert covered recently with the kid from Amherst who pulled the pants down off of establishment economists Reinhart & Rogoff. The reason why debunking the findings of these economists was so important was that their scholarship was used as a powerful weapon by those on the right to justify government policies of continued austerity. Reinhart and Rogoff had a non-peer reviewed work that was based on significant omissions and bad spreadsheets.

Reinhart et. al. have attempted to push back, saying that the conclusions of their findings are still important and viable. Unfortunately, they are just courtiers of the super-rich -- people like Mitt Romney, Bain Capital, and all the other centomillionaires and billionaires who have seen their fortunes rise exponentially, while everyone else is left bogged down in place or even falling behind. And government austerity programs are like reverse Robin Hoods, taking from the poor to give to the rich. And meanwhile, more and more money piles up for the 0.1%. How much money is that, Johnny?

It was found that the reserves of idle, nonproductive wealth just sitting in a strongbox is worth an astounding $37,000,000,000,00. That is thirty seven trillion dollars -- considerably more than the combined GNP of both the US and the EU. This small number of people wants austerity for the rest of us because the value of their capital will increase as deflation increases. Prices may fall for commodities and foodstuffs and everything else. But the income of the 99% falls much faster in times of recession/depression. And this means that the 0.1% can purchase even more goodies with no risk. Simply put, this is more and more for less and less -- less and less for more and more.

While Reinhart and Rogoff may have a damaged reputation, the powers that be conveniently ignore strong empirical evidence showing that increasing taxes on the rich substantially may actually be a tonic to the economy. Back in the 1950s, the top tax bracket was 91% on all income over $250,000. And the 1950s had the best decade of growth in the 20th Century for the US. And with every decade, as income and other taxes were lowered on the rich, the long term growth rate of the economy went down.

The US Government certainly has resistance to higher taxes now. Barack Obama is calling for them, but at the same time he's practicing the Draconian policies of austerity by calling for chained CPI for Social Security and Medicare. He and the Democrats have all signed off on the austerity guidelines of the Simpson-Bowles Commission. The bottom line in DC is that everyone has drunk the Kool Aid of austerity, and it looks like it's going to stay that way for at least another two years.

Economically, the clock is ticking. The economy needs to show some real improvement by then, or there will be a disconnect between the stock and commodities market and the economy on Main St. Some British banks appear to be more highly leveraged than Lehman Brothers was just before 2008. Europe and China are faltering in their numbers. Overall things appear reasonable right now. But the future could see an even more massive worldwide crash down the road than what we experienced before.

It sure would be nice to have Washington institute the level of stimulus that Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz have proposed. After all, they didn't win their Nobel Prizes in Economics for nothing. But Washington doesn't operate on those. Instead it operates on cost-plus contracts. And cost plus explains why the Tea Party and Obama keep playing these phony budget games. With "the fiscal cliff" and "sequester" continuing on the DC merry-go-round, fiscal conservatives can't even get their way and speed us up for a Great Depression II. Instead, everything in Washington is intensely focused on rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Let me briefly explain cost-plus contracts. Whether you're building the $435 billion F-35 jet or cleaning the floors of some rented office of the government, your contract is structured the same. Competitive lowest bidding is mandatory for a successful contract. Every item is to be accounted and budgeted for, and in return the private contractor is guaranteed a 5% profit.

The thing is, that once contracts are awarded, there is a very strong tendancy to renew them. And every year the federal agency must spend all of its money budgeted. And in return, said federal agency will get a bigger budget. The net effect of both things is to gradually transform a competitive, low ball contract into something resembling monopoly pricing. And if you've ever played the game of Monopoly, it's like moving up from Baltic Avenue eventually to Park Place with your contracts.

And of course, bigger government contractors plow part of their money into lobbying their elected officials for better contract terms and preferential treatment for their businesses. This is where the term "iron triangle" enters the picture. The coalition of lobbyists and their elected officials in collusion with the bureaucracies is unbeatable by anyone.

Bill Clinton made a joke this year that explains it all. He said that being President of the United States is like being the CEO of Forest Lawn Cemeteries. There are scads of people underneath you, but no one is listening. The iron triangle is on autopilot. And the problem of shrinking anything from the teeniest program up to half the Defense Department is that the bodies have to be exhumed. The odor of unpleasant ghosts will waft through the air once again, and there will be a disposal problem.

Great Depression II would no doubt be a game changer to no stimulus, no cut. But there could be one other thing that might be a catalyst. And that is, if people in the USA collectively get up off of their big fat butts watching TV and start demanding that something should be done to raise taxes on the rich, and our short term deficit spending needs to be substantially increased.

Of all the places where fraud, waste, and abuse could be cut to allow more for social needs -- the Defense Department is #1 with a bullet on what should be chopped. Barney Frank has proposed a one trillion dollar cut to the DOD budget, and he says that we would have an even more ready set of armed forces than we do now because of more attention to equipment and manpower needs. Do we really need 11 aircraft carrier groups?

Similarly, as I demonstrated in my blogs on Boston, the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the CIA/NSA/FBI/etc. computer technology are golden turkeys.

Actually throwing the austerity bums out of Congress in 2014 is probably impractical though. That would mean that someone was unfairly engaging in class warfare.