A Generational Moment

With the sight of Jessie Jackson weeping in Grant Park Tuesday night (can't a brother get a Backstage Pass?), as Barack Obama gave his first speech as President-elect, we witnessed the proverbial generational baton being passed for the progressive movement in the United States. Obama's victorious campaign delineates a break with the political and social movements of the previous generation because although Obama rhetorically embraced the versions of the civil rights, labor, anti-war, LGBT and environmental movements that emerged from the 1960's his campaign was primarily based on a liberal candidate, that happened to be mixed race, as opposed to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition approach to change that had at its center an African-American Civil Rights leader in alliance with the progressive movements of the day.

In Barack Obama's bid for the presidency merit and the American Dream were front and center, not an oppositional identity that was fighting for justice. This shift from a collective of identity/grievance/class to individualism and merit represents both promise and pitfalls for the left. For liberals it is in many ways the culmination of the American and French revolutions; all men truly equal before the law with equal opportunity. For those left of the liberals, class and social movements have always been the vehicle that pushed the liberal revolution from a system of liberty to a system of equality and justice. Working within the system they allied with labor or civil rights activists and tried to expose liberalism for what it is; an economic system of exploitation and a political system that gives the wealthy more access to the levers of power by design. This becomes more difficult when the leader of the system is an "oppressed" minority.

This moment is akin to the collapse of Stalinism when democratic leftists were freed from the ties to "actually existing socialism". It allowed a new model to be created but it also left a void of an existing model. With Obama's presidency leftists lose their critique of the liberal facade of equal opportunity but they also can now openly claim that liberalism is not enough. This moment creates an opportunity then for those of us who want more than public schools, a progressive income tax and a water utility owned by the city.

In this day after the election Obama has already put forward the name of Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff and floated Paul Volcker and Lawrence Summers as key economic advisors. To say these are cautious steps is an understatement. Emmanuel's major accomplishments are helping pass welfare reform and NAFTA for the Clinton's: Volcker's, the shock therapy of the early 1980's depression that helped destroy the industrial base of the upper Midwest and Summers a past World Bank President who once argued for the facility of dumping toxic waste in poor countries to maximize their comparative advantage. This cast of rogues is a harbinger of the extremely modest liberal platform of the new President.

If the left is to be at all relevant, a clear message must be agreed upon and stuck to. Universal health-care, pensions and union organizing are three that are winners and within the realm of accomplishment but will need to be fought for given the cautious centrism of the new President. Beyond this, a democratically controlled economy-socialism, building social movements is the proven tonic. And given that capitalism is now in true crisis, and both US political parties have come up with no answer except for throwing money at banks, the left's opportunity is now more then at any time in the last 40 years.

Liberalism's Apex?

From Orlando Paterson on the historic significance of an Obama presidency.

"Victory for Barack Obama on Nov. 4 would mark our democracy's triumph over half the problem of race in America. It would underscore the vitality of America's most distinctive and powerful master trend—assimilation, an invincible force that selects from, absorbs and integrates difference, not always kindly, but always to the profit of the nation's mainstream. But an Obama win would also highlight the stark paradox that is the other half of our racial problem: while black Americans have been fully incorporated into the nation's public life, they continue to be cut off from the private life of other Americans, a separation that accounts in good measure for blacks' besetting socioeconomic problems."

There's a lot of truth here but "a separation that accounts in good measure for blacks' besetting socioeconomic problems."?

The separation was not voluntary sir! Blaming the victim here?


"An Obama victory would mark, further, the completion of the process of mass democratic inclusion that began with the presidency of Andrew Jackson, another second-generation orphan, who came out of nowhere to lay the foundations of male, white suffrage on a historically unprecedented scale. What Jackson the slaveholder left undone, this historic election cycle has finished, whatever the outcome on Tuesday: it's now clear that blacks and women are ready, able and poised to lead the nation."

Thanks for the re-assurance!

A fine mind for sure, but always parsing for power, in this case white power.

Why not finish logically with moving forward with democracy into the economic sphere? We have won the liberal revolution, civil rights, now lets create a true democracy where all people share real power. Something Europe began 100 years ago.

The Forest

One of the pleasant aspects of crisis is that it helps clarify, which side your on. WWI was one of those moments as well as Vietnam, Iraq and recently the bailout of the banks (with hindsight as a crutch I am 3 for 4-I waffled on the bailout but now see it as a horrible idea). This election has also shown that Democrats basically want the status quo and the Right would like to de-regulate and de-tax more so that the entire civilization can crumble under debt and the "business cycle!" To many on the Right it all started to go bad with Roosevelt, Teddy that is and communism ensued with the New Deal.

Read this nugget from Michael Barone of the centrist faction taking on the New Deal. He's no Grover Norquist but it shows how even the mildest forms of social democracy are seen as a threat by the plutocracy.

Humanitarian Imperialism

Chomsky on US intervention since the end of the Cold War:

Jean Bricmont’s concept “humanitarian imperialism” succinctly captures a dilemma that has faced Western leaders and the Western intellectual community since the collapse of the Soviet Union. From the origins of the Cold War, there was a reflexive justification for every resort to force and terror, subversion and economic strangulation: the acts were undertaken in defense against what John F. Kennedy called “the monolithic and ruthless conspiracy” based in the Kremlin (or sometimes in Beijing), a force of unmitigated evil dedicated to extending its brutal sway over the entire world. The formula covered just about every imaginable case of intervention, no matter what the facts might be. But with the Soviet Union gone, either the policies would have to change, or new justifications would have to be devised. It became clear very quickly which course would be followed, casting new light on what had come before, and on the institutional basis of policy.

The entire article in Monthly Review.

Thomas Frank

Thomas Frank riffs on Joe the Plumber in this week's installment of his column in the Wall Street Journal. In it he describes how Nixon, Reagan, Newt, Palin and co. have made working class folk Red, White and Blue Republicans while at the time the GOP has driven down their wages, sent them off to war and left them holding the bill for the last 40 years of massive upward re-distribution of wealth.

The culture war that Joe the Plumber is a happy foot soldier in stands in the way of creating a decent society that we can easily achieve. It's the reason bright leaders like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama tack to the Right in every sentence and put forward policies that maintain the Empire and the plutocracy.

The ineptitude of the Bush Administration has put a crack in the edifice of the true blue. Here's an anecdote from Pennsylvania showing one of the hair line fractures.

"So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: 'We're voting for the n***er.'"

From fivethirtyeight.com.

The Choice

Excellent summary of the election from the New Yorker.

However!

I think the issues are deeper than the writers want to admit. Capitalism itself is in deep crisis, so is the empire. The use of US power-military, economic and political, has been a force for viscousness (Indonesia, Zaire, the Philipines, Haiti, Vietnam, Laos, Guatemala, Iran, Chile, I could go on...) for over 100 years at least and most people in the United States do not want to come to terms with the actual facts or our (the people) complicity. At home we have a system based on inequality and credit. The US decline will be faster than say Japan's because of this. The middling classes are leveraged to the hilt as well is the government, so there will be less consumer demand on the way down and more bankruptcy. The bill will have to be paid now, the bill collectors are now calling (China, Japan, et al...). How can this be done? By lowering wages or through inflation, or both or by shutting down the empire. The problem with both is that the voting classes are not in the mood for a reality check and they like the empire. They also benefit from it-the only real thing we make these days are planes, tanks and bombs, if we stop that we will have no industrial base.

Obama is a smart guy but even a cross between Nehru/Lincoln and Stephen J. Hawking can not get us out of this pickle.

I hope I am wrong.

Blaming Minorities for the Collapse of Capitalism

I have been wanting to write an article to this affect for some time but haven't had the skill. The market fundamentalists are looking for a scapegoat quick as their last barricade (really big government and Central Banks) bails them out by, uhm... market fundamentalists? It's been quite a sordid few months as Newt, McCain and the business press on down (some of the Right WIng blogs have become quite Hitlerish) have tried to pin the tail on the Donkey and minorities given that they worked so hard for the last 30 years to create the system that we now have. Not that the Donkey has not been part of the problem (overthrowing Glass-Steagall, cheering on Alan Greenspan's negative interest rates and ARM plans as well as protecting Fannie and Freddie) but blaming poor people and minority home owners for the meltdown of the financial system is like blaming a raindrop for the flood. It seems an extremely transparent ploy to divert attention from the roller coaster that is capitalism towards minorities and "big government" re. the part of government, in our case, that helps the poor and the oppressed as the culprits in the collapse.

Subprime Suspects
THE RIGHT BLAMES THE CREDIT CRISIS ON POOR MINORITY HOMEOWNERS. THIS IS NOT MERELY OFFENSIVE, BUT ENTIRELY WRONG.
Read the entire article.

Flo

Paul Oneil!

Yikes! Of all people, listen to PO in the video section of Race for the White House talk about the bailout and the future of the economy.

The amazing part about this whole crisis is that we are finally having a real debate, not at the presidential level however, about how the fundamentals of the economy actually work. If only we had a movement that had a program to take it in a progressive direction.

Populists on both the right and the left have been nibbling but the plan is certainly not out there.

What plan?
Democratic control of the economy by strengthening labor so that demand is up.

Real infrastructure investment: rail, strategic industries like energy and transportation.

Hard cash for engineers and science.

A national pension.

A universal, nonprofit health care system.

A massive crackdown on the paper economy-if you buy a home you need assets, ending all funny money such as derivatives, hedge funds, 2nd, 3rd mortgages.

A balance of trade.

By the way this is a fairly moderate plan. They do it in Germany, France, Sweden, Finland....

We Would Have Voted For It....

But she called us names!

Maybe one of the most pathetic moments in US political history.

The Dismal Science

"What we are witnessing, in the broadest sense, is the bankruptcy of modern economics. Its conceit has been that we had solved the problem of stability. Oh, there would be periodic recessions, but the prospects of a major economic collapse were negligible because we knew how the system worked and could take steps to prevent it. What's been so unsettling about the present crisis is that it has not conformed to the standard model of business cycles and has not submitted to familiar textbook solutions."

Robert Samuelson's entire article.

Republicans Unite!

From the Republican platform:

"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all."

Neoliberalism is Making You Poorer

$700 Billion is nothing to sneaze at. To put this amount of money in some sort of perspective, the entire GNP of Bolivia is $13 billion.

From a US government perspective the Carter Administration were the first major de-regulators. Reagan and Bush consolidated the orthodoxy and Clinton got the major legislation passed with the overthrow of Glass-Steagal. Bush Jr. wanted to cap it all off by dumping the last vestige of the New Deal, Social Security, but the ederly are still too powerful for that move.

Our current position is summed up well by Alex Cockburn here:

"By all rights, this last crisis has brought us to the crossroads where neoliberalism should be buried with a stake through its heart.
We’ve had thirty years worth of deregulation – the loosening of government supervision. This has been the neoliberal mantra preached by both major parties, the whole of the establishment press and almost every university economics department in the country. It is central to the current disasters. And if you want to identify symbolic figures in the legislated career of deregulation, there are no more resplendent culprits than the man at McCain’s elbow, Phil Gramm, and the man standing at Obama’s elbow at his press conference, Robert Rubin."

Rubin and Gramm (the implementer and author) of the de-regulation of our financial system are poised to rule. Little will change with these two characters in charge.

Read the entire article here.

Even liberals like Robert Kutner know this to be a collosal rip-off.

And some good old fashion red baiting:

The Socialists have taken over!!!!

McCain Caught on Tape

Hilarious!

The SubPrime Crisis Explained

In an entertaining way.

A Very Stable Race

There has been lots of chatter about the volatility of the race. It really ain't so. Take out the convention bounces, and remember what full life of a bounce does, and the race is pretty much where it was in June.

The idiotic "independent" is once again in the driver seat.

Is Palin Now a Liabilty?

Palin's average favorability score is now a +7 -- about 10 points behind Joe Biden's numbers. Perhaps more importantly, these numbers are 10-15 points behind where Palin's numbers were just a week or so ago. If voters come in not knowing very much about a candidate -- and the more they see of the candidate, the less they like of the candidate -- this is a major concern.

Is McCain in trouble?

The Palin Effect

It's real. It has jazzed the base. It is still early but it gives the gunners, Jesus lovers and bigots a reason to hold their nose and vote for McCain who they do not trust.

The culture war has always been a reality in America. Conventional wisdom traces the internal clash of civilizations to the 60's but right wing populism has always been around such as in the 20's (Scopes), at the turn of the 20th century (the progressives-notorious Jew haters and nose turners of the great unwashed), most Southerners were convinced the cosmopolitan North was a power hungry cabal of elite capitalists (they were), Jackson's appeal went right to the heart of the homespun Cider drinkers and Indian killers and we could probably come up with many more examples.

The problem for the United States left (we have a minuscule Left) is that liberals for the most part are elitists. It's the nature of the system. They tend to be better educated, higher income and appreciate the city life to shooting and praying, particularly the leadership. The backbone of the Democratic Party; organized labor, Blacks, Jews and most women are not of the upper class, sans Jews, but the folk that are trotted out as leaders have a definite urban, and urbane, bias (Kennedy, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Obama). Notice the 2 winners, Carter and Clinton, were southerners with some rural or HillBillary in them.

It's not that the Republican leadership are not of the upper class for the most part but if you look at the leaders of the populist right and the Republican Party they have the meanness and patriotism that appeals to men, white ethnics and the small business suburbanites.

Since organized labor has declined since the late 60's and the South has flipped parties because of race the Democrats must depend not only on urban folk and labor but also on the suburbs. This has made them the handmaidens of Wall Street, think Robert Rubin, and budget balancers. Not exactly the Huey Long "Make Every Man a King" program.

This is why the Palin's of the world do well. Because they bring home the pork, while talking tough on taxes and they pose at church and in the tree stand. Most folk will accept less government for city folk, thus vouchers there but not in the suburbs or rural areas but know that they are getting cops, prisons, roads and prescriptions so they continue to vote for the porky Republicans. That's why McCain alone would lose.

Excellent Summary of the Mocking of Community Organizers

From all people Howard Fineman.

Sarah is Saved

Jesus wants a pipeline! And guns for cops. And god won't give us these things unless we pray!