IT MAY SURPRISE SOME OF MY REGULAR READERS TO LEARN that I’m not a particular partisan for our current president. He’s preferable to any conceivable Republican currently in the bullpen, and he is a skilled communicator and crafty politician — but Barack Obama’s presidency, in my opinion, has been a big missed opportunity. Given the situation in January 2009 when he took the oath of office for his first term, I think he actually had the opportunity to be the “Liberal Reagan,” moving the political needle well to the left of where it had been just as the actual President Reagan moved it to the right 30 years before.
We progressives must recognize that it is time to build a movement for change ourselves — that Obama is articulate and inspiring, but it is clear he and Democrats in Congress will work for change only at the margins. We must resurrect the traditional Democratic Party agenda ourselves, because the current national Democratic Party leadership has shown itself unable (or, perhaps more disheartening, unwilling) to do so.
Traditional Democratic policies were informed by one overriding idea, and it was a brilliant one: that it is legitimate and necessary to use the power of the central government — through progressive taxation, income redistribution, financial regulation and support for labor — to restrain the tendency of big business to concentrate wealth in the hands of an elite few, and thus to provide social and economic stability.
This idea led to the Glass-Steagall Act, which broke the cycle of periodic financial/banking crises that had previously recurred every 20 years or so; the Wagner Act, which provided protections when labor organizes and demands a bigger piece of the pie; Social Security and Medicare, which means elderly people no longer eat dog food to supplement their diets and can go to the doctor without bankrupting their children; and many other changes that moved our country forward.
All these moves were driven by that one idea of using the power of the government to even the playing field, and to achieve social good. So who opposes this idea most strongly? Who uses every opportunity to counter this idea with propaganda so ubiquitous that every brick of our civilization resonates with it?
Who stands to lose most from the idea that government must act as a check on the power of corporations and the wealthy? The answer should be obvious to anyone who is paying the slightest bit of attention:
The richest 1 percent of Americans, and their minions.
Was that so hard? Let me repeat that:
The richest 1 percent of Americans, and their minions.
When we turn on the television to Very Serious People Bringing Us the News, why do we see some story about a 20-year-old blonde who hasn’t called her parents in six hours rather than a story about the effects of the median wage not going meaningfully higher in 30 years? It’s because a very influential group of people would prefer you focus on missing blondes rather than missing wages. I’ll tell you who:
The richest 1 percent of Americans, and their minions.
Why, in watching television and reading mainstream commentary, does there seem to be a general consensus that shipping jobs overseas is just part of our Evolving, Unstoppably Globalizing Economy, while raising rich people’s taxes to (for example) pay to retrain all those workers whose wages have been decimated is the moral equivalent of molesting a child? It’s because this narrative serves the interests of a particular group of people:
The richest 1 percent of Americans, and their minions.
Where has the New Deal gone? Where has the idea gone that the central government should act as a referee between the needs of labor and the needs of capital, standing ready to restrain the one when it poses too much of a threat to the well-being of the other — which in the empirical, real world usually means restraining business from ruthlessly exploiting labor? Well, the New Deal was the most hated program ever devised — hated, that is, by a certain group of people, a group of people who lost a significant amount of power as a result of its implementation. Who? Say it with me:
The richest 1 percent of Americans, and their minions.
Why is it that falling wages for unskilled workers is seen as an inevitable, law-of-physics-like result of globalization and impersonal, “scientific” forces (and thus unquestionable), while objections about the fairness of this — especially combined with questions about the fairness of only a select group of the upper crust benefiting in any tangible way from a growing economy — is described as “class warfare”? Who benefits from things being described that way?
The richest 1 percent of Americans, and their minions.
Well, here’s the thing the top 1 percent fears the most: that the mathematical truth will occur to the rest of us — they are only 1 percent of the country. The rest of us represent 99 percent, which is why the richest 1 percent and their minions spend colossal amounts of money on media (either through advertisements or by buying media outlets outright) to do everything they can to keep us all confused, quiescent and docile little serfs.
If the power of the Richest One Percent of Americans And Their Minions is to be checked, that check will come, at least primarily, not from using their methods and means of propaganda, but by building a bottom-up, people-powered, genuinely progressive movement.
The carpenters who need to build that movement — you and I — are not busy enough. Not nearly.
Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand. He works for a tech start-up in San Francisco.
Sharing is caring!
Matt: I fully agree with you, and at 70, I’m busy as hell! Always have been. I just added this to my Facebook page. We busy grassroots/ant carpenters all work by differing strokes. See my webpages:
Leonard Cohen and Croissants…
Leonard Cohen and a croissant are my
just rewards while I sit at Starbucks
after three days with a cold and a tree of Kleenex
doing our 3rd Quarter Profit Statement after
the greedy maggot-bastards at the top of the food chain
scuttled the economy to below the waterline.
Now pensions are gutted and homes are toxic
and self-employed survivalists like us
have to justify our pennies and pesos of income
to the greedy pissants still at the top
while all the under-regulated, unprosecuted
whores and lobbyists of Congress
sit on each others’ couches sipping sodas.
Maybe the next time Noah loads his Second Ark
we oughta butcher the unprosecuted bastards at the shoreline,
drowning with their own fellow rats is far too honorable for them,
surely we don’t want Noah’s second family
to turn out as greedy and dysfunctional as the first batch.
One mortgage company enjoys our best drive to survive,
then goes belly up with gluttony, the second feasts with
rising interest and smiling buzzards’ charm, then sells us off to the third
two months after when we apply for a Loan Modification,
trying to avoid a Short Sale. Which reminds me
that The French Revolution wasn’t all bad.
We gained croissants in the deal
and Leonard Cohen now sings from far beyond
the Canadian woods. Hallelujah!
©Peter Bray, 12/4/2013 All rights reserved
Thanks, Peter – love it!
Matt: Stay on the trail! You rock, amigo! – pb
Peter, as always you bring a bundle of joy!
JLB: Can you define your definition of “joy”? – pb
Matt, what you suggest are traditional democrat values are pure socialism. Rather I think the so-called traditional democrat policies you reference, progressive taxation, government control of labor and financial regulation was purposed more around a balanced approach. I certainly don’t recall any of it having to do with overtly redistributing wealth. In fact JFK, a democrat was considered by many to be a great president. Too bad his time was short but by todays standards of democrat policies, he would be a staunch conservative.
How about we get back to a balanced budget as a starting point. And then trim the fat and get back to living within our means like the rest of us private citizens do. You just can keep spending more than you take in. As we know from watching personal lives destroyed by debt, at some point something has to give.
We know that even if you taxed all of the people you call the one percent 100% of their income, it wouldn’t make a scratch in the deficit spending this current administration is doing. At some point you always run out of “other people’s money”.
The reason so many jobs are going over seas is because the burdensome weight of government regulation and compliance. Companies are going to figure out a way to make money. If they can’t do it with workers here in the US and they can by taking those jobs elsewhere, they will. Manufacturing is dead in this country because the government has burdened the marketplace so badly, we can not compete globally so they have thrown in the towel. Add in the totally outrageous labor union demands for union workers like the auto workers unions and their outrageous salaries, you have a losing proposition. Its not wonder people are buying so many japanese cars instead of American made ones.
Yes there is much work to be done, but your views of what the government should be doing, unfortunately (for you), are not shared by the masses.
No, JLB – none opf what I’ve proposed, in this or any other column, fits any meaningful definition of “Socialism.” It is standard, garden-variety New Deal economic liberalism.
Matt stated:none of what I’ve proposed, in this or any other column, fits any meaningful definition of “Socialism.”
That simply is not true Matt. Take a look at the link below to see what socialists today support. Your columns have voiced support for many of these positions.
Socialist platform
Dennis: From your link:
The Socialist Party stands for a fundamental transformation of the economy, focusing on production for need not profit.
New Dealers had no problem with profits or capitalism, per se: they attempted to (actually, succeeded until recently) save capitalism from itself – as I keep saying, capitalism has a tendency to destroy itself by concentration of wealth at the top, thus depriving the economy of the spending power of all those people who aren’t at the top, leading to a collapse of demand and years of suffering, borne mostly by those at the bottom.
This tendency toward self destructiveness can be reformed through government action, of the sort undertaken by FDR and the New Dealers: history suggests that failure of government to act leads to things being reformed anyway, but that kind of reform typically works out to be less pleasant for everyone.
Matt,
You really need to examine other perspectives on the New Deal that you promote with such vigor. As well as reconsidering government control/over regulation. Example:
Look at how many banks failed in Canada from 1929 to 1940 and compare same to the US. Why, since they suffered with us, did the Canadian Banks have a much higher success rate?
I have recommended two books to you, neither of which you have read. You should. One of them is mentioned below:
Did the New Deal Work?
The article linked above takes a middle of the road perspective on the success (and lack thereof) of the New Deal.
An excerpt:
”Jim Powell, author of FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression, asks, “There was expansion, but how come you still had average unemployment of 17 percent from 1933 to 1940?”
One explanation is that in addition to the harm done by the restrictions imposed by the NRA, the “soak the rich” rhetoric coming from the Roosevelt administration had a chilling effect on economic growth by making people fear for their property rights. This uncertainty, along with a jump in the top federal income tax rate from 25 percent in 1931 to 79 percent in 1936, may have deterred investment.”
From 1941 thru 1979, the US never had more than 20 bank failures in a single year…no more than nine from 1943 thru 1974. There were 4000 bank failures in 1933, the year Glass-Steagall was enacted. Seems regulation did some good. Bank failures exploded in the 80’s as the deregulators stormed into Washington. Could it be regulation is a good thing?
There was expansion, but how come you still had average unemployment of 17 percent from 1933 to 1940?
Because the hole left by Hoover was so deep? There was improvement every single year except 1937, when FDR briefly shifted the priority from economic recovery to deficit reduction, resulting in recession.
The New Deal actually did work, and very well – and not just in reducing unemployment, but at laying the foundation for a future economic regime in which the economy boomed and (here’s the thing) the gains were widely shared, and during which there were no financial crises for 40 years.
This uncertainty, along with a jump in the top federal income tax rate from 25 percent in 1931 to 79 percent in 1936, may have deterred investment.
That is the persistent claim of anti-New-Dealers lately, but I have yet to see any evidence to back that claim up. For example: the top marginal rate under Ike was 91.5 percent, and the 1950s were hardly a time of economic depression.
Businesses were and are not hiring, not because they are afraid of government regulation and taxes, but because they are lacking enough customers to justify investment in new capacity. Add final demand to the economy, and investment follows. This is basic macro economics, Dennis. Jim Powell (along with Amity Shlaes and other guardians of privilege) have done their best to undermine the programs and approaches that threaten the privilege of Capital, but in my judgement they have failed to make a persuasive case.
Matt stated: The New Deal actually did work”
Meaning no disrespect Matt, but I think Henry Morgenthou would be a better judge in assessing that:
”We want to see private business expand. … We believe that one of the most important ways of achieving these ends at this time is to continue progress toward a balance of the federal budget.”
He also questioned deficit spending:
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. … I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot.”
FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury and his most trusted advisor, as well as lifelong friend recognized the failures of their policies to achieve the overall economic success they envisioned.
Because a contemporary who doesn’t have the benefit of historical perspective is always the best judge. Quit flogging Morgenthau and read a second book.
Excellent! Note that Right-wing “granite” dogma and petroleum-prospering non-facts (read “nonsense”) can be countered with additional debate…Right wingers love to throw the table cloth down with lead weights, only to see science and the breeze and concern for real human values lift all the monetary ballast and bilge flip them all to the floor…I never studied “Right Wing Dogma” in college or Grad School…was there a course on it? “Duh 101?” –pb
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/above-all-else-the-cause-of-most-republican-ignorance-stems-from-this-one-thing/
Interesting article. Interesting in that if you changed every use of the word republican or conservative and replaced it with democrat or progressive it would sell just as well. The problem with your side of the isle is that you guys want to guarantee equal outcomes rather than equal opportunities. Just like your guy, Barry said, there will be winners and there will be losers. And yes we need CEOs of companies to drive business and create jobs but we also need ditch diggers too and people to work at Walmart and 7-11.
I came from very simple beginnings. My dad was a school teacher in a small farming community in Illinois and my mom was a stay at home mom. We only had one car and we lived pretty slim. I have done better with having gone out and created opportunities rather than wait for someone to hand me one. I started working when I was 14 years old and never stopped. No one ever gave me a free ride to anything and I made it. And yes I have been fired a few times a long the way, and I have been pink slipped more than once in corporate America. Hard work and perseverance pay off. Sitting around waiting for something to drop in your lap and sucking off the government tit will not get it done. There is plenty of opportunity out there for those that earnestly seek it. With the advances in technology there are a million ways to make a buck. Pick one, pursue it feverishly and you will be amazed at what can come of it.
Just because we do not think the same way as you does not make us evil or ignorant no more than you not agreeing with us makes you evil or ignorant. We disagree and that is what makes the world go around. Do what you can to spread your message and I will do the same and it will all come out in the wash. I certainly am not going to change your mind nor you mine. It is fun to debate ideas and to point/counterpoint each other, but demonizing really does no one any good and it is not good politics. None of the successful presidents prior to Barry did it like it is being done these days. And it certainly is not contributing to the conversation.
Have a great day y’all!
Not trying to guarantee equal outcomes…only equal opportunities. If you’re born into the top 1%, you’re likely to stay there. If you’re born into the bottom 20%, chances of advancing are minimal. Income inequality continues to grow…accelerated by conservative policies.
If minimum wage isn’t enough to live on, and an increasing number of jobs pay minimum wage, how does the underclass survive?
If a child can’t eat, he can’t learn, and you want to take away food stamps and other government programs that support the poor.
You can’t be against a raise in the minimum wage while simultaneously being against supporting the poor. You have to pick one.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williamdunkelberg/2012/12/31/why-raising-the-minimum-wage-kills-jobs/
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/14/why-economists-are-so-puzzled-by-the-minimum-wage/
Raising the minimum wage is imperative. People need a living wage.
Beyond the apologists and sycophants for Obama —
From the above article:
“IT MAY SURPRISE SOME OF MY REGULAR READERS TO LEARN that I’m not a particular partisan for our current president. ”
Bravo, Mr. Talbot.
From the article below: More for the community to consider…
“What would President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who signed the first minimum wage law in 1938, say about today’s pathetic Democrats (with few exceptions like the more than twenty Representatives who signed on to Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s H.R. 5901 bill to raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour)? Remember how FDR pushed his Democrats in the 1930s? He would not have tolerated today’s Democratic Party of caution, cash and cowardliness.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/09/the-democratic-party-abandons-fdrs-legacy/
Yeah, slave owners were really worried about having to pay for labor too. They got over it. Some, no doubt, failed to adapt. The world kept turning.
Fiction only a conservative can enjoy. From the article: “Congress raised the minimum wage 10.6% in July, 2009 (know of anyone else getting a raise then?). In the ensuring 6 months, nearly 600,000 teen jobs disappeared…”. Yep. They’re called ‘summer jobs’. Summer is when teens routinely work, in case you weren’t aware.
There’s no evidence through history that raising the minimum wage hurts employment or the economy. If I’m running a retail outlet, and I have enough business to warrant 10 salespeople, I’ll hire 10 salespeople, whether I have to pay them $7.50 or $12. If I hire only nine, I’m hurting my business. I’ll pay the extra few bucks/hr to keep that 10th salesperson.
Pay a living wage, and you’re putting money in the pockets of the people who spend it, creating more economic activity. Pay a living wage and you take people off of the government rolls…reducing spending and the deficit (that’s good, isn’t it deficit hawks?).
“With the advances in technology there are a million ways to make a buck.”
Technology has also made a fair share of occupations obsolete. Unfortunately, those occupations have been the lower paying workaday types.
Yeah, but when you’ve expired your usefullness to Corporate Amerika, and they move outa the City, you can always reinvent yourself. “There’s more toilets to fix than corporations in America.” Been there, done that: (Check it out)
http://www.handymanservicespeterbray.com
pb
That is an definitely an unfortunate truth. But I guess that is part of being progressive. So some will have to reinvent themselves. I have.
Or, we can all just become Luddites.
I’m just overjoyed with everything Bob Livesay, just like you. Everything is just Christian-like peachy Keen-Oh…Not to worry, I’ve survived man’s inhumanity to man and have had the ability to heal for 70 years. I plan to be a Moderate Liberal and be around forever. Have a Joyous Holiday Season. So what if they’re dying in the Congo, Afghanistan, or San Bruno due to a lax PG&E? We’re all humans and have concrete alibis and great excuses. Pollyana lives for another day so long as Global Warming, Nukes, and Fracking don’t happen in my back yard…Joy to the World!–pb
Thanks for the positive comment Peter. Sounds like your are in a very positive mood and I hope it stays that way. I do hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas and keep the faith. Now a little about the situation of the needy, poor and middleclass. We as people must do our very best to help and contribute to the needs of the poor and needy. As a Conservative I just differ from the Liberals solution. Jobs and opportunity are the answer. I think the Liberals are keeping the poor/middlecalss in there situation by taxes/fees. It reduces their daily living expenses and keeps them right where they are with no hope in sight. That appears to be just what the Liberals want. More government control on their daily lives and for sure on their opportunity to move up in the income level. In this country we are looking at a very important opportunity in fossil fuel. In many parts of the country the unheard of thing as working together to meet all the health, clean air and safety issues are being done. Cooporation from the producers, enviromentalist and the government are making this happen to everyones satisfaction. Fossil fuel will jump start manufacturing in this country because of energy cost. It is already happening in parts of this country. Taking the negative view on fossil fuel will not help the opportunity that is like gold waiting to be mined. Yes we must have regulations but at the same time not regulations to stop many opportunities. The opportumnities will get us back to 4% and under in unemployment and will fill the government tax barrell to overflowing amounts. With that happeniong we now can have jobs,opportunity and invest in education, health, alternative energy and what ever else is needed. Government taxes/fees are not the answer. As I said before it hurts the ones that the Liberals say they are trying to help. They are not helping those folks just keeping them under the government contriol. I suggest that all the Liberals open their eyes and get off the government bandwagon and work together with Conservatives to solve our issues. Keep the faith. It does work. Fossil fuel is the answer.
Oh, Robert: Fossil fuels are over, sooner or later. Your right-wing dogma always sounds the same. You’re always out to categorize, belittle, and demean Liberals and especially female Liberals it appears. It’s a you-vs- us game with you and you always paint yourself in the autocratic, patriarchal position. That may have worked well in your circle of friends or family around the dinner table, but it doesn’t win you any converts. My last entry here was reeking of sarcasm…and you bought it as Holiday Cheer?…Enjoy your Holiday, may there always be plenty of fracking gas full of Dick Cheney’s EPA-dodging rules that never occupies your groundwater or spills into your rivers. May Global Warming never enter your Right-Wing Island. May the Repubs find somebody better than Moneybags Mitt and The SchwinnBoy Ryan in 2016. Maybe Christie if he doesn’t die of overweight strain on his heart. If he can’t control his appetite and metabolism, how can lead the world to more fracking, less science, and chilling out Global Warming? Delusion, Amigo, all delusion, but I’m sure you’re up to the task. pb
SchwinnBoy, that’s a new one. Funny! Although funny, how about offering solutions instead of just name calling.
JLB:
See my recent response to Bob Livesay just posted a few minutes ago–More to come. Oh, Joy!–PB
Peter I fully understood what your comment was about. That did prevent me from showing some kindness to you and your family. I feel sorry for your anger and bitterness toward me when all I was trying to do was wish you a Merry Christmas. Sorry Peter I am correct on fossil fuel so get your head out of the sand. The trains are coming Peter. You may want to hitch a ride. Again a very Merry Christmas and I do mean it regardless of how I feel about your very negative remarks about me.
Bob Livesay: Better take notes. You want solutions?
Fossil fuel is not the answer. You RIGHT-WING non-science types are totally blind to Global Warming, and that is disgusting and inexcusable. Germany is far ahead of us in implementing solar energy solutions. Why don’t we study that as a role model? Why does the lax, mediocre US Media report only carnage on the road and DUIs and mistaken identity drive-by shooters and not the upbeat progress made in other countries?
End all corporate subsidies. End corporate tax loopholes from offshore accounts. End Foreign Aid. All of it.
Bring the US troops home now. Get imperialistically out of other countries’ business. Redeploy the National Guard along our southern border with Mexico and terminate the NSA. Terminate the CIA. We already have the FBI. How many dysfunctional US spying agencies do we need? Try the prisoners at Guantanamo and if we have insufficient evidence, let them go. No one on this planet deserves to be held in captivity indefinitely without a trial. We are a barbaric, 12th Century nation sometimes.
Ron Paul was your only 2012 GOP candidate with a lick of sense. Why you chose Money Bags Mitt and his sidekick Schwinn-Boy Ryan was totally low cerebral activity. Gov. Jindal of Louisiana may be right about his reference to the “Stupid Party.” Enact real legislation to require a minimum intelligence level for Congress. No Butt-sitters allowed. Boehner and McConnell and Michelle Bachmann can go home to their respective states and wrap fish, pound sand, or crack walnuts at their minimum state’s wage and see how it feels. Go figure. More to come—Merry Christmas to you too! Peter Bray, Benicia,CA
Peter you sound like an Isolationist. Everything you just said goes against everything you say you stand for. It appears you are very confused on what you really think this country needs. If that is how you think you should comment accordingly. I am very consistent on my comments and beliefs not all over the board. Your comment about me and women is so far from the truth it makes me think I should not pay any attention to what you say. You have made it your personal goal to go after Jim Pugh, Dennis, Bruce Robinson and of course me. Plus every Conservative and their beliefs. You appear to be a big fan of all Liberals but you just put them down big time. Peter just where do you stand? As I say I am very confused.
Bob: The Democrats are gutless and the Conservatives, so shallow, I said what I said, must I read it for you too? If I unleashed my full litany, I would stand just to the left of Ron Paul…I nearly voted for him in 2012 but wanted Obama to finish what he started despite the “old sour white men obstructionists” stacked against him. 300 dull, mediocre white men do not disable one bright, half-black, half-white man…
As time permits I’ll give you the balance of my solutions, but you’ll have to leave your right-wing island to read them…Do you get Doonesbury cartoons there? How’s the weather there? It’s cold as a witch’s barn in the Bay Area today. Continued excellence of our white bread season to you and yours!–pb
Peter calm down. You know I live in the land of opportunity and also read the strip right below Doonesbury. Do you read that comic strip also. They both are very funny. I do hope you enjoy the lighting of the Christmas tree tonight. It is always a good time. I do enjoy the banter when it stays away from personal attacks. Good ideas not ideals are very good and do open up ones eyes.
I might quibble about your comments in re Obama…yes, there have been missteps, but when the opposing party’s #1 priority is to make you a one-term president and they say ‘no’ to absolutely everything, there’s only so much you can do. But, in re the 1%…spot on.
Matt –
If someone is not in the 1% but disagrees with your points, does that automatically make them a minion?
A Minion is someone who reliably serves the interests of a particular group.
Matt,
Star Parker, a conservative columnist wrote today on the retirement woes facing minorities:
”A new study just published by the National Institute on Retirement Security – “Race and Retirement Insecurity in the United States”- presents a dismal snapshot of the state of retirement savings of minority American families.
It reports that 54.3 percent of blacks work for employers that offer retirement plans compared to 62.3 percent of whites. And 43.9 percent of blacks participate in those plans compared to 53.9 percent of whites.
Among Latinos, 37.8 percent work for employers with retirement plans and just 29.7 percent participate.
Only 37.9 percent of non-white Americans have assets in a retirement account compared to 63.4 percent of whites.
And the mean amount of retirement savings held by black households is $20,132, by Latino households is $17,600, compared to $111,749 held by white households.”
These are exactly the types of “bad decisions” that people are making which negatively impact their retirement years. While liberals and progressives seek to resolve this situation through government enforced redistribution, conservatives seek to increase the savings rate of participants in such programs while also increasing the rate of participation.
One plan works to improve the long term health of the nation as well as the individuals involved.
The other plan seeks to punish good behavior, while rewarding bad. In doing so the health of the nation is negatively impacted, while a divide is further created between both parties.