by John Médaille
Front Porch Republic
in Culture, High & Low,Economics & Empire
Address to the Roman Forum, July 7, 2011, Gardone, Italy
As we all know, the end of the world is coming soon. No, I don’t mean the eschaton, the final event in which the Son returns all things to the Father. That will be, by all accounts, a very cinematic event, full of all sorts of special effects. It will be, no doubt, very entertaining for those fortunate enough to be raptured in time to get a ring-side seat to the festivities to enjoy the spectacle of suffering for all those left behind. However, it is an event I know nothing about—and certainly not the day and the hour—and even if I knew that, there is not much I could do about it. I would like to address a quite different sort of end, the end of our world. Now, while the eschaton will come but once, the end of the world in this sense is something that happens with appalling frequency, and is usually an appalling event. These events are, at a minimum, the loss of familiar things, the comfortable and customary things, and even when they are things that we do not particularly love, and may even especially hate, they are at least things that we are used to, and giving up such things can be wrenching.
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Sunday, August 7, 2011
What’s Good? Wherefore Ought?
Editor's NOTE:
In this time of moral anarchy and the Nihil, it is useful to revisit a more traditional Roman Catholic view of morality as Thaddeus Kozinski has offered in this excellent piece. The author teaches that the ancient Greeks, Plato and Aristotle produced the finest pre-Christian ethic.
St. Augustine then harmonized the teaching of Plato and orthdodox Christianity within the first centuries after the death of Christ. Much later, St. Thomas Aquinas was able to combine the teachings of Aristotle's ethic (preserved by the great Muslim scholars) with that of Augustine and delivered the most complete Christian ethic in what has become known as the Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis--which has never been surpassed-either in the Enlightenment, in Modernity or post-Modernity. Were we to embrace the view offered by Thaddeus Kozinski, much of what ails our nation would be healed.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
by Thaddeus J. Kozinski
Public Discourse, Ethics, Law and the Common Good
May 11, 2011
Only an ethics rooted in the divinely revealed truth of creation-as-gift and creator-as-love can coherently and adequately make sense of the universal experience of ought.
We all have had the experience of ought, of something that, at least in a subjective sense, renders our imminent action morally relevant, so that what we are about to do or not do is more than a mere question of what will be pleasing to us, socially beneficial, psychologically comfortable, or useful for some plan of action. But it is not only the sense of what is or is not right that we experience in the moral ought, but also what is good. What seems right also seems good, and if it did not, it would not seem right; indeed, it could not be right at all. Thus, the good and the right seem correlative and inseparable in experience, though we can parse them out upon reflection. So, how to understand the twofold character of our moral experience: What’s good? Wherefore ought?
There are, of course, innumerable accounts to be given of this universal experience, ranging from cavalier dismissal—as a psychological vestige of our ancestors’ primitive taboo culture that the Enlightenment began to expunge from our communal consciousness, though it has not quite succeeded—to robust embrace: as the voice of a righteous God in the depths of the soul, demanding that we act according to that righteousness in obedience to divine commandments. Somewhere in the middle of these is the Aristotelian, eudaimonistic interpretation of the moral ought as an impetus to intelligently and voluntarily act for the purpose of self-satisfaction, following our natural inclination to happiness. This is the inclination not so much to do right but to be good, which is to say, to follow the natural, rational path to self-fulfillment, perfection, and well-being. Depending upon one’s philosophical or cultural tastes, this could be psychological adjustment, a la stoicism or Sigmund Freud, or virtuous activity, a la Aristotle or Benjamin Franklin. Then there is the Kantian third-way, combining the ethos of both a divine-command and a well-being ethics, but leaving out the need for any actual divine command or feeling of well-being. In other words, “Follow reason, God’s internal command in the soul, and you will be rendered worthy for happiness. . . later”—case in point, Jack Bauer from the television series 24 is a sort of contemporary hyper-Kantian, doing his duty without quite knowing it’s his duty, and without quite knowing if he’ll ever be happy.
Which theoretical and practical interpretation of the human experience of ought makes the most sense? It seems to me that there are two fundamental features of the experience that must be affirmed and explained. On the one hand, there is the sense of duty to the other, of the right—that something or someone outside or above me requires me to act in a certain way, regardless of my individual likes or dislikes, notwithstanding my understanding of how or whether the imminent act will contribute to my personal well-being, satisfaction of desire, or happiness. On the other hand, there is the sense of desire for self, of the good—the attraction, regardless of any sense of duty I might also have, to things in the world that I experience as desirable simply for me, as somehow related to my own happiness, which I pursue for their own sake.
Any explanation of the subjective experience of ought needs to encompass and synthesize both of these features. And herein lies the big problem, for these features appear to be mutually exclusive or at least in great tension with each other. If I am obliged to do something, whether this obligation comes from irrational taboo, social-contract convention, categorical reason, or God’s will, I cannot, at the same time, do this action for the sole purpose of my well-being, perfection, or subjective satisfaction. But if I feel obliged as well as attracted, then I cannot be doing what I ought to do merely because I am attracted to it personally. For then my happiness has become my duty. Conversely, if I find that I am personally attracted to what I also consider my duty, then I am not doing it because it is my duty, for my duty has now become for me a desirable good and thus a means to my personal happiness.
The phenomenological dialectic of right and good could be resolved if we could understand what is at the heart of human moral experience; but to understand this heart, we require more than what, unaided, human moral experience and purely philosophical speculation on this experience can provide. My argument for this conclusion is thus: What the duty aspect of moral experience suggests is the reality of justice, which is inherently relational and thus irreducible to any interpretation of morality as mere personal fulfillment. What the happiness aspect of moral experience suggests is the reality of desire-for-the-good, which is inherently personal and thus irreducible to an interpretation of morality as mere social or divine obligation. So, any explanation of the moral ought must include both others-related justice and self-related desire, and this is precisely what is provided by a theological ethics of creation and gift: If we are creatures, then we are inherently relational, with any actions related, above all, to our creator; and if creation is a gift, then we are supposed to enjoy creation as a good. And if God Himself, in essence, is a relation of three persons eternally bestowing upon each other and enjoying each other’s perfect divine goodness—God giving and receiving Himself—and if humans are made in the image and likeness of this Trinitarian gift-friendship, then we have the definitive—though still inexhaustibly mysterious—archetype in which the paradoxical human experience of simultaneous goodness and oughtness can ultimately be resolved.
If God created us and the world for a purpose, then we are obliged, by definition and through our very nature, to act according to this purpose. Even if we have been given free will to decide whether or not to correspond with our natural telos, we are not really capable of re-creating or re-designing ourselves; that is, we are inextricably purpose-fulfilling creatures, in the very fabric of our existence. And if God created the world as a gift, in imitation of His own gift-giving and -receiving essence, then our main purpose as the only creatures that can receive a gift qua gift—and not solely as something desirable—is simply to receive this gift as any gift is meant to be received, in love and gratitude for both the gift and the giver. In short, we are obliged to be happy, because we have a duty to love the gift of a divinely bestowed, happy-making existence, and we are encouraged to desire happiness for its own sake, because that is precisely the way we justly show our gratitude for the good gift we have been given.
So, am I saying that only an ethics rooted in the divinely revealed truth of creation-as-gift and creator-as-love can coherently and adequately make sense of the universal experience of ought? Indeed I am, though I think that purely philosophical explanations are similarly indispensable. Creation is replete with secondary causality, and grace and revelation can only complete nature and reason if the latter have a relative integrity and intelligibility. I am open to any account, whether philosophical or theological, that can do justice to our experience, but I have not come across any yet that both attract and oblige my soul the way the Augustinian-Thomistic theological account does.
Plato and Aristotle’s thought, if it could ever be adequately synthesized, is the most attractive and obligatory pre-Christian, purely philosophical account of ethical experience, combining both a divine-order sense of obligation (Plato’s Good) and a happiness-first-and-last sensibility (Aristotle’s phronemon). The synthesis of this account with Christian revelation is to be found in Augustine’s Platonic-Christian and St. Thomas’s Augustinian-Aristotelian ethics. But we need, most of all, an account for today, which means a synthesis of all these pagan and Christian intellectual treasures with the legitimate speculative and practical advances of secular modernity—such as the dignity of the human person, the extraordinariness of ordinary human life, the integrity and relative autonomy of the temporal social and political order, and institutions such as representative government, human rights tribunals, and freedom of religion—rightly understood. And we must add to this the insights of postmodernism, such as the tradition-and-history-constituted character of ethical enquiry, the bankruptcy of the Enlightenment “view-from-nowhere,” and the myth of the secular.
Thaddeus J. Kozinski is Assistant Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College.
In this time of moral anarchy and the Nihil, it is useful to revisit a more traditional Roman Catholic view of morality as Thaddeus Kozinski has offered in this excellent piece. The author teaches that the ancient Greeks, Plato and Aristotle produced the finest pre-Christian ethic.
St. Augustine then harmonized the teaching of Plato and orthdodox Christianity within the first centuries after the death of Christ. Much later, St. Thomas Aquinas was able to combine the teachings of Aristotle's ethic (preserved by the great Muslim scholars) with that of Augustine and delivered the most complete Christian ethic in what has become known as the Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis--which has never been surpassed-either in the Enlightenment, in Modernity or post-Modernity. Were we to embrace the view offered by Thaddeus Kozinski, much of what ails our nation would be healed.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
by Thaddeus J. Kozinski
Public Discourse, Ethics, Law and the Common Good
May 11, 2011
Only an ethics rooted in the divinely revealed truth of creation-as-gift and creator-as-love can coherently and adequately make sense of the universal experience of ought.
We all have had the experience of ought, of something that, at least in a subjective sense, renders our imminent action morally relevant, so that what we are about to do or not do is more than a mere question of what will be pleasing to us, socially beneficial, psychologically comfortable, or useful for some plan of action. But it is not only the sense of what is or is not right that we experience in the moral ought, but also what is good. What seems right also seems good, and if it did not, it would not seem right; indeed, it could not be right at all. Thus, the good and the right seem correlative and inseparable in experience, though we can parse them out upon reflection. So, how to understand the twofold character of our moral experience: What’s good? Wherefore ought?
There are, of course, innumerable accounts to be given of this universal experience, ranging from cavalier dismissal—as a psychological vestige of our ancestors’ primitive taboo culture that the Enlightenment began to expunge from our communal consciousness, though it has not quite succeeded—to robust embrace: as the voice of a righteous God in the depths of the soul, demanding that we act according to that righteousness in obedience to divine commandments. Somewhere in the middle of these is the Aristotelian, eudaimonistic interpretation of the moral ought as an impetus to intelligently and voluntarily act for the purpose of self-satisfaction, following our natural inclination to happiness. This is the inclination not so much to do right but to be good, which is to say, to follow the natural, rational path to self-fulfillment, perfection, and well-being. Depending upon one’s philosophical or cultural tastes, this could be psychological adjustment, a la stoicism or Sigmund Freud, or virtuous activity, a la Aristotle or Benjamin Franklin. Then there is the Kantian third-way, combining the ethos of both a divine-command and a well-being ethics, but leaving out the need for any actual divine command or feeling of well-being. In other words, “Follow reason, God’s internal command in the soul, and you will be rendered worthy for happiness. . . later”—case in point, Jack Bauer from the television series 24 is a sort of contemporary hyper-Kantian, doing his duty without quite knowing it’s his duty, and without quite knowing if he’ll ever be happy.
Which theoretical and practical interpretation of the human experience of ought makes the most sense? It seems to me that there are two fundamental features of the experience that must be affirmed and explained. On the one hand, there is the sense of duty to the other, of the right—that something or someone outside or above me requires me to act in a certain way, regardless of my individual likes or dislikes, notwithstanding my understanding of how or whether the imminent act will contribute to my personal well-being, satisfaction of desire, or happiness. On the other hand, there is the sense of desire for self, of the good—the attraction, regardless of any sense of duty I might also have, to things in the world that I experience as desirable simply for me, as somehow related to my own happiness, which I pursue for their own sake.
Any explanation of the subjective experience of ought needs to encompass and synthesize both of these features. And herein lies the big problem, for these features appear to be mutually exclusive or at least in great tension with each other. If I am obliged to do something, whether this obligation comes from irrational taboo, social-contract convention, categorical reason, or God’s will, I cannot, at the same time, do this action for the sole purpose of my well-being, perfection, or subjective satisfaction. But if I feel obliged as well as attracted, then I cannot be doing what I ought to do merely because I am attracted to it personally. For then my happiness has become my duty. Conversely, if I find that I am personally attracted to what I also consider my duty, then I am not doing it because it is my duty, for my duty has now become for me a desirable good and thus a means to my personal happiness.
The phenomenological dialectic of right and good could be resolved if we could understand what is at the heart of human moral experience; but to understand this heart, we require more than what, unaided, human moral experience and purely philosophical speculation on this experience can provide. My argument for this conclusion is thus: What the duty aspect of moral experience suggests is the reality of justice, which is inherently relational and thus irreducible to any interpretation of morality as mere personal fulfillment. What the happiness aspect of moral experience suggests is the reality of desire-for-the-good, which is inherently personal and thus irreducible to an interpretation of morality as mere social or divine obligation. So, any explanation of the moral ought must include both others-related justice and self-related desire, and this is precisely what is provided by a theological ethics of creation and gift: If we are creatures, then we are inherently relational, with any actions related, above all, to our creator; and if creation is a gift, then we are supposed to enjoy creation as a good. And if God Himself, in essence, is a relation of three persons eternally bestowing upon each other and enjoying each other’s perfect divine goodness—God giving and receiving Himself—and if humans are made in the image and likeness of this Trinitarian gift-friendship, then we have the definitive—though still inexhaustibly mysterious—archetype in which the paradoxical human experience of simultaneous goodness and oughtness can ultimately be resolved.
If God created us and the world for a purpose, then we are obliged, by definition and through our very nature, to act according to this purpose. Even if we have been given free will to decide whether or not to correspond with our natural telos, we are not really capable of re-creating or re-designing ourselves; that is, we are inextricably purpose-fulfilling creatures, in the very fabric of our existence. And if God created the world as a gift, in imitation of His own gift-giving and -receiving essence, then our main purpose as the only creatures that can receive a gift qua gift—and not solely as something desirable—is simply to receive this gift as any gift is meant to be received, in love and gratitude for both the gift and the giver. In short, we are obliged to be happy, because we have a duty to love the gift of a divinely bestowed, happy-making existence, and we are encouraged to desire happiness for its own sake, because that is precisely the way we justly show our gratitude for the good gift we have been given.
So, am I saying that only an ethics rooted in the divinely revealed truth of creation-as-gift and creator-as-love can coherently and adequately make sense of the universal experience of ought? Indeed I am, though I think that purely philosophical explanations are similarly indispensable. Creation is replete with secondary causality, and grace and revelation can only complete nature and reason if the latter have a relative integrity and intelligibility. I am open to any account, whether philosophical or theological, that can do justice to our experience, but I have not come across any yet that both attract and oblige my soul the way the Augustinian-Thomistic theological account does.
Plato and Aristotle’s thought, if it could ever be adequately synthesized, is the most attractive and obligatory pre-Christian, purely philosophical account of ethical experience, combining both a divine-order sense of obligation (Plato’s Good) and a happiness-first-and-last sensibility (Aristotle’s phronemon). The synthesis of this account with Christian revelation is to be found in Augustine’s Platonic-Christian and St. Thomas’s Augustinian-Aristotelian ethics. But we need, most of all, an account for today, which means a synthesis of all these pagan and Christian intellectual treasures with the legitimate speculative and practical advances of secular modernity—such as the dignity of the human person, the extraordinariness of ordinary human life, the integrity and relative autonomy of the temporal social and political order, and institutions such as representative government, human rights tribunals, and freedom of religion—rightly understood. And we must add to this the insights of postmodernism, such as the tradition-and-history-constituted character of ethical enquiry, the bankruptcy of the Enlightenment “view-from-nowhere,” and the myth of the secular.
Thaddeus J. Kozinski is Assistant Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Hidden Agenda: The "Debt Crisis Plan" was to Strike a Blow at the National Social Safety Net
By Shamus Cooke
Global Research
August 2, 2011
The debt crisis has been averted and people across the globe are breathing sighs of relief.
But in the back rooms of the US Congress, politicians are celebrating for a different reason. It's the kind of celebration that erupts when a group executes a complicated plan to perfection. The objective in this case was to strike the first blows against the national social safety net without encountering massive resistance. Mission half-accomplished thus far.
Half accomplished because only half of the $2.5 billion in cuts have been decided on. The other half will be sent to a bi-partisan committee where, according to the White House Fact Sheet:
"... the committee will consider responsible entitlement [Social Security and Medicare] and tax reform [cuts to entitlement programs]. This means putting all the priorities of both parties on the table – including both entitlement reform [Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid] and revenue-raising tax reform.”
If the committee fails to agree on the cuts, they would be automatically triggered, and Medicare would be the target: "...any cuts to Medicare would be capped and limited to the provider side." This means that fewer doctors would accept Medicare patients or they would provide fewer services to Medicare beneficiaries.
When it comes to cutting Social Security and Medicare, the Democrats are Republicans are only trying to get their foot into the door. Nevertheless, the potential cuts will have a massive impact on the millions of Americans who depend on these vital services. And if these cuts are allowed to happen unopposed, the possibility of future, more dramatic cuts is certain.
Equally bad is that the budget deal makes the unemployment situation even worse. In writing about the effect the cuts would have on employment, a Moody’s analyst predicted that:
"The deal announced last night calls for a yearly average of $240 billion in cuts over the next decade. Very roughly, that suggests the new plan would cost around 1.6 million jobs per year during that time. [!]" (August 1st, 2011).
This noxious level of contempt for working people was the product of a manufactured crisis, with Democrats and Republicans playing along. How did Obama and the Democrats essentially push through the long-term objectives of the Republican Party? Author Michael Hudson explains on Democracy Now:
"... There has to be a crisis. Now, in reality, there is no crisis at all. In reality, raising the debt ceiling has been done for a hundred years automatically. There is no connection between raising the debt ceiling and arguing over tax policy. Tax policy takes many years to work out. All of a sudden, Mr. Obama is going along with the charade of saying, "Wait a minute, let’s create a crisis."... And Wall Street doesn’t like real crises, so there’s an artificial non-crisis that Obama is treating as a crisis so that he can put forth the recommendations of the Deficit Reduction Commission to get rid of Social Security that he has supported all along." (July 22nd, 2011).
Thus, it's not true that Obama was "held hostage" by the Republicans. If he told the country only half of what Mr. Hudson explained on Democracy Now, the Republicans would have folded instantly. If Obama would have told the country that the Republicans wanted massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare, instead of purposely hiding these issues, Republican voters would have converged on Capitol Hill with torches and pitchforks. Instead, Obama went along with the charade; because in order for it to succeed, he was required to play a leading role in the drama.
Liberal groups and the major labor federations -- AFL-CIO and Change to Win -- have given a left cover to Obama's far-right policies, wrongly blaming only the Republicans every step of the way. But this willful blindness has its limits. These groups intend to "get out the vote" for Obama in 2012 while ignoring all the damage he's done to working families, while they also ignore all the promises Obama made to them and didn't keep last time.
The rank-and-file members of labor unions and liberal groups are among the million of Americans suffering under Obama's economic policies and will not follow their leaders like lemmings over the cliff for Obama's next presidential run. There will be a profound lack of rank-and-file volunteers to campaign for Obama, even as labor union leaders throw away their members’ dues money for the campaign. And because fewer members will campaign for Obama, he will feel less inclined to reward them after (or if) he wins. Instead, he'll again reward Wall Street, meaning, he'll continue to take from working people and give to the rich, further exacerbating the problem.
To change this downward spiral for labor and liberal groups a new approach is desperately needed, and can be started in two steps: 1) Put forth independent demands. 2) Wage a real fight for these demands. The most immediate demands for the majority of people are job creation and saving Social Security, Medicare, and the broader safety net including Medicaid. These demands require that revenue be raised by taxing the rich and corporations, since no other group can afford any taxes, and inequality continues to skyrocket.
There is a direct link between the decades-long lowering of taxes on the wealthy and corporations and deficits rising on the national and state level. Economist Richard Wolff explains on Democracy Now:
"We’re running a deficit because the people who run this society would like us to deal with our economic problems, not by taxing those who have it, the way we used to, but instead by endlessly borrowing from them. And now the ultimate irony, we’ve borrowed so much as a nation from the rich and the corporations, they now are not so sure they want to continue to lend to us, because we’re so deeply in debt. And they want us instead to go stick it to poor people and sick people instead. It’s an extraordinary moment in our history as a nation." (July 29th, 2011).
So instead of directly taxing the very rich and corporations, we are borrowing money from them with interest. Much of the money we are borrowing from them was given to them via the bank bailouts; they were given free taxpayer money and lent the money back to the taxpayers, while demanding that programs that benefit working people be slashed! This extraordinary moment requires extraordinary action from working class organizations, including mass demonstrations as part of a sustained, independent campaign.
The deficit reduction plan worked out by the cooperation between Republicans and Democrats is not set in stone. Massive, ongoing protests have a tendency to make politicians re-think their policies.
Global Research
August 2, 2011
The debt crisis has been averted and people across the globe are breathing sighs of relief.
But in the back rooms of the US Congress, politicians are celebrating for a different reason. It's the kind of celebration that erupts when a group executes a complicated plan to perfection. The objective in this case was to strike the first blows against the national social safety net without encountering massive resistance. Mission half-accomplished thus far.
Half accomplished because only half of the $2.5 billion in cuts have been decided on. The other half will be sent to a bi-partisan committee where, according to the White House Fact Sheet:
"... the committee will consider responsible entitlement [Social Security and Medicare] and tax reform [cuts to entitlement programs]. This means putting all the priorities of both parties on the table – including both entitlement reform [Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid] and revenue-raising tax reform.”
If the committee fails to agree on the cuts, they would be automatically triggered, and Medicare would be the target: "...any cuts to Medicare would be capped and limited to the provider side." This means that fewer doctors would accept Medicare patients or they would provide fewer services to Medicare beneficiaries.
When it comes to cutting Social Security and Medicare, the Democrats are Republicans are only trying to get their foot into the door. Nevertheless, the potential cuts will have a massive impact on the millions of Americans who depend on these vital services. And if these cuts are allowed to happen unopposed, the possibility of future, more dramatic cuts is certain.
Equally bad is that the budget deal makes the unemployment situation even worse. In writing about the effect the cuts would have on employment, a Moody’s analyst predicted that:
"The deal announced last night calls for a yearly average of $240 billion in cuts over the next decade. Very roughly, that suggests the new plan would cost around 1.6 million jobs per year during that time. [!]" (August 1st, 2011).
This noxious level of contempt for working people was the product of a manufactured crisis, with Democrats and Republicans playing along. How did Obama and the Democrats essentially push through the long-term objectives of the Republican Party? Author Michael Hudson explains on Democracy Now:
"... There has to be a crisis. Now, in reality, there is no crisis at all. In reality, raising the debt ceiling has been done for a hundred years automatically. There is no connection between raising the debt ceiling and arguing over tax policy. Tax policy takes many years to work out. All of a sudden, Mr. Obama is going along with the charade of saying, "Wait a minute, let’s create a crisis."... And Wall Street doesn’t like real crises, so there’s an artificial non-crisis that Obama is treating as a crisis so that he can put forth the recommendations of the Deficit Reduction Commission to get rid of Social Security that he has supported all along." (July 22nd, 2011).
Thus, it's not true that Obama was "held hostage" by the Republicans. If he told the country only half of what Mr. Hudson explained on Democracy Now, the Republicans would have folded instantly. If Obama would have told the country that the Republicans wanted massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare, instead of purposely hiding these issues, Republican voters would have converged on Capitol Hill with torches and pitchforks. Instead, Obama went along with the charade; because in order for it to succeed, he was required to play a leading role in the drama.
Liberal groups and the major labor federations -- AFL-CIO and Change to Win -- have given a left cover to Obama's far-right policies, wrongly blaming only the Republicans every step of the way. But this willful blindness has its limits. These groups intend to "get out the vote" for Obama in 2012 while ignoring all the damage he's done to working families, while they also ignore all the promises Obama made to them and didn't keep last time.
The rank-and-file members of labor unions and liberal groups are among the million of Americans suffering under Obama's economic policies and will not follow their leaders like lemmings over the cliff for Obama's next presidential run. There will be a profound lack of rank-and-file volunteers to campaign for Obama, even as labor union leaders throw away their members’ dues money for the campaign. And because fewer members will campaign for Obama, he will feel less inclined to reward them after (or if) he wins. Instead, he'll again reward Wall Street, meaning, he'll continue to take from working people and give to the rich, further exacerbating the problem.
To change this downward spiral for labor and liberal groups a new approach is desperately needed, and can be started in two steps: 1) Put forth independent demands. 2) Wage a real fight for these demands. The most immediate demands for the majority of people are job creation and saving Social Security, Medicare, and the broader safety net including Medicaid. These demands require that revenue be raised by taxing the rich and corporations, since no other group can afford any taxes, and inequality continues to skyrocket.
There is a direct link between the decades-long lowering of taxes on the wealthy and corporations and deficits rising on the national and state level. Economist Richard Wolff explains on Democracy Now:
"We’re running a deficit because the people who run this society would like us to deal with our economic problems, not by taxing those who have it, the way we used to, but instead by endlessly borrowing from them. And now the ultimate irony, we’ve borrowed so much as a nation from the rich and the corporations, they now are not so sure they want to continue to lend to us, because we’re so deeply in debt. And they want us instead to go stick it to poor people and sick people instead. It’s an extraordinary moment in our history as a nation." (July 29th, 2011).
So instead of directly taxing the very rich and corporations, we are borrowing money from them with interest. Much of the money we are borrowing from them was given to them via the bank bailouts; they were given free taxpayer money and lent the money back to the taxpayers, while demanding that programs that benefit working people be slashed! This extraordinary moment requires extraordinary action from working class organizations, including mass demonstrations as part of a sustained, independent campaign.
The deficit reduction plan worked out by the cooperation between Republicans and Democrats is not set in stone. Massive, ongoing protests have a tendency to make politicians re-think their policies.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Debt Ceiling Deal Trickery: A Catalyst for an Uprising?
By: Kevin Gosztola
dissenter.firedoglake.com
Tuesday August 2, 2011 5:10 pm
The outcome of the debt ceiling talks is a foregone conclusion. An agreement has been established. The Obama Administration and GOP leaders came together and came up with a deal that would satisfy enough of Republican congressman beholden to the right wing economic libertarian “Tea Party.” Democratic leaders were stuck in the middle, trying to advance a plan that would be less destructive to the people of this country yet President Barack Obama gave very little support always indicating he was for a compromise with Speaker John Boehner, who was, as is typical, being driven by corporate interests and the faction of people Vice President Joe Biden would later accuse of “acting like terrorists.”
It was scripted political theater from the beginning to end and had a predictable outcome. One might recall the American people were given a preview of the debt ceiling talks back in December when Obama announced a tax cut deal that validated the GOP’s hostage taking strategy. Middle class tax cuts, jobless benefits and other items were held hostage until Obama committed to extending tax cuts for the top 2% of Americans.
Then, too, a bipartisan deal was achieved. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned giving into “blackmailers” would ensure demands in the future. “As long as Republicans believe that Mr. Obama will do anything to avoid short-term pain, they’ll have every incentive to keep taking hostages. If the president will endanger America’s fiscal future to avoid a tax increase, what will he give to avoid a government shutdown?”
On the debt deal, Krugman argues Obama surrendered. He agreed to “big spending cuts, with no increase[s] in revenue.” Democrats and Obama decided Republicans might have an “incentive” to make cuts next time around. He further emboldened corporate and special interests that have a vice grip on the American government. Worse, Obama signed off on a clear subversion of democracy by advocating for the establishment of a 12-person “Super Congress,” a panel of members in Congress that will cut at least $1.2 trillion and decide what to cut.
This is not surrender though. This is what President Obama wants. This is making government “work.” This is making certain gridlock doesn’t get in the way of Obama’s commitment to demonstrating he has “changed” Washington by making it “work.” And, to better understand the outcome of this bipartisan deal, one should remember what comedian George Carlin said about the word “bipartisan” meaning a much larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.
Whose Delusionary and Uninformed?
Those arguing that Obama had no choice but to bow to pressure from the GOP or Tea Party are significantly misinformed or willfully ignorant. There was a legal remedy for all of this. He did not have to risk more economic injustice in this country and put social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on the chopping block. He had the opportunity to raise the debt ceiling in December but chose not to because he thought he would like to have a second chance to prove he can govern without being extorted.
Those suggesting the people of this country have to find something positive in this outcome are even shallower. Defense spending will not face deeper cuts than Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Or, if defense spending does face cuts, it will likely mean defense spending cuts come out of an extra $50 billion deal negotiated outside of the debt ceiling talks and the Defense Department will most likely end up with more funding and resources than before the debt ceiling “crisis” began to be manufactured by the political class in Washington.
Ezra Klein of The Washington Post seems to think that Obama’s strategy is “brilliant.” He has attached a double trigger that means defense contracting cuts and Bush tax cuts could go into effect if Republicans don’t “compromise.” What theater ensemble has Klein been watching move about on the political stage in Washington? As Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has written, the Democrats did not fight the GOP at all. They could not fight the GOP at all because they would have impeded the Obama Administration’s ability to cut a deal favorable to the GOP.
“[Democrats] made a show of a tussle for a good long time — as fixed fights go, you don’t see many that last into the 11th and 12th rounds, like this one did — but at the final hour, they let out a whimper and took a dive,” Taibbi concludes. “We probably need to start wondering why this keeps happening. Also, this: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions?” Adding, “Who spends hundreds of millions of dollars for what looks, on the outside, like rank incompetence?”
The answer is a few million liberals, who get involved in organizations like MoveOn and Organizing for America (the worst of the two) get involved in spending millions of dollars on what appears to be “rank incompetence.” The answer is unions with weak leaders like Richard Trumka of AFL-CIO, who pretend to be inching toward starting an independent political movement then turn coward and go back to business as usual.
What Looks Like “Rank Incompetence” is Intentional
What has been on display really isn’t “rank incompetence” at all. As many people who write and discuss politics are realizing, the Democrats’ role in the debt ceiling crisis was to not fight back against the GOP or the Obama Administration. It was to concede when necessary.
And, atrociously, the final moment of rolling over and playing dead for corporations and the wealthy in America came just when the Democratic Party seemingly used Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who was shot in the head in Arizona by a sociopath in January. She was trotted out to vote for the deal. Standing on the House floor, Giffords’ condition was exploited to ensure that not enough Democrats would vote against the deal.
Is this really acceptable to people who support Obama? Is this really acceptable to people who are considering voting for Democrats in 2012 because they think that will remedy the continued onslaught on the poor, working, and middle class of America by the Tea Party, the shock troops for corporate and special interests in America?
It is no longer possible to tell someone with a straight face that Obama hasn’t continued the Bush “war on terror” policies that have a brought forth an assault on civil liberties. It should no longer be possible for someone to look another in the face and argue Obama is any better than Bush.
Not a single person has gone to jail for being criminally involved in the collapse of the economy in 2008. Jeff Cohen of FAIR points out Obama has consistently put “corporate deregulation and greed ahead of the needs of most Americans.”
Finally, the Republicans will not be beat back by finding Democratic candidates for primaries. The system is too broken for that to remedy much of anything. The debates should not center around which personalities will lead us the way forward. The focus should be on people like you—the people who are tuned into the political moment, who nod in agreement with the words of this post and other much more insightful posts here in other sectors of the blogosphere.
“The Outrage Must Come from You”
Keith Olbermann had it right on “Countdown” last night as he outlined what he called the “four great hypocrisies” of this debt ceiling deal:
Where is the outrage over these great hypocrisies? Do you expect it to come from a corrupt and corrupted media for whom access is of greater importance then criticizing the failure of a political party or defending those who don’t buy newspapers or can’t leap website pay walls or could not afford cable TV? Do you expect it to come from a cynical and manipulative political structure? Do you expect it from those elected officials who no longer know anything of government or governance but only perceive how to get elected or how to pose in front of a camera and pretend to be leaders? Do you expect it from politicians themselves who will merely calculate whether or not it’s right based on whether or not it will get them more contributions? Do you expect it will come from the great middle ground of this country with a population obsessed with entertainment, video games, social media, sports and media?
Where is the outrage to come from? From you!
Olbermann proceeded to declare that the people must become organized, unified and hell bent like the corporations which are organized, unified and hell bent on crushing the people of this country. He called on Americans to “find again the energy and the purpose of the 1960s and early 1970s and we must protest this deal and all the goddamn deals to come, in the streets.” And, he got specific urging general strikes, boycotts, protests, sit-ins, non-cooperation, takeovers, etc.
To the cynical who are saying strikes, boycotts, protests, sit-ins, non-cooperation, takeovers, etc can never happen, that Americans never engage in resistance and will not engage in resistance to save this country from permanent ruin, there are groups who have already been mounting efforts. This moment will only act as a catalyst for ensuring the number of people, who participate in the action, increase tremendously.
Occupy Wall Street is building up for September 17, calling for a “Tahrir moment,” which would involve citizens flooding into lower Manhattan to set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades, etc to occupy Wall Street. Using the means of communication that exists today, which radicals of the 1960s did not have, they intend to harness the power of a plurality of voices and demand “democracy not corporatocracy” right from the belly of the beast.
US Day of Rage (USDOR), which has endorsed Occupy Wall Street, is also working to fuel principled nonviolent protest on September 17th. A USDOR organizer explains the initiative is focused on challenging the illegitimate US government, which does not currently express the will of the people through free and fair elections. The initiative calls for nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience and aims to build toward a federal protest at the US capitol.
Seize DC is calling for an action on September 10 to reclaim civil liberties and rights that citizens have lost in this country. The organizers condemn “the seeking of permits, the placing in quarantined zones, the appropriation of ‘free speech’ and the pro forma ‘right to dissent,’ treated as a purely formal and meaningless expression” that has come to curb the ability of any social movement to have an impact in this country. Those behind the action find they do not need permission for free speech or the right to assembly and will not submit to having their protest cordoned off by a “murderous and tyrannical oligarchy.” They intend to “seize” DC—capture the “attention of the city and the nation so that its policies of seize and destroy may end.”
October 2011 is calling on people to “stop the machine” and “create a new world.” On October 6, they will begin an occupation in Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, and will not leave until the people there are comfortable leaving. October 2011 organizer Kevin Zeese says they will decide what demands to make, what first steps the government must show they intend to take, before they ultimately leave. They intend to push the government to take notice of the people in Freedom Plaza and following the initial action there will be follow-up actions to continue to democratize the country.
There are many initiatives going on in the country. Protests are happening every day and the people are coming out to show their leaders they are angry and outraged. Zeese concludes, “People are all reaching the same conclusion together. There is a group consciousness that is developing that the dysfunctional government that’s corrupted by corporate dollars is not acceptable anymore.”
A laundry list of civil liberties have been lost. Constitutional rights have been systematically violated. (The Dissenter, in its first weeks of operation, has brought forth this reality in multiple posts.)
Resistance efforts aim to turn back the assault. Zeese rightfully suggests that the way you gain constitutional rights and civil liberties back is that you use them. Like exercising a muscle, he says, the more you use civil liberties, the stronger they get in society.
Be Cynical—It Will Only Please the Powerful in This Country
Nobody can say people aren’t mounting a struggle to prevent this country from becoming a permanent oligarchy. No person can suggest that there is no effort to end the self-perpetuation of the project, which far too many hypocritically engage in while at the same time complaining about the way they are consistently shafted.
The Tunisia revolution, the first and second uprisings in Egypt, and the growing protests in Europe didn’t begin as strong as they are today. The challenging of austerity and autocracy in government didn’t begin with millions and millions of people instantly shaking the foundations of government. It took a few people finally deciding enough was enough. It took citizens entering a public square and deciding they had reached their breaking point with the power structure of society and weren’t going to take it anymore.
Blacks and white abolitionists didn’t wait for the country to reach their level of consciousness when they took action for emancipation from slavery. They took the lead. Women didn’t wait for the country to reach their level of consciousness when they took action for equal rights. They took the lead. Black people didn’t wait for the country to reach their level of consciousness when they took action against Jim Crow laws and beat back inequality and injustice. They took the lead.
Those who don’t get it won’t get it and cannot be expected to get it. They may get it once they see people in the streets. But, the people who understand the objective situation the country is in have an obligation and duty to take action. The resistance is called for and justified. No act of rebellion will be wasted. All outlets for enacting influence on power have been closed down and stopped up by the congressional-media-military-security complex. If the state of society to you is abhorrent, the answer is to get out in the streets and help reinforce the groups that are engaged in efforts for radically changing society.
dissenter.firedoglake.com
Tuesday August 2, 2011 5:10 pm
The outcome of the debt ceiling talks is a foregone conclusion. An agreement has been established. The Obama Administration and GOP leaders came together and came up with a deal that would satisfy enough of Republican congressman beholden to the right wing economic libertarian “Tea Party.” Democratic leaders were stuck in the middle, trying to advance a plan that would be less destructive to the people of this country yet President Barack Obama gave very little support always indicating he was for a compromise with Speaker John Boehner, who was, as is typical, being driven by corporate interests and the faction of people Vice President Joe Biden would later accuse of “acting like terrorists.”
It was scripted political theater from the beginning to end and had a predictable outcome. One might recall the American people were given a preview of the debt ceiling talks back in December when Obama announced a tax cut deal that validated the GOP’s hostage taking strategy. Middle class tax cuts, jobless benefits and other items were held hostage until Obama committed to extending tax cuts for the top 2% of Americans.
Then, too, a bipartisan deal was achieved. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned giving into “blackmailers” would ensure demands in the future. “As long as Republicans believe that Mr. Obama will do anything to avoid short-term pain, they’ll have every incentive to keep taking hostages. If the president will endanger America’s fiscal future to avoid a tax increase, what will he give to avoid a government shutdown?”
On the debt deal, Krugman argues Obama surrendered. He agreed to “big spending cuts, with no increase[s] in revenue.” Democrats and Obama decided Republicans might have an “incentive” to make cuts next time around. He further emboldened corporate and special interests that have a vice grip on the American government. Worse, Obama signed off on a clear subversion of democracy by advocating for the establishment of a 12-person “Super Congress,” a panel of members in Congress that will cut at least $1.2 trillion and decide what to cut.
This is not surrender though. This is what President Obama wants. This is making government “work.” This is making certain gridlock doesn’t get in the way of Obama’s commitment to demonstrating he has “changed” Washington by making it “work.” And, to better understand the outcome of this bipartisan deal, one should remember what comedian George Carlin said about the word “bipartisan” meaning a much larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.
Whose Delusionary and Uninformed?
Those arguing that Obama had no choice but to bow to pressure from the GOP or Tea Party are significantly misinformed or willfully ignorant. There was a legal remedy for all of this. He did not have to risk more economic injustice in this country and put social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on the chopping block. He had the opportunity to raise the debt ceiling in December but chose not to because he thought he would like to have a second chance to prove he can govern without being extorted.
Those suggesting the people of this country have to find something positive in this outcome are even shallower. Defense spending will not face deeper cuts than Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Or, if defense spending does face cuts, it will likely mean defense spending cuts come out of an extra $50 billion deal negotiated outside of the debt ceiling talks and the Defense Department will most likely end up with more funding and resources than before the debt ceiling “crisis” began to be manufactured by the political class in Washington.
Ezra Klein of The Washington Post seems to think that Obama’s strategy is “brilliant.” He has attached a double trigger that means defense contracting cuts and Bush tax cuts could go into effect if Republicans don’t “compromise.” What theater ensemble has Klein been watching move about on the political stage in Washington? As Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has written, the Democrats did not fight the GOP at all. They could not fight the GOP at all because they would have impeded the Obama Administration’s ability to cut a deal favorable to the GOP.
“[Democrats] made a show of a tussle for a good long time — as fixed fights go, you don’t see many that last into the 11th and 12th rounds, like this one did — but at the final hour, they let out a whimper and took a dive,” Taibbi concludes. “We probably need to start wondering why this keeps happening. Also, this: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions?” Adding, “Who spends hundreds of millions of dollars for what looks, on the outside, like rank incompetence?”
The answer is a few million liberals, who get involved in organizations like MoveOn and Organizing for America (the worst of the two) get involved in spending millions of dollars on what appears to be “rank incompetence.” The answer is unions with weak leaders like Richard Trumka of AFL-CIO, who pretend to be inching toward starting an independent political movement then turn coward and go back to business as usual.
What Looks Like “Rank Incompetence” is Intentional
What has been on display really isn’t “rank incompetence” at all. As many people who write and discuss politics are realizing, the Democrats’ role in the debt ceiling crisis was to not fight back against the GOP or the Obama Administration. It was to concede when necessary.
And, atrociously, the final moment of rolling over and playing dead for corporations and the wealthy in America came just when the Democratic Party seemingly used Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who was shot in the head in Arizona by a sociopath in January. She was trotted out to vote for the deal. Standing on the House floor, Giffords’ condition was exploited to ensure that not enough Democrats would vote against the deal.
Is this really acceptable to people who support Obama? Is this really acceptable to people who are considering voting for Democrats in 2012 because they think that will remedy the continued onslaught on the poor, working, and middle class of America by the Tea Party, the shock troops for corporate and special interests in America?
It is no longer possible to tell someone with a straight face that Obama hasn’t continued the Bush “war on terror” policies that have a brought forth an assault on civil liberties. It should no longer be possible for someone to look another in the face and argue Obama is any better than Bush.
Not a single person has gone to jail for being criminally involved in the collapse of the economy in 2008. Jeff Cohen of FAIR points out Obama has consistently put “corporate deregulation and greed ahead of the needs of most Americans.”
Finally, the Republicans will not be beat back by finding Democratic candidates for primaries. The system is too broken for that to remedy much of anything. The debates should not center around which personalities will lead us the way forward. The focus should be on people like you—the people who are tuned into the political moment, who nod in agreement with the words of this post and other much more insightful posts here in other sectors of the blogosphere.
“The Outrage Must Come from You”
Keith Olbermann had it right on “Countdown” last night as he outlined what he called the “four great hypocrisies” of this debt ceiling deal:
Where is the outrage over these great hypocrisies? Do you expect it to come from a corrupt and corrupted media for whom access is of greater importance then criticizing the failure of a political party or defending those who don’t buy newspapers or can’t leap website pay walls or could not afford cable TV? Do you expect it to come from a cynical and manipulative political structure? Do you expect it from those elected officials who no longer know anything of government or governance but only perceive how to get elected or how to pose in front of a camera and pretend to be leaders? Do you expect it from politicians themselves who will merely calculate whether or not it’s right based on whether or not it will get them more contributions? Do you expect it will come from the great middle ground of this country with a population obsessed with entertainment, video games, social media, sports and media?
Where is the outrage to come from? From you!
Olbermann proceeded to declare that the people must become organized, unified and hell bent like the corporations which are organized, unified and hell bent on crushing the people of this country. He called on Americans to “find again the energy and the purpose of the 1960s and early 1970s and we must protest this deal and all the goddamn deals to come, in the streets.” And, he got specific urging general strikes, boycotts, protests, sit-ins, non-cooperation, takeovers, etc.
To the cynical who are saying strikes, boycotts, protests, sit-ins, non-cooperation, takeovers, etc can never happen, that Americans never engage in resistance and will not engage in resistance to save this country from permanent ruin, there are groups who have already been mounting efforts. This moment will only act as a catalyst for ensuring the number of people, who participate in the action, increase tremendously.
Occupy Wall Street is building up for September 17, calling for a “Tahrir moment,” which would involve citizens flooding into lower Manhattan to set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades, etc to occupy Wall Street. Using the means of communication that exists today, which radicals of the 1960s did not have, they intend to harness the power of a plurality of voices and demand “democracy not corporatocracy” right from the belly of the beast.
US Day of Rage (USDOR), which has endorsed Occupy Wall Street, is also working to fuel principled nonviolent protest on September 17th. A USDOR organizer explains the initiative is focused on challenging the illegitimate US government, which does not currently express the will of the people through free and fair elections. The initiative calls for nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience and aims to build toward a federal protest at the US capitol.
Seize DC is calling for an action on September 10 to reclaim civil liberties and rights that citizens have lost in this country. The organizers condemn “the seeking of permits, the placing in quarantined zones, the appropriation of ‘free speech’ and the pro forma ‘right to dissent,’ treated as a purely formal and meaningless expression” that has come to curb the ability of any social movement to have an impact in this country. Those behind the action find they do not need permission for free speech or the right to assembly and will not submit to having their protest cordoned off by a “murderous and tyrannical oligarchy.” They intend to “seize” DC—capture the “attention of the city and the nation so that its policies of seize and destroy may end.”
October 2011 is calling on people to “stop the machine” and “create a new world.” On October 6, they will begin an occupation in Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, and will not leave until the people there are comfortable leaving. October 2011 organizer Kevin Zeese says they will decide what demands to make, what first steps the government must show they intend to take, before they ultimately leave. They intend to push the government to take notice of the people in Freedom Plaza and following the initial action there will be follow-up actions to continue to democratize the country.
There are many initiatives going on in the country. Protests are happening every day and the people are coming out to show their leaders they are angry and outraged. Zeese concludes, “People are all reaching the same conclusion together. There is a group consciousness that is developing that the dysfunctional government that’s corrupted by corporate dollars is not acceptable anymore.”
A laundry list of civil liberties have been lost. Constitutional rights have been systematically violated. (The Dissenter, in its first weeks of operation, has brought forth this reality in multiple posts.)
Resistance efforts aim to turn back the assault. Zeese rightfully suggests that the way you gain constitutional rights and civil liberties back is that you use them. Like exercising a muscle, he says, the more you use civil liberties, the stronger they get in society.
Be Cynical—It Will Only Please the Powerful in This Country
Nobody can say people aren’t mounting a struggle to prevent this country from becoming a permanent oligarchy. No person can suggest that there is no effort to end the self-perpetuation of the project, which far too many hypocritically engage in while at the same time complaining about the way they are consistently shafted.
The Tunisia revolution, the first and second uprisings in Egypt, and the growing protests in Europe didn’t begin as strong as they are today. The challenging of austerity and autocracy in government didn’t begin with millions and millions of people instantly shaking the foundations of government. It took a few people finally deciding enough was enough. It took citizens entering a public square and deciding they had reached their breaking point with the power structure of society and weren’t going to take it anymore.
Blacks and white abolitionists didn’t wait for the country to reach their level of consciousness when they took action for emancipation from slavery. They took the lead. Women didn’t wait for the country to reach their level of consciousness when they took action for equal rights. They took the lead. Black people didn’t wait for the country to reach their level of consciousness when they took action against Jim Crow laws and beat back inequality and injustice. They took the lead.
Those who don’t get it won’t get it and cannot be expected to get it. They may get it once they see people in the streets. But, the people who understand the objective situation the country is in have an obligation and duty to take action. The resistance is called for and justified. No act of rebellion will be wasted. All outlets for enacting influence on power have been closed down and stopped up by the congressional-media-military-security complex. If the state of society to you is abhorrent, the answer is to get out in the streets and help reinforce the groups that are engaged in efforts for radically changing society.
Monday, August 1, 2011
The US Dictatorship and its White House Servant ‘President’
by Finian Cunningham
Global Research
August 1, 2011
If there is one thing that the office of President Barack Obama demonstrates it is that democracy does not exist in the United States. This may seem a rather outlandish statement. For many people, the fact that the 44th president is the first black man to preside over the White House – with its American colonial-style architecture – is a tribute to the triumph of US democracy.
But many other more telling facts indicate that Obama is but a figurehead of an unelected government in the US. This unelected power of corporate elites – commercial, financial, military – governs with the same core policies regardless of who is sitting in the White House. Whether these policies are on social, economic or foreign matters, the elected president must obey the direction ordained by the unelected elite. That kind of untrammeled power structure conforms more closely in practice to dictatorship, not democracy.
As Michael Hudson and Ellen Brown reveal in their analyses of the US budget debacle, Obama is pathetically doing the bidding of Wall Street – much like an errand boy [1] [2].
Brown writes: “The debt crisis was created, not by a social safety net bought and paid for by the taxpayers, but by a banking system taken over by Wall Street gamblers. The gamblers lost their bets and were bailed out at the expense of the taxpayers; and if anyone should be held to account, it is these gamblers.
“The debt ceiling crisis is a manufactured one, engineered to extort concessions that will lock the middle class in debt peonage for decades to come. Congress is empowered by the Constitution to issue the money it needs to pay its debts.”
Obama’s servile toeing of Wall Street’s line is not the behavior of a free leader boldly defending the interests of the people and the greater good. Rather, his behaviour is that of one doing what he is told to do – and doing it with grateful deference.
In this way, of course, Obama is hardly different from his predecessors. But of difference is just how blatant the White House is now appearing to function as a mere tool of the rich and powerful elite.
The irony is that Obama’s election was presented as a potent symbol of American democracy; the truth is that the two-party system has become a threadbare cover for immense feebleness when it comes to serving the diktat of elite power as opposed to the good of the people. “The most powerful office in the world” would be more accurately referenced as “the most feeble purveyor of elite interests”.
Obama’s presence in the White House indulges a superficial moral/political correctness while the masters whip us all into austere servitude.
The US “war on terror” is another illustration of America’s dictatorship of the elite – and Obama’s pathetic servile role of carrying out the masters’ orders in defiance of the will of the people.
Recall that Obama’s bid for presidential election in 2008 was avowedly based on ending the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also denounced his incumbent rival George W. Bush over the use of special powers that enabled such aberrations as the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp and a host of draconian home security policies infringing on civil rights
Obama also signaled in his inaugural speech – reiterated again soon after in Cairo – that under his watch the US was resetting foreign policy – turning away from the militarist policies of Bush to a more enlightened approach for settling conflicts with the Muslim World and Iran in particular. “If they unclench their fist, we will extend our hand,” Obama declared with seemingly heartfelt eloquence.
But on every count, Obama has reneged on his supposed opposition to the US “war on terror”. Indeed, under his watch, the US has expanded its militarist foreign policy – which is apparently predicated on the belief that “western democracy is threatened by Islamic extremism”. Obama has done nothing to roll back draconian home security policies, indeed appears to have extended them. And he continues his predecessor’s deception of conflating Iran and its alleged nuclear ambitions as part of this phony “Islamic extremists” narrative.
To perform such a disgraceful U-turn on so many election promises, the presidency of Barack Obama is clear proof that the holder of office in the White House is not the one who is setting policy – rather, he is following policy that is set by unelected others.
When news broke about the massacre in Norway where more than 70 people were killed in a twin bomb and gun attack, Obama reacted like an automaton of the unelected power system, instead of like an independent, reasonable political leader. Even though it was clear within hours of the atrocity that the perpetrator was a blond-haired Norwegian with fascist and deeply Islamophobic views, nevertheless Obama reacted immediately to present it as an act of Islamic terrorism.
Speaking from the White House, Obama said: “It's a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring, and that we have to work co-operatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks.”
The president may not have used the words “Islamic terrorism” but it is clear that he was invoking the massacre as part of the “war on terror” which is predicated on the notion of Islamic terrorism.
In this mindset, Obama was not alone. British Prime Minister David Cameron moved into action stations, saying that British intelligence would help their Norwegian counterparts to track down the culprits – again implying that the perpetrators were part of an international organization – which in war on terror code means an Islamic organization.
The US and British news media also jumped to the conclusion that the Norwegian attacks must have something to with Al Qaeda or some other “Jihadist” group.
That such a widespread and erroneous reflex response from Western political leaders and news media – the so-called free press – can be elicited so uncritically shows how trenchantly the war on terror and its Islamophobic mindset are embedded.
The consequences of this are deeply disturbing. For a start, such a mindset of the Western political and media establishment can only lead to further Islamophobia in these societies. There were reports of hate attacks against ordinary Muslims across Europe immediately after the Norway atrocity, no doubt caused by the malign and erroneous way that politicians and the media attributed the incident to Islamists.
Even more disturbing is that the war on terror mindset fomented by Western governments and media over the past 10 years has led to the creation of lunatic fascist psychopaths like Anders Behring Breivik who carried out the Norway mass murder. Breivik and others like him think that Europe and the US must be defended from some kind of Muslim threat. This kind of logic does not conjure from thin air. It is rather the logical conclusion of the war on terror mindset that Western governments and news media have pushed down the throats of their citizens for a decade.
The sad part is that the majority of Western citizens are not convinced by the phony crusading of their governments and media, nor of the alleged threat of Islamic extremists. Most people realize that whatever Islamic extremists operate, they are either a creation of Western intelligence or a backlash against Western imperialism. That is why Obama’s avowed election promises to end America’s criminal wars and reset foreign policy on a more reasonable, democratic footing got him elected.
The even sadder part is that as Obama’s ineffectual election shows, the US (and its Western lackeys) is being driven further and further into bankrupting, criminal wars of aggression that will cause more victims of violence and social mayhem at home and abroad. And it’s all because democracy in the US (and elsewhere in the West) is non-existent. The US is a dictatorship. And Mr Obama is too ineffectual (save for the masters) and irrelevant to be even loosely called its dictator.
NOTES
[1] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25825
[2] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25842
Global Research
August 1, 2011
If there is one thing that the office of President Barack Obama demonstrates it is that democracy does not exist in the United States. This may seem a rather outlandish statement. For many people, the fact that the 44th president is the first black man to preside over the White House – with its American colonial-style architecture – is a tribute to the triumph of US democracy.
But many other more telling facts indicate that Obama is but a figurehead of an unelected government in the US. This unelected power of corporate elites – commercial, financial, military – governs with the same core policies regardless of who is sitting in the White House. Whether these policies are on social, economic or foreign matters, the elected president must obey the direction ordained by the unelected elite. That kind of untrammeled power structure conforms more closely in practice to dictatorship, not democracy.
As Michael Hudson and Ellen Brown reveal in their analyses of the US budget debacle, Obama is pathetically doing the bidding of Wall Street – much like an errand boy [1] [2].
Brown writes: “The debt crisis was created, not by a social safety net bought and paid for by the taxpayers, but by a banking system taken over by Wall Street gamblers. The gamblers lost their bets and were bailed out at the expense of the taxpayers; and if anyone should be held to account, it is these gamblers.
“The debt ceiling crisis is a manufactured one, engineered to extort concessions that will lock the middle class in debt peonage for decades to come. Congress is empowered by the Constitution to issue the money it needs to pay its debts.”
Obama’s servile toeing of Wall Street’s line is not the behavior of a free leader boldly defending the interests of the people and the greater good. Rather, his behaviour is that of one doing what he is told to do – and doing it with grateful deference.
In this way, of course, Obama is hardly different from his predecessors. But of difference is just how blatant the White House is now appearing to function as a mere tool of the rich and powerful elite.
The irony is that Obama’s election was presented as a potent symbol of American democracy; the truth is that the two-party system has become a threadbare cover for immense feebleness when it comes to serving the diktat of elite power as opposed to the good of the people. “The most powerful office in the world” would be more accurately referenced as “the most feeble purveyor of elite interests”.
Obama’s presence in the White House indulges a superficial moral/political correctness while the masters whip us all into austere servitude.
The US “war on terror” is another illustration of America’s dictatorship of the elite – and Obama’s pathetic servile role of carrying out the masters’ orders in defiance of the will of the people.
Recall that Obama’s bid for presidential election in 2008 was avowedly based on ending the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also denounced his incumbent rival George W. Bush over the use of special powers that enabled such aberrations as the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp and a host of draconian home security policies infringing on civil rights
Obama also signaled in his inaugural speech – reiterated again soon after in Cairo – that under his watch the US was resetting foreign policy – turning away from the militarist policies of Bush to a more enlightened approach for settling conflicts with the Muslim World and Iran in particular. “If they unclench their fist, we will extend our hand,” Obama declared with seemingly heartfelt eloquence.
But on every count, Obama has reneged on his supposed opposition to the US “war on terror”. Indeed, under his watch, the US has expanded its militarist foreign policy – which is apparently predicated on the belief that “western democracy is threatened by Islamic extremism”. Obama has done nothing to roll back draconian home security policies, indeed appears to have extended them. And he continues his predecessor’s deception of conflating Iran and its alleged nuclear ambitions as part of this phony “Islamic extremists” narrative.
To perform such a disgraceful U-turn on so many election promises, the presidency of Barack Obama is clear proof that the holder of office in the White House is not the one who is setting policy – rather, he is following policy that is set by unelected others.
When news broke about the massacre in Norway where more than 70 people were killed in a twin bomb and gun attack, Obama reacted like an automaton of the unelected power system, instead of like an independent, reasonable political leader. Even though it was clear within hours of the atrocity that the perpetrator was a blond-haired Norwegian with fascist and deeply Islamophobic views, nevertheless Obama reacted immediately to present it as an act of Islamic terrorism.
Speaking from the White House, Obama said: “It's a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring, and that we have to work co-operatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks.”
The president may not have used the words “Islamic terrorism” but it is clear that he was invoking the massacre as part of the “war on terror” which is predicated on the notion of Islamic terrorism.
In this mindset, Obama was not alone. British Prime Minister David Cameron moved into action stations, saying that British intelligence would help their Norwegian counterparts to track down the culprits – again implying that the perpetrators were part of an international organization – which in war on terror code means an Islamic organization.
The US and British news media also jumped to the conclusion that the Norwegian attacks must have something to with Al Qaeda or some other “Jihadist” group.
That such a widespread and erroneous reflex response from Western political leaders and news media – the so-called free press – can be elicited so uncritically shows how trenchantly the war on terror and its Islamophobic mindset are embedded.
The consequences of this are deeply disturbing. For a start, such a mindset of the Western political and media establishment can only lead to further Islamophobia in these societies. There were reports of hate attacks against ordinary Muslims across Europe immediately after the Norway atrocity, no doubt caused by the malign and erroneous way that politicians and the media attributed the incident to Islamists.
Even more disturbing is that the war on terror mindset fomented by Western governments and media over the past 10 years has led to the creation of lunatic fascist psychopaths like Anders Behring Breivik who carried out the Norway mass murder. Breivik and others like him think that Europe and the US must be defended from some kind of Muslim threat. This kind of logic does not conjure from thin air. It is rather the logical conclusion of the war on terror mindset that Western governments and news media have pushed down the throats of their citizens for a decade.
The sad part is that the majority of Western citizens are not convinced by the phony crusading of their governments and media, nor of the alleged threat of Islamic extremists. Most people realize that whatever Islamic extremists operate, they are either a creation of Western intelligence or a backlash against Western imperialism. That is why Obama’s avowed election promises to end America’s criminal wars and reset foreign policy on a more reasonable, democratic footing got him elected.
The even sadder part is that as Obama’s ineffectual election shows, the US (and its Western lackeys) is being driven further and further into bankrupting, criminal wars of aggression that will cause more victims of violence and social mayhem at home and abroad. And it’s all because democracy in the US (and elsewhere in the West) is non-existent. The US is a dictatorship. And Mr Obama is too ineffectual (save for the masters) and irrelevant to be even loosely called its dictator.
NOTES
[1] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25825
[2] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25842
36-Year Congressman John Conyers Calls for Protest Against the Debt Deal: “Thousands of People [Should Mass] In Front Of The White House To Protest This
Monday, August 1, 2011
Washingtons blog
36-Year Congressman John Conyers Calls for Protest Against the Debt Deal: “Thousands of People [Should Mass] In Front Of The White House To Protest This”
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri) said of the debt "compromise":
It looks like a Satan sandwich.
Traditional conservatives such as Ron Paul are strongly opposed to the deal, and have warned Americans that this could spell the end of America as we know it.
The debt deal is so bad that long-time (36-year) Congressman John Conyers is calling for people to march on the White House:
We’ve got to educate the American people at the same time we educate the President of the United States. The Republicans, Speaker Boehner or Majority Leader Cantor did not call for Social Security cuts in the budget deal. The President of the United States called for that. My response to him is to mass thousands of people in front of the White House to protest this.
(Conyers is right about Obama - not Republicans - initiating cuts to social security.)
Why is the debt deal so bad?
As I've previously noted, the deal would create a "super congress" which is an end-run around accountability to the voters and the constitution.
As Chris Floyd writes today:
[The] extraordinary "special committee" or "Super Congress" ... is an unaccountable politburo which will be able to circumvent all normal democratic (and republican) principles and issue budget-slashing, tax-cutting legislation that cannot be debated or amended, but simply approved or rejected by the rest of the now-powerless representatives and senators.
That's not all. If the politburo -- handpicked members split evenly between the two gangs of thieves and poltroons that now hold sway on Capitol Hill -- can't agree on just how much they want to gut the budget and cut taxes for the rich, why then, this will trip a series of "triggers" which will automatically start gutting, slashing and cutting, without any vote by the democratically elected representatives whatsoever. And surely it would be superfluous in me to point out that these unaccountable "superpowers" will soon stretch to cover other areas of legislation beyond budgeting and taxes.
Behind all the flim-flammery of this manufactured "crisis", we are watching the creation of a new form of government -- or rather, the further mutation of the new form of government that the United States has been crawling toward for a long time. We called it a "neo-feudal oligarchy backed by a militarist police state" here the other day. No doubt there are many other ways you could describe this murderous, ravenous, lopsided monstrosity of a system. But the one thing you cannot call it is a "republic".
But at least the compromise will allow us to get our ballooning debt under control by making painful but necessary slashes to the budget, right?
Unfortunately, no.
As Business Insider reports:
The “historic, bipartisan compromise” reached to raise the debt limit does not end the struggle to reign in the federal deficit — in fact, it pushes the most difficult decisions off into the future.
More surprising, the debt deal actually cuts almost nothing now–it just promises future cuts that may or may not materialize.
There are very few specific cuts in the deal — and the $1 trillion in immediate cuts are almost entirely constituted of caps on future spending. And those caps are not required to be honored by future congresses.
In short, for the past month, Congress has been arguing about little more than an agreement to reach an agreement at some point in the future. Your tax dollars at work.
And the debt deal won't preserve America's AAA credit rating. At most, it will buy a couple of months to a year, and then we'll be downgraded.
Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office scores the compromise as providing only half of the cuts required by Standard & Poor's to avoid a debt downgrade (and concludes that only 2% of the total cuts will occur prior to the 2012 presidential election).
In other words, Washington is once again doing what it has been doing for years ... kicking the can down the road ... and trashing the Constitution.
No wonder even long-time Congressman Conyers is calling for the American people to march on the White House.
Washingtons blog
36-Year Congressman John Conyers Calls for Protest Against the Debt Deal: “Thousands of People [Should Mass] In Front Of The White House To Protest This”
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri) said of the debt "compromise":
It looks like a Satan sandwich.
Traditional conservatives such as Ron Paul are strongly opposed to the deal, and have warned Americans that this could spell the end of America as we know it.
The debt deal is so bad that long-time (36-year) Congressman John Conyers is calling for people to march on the White House:
We’ve got to educate the American people at the same time we educate the President of the United States. The Republicans, Speaker Boehner or Majority Leader Cantor did not call for Social Security cuts in the budget deal. The President of the United States called for that. My response to him is to mass thousands of people in front of the White House to protest this.
(Conyers is right about Obama - not Republicans - initiating cuts to social security.)
Why is the debt deal so bad?
As I've previously noted, the deal would create a "super congress" which is an end-run around accountability to the voters and the constitution.
As Chris Floyd writes today:
[The] extraordinary "special committee" or "Super Congress" ... is an unaccountable politburo which will be able to circumvent all normal democratic (and republican) principles and issue budget-slashing, tax-cutting legislation that cannot be debated or amended, but simply approved or rejected by the rest of the now-powerless representatives and senators.
That's not all. If the politburo -- handpicked members split evenly between the two gangs of thieves and poltroons that now hold sway on Capitol Hill -- can't agree on just how much they want to gut the budget and cut taxes for the rich, why then, this will trip a series of "triggers" which will automatically start gutting, slashing and cutting, without any vote by the democratically elected representatives whatsoever. And surely it would be superfluous in me to point out that these unaccountable "superpowers" will soon stretch to cover other areas of legislation beyond budgeting and taxes.
Behind all the flim-flammery of this manufactured "crisis", we are watching the creation of a new form of government -- or rather, the further mutation of the new form of government that the United States has been crawling toward for a long time. We called it a "neo-feudal oligarchy backed by a militarist police state" here the other day. No doubt there are many other ways you could describe this murderous, ravenous, lopsided monstrosity of a system. But the one thing you cannot call it is a "republic".
But at least the compromise will allow us to get our ballooning debt under control by making painful but necessary slashes to the budget, right?
Unfortunately, no.
As Business Insider reports:
The “historic, bipartisan compromise” reached to raise the debt limit does not end the struggle to reign in the federal deficit — in fact, it pushes the most difficult decisions off into the future.
More surprising, the debt deal actually cuts almost nothing now–it just promises future cuts that may or may not materialize.
There are very few specific cuts in the deal — and the $1 trillion in immediate cuts are almost entirely constituted of caps on future spending. And those caps are not required to be honored by future congresses.
In short, for the past month, Congress has been arguing about little more than an agreement to reach an agreement at some point in the future. Your tax dollars at work.
And the debt deal won't preserve America's AAA credit rating. At most, it will buy a couple of months to a year, and then we'll be downgraded.
Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office scores the compromise as providing only half of the cuts required by Standard & Poor's to avoid a debt downgrade (and concludes that only 2% of the total cuts will occur prior to the 2012 presidential election).
In other words, Washington is once again doing what it has been doing for years ... kicking the can down the road ... and trashing the Constitution.
No wonder even long-time Congressman Conyers is calling for the American people to march on the White House.
The President Surrenders
By PAUL KRUGMAN
August 01, 2011 "NY Times" -- A deal to raise the federal debt ceiling is in the works. If it goes through, many commentators will declare that disaster was avoided. But they will be wrong.
For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.
Start with the economics. We currently have a deeply depressed economy. We will almost certainly continue to have a depressed economy all through next year. And we will probably have a depressed economy through 2013 as well, if not beyond.
The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further. Pay no attention to those who invoke the confidence fairy, claiming that tough action on the budget will reassure businesses and consumers, leading them to spend more. It doesn’t work that way, a fact confirmed by many studies of the historical record.
Indeed, slashing spending while the economy is depressed won’t even help the budget situation much, and might well make it worse. On one side, interest rates on federal borrowing are currently very low, so spending cuts now will do little to reduce future interest costs. On the other side, making the economy weaker now will also hurt its long-run prospects, which will in turn reduce future revenue. So those demanding spending cuts now are like medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, and thereby made them even sicker.
And then there are the reported terms of the deal, which amount to an abject surrender on the part of the president. First, there will be big spending cuts, with no increase in revenue. Then a panel will make recommendations for further deficit reduction — and if these recommendations aren’t accepted, there will be more spending cuts.
Republicans will supposedly have an incentive to make concessions the next time around, because defense spending will be among the areas cut. But the G.O.P. has just demonstrated its willingness to risk financial collapse unless it gets everything its most extreme members want. Why expect it to be more reasonable in the next round?
In fact, Republicans will surely be emboldened by the way Mr. Obama keeps folding in the face of their threats. He surrendered last December, extending all the Bush tax cuts; he surrendered in the spring when they threatened to shut down the government; and he has now surrendered on a grand scale to raw extortion over the debt ceiling. Maybe it’s just me, but I see a pattern here.
Did the president have any alternative this time around? Yes.
First of all, he could and should have demanded an increase in the debt ceiling back in December. When asked why he didn’t, he replied that he was sure that Republicans would act responsibly. Great call.
And even now, the Obama administration could have resorted to legal maneuvering to sidestep the debt ceiling, using any of several options. In ordinary circumstances, this might have been an extreme step. But faced with the reality of what is happening, namely raw extortion on the part of a party that, after all, only controls one house of Congress, it would have been totally justifiable.
At the very least, Mr. Obama could have used the possibility of a legal end run to strengthen his bargaining position. Instead, however, he ruled all such options out from the beginning.
But wouldn’t taking a tough stance have worried markets? Probably not. In fact, if I were an investor I would be reassured, not dismayed, by a demonstration that the president is willing and able to stand up to blackmail on the part of right-wing extremists. Instead, he has chosen to demonstrate the opposite.
Make no mistake about it, what we’re witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels.
It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.
In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.
August 01, 2011 "NY Times" -- A deal to raise the federal debt ceiling is in the works. If it goes through, many commentators will declare that disaster was avoided. But they will be wrong.
For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.
Start with the economics. We currently have a deeply depressed economy. We will almost certainly continue to have a depressed economy all through next year. And we will probably have a depressed economy through 2013 as well, if not beyond.
The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further. Pay no attention to those who invoke the confidence fairy, claiming that tough action on the budget will reassure businesses and consumers, leading them to spend more. It doesn’t work that way, a fact confirmed by many studies of the historical record.
Indeed, slashing spending while the economy is depressed won’t even help the budget situation much, and might well make it worse. On one side, interest rates on federal borrowing are currently very low, so spending cuts now will do little to reduce future interest costs. On the other side, making the economy weaker now will also hurt its long-run prospects, which will in turn reduce future revenue. So those demanding spending cuts now are like medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, and thereby made them even sicker.
And then there are the reported terms of the deal, which amount to an abject surrender on the part of the president. First, there will be big spending cuts, with no increase in revenue. Then a panel will make recommendations for further deficit reduction — and if these recommendations aren’t accepted, there will be more spending cuts.
Republicans will supposedly have an incentive to make concessions the next time around, because defense spending will be among the areas cut. But the G.O.P. has just demonstrated its willingness to risk financial collapse unless it gets everything its most extreme members want. Why expect it to be more reasonable in the next round?
In fact, Republicans will surely be emboldened by the way Mr. Obama keeps folding in the face of their threats. He surrendered last December, extending all the Bush tax cuts; he surrendered in the spring when they threatened to shut down the government; and he has now surrendered on a grand scale to raw extortion over the debt ceiling. Maybe it’s just me, but I see a pattern here.
Did the president have any alternative this time around? Yes.
First of all, he could and should have demanded an increase in the debt ceiling back in December. When asked why he didn’t, he replied that he was sure that Republicans would act responsibly. Great call.
And even now, the Obama administration could have resorted to legal maneuvering to sidestep the debt ceiling, using any of several options. In ordinary circumstances, this might have been an extreme step. But faced with the reality of what is happening, namely raw extortion on the part of a party that, after all, only controls one house of Congress, it would have been totally justifiable.
At the very least, Mr. Obama could have used the possibility of a legal end run to strengthen his bargaining position. Instead, however, he ruled all such options out from the beginning.
But wouldn’t taking a tough stance have worried markets? Probably not. In fact, if I were an investor I would be reassured, not dismayed, by a demonstration that the president is willing and able to stand up to blackmail on the part of right-wing extremists. Instead, he has chosen to demonstrate the opposite.
Make no mistake about it, what we’re witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels.
It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.
In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.
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