Sunday Not-So-Funnies

Responses to "Why I am a Socialist"

My posting of the essay from Chris Hedges drew a pair of responses; the first, from the always erudite Open Source Dem, follows:

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Indeed, these are some of the challenges of our day, not least in Texas and Harris County. But for the life of me I do not see what any of the received doctrines of European socialism or even the Jacobin threads in our distinctively American traditions allow us to deal effectively with any of this; “confront” it, as political poseurs like to say.

Consider a different way of looking at these challenges:

“These corporations have no loyalty to America or the American worker. They are not tied to nation states.”

Actually it is our propertied and credentialed elites -- as a class -- who lack any notion of loyalty at all, even to their own class and phony-baloney corporations. Hell, look at Bernie Maddoff, squandering the savings of his fellow Wilhelmine Jews, while the idiot LaRouchites were obsessed with George Soros. What we have here are extremes of narcissism among the educated elites and simple plutocracy throughout the ruling elites.

Loyalty, by contrast, is cultivated by egalitarian civil and military institutions that have been replaced by a hierarchy of educational institutions starting with prisons at the bottom and ending with your Princetons at the top. The middle-class institutions in the middle are the most muddled and insecure of all. There are actually no common, patriotic institutions, nothing like the Swiss Barrackenschule -- although that is what the Second Amendment implied -- or the French Ecoles Superieres -- although that is what the Land Grant Colleges were supposed to be.

So, what about “a political shift in Europe toward an open confrontation with the corporate state.”

What can we learn here from this? Very little! Europe still has states, bureaucracies, patriotic institutions that can regulate corporations, private enterprises of any sort, even banks, and each other. The “EU” is newer and weaker than our federal union. But it has institutional legacies to build on whereas our federal union is rotting at the head and tail, vanishing before an Anglo-American overclass that recognizes no constitutional restraints on personal power, ambition, or their own entitlements at all.

So, are the “free market and globalization” a new problem, our problem?”

Actually the legacies of American and Russian economic autarky pose problems of corruptly regulated financial markets, obsolete import concessions, arms and drugs barter, perverse industrial policies, subverted professions, and financial bubbles such as predate both socialism and capitalism. Socialism and capitalism are both semi-reputable doctrines of political economy with, however, limited application to problems of recent history and even less to those of the immediate future.

That is the problem with “confronting” matters with either of these doctrines, reduced to mostly buzz-words now with no analysis, standards, or plans.

In other words, Chris Hedges is an ignorant fool.

“The corporate forces that are looting the Treasury and have plunged us into a depression.”

Actually, the 1964-1994 Neo-Confederate GOP was able to do that given a failure of the other, Republican and Democratic, parties to compete. The looting going on before our very eyes consists of panicked Congressional Democrats throwing money at financial institutions they failed to regulate for decades and mortgaged their own balls to: Jay Rockefeller, Chuck Schumer, Charlie Rangel ... who are we kidding with these? The depression was financially engineered by Clinton appointee Alan Greenspan. This is a failure of responsible, two-party government -- something we do not have today but could have relatively easily provided Democrats stop perpetuating their own, failed leaders.

The situation is so exasperating today that pleas for a magic formula will come from the left and right. But the answer may lay deeper in the middle, not further on either extreme. For instance, the European countries Chris cites still have “a draft”-- actually that is an Anglo-American term for the break-down of “all-volunteer” armed forces. They have universal suffrage and very low incarceration rates. They have very few lawyers and medical doctors do not make much more money than police officers. They have strong political parties. Moreover the left, right, and center largely agree on such institutions, whatever else they disagree on. In any case they do not confuse remnants of a titled nobility with merely wealthy mountebanks.

Recently in Belgium, the King joined with the firemen in a violent protest. They used their hoses to blow out the windows of the interior ministry and drench corrupt police and prosecutors who had been protecting a ring of informers, pimps, and gun-runners, who were also murderous pedophiles. The cowardly coalition government -- sort of like the Democrats and Republicans in city and county government here -- fell and was replaced. Contrast that with Bill White and Ed Emmett making excuses for each other, borrowing money hand over fist and levying regressive, indirect taxes to cover up their own improvidence and roll over a mountain of debt.

Where is the competition and accountability in our “system” of government? How does importing socialist jargon do anything but obscure elementary breakdown of our own traditions? Would it not be simpler if the Democratic Party simply competed, instead of collaborated, with the GOP today? We could use over 200 years of robust traditions that Euro-socialists and even Jacobins used to emulate and even now, fall back on in times of crisis!

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And also this, in response to that, from my friend David Van Os:

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One of the new realizations I obtained from reading The Predator State is that the CEO class, the oligarchy, the plutocrats, the super-rich, the elite, whatever one may choose to call them, actually starve the corporations they work for by diverting what should be the corporations' resources to their own personal accounts, using the money for new mansions and other personal luxuries instead of new factories.

Furthermore, I agree with you about the ways in which the Democratic Party needs to re-establish its mission and reorganize itself in order to cease being complicit in the predation.

However I am unconvinced that it has the capacity to do so, or to be more precise, that any possibility exists for any number of intelligent and committed inside activists to be able to force the reorganization. The structure of the party in Texas, to use the nearest example, results from a Jim Crow Election Code; the problem remains, as always, that lawmakers who were elected under the existing party structure are not motivated to legislate root-level change in a system that got them elected and keeps them elected.

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How about a response from you in the comments, please.

A moderate Republick for Speaker of the Texas House?

I don't think so -- and not just because "moderate Republican" is an oxymoron:

A crusade by Republican lawmakers to depose House Speaker Tom Craddick accelerated in earnest Friday when they selected Rep. Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, as the candidate strong enough to oust the longtime incumbent.

The maverick group of 11 Republican state representatives met secretly Friday in an effort to unite behind a single candidate — one they believe also will appeal to Democratic lawmakers in what's expected to be a weekend showdown over the coveted House leadership position. ...

He and the other 10 Republicans represent a growing number of GOP representatives who have grown weary of the leadership style of Craddick, who also has lost the support of most of the chamber's 74 Democrats.

Straus has "impeccable credentials", according to someone at Harvey Kronberg's Quorum Report (until HK brings his website into the 20th century, click on "Daily Buzz" and scroll down to the entry dated January 2nd and time-stamped 7:20 p.m.). It's postings like these that call into question Harvey's reputation as a non-partisan. Likely he pissed off Craddick and all of the radical right-wing that runs the Republican Party of Texas more than he did me, however.

So why wouldn't the most conservative powers-that-be not like Straus? Muse has the news:

Oh, my, my, my. Straus got a 100 rating from NARAL in 2007. That's the highest pro-choice rating they give. Only 5 Republican legislators got above zero in 2007. Bust out the popcorn, because this is going to get crazy!

He's already getting the scarlet letter from the crazies.

I just don't see how a guy this sensible (for a Republican) defeats Craddick. Color me the same shade of "shocked" as Burpa:

(I)f this goes south, and Craddick somehow survives, this will be one of the ghastliest mistakes I have ever seen in Texas politics.

I also agree with McB that Speaker Tom is going to slide back in. STXC has more and a good round-up.

Cornyn will filibuster Franken seating

Six more years of obstructionism from this sorry ass:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) threatened Friday to filibuster any attempt to seat Democratic Minnesota Senate candidate Al Franken next week.

The newly minted National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chairman said he had not whipped votes in the GOP caucus, but added that he could not imagine any members defecting and seating Franken without a certificate of election.

Franken will not have that certificate as long as the election is challenged in the courts — a likely scenario, with Sen. Norm Coleman’s (R-Minn.) legal team already attacking the credibility of the recount process.

“This is a very, very serious matter,” Cornyn said. “I can assure you that there will be no way that people on our side of the aisle will agree to seat any senator without a valid certificate.”

To think that we could have had one decent Senator from this great state. Just one.

Yeah, we need more of it

I'd like to jack up a few conservatives to open the New Year.

The corporate forces that are looting the Treasury and have plunged us into a depression will not be contained by the two main political parties. The Democratic and Republican parties have become little more than squalid clubs of privilege and wealth, whores to money and corporate interests, hostage to a massive arms industry, and so adept at deception and self-delusion they no longer know truth from lies. We will either find our way out of this mess by embracing an uncompromising democratic socialism -- one that will insist on massive government relief and work programs, the nationalization of electricity and gas companies, a universal, not-for-profit government health care program, the outlawing of hedge funds, a radical reduction of our bloated military budget and an end to imperial wars -- or we will continue to be fleeced and impoverished by our bankrupt elite and shackled and chained by our surveillance state.

The free market and globalization, promised as the route to worldwide prosperity, have been exposed as a con game. But this does not mean our corporate masters will disappear. Totalitarianism, as George Orwell pointed out, is not so much an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. “A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial,” Orwell wrote, “that is when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.” Force and fraud are all they have left. They will use both.

There is a political shift in Europe toward an open confrontation with the corporate state. Germany has seen a surge of support for Die Linke (The Left), a political grouping formed 18 months ago. It is co-led by the veteran socialist “Red” Oskar Lafontaine, who has built his career on attacking big business. Two-thirds of Germans in public opinion polls say they agree with all or some of Die Linke’s platform. The Socialist Party of the Netherlands is on the verge of overtaking the Labor Party as the main opposition party on the left. Greece, beset with street protests and violence by disaffected youths, has seen the rapid rise of the Coalition of the Radical Left. In Spain and Norway socialists are in power. Resurgence is not universal, especially in France and Britain, but the shifts toward socialism are significant.

Corporations have intruded into every facet of life. We eat corporate food. We buy corporate clothes. We drive corporate cars. We buy our vehicular fuel and our heating oil from corporations. We borrow from corporate banks. We invest our retirement savings with corporations. We are entertained, informed and branded by corporations. We work for corporations. The creation of a mercenary army, the privatization of public utilities and our disgusting for-profit health care system are all legacies of the corporate state. These corporations have no loyalty to America or the American worker. They are not tied to nation states. They are vampires.

That's from Chris Hedges, it's entitled "Why I am a Socialist", and you really ought to go read the whole thing.

Partied like it's 1929

No, we didn't drink hooch from a Mason jar and dance with flappers.

The TPA's 2008 Texan of the Year

Congratulations to Gerry Birnberg and Bill Kelly and all of the candidates, campaigns, volunteers who made the victories possible:

Harris County Coordinated Campaign Takes Top Honors; TexBlog PAC, Texans For Obama, Late Jim Mattox Named "Gold Stars" For 2008

AUSTIN, TEXAS—The Texas Progressive Alliance Tuesday announced that the Harris County Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign had been named its "Texan of the Year" for 2008.

Also earning recognition from the Alliance were Texans for Obama, TexBlog PAC, and the late Jim Mattox, who were each named "Gold Star Texans" for 2008.

Winning 27 of 34 countywide races in Texas' most populous county didn't happen overnight, and the Harris County Democratic Party's Coordinated Campaign managed not only to win seats with quality candidates, but to increase Democratic voter turnout and revive the Democratic Party in Harris County.

"The Harris County Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign is a shining example of what is possible with the help and support of thousands of grassroots Democrats and a well-run party infrastructure," said Texas Progressive Alliance Chair Vince Leibowitz. "Every person who knocked on doors, made phone calls, and volunteered in Harris County should be very proud of what they accomplished in 2008," he continued.

The Harris County Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign is the Alliance's fourth recipient of its "Texan of the Year Award." The campaign joins former State Rep. Carter Casteel of New Braunfels, who won the award in 2005; Carolyn Boyle of Texas Parent PAC, who was feted in 2006; and the trio of state reps. Garnet Coleman, Jim Dunnam, and Pete Gallego who shared the honor in 2007.

The Texan of the Year Award is voted on annually by the members of the Texas Progressive Alliance, the largest state-level organization of bloggers, blogs, and netroots activists in the United States.

Here's a bit about the runners-up:

GOLD STAR TEXAN: Texans For Obama

Texans for Obama highlights what a group of activists and politicos can do when they work together. Texans for Obama never was formally part of the Obama campaign, but its size and influence made it a force in Texas politics. In 2007, before Senator Barack Obama had even announced he was running for office, Texans for Obama organized the largest rally in Texas political history with over 20,000 in attendance. Its leadership and numbers grew from Auditorium Shores. Once Senator Obama announced his candidacy, Texans for Obama became the Texas campaign. In a bizarre twist, they become the most interesting campaign in the nation after Super Tuesday and leading into the March 5 Democratic primary. With little early help from a national infrastructure, Texans for Obama talked to hundreds of thousands of Democrats in Texas and beyond. It educated Texas primary voters about the "Texas Two Step" or primacaucus system and even sparked a debate on the future of how the Democratic primary system will proceed. Novice political activists turned into seasoned political consultants overnight and a new generation of Democrats were born. This grassroots campaign's impact is still its infancy, but its potential is limited only by the imagination of everyday Texans.

GOLD STAR TEXAN: TexBlog PAC

TexBlog PAC is a group of seven members of the Texas Progressive Alliance that worked to help Democrats win back the Texas House in 2008. TexBlog PAC raised over $65,000 this year for Texas Democrats. Four of five endorsed PAC candidates went on to win their election, with each candidate receiving support in the online community as well as at least $6,000 each in contributions. The PAC also worked on a GOTV program in Travis County. Run entirely through volunteer efforts, TexBlog PAC made a simple yet strong contribution to Texas politics in 2008, and will only grow as the power of the netroots is realized across the state of Texas.


GOLD STAR TEXAN: Jim Mattox

Jim Mattox rose from a working class neighborhood in Dallas to the top of Texas politics, leaving an indelible mark on an entire era in state government and creating a legacy that continues to touch the lives of ordinary Texans every day. A luminary and a fighter, Jim Mattox was hailed in death as a man who, as "The People's Lawyer," helped shape Texas Government in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The son of a union sheet metal worker and a waitress, Mattox rose through the electoral ranks from the state legislature to Congress to the Attorney General's office, a post from which Mattox doggedly fought for the little guy. From taking on the airlines to the insurance industry on behalf of Texas consumers, his heart, always, was with the people. After unsuccessful runs for Texas Governor in 1990 and an attempt to regain the AG's post in the late 1990s, Mattox retired to a more private life, but continued to work for his party. Most recently, Mattox fought to change the complex and time consuming "primacaucus" system that plagued the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary in Texas, calling the system an embarrassment to the party. He spoke out on the issue about a week before his death in what would be his last public appearance. From taking on insurance companies to bringing a truckload of furniture to the Travis County Democratic Party Headquarters this summer after hearing the office was in need, Mattox was always helping the underdog.