Bernie disappointed

I don't donate to political campaigns... because sooner or later, a politician will always disappoint me. Bernie did when he gave way to Joe Biden in the 2019 Democratic primary. I have 2 theories of why Bernie gave way:

1. Bernie's asshole quotient isn't high enough to attack his opponents as needed to win a political campaign at this level.

or

2. Bernie decided he didn't actually want to be president... possibly his heart condition was a more significant warning call than he signaled to his campaign or supporters.


Regardless, he let down everyone who donated, volunteered or spoke on his behalf.

And now, weeks after Bernie's acquiescence, in the middle of a rampant protests against the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police, Bernie has been largely out of sight. Another disappointment... :(

Asshole quotient

I don't expect or want to be friends with my political representative. I want them to have a high asshole quotient and be somewhat ruthless in pursuing my political agenda.

Bernie Sanders is not doing well in his second run for the Democratic nominee for president... I wonder if his asshole quotient is too low for the job. With the COVID-19 pandemic, he's had to cut back on rallies which he admits he enjoys holding. But he seems to cringe from hard hitting attacks of his opponents. He may just be too decent a human being to be president... it would be a shame because his policies would improve the lives of many Americans and non-Americans. If he doesn't win, I hope he continues to communicate with the American people; we need to hear his ideas.

Difference between Democrats and Republicans...

... from the perspective of the 2020 elections:

planet earth = terminally ill cancer patient suffering great pain

treatment options from Republicans/Democrats:
Republicans: assisted suicide
establishment Democrats (party organization): non-prescription analgesics and smiles
progressive Democrats: try to push patient into remission... that will buy time to try to find a cure

Bernie talks concentrated wealth and power

Bernie Sanders talks with Paul Jay at TRNN about the effects of concentrated wealth and power on the American system.


My comment in response to some other comments and Bernie's remarks:

(1) Bernie Sanders is a standing Senator representing the state of Vermont. He has a responsibility to (a) act in the interests of his voters; (b) convey the legislation they want and (c) adhere to his personal code of ethics. To carry out his duties, especially as a member of the minority party, he must be able to walk/talk/commune with other representatives. This involves a level of public diplomacy that he often gets criticized for – supporting Hilary, anodyne comments about the late GHWB… IMHO, Bernie’s critics seem to prefer he behave Newt Gingrich, “allowing hurt feelings over a perceived slight by Clinton to influence his stance in the budget negotiations” and that turn out swimmingly (/s). 

(2) “Raising the minimum wage, 15 bucks an hour. Radical idea a few years ago; kind of mainstream today.”And by the time you actually pass the 15 bucks an hour minimum wage in another few years, workers will be even further behind on the wage scale. The fight should be for a minimum wage pegged to annual average wages. Fighting the same fight is good for keeping Bernie Sanders employed but not so good for the minimum wage workers he’s purportedly fighting for. 

(3) “…And as a nation we have got to think from a moral perspective and an economic perspective whether we think it is appropriate that three people, one, two, three, own more wealth than the bottom half of the American society. You know, that’s really quite outrageous, and it’s appropriate that we take a hard look at that.”Economics originated as a moral enterprise. Even today, economics of average individual families are about working to earn the means to support the members of a family, which is morally superior to not working and allowing your family to languish. It was the introduction of profit as the be all and end all to economies that drove ethics out of policy. Profiteering allows gun makers to ‘morally’ profit from making and selling goods designed to perpetrate objectively morally questionable acts. Profiteering allows the military industrial complex to ‘morally’ profit from the making, selling and use of goods and services designed to murder en masse. Profiteering allows big pharma to ‘morally’ profit from the making, selling, use, misuse and withholding of drugs that can save and/or destroy lives. Profiteering allows extractive industries to ‘morally’ profit from the damaging of viable ecosystems to the extent that much that supports human life is at risk. One place where a basic reform might have immediate and significant impact would be to redefine economies to be self-organizing and self-sustaining systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that promote the well-being of all participants… This would force all policy to account for impacts on sustainability and human well-being as opposed to sole the profitability for investors.

Watergate X.0

I noticed someone calling DJT's scandals Watergate 2.0. As someone who has no particular fondness for the Democratic Party, I am of the impression that one hairline difference between them and Republicans is actually significant. And just to be clear, this pertains only to the modern parties (FDR til today). Democrats generally hold true to the letter of the Constitution if not always the intent. So far as I am aware (and please correct me if I am wrong), every Republican since and including Nixon has challenged Constitutional precepts in some form:

Nixon:
Watergate 1.0

Reagan:
Debategate (Watergate 2.0)
Iran-Contra (Watergate 2.1)

Bush 41:
Iran-Contra (Watergate 2.1)

Bush 43:
Declaring War on Terror (Watergate 3.X) - metaphorical war that justified a state of perpetual war and all the actions the administration took to push actual war and hide their lies. Includes outing Valerie Plame, enabling torture (John Yoo), Colin Powell lied to the U.N., forced rendition to CIA black sites, etc.
Lawyergate (Watergate 3.X) - firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons
Warrantless spying on Americans (Watergate 3.X)

Trump:
Russian involvement with presidential campaign (Watergate 4.X)
Emoluments violations (Watergate 4.X)
Using Congress to attack agencies of the executive branch (Watergate 4.X)


Carter did not instigate any major scandals and Clinton's scandals were of a personal nature - he did not pose any major challenge to Constitutional precepts. It was terrible that Obama advanced the prosecution of whistleblowers initiated by Bush 43 and upped deportations but in comparison to his recent predecessors, he was at least faithful to the letter of the Constitution.

The major failing of Democrats with regards to Republicans trashing the Constitution is their acquiescence. Their token fight is meaningless in light of the successive erosion by Republican presidents of Constitutionally guaranteed rights and limits.

Large powerful nation-states are not the best way to organize society.

Universal Establishment against the Resistance

At TRNN, Charles Derber talks about the need to universalize the resistance to fight the establishment. My comment:

"...on the one hand, this universalization, but on the other hand, are we becoming more fragmented?... How does that go together, on the one hand the universalization and on the other hand this fragmentation?" 

The establishment, also known as the system, is unified and highly successful in fragmenting the working people of the world. They use identity and social issues to splinter voters into opposing groups so they are disinclined to organize significant resistance. For example, the Republican and Democratic Parties don't particularly care abortion; so long as individual politicians can get the medical care they seek for their families, they aren't concerned if poor women have access to abortion or reproductive care. They care about policies that their donors want. Abortion is useful because it polarizes their electorate and generates a mock conflict between the pro and anti sides (like pro-wrestling) which distracts the real policy intent of the Republican and Democratic Parties which is to always advance the concentration and transfer of power/wealth to their donors. 

The key to resist voter fragmentation is not to ignore the differences but to unify to respect these differences and advocate for each others' rights to those positions. The poor, brown, white, low wage, immigrant, women, LGBT and other groups are not outsiders; they are insiders, part of the group. In this country, they are all known as Americans but workers should not overlook the same systemic pattern of deliberate fragmentation that is also exercised abroad. The system uses competition between native and foreign workers to sow division internationally. The entire point of corporate/trade globalization is to create wage competition to force down production costs. Worker unity must also cross national borders if the establishment/system is to be contained.

Arms 'Marketing'

Short video of William Hartung at TRNN describing how the MIC profits from war and government policy. My comment:

William Hartung hit the nail right square on the head. A popular meme spouted by many pro-capitalist economists is that in free markets, market forces (consumer spending/consumption) drives what gets produced. But somehow, these same economists never examine the 'market forces' of the planned military arms economy (created by governments, especially by the U.S. government). The planned military economy creates forces of lobbyists and special interests who advocate for constant war and continuous arms race. Instead of buying food, childcare, medical care, education and intact ecosystem for our children and grandchildren, American taxpayers are buying updated nuclear weapons and other military hardware, war game exercises, ill-will from hundreds of foreign military bases and global instability from waging and fomenting war. These are economic decisions and American voters need to understand the spending priorities of their government in that light. 

Another useful tool maybe to redefine what economies are. The word 'economy' has Greek roots meaning house or home. The common definition of economy is focused on production/consumption of consumer goods for the purpose of generating profit, a far cry from house/home. A much better definition would be self-organizing and self-sustaining systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that promote the well-being of all participants. This would automatically make some sectors of the modern economy 'uneconomic' because they do not promote well-being... the entire offensive arms/military industrial sector.

Name of piece: Code Pink Conference: The Arms Industry Hides Behind Euphemisms (December 29, 2017)

Opposition Strengthens

TRNN re-posted a series of interviews with Ed Herman who died recently. I watched the first one and left this comment:

Thanks for highlighting this interview. I will listen to the other segments when time permits. One take home lesson from this segment is the importance of opposition. As a leftist, Herman was attacked by other leftist for being too left. A strong version of left tribalism today are HRC supporters who fault Bernie's supporters for her loss and the Bernie-or-bust tribe. Unquestioning tribalism is how bad ideas become entrenched and normalized. Our Founding Fathers understood this so they made press freedom and free speech the first among guaranteed rights. Diversity is a strength of the Democratic Party. When the party establishment suppresses opposing ideas and challenges, they are rejecting the aspiration ideals of the Constitution the party is modeled after and they weaken the party overall.

Transparency for economics, transparency for democracy

From wikipedia:

In economics, perfect information is a feature of perfect competition. With perfect information in a market, all consumers and producers are assumed to have perfect knowledge of price, utility, quality and production methods of products, when theorizing the systems of free markets, and effects of financial policies.

-

In economics and game theory, complete information is a term used to describe an economic situation or game in which knowledge about other market participants or players is available to all participants. The utility functions, payoffs, strategies and "types" of players are thus common knowledge.

Inversely, in a game with incomplete information, players may not possess full information about their opponents. Some players may possess private information that the others should take into account when forming expectations about how a player would behave. A typical example is an auction: each player knows his own utility function (= valuation for the item), but does not know the utility function of the other players. 

***

This implies the defining feature of a free market is perfect information. Voting is also a type of market, as such, perfect information should be the defining feature of fully democratic participation. In real life, there is no such thing as perfect information... but we can strive for much better transparency.

North Korean diplomacy has not failed - yet

Comment at Truthout:

To everyone who claims diplomacy has failed... if the goal of diplomacy is to not completely disintegrate the opposing party in a relationship, then diplomacy with NK has worked since the cessation of the Korean War. Although imperfect, a useful metaphor for relationships with foreign countries is that of family relationships which cannot be escaped. Close family members are allies; enemies are contentious ex-spouses/in-laws with whom children are shared. To maintain these relationships, both parties must invest time and effort to communicate. It's much easier with family because there is a higher level of trust; these relationships have a higher tolerance for neglect. The goal of the family relationship is to be up to date with each others lives like keeping up to date on the agenda and goals of allies. To maintain functional relationships with ex-spouses over children (visitation, holidays, privileges, gifts...) for the sake of children may require ongoing negotiation and third party mediators. The ongoing negotiation is the goal of ex-spouse relationship; failure to negotiate can result in abuse and/or crimes of passion. Failure of diplomacy can result in armed conflict and/or nuclear war. It's not fun or flashy but diplomacy *is* the only solution with regards to NK.

Comment at TRNN:

The key statements: "Kim Jong-un is a not a madman... He's very sober, very sane. Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung before him were the same. They have one purpose. Their purpose is to maintain their regime, to continue to be able to drink their Hennessys and their Courvoisier, and to have their women and so forth and so on. That is the sole purpose of the Kim dynasty. It is a very rational purpose, and they're very rational about achieving that purpose." 

DJT is also trying to stay in power. He's actually in a decent position: he is POTUS; his party controls all three branches of government; he has money... but he isn't taking rational action to stay in power. 

Take NK, the goal of diplomacy between international enemies is to have an active ongoing dialog to achieve mutually satisfactory detente. DJT wants a diplomatic 'win', implying the cessation and dismantling of NK's nuclear program. The NK war hawk's see NK as a mortal enemy who threatens our allies. The only way to completely resolve or 'win' the 'NK = enemy' dynamic is either become friends with them *or* take them out of the equation through armed conflict. Become friends with NK is about as rational as expecting DJT to represent the interests of all Americans, which leaves decimating NK through war as the only route to 'wining'. Considering that war in that region of the world could cost millions of lives and destroy economies, war would not be a rational action. The *only* rational action is diplomacy, even if it does no more than delay mutually assured destruction. 

BTW, why are [diplomatic] negotiations with NK viewed as 'winning' or 'losing' when labor/employer and defense/plaintiff negotiations are viewed as 'settlements' or 'contracts'? This is propaganda stirs up support for war and it only benefits the military industrial complex.

The real enemies

Comment at Truthout:

Governments organize people into large collectives so economic leaders can put them to work and skim the fruits of their labor. [CEOs, major stock holders, central committee members (communist countries), etc don’t actually make a product or service that their companies sell for profit. They take credit for the goods made by their workers and are given the value of the goods as payment.] Wars are the forceful taking of other land *and* workers by governments for their economy. Wars are a way for governments to get more workers from whom they can take labor and gift them to their economic leaders.

The common narrative has always been nations are at war but the stakes of war tell a different story. Workers are at constant, unending conflict to protect them/ourselves from the ravages of economic leaders. It’s time to realize that the real conflict is between workers and economic leaders who concentrate their power by profiting from workers. United we workers stand, indeed.

Need transparent elections

My comment a C&L post decrying legitimacy of elected officials in light of their lack of transparency:

The intent of the first amendment's free speech right is the freedom to speak truth to power without threat of imprisonment. In a democracy, power lies in the voters, so speech directed at voters (press) is free of government intervention. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has allowed media to lie in supposed news programs. The damage to media credibility is amplified by accusations of liberal bias and fake news. We now have a President whose every word has questionable veracity.

For years I have said the greatest reform to our political and economic system can only come about through a massive increase in transparency. Markets aren't free because consumers don't buy with full knowledge of the products (pollution controls, worker's rights/safety, etc). Citizen's aren't free because voters don't vote with full knowledge of candidates (candidates lie, financial support, etc).

Great post.

Sign of fear

The New York Times published an op-ed by Mark Penn and Andrew Stein arguing that Democrats need to shift to the center if they want to win elections. At TRNN, Nina Turner says Democrats lost because they've lost touch with their voters. My thoughts (comment at TRNN link):

As I see it, the Penn & Stein op-ed in the NYT was a pre-emptive attempt to frame the debate. In other words, the only news worthy of print ("All the News That's Fit to Print") is defined by the tiny ideological differences between Republicans and establishment Democrats. All other ideas and positions are 'extremist' views and unworthy of print. An excellent example of this bias was the way the NYT covered Bernie's campaign - by not covering it, they deemed his positions and policies 'not fit to print'. The galvanized resistance to the GOP healthcare plan and growing calls for single payer probably has the establishment quaking in their boots.

A different metric

I am often confused by names of political/economic systems like fascism or oligarchy. This happened again at a recent Truthout post. My proposal:

Thanks for the historical perspective. But there is another metric which is rarely, if ever, used to define the spectrum of socioeconomic systems, one of power concentration.
democracy = power is determined by voters

capitalism = power concentrates in owners; owners game the system to determine who has the opportunity to own
slave capitalism = power of owner extends to owning workers/laborers
feudal capitalism = power concentrates in owners to extent they control many work/labor conditions including wages and residency
communism = power concentrates in members of single state party committee
oligarchic capitalism = power concentrates in small number of owners
monopoly = power concentrates in one corporation and their owners
fascism = power concentrates in one political party

The point is that the concentration of economic power has parallels in the concentration of political power. The terms/names used to describe each system often overlap in meaning and thus, can be confusing. It would be better to use a sliding scale to represent power concentration; something along the lines of the Kinsey sexuality scale. On a scale of 0-10 (low to high) how is political power distributed? How is economic power distributed? Based on Gillens and Page, political power score is roughly 7.6 in favor of the economic elites <http: www.vox.com="" 2014="" 4="" 18="" 5624310="" martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained="">. Based on stock ownership, the economic power scale is about 6.6 - top 5% owns about 2/3 of stocks <https: www.salon.com="" 2013="" 09="" 19="" stock_ownership_who_benefits_partner=""/>. The latter is not the best metric of economic power; actual score is likely significantly higher. This type of granular information is more useful in accurately describing power relationships than misleading names/titles/terms.

Bernie should not start a political party

Comment at a TRNN story discussing the attempt to recruit Bernie to start a new political party:

The notion of creating another political party with the intent of advancing progressive policy through electoral success is silly on its face. 

The raison d'etre of the Republican and Democratic parties is to raise enormous amounts of money from big donors so between the two parties, the interests of big donors are always the forefront of all policy/regulations. The minor differences in social issues serve as icing on the cake to distract voters from the real underlying transfer of economic and political power to the big donor class. These are essentially political corporations. 

The raison d'etre of lesser political parties is either (1) express/disseminate 'non-standard' ideology that is ignored by the extremely limited options offered by the two major parties and/or (2) attract enough voters to achieve automatic ballot access. They are most often limited by campaign funds and media access. 

Any new party would have all the disadvantages of lesser parties with the risk of big money take over should any lesser party achieve any degree of electoral success. The problem with the system is too much power/money concentrated in too few hands. Another political party doesn't change that equation.

No Principles of Economics?

The latest episode of Economic Update, Where Economic Theories Clash, strongly implies something I feared regarding the field of Economics. In it, Richard Wolff called Neo-classical economics, Keynesian economics and Marxian economics 'theories' of economics which implies they have undergone some form of validation or testing (scientific theories are vigorously tested before they are called 'theories'). But in real economies, each of these 'theories' has failed in one permutation or other. This suggests that Economics has no unifying principles. [To use the physical sciences as an example (again): the Theory of Evolution is a unifying principle in biology - it connects all living organisms and justifies the study of model organisms to better understand life; Atomic Theory is a unifying principle of chemistry - it predicts the behavior of all matter.] An example of a possible unifying economic principle is the presumption that functional economies must yield profit; this would have strong implications for capitalism.

This is particularly troubling when it comes to policy. All public policy is economic policy and it is argued and made on the basis of Economic theory. If Economic theory is as poorly developed as implied above, then for all intents and purposes, Economic theory is ideology without basis in empirical principle. As it stands now, the science of climate change has very strong physical evidence backing it and thus should drive energy policy. In its stead, we have nonsense 'economic' arguments that the cost of protecting the biosphere is 'too expensive'. Policy makers are balancing the future of humanity against the profiteering of capitalists at our ignorance. If science can detangle systems as complex as climate to predicted global climate change, it should be able to apply similar methods to answer the question of how to best structure economies for the sake of mankind. Economies should serve humanity not the other way around.

Cult of Fear

This was intended as a comment on a Truthout.org post about how politicians, especially Republicans, use fear to manipulate voters into supporting them. However, my argument got a little too complex for a simple comment, so its only appearance is here:

Marketing appeals to fear and sex to sell because human biology is programmed to respond to these emotions. Monotheistic religions capitalize on fear in two ways: (1) Religions justify fear by providing an object – women are a constant threat to the power of men; their sexuality is their most fearsome weapon and must be brought to heel and under the control of men. (2) A fearsome all powerful, all knowing being has all the answers. But those answers are too much for men’s small brains and most men can’t communicate with the big dude anyway. Only special people (kings, emperors, popes, and the like) get to translate for him.

In modern times, religion teaches believers to trust their church authority (most people don’t read primary religious texts) over what can be objectively measured (faith over science). When personal faith is imbued in the words of an authority figure, it’s easy to transfer that trust into other people who present similar absolute certainty (for example, Rush Limbaugh is never wrong). Enter right-wing media which gives self-aggrandizing braggarts enormous forums and infrastructure to in essence to form cults (like Fox News under Roger Ailes). As bad as Democrats are, they have not codified the ideological Cult of Fear that Republicans so effectively used to ensnare their followers. Republican followers are told to fear women for taking men’s jobs and dignity; fear immigrants for taking jobs; fear Muslims for terrorism; fear liberals for taking their guns (but not to fear guns); fear science/scientists for their ‘self-interested agendas’; fear President Obama for being a foreign born Muslim; fear black people for existing; fear Obamacare for insurance mandate; fear the poor for needing social services; fear veterans for using the VA… In the face of such terrifying scenarios, cultists are told Republican politicians know how to keep them safe from all these threats.

Fear is the defensive emotion to the unknown. That’s why Republicans fear science. Science is a system of knowledge that seeks to determine patterns capable of accurately predicting the future. In other words, science answers questions about the feared unknown. The question is how to stage a cult intervention on the scale of roughly half the U.S. population.

Update: Yes, evangelical cults exists and they can be difficult to escape from.

economics is life

Economics is life because economics is how workers provide the necessities of life. In exchange for labor, workers earn the means to purchase food, clothing, shelter and all other sundries. But the policy and practice of economics does not account for the inherent life aspect of economics. Instead, economics is defined as "a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services" [Wikipedia]. And this has allowed governments and policy makers to couch the purpose of economic policy only to the end goal of creating capital, another word for wealth and profit.

With a 'pro-economy' argument, essentially every decision of the DJT presidency is intended to generate profits for the owner class without regard for workers. Oil pipelines have been approved at the risk of contaminating the soil and water necessary for human consumption and agriculture. Health care reform to profit insurance providers is under consideration at the risk of workers losing medical insurance or essential benefits with the projected likelihood of decreasing overall life expectancy.

These policies literally put profit over life. And that is completely contrary to the purpose of work. If work cannot provide the means to survive, their is no reason or purpose to work. So the current definition of economics is incomplete. It needs to include a purpose, the survival and wellbeing of workers. And because workers are always making more workers in the form of children, wellbeing has to extend into time, the sustained survival and wellbeing of workers.

Economic policy that must take the long term wellbeing of workers in account would change the nature of geopolitics and culture. It would be a positive change.

Not only right wing media

Comment posted at Crooks&Liars:

Stoking fear and resentment is the major source of division in the U.S. body politic. Racism, immigrant bashing, religiosity, bigotry, homophobia/transphobia, feminism/abortion/reproductive issues etc. can be seen as propaganda. They are social definitions that divide people into 'in' and 'out' groups. When you are distracted fighting your 'out' group, you don't notice when the government changes/enacts/enforces dry policy that takes from you and gives to the rich. Right wing media excels at marketing fear but the rest of the media supports divisive culture/political distinctions with its constant emphasis on conflict.

How far can the dots connect?

It turns out that Russia might have blackmail material on PEOTUS DTJ and there may have been communication between his campaign and Russian surrogates. This may rise to the level of treason.

I am not making any allegations. I do wonder if a Republican Congress will takes steps to impeach a Republican president if he actually commits high crimes. If Republican Congress people know about presidential high crimes and neglect to impeach, are they committing high crimes?

The legal provision exists; it's called misprision of treason - committed by someone who knows a treason is being or is about to be committed but does not report it to a proper authority. In many respects, this is the principle behind the conviction and execution of Ethel Rosenberg. If a Republican Congress commits the crime of misprision of treason, what action can be taken to impeach them?

Many of these rights are constrained by the Constitution. That being the case, it is time to convene a Constitutional Convention. In the preamble the goal of the Constitution was 'in Order to form a more perfect Union'. It's time to improve Constitution towards this greater purpose.