Ideological Constipation

Saw the below picture on my Facebook feed.  Where to begin? Start with the observation that those who are impressed with this nonsense are conflating socialism with authoritarianism. It is a basic truism of our civic culture that a large majority of Americans have a painfully inchoate, almost infantile, understanding of socialism.

It should not be necessary to remind people that poverty and suffering can be found throughout the world. The difference is that the reactionary personality never attributes any of it to capitalism, not in, say, India, El Salvador, or Mexico, or for that matter, America's Deep South, which has characteristics much like less-developed countries, but invariably leaps to that conclusion when the country is identified, perhaps inaccurately, as socialist.  

The muddled thinking is most apparent when you realize the most advanced, healthiest, cleanest, safest, best-educated, and most-contented countries in the world are disproportionately socialist. It might help those in the shit-for-brains crowd to stop, read the previous sentence, and then actually try to get their head around it. No doubt they are ignorant of how effective America's socialist mayors and other municipal leaders were in their heyday; it is part of our history that is well-documented, but largely ignored today. It helped create the American middle class after WWII that was the envy of the world and one that I grew up in only to see greatly eroded with the rise of neoliberalism and the corporate welfare state. Try reading The "S" word: A Short History of an American Tradition...Socialism, by John Nichols. 

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At least one lawyer says Marc Rubio's campaign is one huge violation. According to Miles Mogulescu:

All of the money for Rubio's campaign ads to date has been illegally laundered through a non-profit organization that doesn't have to disclose its donors and is legally required to spend its funds for social welfare, not for the exclusive benefit of an individual such as a presidential candidate like Rubio.

Having helped establish and run non-profits, I think I understand Mogulescu's point. And Trump is the kind of guy who would have have called Rubio out on that, such as in the most recent debate. Not sure he did that, but none of these clowns actually wants undue scrutiny. We shall see.

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Mitt Romney recently went on record praising the Affordable Care Act, the same one he felt compelled to denounce when he ran for President in 2012. Romney wants to take credit for Obamacare, because it is modeled on Romneycare. He has a point, but he is pretty feckless on the issue; he could have run on his relatively moderate record as Massachusetts Governor, shown some leadership, and explain to that snarling and ill-informed Republican base why Mittbamacare was a big improvement and should be supported. Instead he ran from his own ideas only to re-embrace them later when there was no political fallout. That's what happens when you are no longer running for office and you don't give a shit what teabaggers think.

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It can be difficult deciding who merits the most laughably inane comment on any given day. So much competition, you know. But a few days ago, Bristol Palin made a strong case for herself when she said that Richard Dawkins, of all people, supports the 9/11 bombers. Professor Dawkins had said that he believed the hijackers had been sincere in their convictions, and that this demonstrated the power of religion to motivate good people to do evil things. Palin interpreted this as support for jihadists.

What a miserably ignorant woman. It seems to run in the family.

Bush the Lighter

If you can't tell already, I find Jeb Bush to be an intellectually contemptible person. I am not the only one to realize the "smart one" label was laughably misplaced. It's as if he doesn't bother to keep up and assumes his conservative instincts will see him through. Recently he went on record saying the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is no longer needed; specifically stating that a federal role was not needed to ensure voting access in certain states with a history of voting rights denial, e.g., Jim Crow. He said this with what should have the benefit of hindsight. It should have been as obvious to him as the rest of us that, because of the Court ruling, the states no longer bound by the VRA, primarily in the South, immediately began re-implementing voting restrictions, measures that would not have passed muster with the VRA- and all done by Republican-controlled states and municipalities because there was no longer VRA-mandated federal oversight.

This is precisely what what liberals warned would happen and precisely what the Supreme Court majority assured us would not happen.

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Speaking of pompous presidential candidates, those of a certain age remember how George Bush the Elder played the racial fear card with that infamous Willie Horton political attack ad, the one that attacked Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis because he, as Massachusetts governor, had allowed Mr. Horton, a felon, to have a weekend pass. You know the story; Willie stabbed and raped at the first opportunity. Bad call, Gov. You know why you remember it? Because Republicans played that Horton attack ad incessantly and made sure everyone had their primal fears rubbed raw. Republicans know fear helps them win elections; they stoke it every chance they get.

So it is interesting how Huckabee has largely avoided a similar fate. You do remember the incident, don't you? OK, most of us don't, nor did we hear much about it at the time, which is really my point. Fortunately, some have seen fit to remind us.  And yes, if Huckabee starts to climb in the polls, one or more of his Republican opponents may bring up his Willie Horton moment.

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Business Insider reports that economists are surprised that consumers are saving more than expected. This can be a problem in an economy where consumer spending plays such a dominant role. "Secular stagnation," they say. They shouldn't be surprised. As I have said more than once about job security; it has been stripped away for millions of us, and when people know they don't have job security, along with low wages and benefits, they do the rational thing and cut back on spending, especially when credit card debt is already high. It really should be obvious why households feel the need to save and pare down debt.

All that cheap plastic crap from China will sit on Walmart's shelves for a little longer, so there is a good side, I suppose.

Crappy Carly

I hope everyone has heard just how crappy Carly Fiorina was when she ransacked HP back in the day. Her plunder was part of the Homeland Investment Act of 2004, a gift given by a Republican congress to corporate America, which promised jobs but enriched itself instead.  Along the way, Carly damaged HP's standing, laid off thousands, and did so poorly her board fired her, but not before giving her an amazingly undeserved golden parachute. And that, folks, is how the overclass takes care of itself. More on Trainwreck-Carly here.

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"If you can’t afford to take care of Veterans, then don’t go to war." A little something to remember for those who assume, against the evidence, that it is patriotic Republican politicians who take care of those who serve and protect.

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More evidence that the ACA does not hurt job growth. But you'd never know if you get your news from Fox.

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I've said it before: Republicans have got nothing on Hillary Clinton regarding the Benghazi pseudo-scandal. They have even admitted it. Now bigmouth Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy, who thinks he is smooth enough to be the next Speaker, has gone further and, inadvertently perhaps, admitted not only that there is no evidence of misconduct--which is not news-- but that the intent from the beginning was to damage her politically. Fellow Republicans are not pleased.

Don't tell me you are surprised.

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Just so you will know.  It is not the act per se, it is the hypocrisy of those who use their office, pulpit, or position to denounce others, invoke the name of one god or another, and pass laws that incriminate and imprison others for the same behavior.

Labor Day

Labor Day has come and gone, so I thought this would be a good time to remind readers of how this country treats unions and the working class. Given the disingenuous way unions are usually portrayed it the media, along with the incessant harangue from Republicans, many Americans have been convinced that unions are an unmitigated horror. The message has been so relentless for so long, millions of Americans have grown up hearing no other narrative except that unions are a blight. In turn, they have accepted the corporatist argument that slashing the pay, benefits, and job security of the working class is the way for America to move forward. That and another round of tax cuts for the wealthy.

Right-wing analysts, who have an agenda, talk endlessly of costs, corrupt union bosses, and how corporations' profits are hurt. Mainstream journalists, many of whom are feckless if not especially conservative, will parrot right-wing talking points uncritically. What they often leave out is what it means to families and neighborhood where workers have somewhat higher paychecks than they would otherwise. Small businesses, which Republicans claim to support, are happy for the extra business their neighbors' larger paychecks allow. Local and state tax revenues rise as well because workers have more disposable income, and thus put more back into the local economy. In other words, employees with cash to spend make good customers; those with minimal discretionary income make poor customers. And every employee is someone else's customer.

Closely related is the greater job security that unions have historically provided. Many Americans have been told inability to shed workers has been a costly burden, ignoring the fact that the American economy has consistently been among the most competitive and productive; our corporations are among the most profitable. We are now learning what citizens in less developed countries have always known: When you are underpaid and don't have job security, you hunker down. You focus on the most elemental needs and try to save money. There is, of course, little to save, whether it be for emergencies or retirement--and millions no longer have a pension like their fathers did. If you are scared of losing your job because your boss is a prick, and is constantly threatening you, just remember that non-unionized Americans, and that is most of us, now have little legal protection. Americans have some of the lowest job security in the OECD, a development that was entirely intended.

As for those retirement plans, especially the public sector ones that turn Republicans apoplectic, one should ask, even if few in the media do, why there is so much willingness to scaremonger the costs and so little effort to account for the ways people benefit because someone in the household has a retirement check; a check that contributes to the family and the neighborhood.

I recall some sneering comments made on Face Book a while back by a man who supported Tea Party policies. I recall that he was incensed over California's state employee retirement obligations. The figure he threw out I no longer recall. He may have been correct; it certainly seemed like a lot of money. But what I do recall is there was no context; it was just assumed to be an outrageous amount. All cost and no benefit.

It should be obvious, but apparently isn't, that the dollar amount means little if the number of retirees, and their dependents, are not accounted for. Or the number of years the total obligation is spread over. Or how many other family members benefit from the relatively large retirement checks. Or how many are able to stay off welfare as a result. Multiplier effect, anyone? Dollars spent by unionized civil servants, active or retired, go back into local economies where they act as a far better economic stimulus than austerity or tax cuts, both conservative favorites.

California state retirees, who are mostly middle-class, also pay taxes on that income, which the state and the feds are very good at collecting, unlike that of the very wealthiest, who are very good at avoiding taxes, even if it means putting their extra billions, or even trillions, in offshore tax havens. When is the last time you read, not some polemic from the Left, but a fair analysis in your favorite news source, of how the very wealthiest duck taxes and what it means for the rest of us?

These are simple economic principles; low wages are a drag on any economy, but especially one dependent on consumer spending. What do you honestly think will happen if, for decades on end, wages are suppressed for most of the working and middle classes, pensions are eliminated, job security and benefits are reduced, and millions have become compliant, overworked, and scared because they cannot risk losing their shitty jobs?

Silly me, you blame the victims, of course.

Jeb Says to Work Harder

It should come as no surprise that Jeb Bush, after saying he would not run, and was not interested in being President, has decided that he is going to run, because he is interested after all. Sure Jeb, you really had me fooled.

This post is only about his most recent foot-in-mouth moment, though he has had a number of missteps from the very beginning: Not good for the brother who was supposed to be the smart one. You can get the gist of it from the picture below.

Here is the interview with New Hampshire's The Union Leader, complete with a video, in which he said the following:

“My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours” and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That's the only way we're going to get out of this rut that we're in.”

Most critics jumped on the "need to work longer hours" aspect, and with good reason. We, Americans, already work the longest hours in the industrialized world.

Bush claimed what he meant was that too many workers juggle part-time jobs, when they would prefer a single full-time job. That much is true; part-time work takes an even greater toll because of the additional logistic challenges, a point I have touched on before.

Jeb did not clarify how he would rectify that, nor, for that matter, was there a hint of recognition as to why Americans are forced to work such long hours at so many jobs just to get by. Republicans won't mention that the US has among the lowest minimum wage, the fewest paid vacations, relatively few national holidays, inadequate pensions, low job protection, and no paid maternity leave. But Jeb Bush thinks we just need to work harder.
                               
But note also that Jeb said we need to raise productivity, and then maybe people will earn more. It is this observation that reveals how misinformed he is. Does he not realize the US is already among the most productive countries in the world, if not the most? A search taking all of 20 seconds showed the US as the most productive G7 member (2013 data). By all means, see the charts. The productivity has been there for decades, but the gains have been entirely garnered by those at the top. This is a fundamental reality of modern America.

JB just cannot bring himself to accept that growing inequality and rising hardships in this country are the result of policies and legislation promoted by his Party. They are the ones that have wanted cheap labor, the ability to outsource jobs, low minimum wages, weak unions, low employee benefits, low marginal tax rates, numerous tax advantages for the wealthy, massive defense spending, and generous subsidies to profitable companies.

America's overclass has created a blatantly rigged system, but Jeb thinks the solution is for the rest of us to work harder. And he is the smart one?

Selective Rage

I saw this on my FaceBook feed a few days ago. I saw it as ill-informed, but not particularly aggressive. But I got to thinking about it and realize how it exemplifies the selectiveness of right-wing contempt and where it is directed. I think what did it for me was a comment from someone who declared: "This is one of those issues that puts a burr under my saddle." A common expression, but in this case quite revealing.

In the first place, it is curious that the poster's creator says Social Security is running out of money, as if that is a factual observation. It isn't, it is a Republican conceit, but I suppose the joke doesn't work unless you have been conditioned to ignore evidence.

I wonder if he, Mr. bur-in-my-saddle, is equally bothered by unending corporate subsidies? Or the bank bailouts, where there was clear evidence of criminality. Or the phenomenal waste at the Defense Department which, wouldn't you know it, gets little press.

Sadly, there are quite a few who get worked up if a single mother on food stamps buys anything other than gruel. but excuse or even cheer on the likes of Cliven Bundy, who is both a thief and a scofflaw. Actually, it is not sad; it is disgusting. That law and order stuff is for the poor and vulnerable. As Scythian philosopher Anacharsis famously observed: "Laws are like cobwebs; strong enough to ensnare the weak, but not the strong."

When pressed, some on the Right will admit Bundy is wrong, or they will insist they don't like to see waste anywhere. But that is usually not their visceral, instinctive reaction. And they usually have to be called out on their inconsistency. It is not something that comes to mind easily. If you don't think your rage is selective, name one US Army General you demanded to be held accountable for the $8.5 trillion dollars the Defense Department cannot account for.

When we do look at welfare so many fail to see the broader picture; welfare payments go disproportionately to working class neighborhoods. The money helps to buy essentials --and little else-- for children and the elderly. It is almost never a matter of cash out of your pocket and into the pocket of a some deadbeat, though you have been encouraged to believe this. The Republican Party has, in recent decades, made an art form out of putting carefully selected burrs under your saddle. Much involves stoking white working class resentment. This has both divided voters that once were Democratic constituencies, and has deflected criticism away from the overclass.

And that, of course, was always the intent. Republican politicians and operatives know their voter base. They realize those on the Right are tribal, fearful, and insular. They also know conservatives are bothered by someone else getting benefits, not just anyone, but those perceived as undeserving, as they define it. Those who express anger, irritation, or contempt for welfare recipients and for the poor in general are revealing their own authoritarian personality.

It is that authoritarian personality, coupled with an often breath-taking level of misinformation, that compels so many on the right, tea baggers and plutocrats alike (I'm looking at you, Donald Trump), to so frequently mischaracterize that which they despise, but refuse to understand. The result is an intellectual whipsaw of contempt for food stamp recipients but not massive Pentagon waste; for social security, but not Wall Street's pension plunder. They rally behind Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's effort to undermine teachers, but shrug when defense contractors routinely gouge the government and then pay themselves obscene salaries.

That's a lot of burrs that somehow go unnoticed.

Where the Money Goes

As some readers know, I have lamented the dominance of Wall before. I and certainly many others, have expressed disgust over the way Wall Street sucks money out of the economy. This is not mere rhetoric spewed from that swirling cacophony called the Internet. Let me provide a very specific example of what I mean when the Wall Street feeding frenzy is damaging America: the current practice of stock buybacks. It is a simple enough to understand, and why corporations might want to do it when warranted. What is not as obvious is the broader ramifications.

As you should know, publicly-traded companies become public by issuing stock, shares of which are available to anyone who cares to buy them. Said companies often issue additional shares from time to time as a way to raise capital, which is not debt, and in lieu of borrowing, which is. Over time, a company, call it Acme Widget, may have raised a great deal of capital by issuing a flood of stock. Companies like Acme may or may not have grown as a result.

However, Wall Street doesn't just want to see Acme make profits; what it really wants is for the stock price to rise and it cares little about how it is done. Rising stock prices are harder to come by if Acme has gazillions of shares floating around. On a per-share basis, earnings look better if Acme has, say, 300 million shares instead of three billion. Obviously they are not better, they only look better.

What to do? Acme could use its profits on R&D, or on new equipment, two mainstays of stable growth. Or Acme could buy back shares of its stock. This has some ramifications. Apologists will tell you Acme is investing in its future, and buybacks should be seen as a mark of confidence. That is risible nonsense. What does Acme get by blowing its earnings on its own stock? Companies like Acme are now spending big money, billions of dollars in some cases, buying (back) something that is not a productive asset. Cash spent on buybacks is cash not spent on increased wages, new technologies, or something corporate America could really use; higher quality products and processes. But buybacks enrich the investor class, which insists that maximizing shareholder value should be a corporation's overriding objective. If they get rich, then, well, that's it.

There is, finally, a growing recognition that American capitalism, with its obsession of stock buybacks, is toxic to this country's long-term health. At MarketWatch, not exactly the New Left Review, Rex Nutting writes:

Many factors have been blamed for the plummeting fortunes of the American middle class: globalization, technology, deregulation, easy credit, the winner-take-all economy, and even the inevitable tide of history. 

But one under-appreciated factor is a pervasive business model that encourages top managers of American corporations to loot their company for short-term gains, depriving those companies of the funds they need to build and enlarge, and invest in their workers for the long haul. 

How do they loot their company? By using large stock buybacks to manage the short-term objectives that trigger higher compensation for themselves. By using those stock buybacks to manipulate the share price, which allows them to use inside information to time their own stock sales. By using buybacks to funnel most of the company’s profits back to shareholders (including themselves).

Upper management at publicly traded companies is highly incentivized to enrich the already rich, most of whom are passive investors and have nothing to do with those companies except that they own shares. CEOs have garnered enormous wealth in recent decades because they also own many shares. Their role helps explain the corporate America's felt need to aggressively engage in stock buybacks. CEOs generally don't get multi-million dollar paychecks; that's for professional athletes. They get big paychecks, to be sure, but the really big money comes from stock options, though with a catch. Generally the stock has to appreciate in value up to a pre-determined amount, and within a certain time frame. Therein lies the short-term thinking in so many American companies that focus on their stock instead of on their products, customers, and employees.

This unproductive but highly addictive practice plays out as such: CEOs know that if they can get or keep the stock price at a certain level, their previously awarded stock options can be exercised. He, or occasionally she, sell those shares on the open market. The result is a windfall of cash, sometimes many millions of dollars. And this is an ongoing process: stock options awarded, work the stock, cash in, fresh stock options, repeat and enrich yourself.

Most shares the CEOs care to sell end up in the open market, where they tend to weigh down the price of the stock. That won't make investors happy, nor the CEO, who hopes for more stock options in the future. That's where the stock buybacks come in. CEOs and compliant corporate boards are only too happy to accommodate them, for they, CEOs, others in upper management, boards and investors alike stand to benefit.

The situation is complicated only somewhat by dividends. CEOs and investors alike are more inclined to keep their shares if the company pays a dividend. Fine, you say, except that dividends can get very expensive. Again, this is cash that could have been plowed into productive assets. But once dividends are paid, they are gone forever and they go mostly to the hedge funds, investment banks, and the rest of Wall Street, as well as the CEOs.

It is essential that voters understand the damage being done. Corporate America extracts profits from the working- and middle-class. That is as it always has been. And that is not the problem since customers, that's us, get something in return. The difference now is that those profits are not finding their way back, in the form of increased wages, to middle America. To reiterate, corporate America is on a buyback frenzy to please investors, and it is using money that in the past went to increased wages and capital improvements.  Instead, the use of stock options and buybacks ensures that an ever-increasing portion of capital sifts upward to the very top, where it remains in control of the .01%. Even the rich are beginning to recognize the recklessness.

It is the antithesis of the intellectual asininity called "trickle-down." Indeed, it is an ongoing debate whether neoliberalism's warriors were ever ideologically naive enough to buy into the trickle-down argument, or they simply figured we were.

 

Insecure By Design

Question: What has been a defining feature of American socio-economic life for nearly all of its history, faded substantially for roughly two generations, and now has come back with a vengeance in the last two or three decades?

An insecure and vulnerable workforce. One that is compliant, scared, and with few workplace rights.

It is no accident that employee insecurity, those subject to dismissal without cause, has coincided with flat wage growth, a decline in union membership, the gradual disappearance of pensions, and the rise of the cynically-named "right-to-work" legislation.

Some will tell you that it is the inevitable result of globalization; it's a tough, competitive world out there, and hey, China. OECD data on worker protections in member countries belies this assertion. According to recent OECD publications, the United States has become unusually hostile to workers. As Les Leopold reports:

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranks 43 nations by the degree of employee protection provided by government. The 21 indicators used include such items as laws and regulations governing unfair dismissals, notifications and protections during mass layoffs, the use and abuse of temporary workers, and the provision of severance based on seniority. Countries are ranked on a scale of 0 to 6 with 6 going to those who provide the most legal protections for employees and 0 for those with the least. We're ranked #42 out of 43, meaning that we have among the fewest regulations to protect employees -- union, non-union, management, full-time and temporary workers alike.

The low level of worker security has always been the objective of most of those on the Right, whether they espouse neo-liberalism, laissez faire policies, or free trade. Enthusiastic support from the corporate world for cheap, compliant labor has varied over the generations, but has been especially strong in recent decades.

Through it all are those who may not be rich themselves, or may not run a corporation, or have well-developed views on economic doctrine, but still show a remarkable hostility to the "other": those not in the same tribe, religion, or race; those who are unacceptably different in thought, world view, and sexuality. A hostility that is directed against those who do not know their place and thus threaten the hierarchy.

This has been with us since colonial days. Both David Hackett Fischer, in Albion's Seed, and Colin Woodard, in American Nations, vividly reveal the brutal treatment that for centuries was meted out to the powerless; slaves, immigrants, indigenous Americans, indentured servants, sharecroppers, women, political subversives, the lower class in general.

The nature of employment, and of insecurity, have changed over the generations, though the working class remains the object of contempt. Workers are increasingly compelled to pursue jobs that not only offer low pay and no benefits, but are further away from home, are at odd hours, or, and this is the big one, are seasonal, temporary, or part-time. The result is a dystopian nightmare for millions of workers, some of them highly educated, who spend an inordinate amount of time, money and gas, to get to one part-time job, then must hustle off to another one. And you better not complain, because the boss does not need a good reason to fire you.

For a modern analysis of how the wealthy are currently reshaping the lives of the working poor and, increasingly, the middle class, read Jeff Faux's The Servant Economy, or Robert Reich's analysis of "the sharing economy," Faux focuses on how so many of the jobs now appearing are designed to serve the wealthy; day care--for the very young and the very old--dog walking, auto detailing, pool and lawn care, and many more. The pay is low, the benefits mostly non-existent.  No unions, no protection; you serve at the pleasure of the rich. Reich describes an economy where "human beings do the work that’s unpredictable – odd jobs, on-call projects, fetching and fixing, driving and delivering, tiny tasks needed at any and all hours – and patch together barely enough to live on."

No slavery, not technically, but highly constrained conditions, along with wages that are no longer coupled with productivity, mean that America, a country that once had high social mobility compared to other industrialized economies, now has among the worst. We are returning to the rigid, stultifying hierarchy of class, low wages, and pervasive, and often aggressive, religiosity that has long characterized the American South.

We are becoming Dixie.

Southern Order

You've read here before how I have bemoaned Dixification, the preferred socio-economic model of Southern conservatives, and how it is spreading to the rest of the country. I've written about the centuries-long tradition of a deeply anti-democratic model of hierarchy and privilege, of low wages, benefits, taxes and regulations; replete with voter restriction, fierce hostility to unions, and the ongoing animosity to any social change that upsets long-standing social hierarchies.

Again, the argument is that conservative politicians support policies that do not make economic sense, but that is not the intent. Liberal policy wonks scratch their heads trying to figure out why Republicans are so determined to avoid sensible and proven policies. But they misunderstand the nature and intent of the deeply reactionary politicians that now dominate that party, many state governments, and come January, even more of the federal government.

It is gratifying, in a grim sort of way, to see there is a growing awareness of what Dixification is and how it is redefining national politics as never before.

To cite just one example, Doug Muder's recent post reminds us that the current invective from teabaggers is Southern at its core:

It’s not a Tea Party.

The Boston Tea Party protest was aimed at a Parliament where the colonists had no representation, and at an appointed governor who did not have to answer to the people he ruled. Today’s Tea Party faces a completely different problem: how a shrinking conservative minority can keep change at bay in spite of the democratic processes defined in the Constitution. That’s why they need guns. That’s why they need to keep the wrong people from voting in their full numbers. 

These right-wing extremists have misappropriated the Boston patriots and the Philadelphia founders because their true ancestors — Jefferson Davis and the Confederates — are in poor repute.

But the veneer of Bostonian rebellion easily scrapes off; the tea bags and tricorn hats are just props. The symbol Tea Partiers actually revere is the Confederate battle flag. Let a group of right-wingers ramble for any length of time, and you will soon hear that slavery wasn’t really so bad, that Andrew Johnson was right, that Lincoln shouldn’t have fought the war, that states have the rights of nullification and secession, that the war wasn’t really about slavery anyway, and a lot of other Confederate mythology that (until recently) had left me asking, “Why are we talking about this?”

By contrast, the concerns of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and its revolutionary Sons of Liberty are never so close to the surface. So no. It’s not a Tea Party. It’s a Confederate Party.

Let's be clear on this: the most powerful members of Congress are overwhelmingly from the old Confederate south. They are deeply overrepresented in Washington, all the more so when voting population is considered. They are not here to work together, or fix things, to improve government, to promote democracy, nor to put the economy back on track. They are here to reestablish the old order, destroy what they hate, and maintain privilege and power for the few.

Teachers and Their Detractors

One of the most depressing aspects of K-12 education, along with its massively inequitable nature, is the cynical and contemptuous attacks on public school teachers, part of a destructive and duplicitous agenda not found in other OECD nations. 

Teaching has become an increasingly thankless profession; teachers are expected to solve all the problems of their charges, who often come to them poorly prepared, if they come at all. Teachers in poorly equipped schools can and do help those students, but not as much as is needed, and not as much as in richer districts. Hence, achievement gaps between rich and poor do not lessen, they grow ever wider.

Many college graduates enter teaching, in part, because jobs seem to open up with regularity. This should be a warning flag. The turnover rate among teachers is high; roughly half have moved on to other employment after five years. And that is in a tough economy where there are not many reasonable alternatives. 

So why would a caring and smart recent graduate consider teaching? Society says we need more and better teachers, but unfortunately, that's not all society is saying. The teaching profession has worked for years to upgrade and further professionalize teachers and curricula. There has been, or was, a great deal of pressure on those entering the field to be properly credentialed, meaning, generally, not only that one should have a college degree, but an advanced one as well, in the appropriate field, at least for those teaching beyond elementary level.

Now that's just the subject matter. The push, especially in response to the No Child Left Behind Act, has been for teachers to be knowledgable about pedagogy as well. Thus, a teacher's credential is called for. In some jurisdictions, that has meant successfully completing a course of instruction that might last one year. After passing a few qualifying exams, taking several courses in classroom management, learning theory, curriculum development and more, and after spending a few weeks as a student teacher, you were considered, in most school districts, a certified teacher, though not necessarily a most highly qualified one.

The trend within pedagogy, as with subject matter, was to further ratchet up the requirements. A mere teacher's certificate was not good enough. After NCLB the ambitious teacher, those who aspired to most highly qualified status, would be expected to obtain a master's degree, this one in education. That's in addition to the masters in the subject the teacher intends to teach.

And now, most recently, there are trends in the opposite direction threatening to undo recent gains. Politicians and political operatives, mostly Republican, are pushing far different ideas and outcomes. With little good evidence, they proclaim teachers, at least experienced, tenured, and unionized ones, to be inherently the problem, but nothing that can't be fixed by stripping them of their pensions, tenure, and union membership. A pay cut is also in order; got to balance that budget you know. And that mantra that you have to pay top dollar if you want top talent? It's a truism held up by free-market ideologues as applicable everywhere --except for teachers.

So now, especially in red states, teachers can no longer expect additional pay to match higher qualifications. For Republicans, all public school teachers already earn too much. Nor can teachers expect a decent retirement. Recall that the recent recriminations against teachers, coinciding with the presidency of Barack Obama, are after the NCLB era that demanded that teachers be more highly credentialed. In other words, many thousands of teachers spent huge sums of money to upgrade their credentials and become better qualified. It was a trend that didn't last.

So those smart enough to get advanced degrees in math or science, and might have once considered teaching, now face a hostile environment where teachers are publicly ridiculed by students, parents, the media, and members of congress. They are told they make too much, their retirement plans are too high, and they are thus a drag on state and municipal budgets. In an nauseating display of obtuse thinking, teachers are expected to be social worker, friend, counselor, foster parent, pastor, babysitter, as well as teacher, and then are blamed because they have not solved all the problems that others have created, including pathetic, criminally irresponsible parents.

It is true that some teachers are not performing well. Leave aside for the moment that teacher evaluations are fraught with difficulty; never forget that a major reason you hear diatribes against public schools and, of course the unions, always the unions, is because they are a target of a conservative agenda. The religious right remains hysterical about sex education, secular, and more inclusive, curricula, the teaching of evolution, and, incredibly, critical thinking skills. And Republicans of a broader stripe have long worked to undermine teachers' unions for the same reason they have opposed all unions; doing so undermines the Democratic Party's base, especially when it comes to voter turnout in elections. 

Others have written extensively on the depressingly well-orchestrated and politically-motivated effort to undermine public education and teachers' unions as well as the failure of charter schools to live up to the hype. See, for example, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools, by Diane Ravitch. Others argue that public schools are doing better than critics care to admit. I'll come back to these issues another day. But I'll finish here with a point not often made by others.

What is fundamentally different now than in the past is the investor class, which with the help of mostly conservative legislatures, has entered the field and is in the process of monetizing education. Billionaires promising market-based miracles have found receptive politicians always looking to shift education from the public sector to the private. Their favorite Trojan horse has been charter schools, a right winger's wet dream, because they rarely involve unions, or tenure, teacher pay is lower, and in some cases they have been able to reintroduce religious dogma into the classroom on the public dime, as in Bobby Jindal's Louisiana.

And what about the teachers that really are not performing well? Conservatives will overstate the numbers, but surely there are some that don't measure up (as in every other field). First, some context; at the start of every school year, large numbers of young, freshly minted teachers enter the classroom for the first time. The same holds for those who, for a variety of reasons, take up teaching later in life. In either case, economic circumstances compel many to enter a field they might not have otherwise considered, not because they don't want to be good teachers, or because they don't care, but because teachers and those considering teaching suffer, like most of us, from a terrible job market, where free trade has stripped away millions of jobs, unions have been crushed, the minimum wage is far lower than in comparable countries, and where overall wages have been flat for decades, even if productivity, corporate profits, 
and the cost of living have not. In other words, many teachers cannot just up and leave for a comparably paying job. They cannot walk out just because certain critics endlessly taunt and complain. If one cares to look, job opportunities for both inexperienced grads and middle-aged workers on their second career are very tight, unless you think big-box retailers and the like are acceptable alternatives. 

All of this is separate from the actual workday. When they enter the classroom most new public school teachers are immediately hit with a hellacious shit storm from every direction. It is not always students specifically, or the endless bureaucratic torments, but rather the totality of the experience that makes public school teaching difficult and stressful. Those who have not taught in an American public school, most especially the most adversely affected ones, cannot truly appreciate how difficult the job is. The pay is unusually low in the United States, commensurate with public opinion of what teachers are worth. What is harder to quantify, and impossible to appreciate for non-teachers, is the way years of teaching in a crowded, hot, underfunded school grinds down all but the most resilient, not to be confused with the best or most talented.

Teaching is not immune to the growing realization among American workers that they have declining employment options and thus feel they must hang on to whatever job they have, regardless of the stress and indignities. Those who do have options either avoid teaching entirely, or leave when they can. Some may be putting in their time until retirement, but most who choose to stay in teaching are talented and devoted, yet the attacks on unions and pensions hurts all teachers. 

The most talented young graduates see and hear the vapid platitudes about the satisfaction and nobility of teaching on the one hand, and the now widespread attacks to lessen pay, degrade the profession, and balance state budgets by firing teachers and shuttering schools. 

Why would our most capable recent graduates enter the field under these circumstances? Why be devoted to a system that treats you as the problem?

Pat Robertson

I have always considered Pat Robertson to be a hideous ass, but the video below shows him about as vapidly inane as I have ever seen him. He has been more aggressive, vicious and hateful at other times, but this segment brings "laughably wrong" to a new level. Perhaps it is his advanced age that makes him incoherently lash out at all that he hates, much like Justice Scalia, who is in his own cognitive downward spiral. If so, I would cut him, and Scalia, some slack. But if he is going to remain on TV and spout his nonsense, then he can forget it.

First, Robertson calls for a revolution. He could have stopped there, but I should have known bullshit would follow. You can seen from the video that Robertson is recounting a recent visit to his doctor. He complains that the nurse was asking him many questions, but he admits they are medically related. So the problem with this is what, exactly? The nurse should not be asking you such questions? Really, Pat?

And she, the nurse, was typing the answers into a computer, and thus, a database. What are you saying, Pat? That she should not bother to record the data? And it took a long time, what with all those questions and all that typing? Perhaps medical professionals should skip asking and recording medically relevant information? Because you know better, Pat?

The implication I draw is that Robertson wants us to think his horrific experience was the direct result of Obamacare. He wants you to feel the Affordable Care Act has created new levels of big-government intrusiveness while draining him of his last bit of freedom. Apparently even the omniscient power of his ever-loving god is not enough to save us. I thought we were supposed to pray and leave everything to god, who knows best and always guides us, never lets us down, should always be relied upon, ad infinitum. Revolution is what those secular guys do, 'cause Jesus doesn't whisper in their ear. Hey Pat, millions claim their prayers were answered when the ACA was passed. I guess those prayers don't count.

The inane implication in all of this is that he wants this revolution because:
   Nurses never asked those questions before Obamacare;
   They didn't record your medical history before Obamacare;
   Health care didn't use computers before Obamacare;
   There wasn't a lot of paperwork before Obamacare;

Perhaps Pat has forgotten that medicine has been switching to computerized medical records for some time, and for good reason. Who wants to go back to pen and paper? I mean, besides Pat?

And one of the reasons why health care in the US has been so expensive for so long, long before the ACA, is the incredible amount of paperwork brought on by what, liberal bureaucrats? Wrong again, Pat. We have been choking on paperwork beyond what other nations do because of the privatized nature of our health care system, dominated as it was, and mostly still is, by a profit-seeking insurance industry.  Europe and Japan provide coverage for all; it's cheaper and it is better. They have not had many thousands of their citizens die each year because they didn't have health insurance. And they didn't have many thousands more file for bankruptcy every single year because they couldn't pay their medical bills, or lose their insurance just because a private insurer didn't want to pay. It is these unacceptable realities that have defined the United States for generations, and that the Affordable Care Act has begun to change.

So Pat, is it asking too much for you to do some homework? There is a reason, whether you like it or not, why France is often regarded has having the best health care system in the world. France! Not the US, and quite frankly, we are not even close, even though circumstances have improved, thanks to the ACA, for America's poorest -- those who had no insurance at all. You forgot about them, didn't you Pat?

For the record, I had good insurance before the ACA went into effect. I have not had to do anything different because of Obamacare. I didn't have to switch, I didn't have to change doctors, no premium hikes, nothing. I'm guessing multi-millionaire Pat Robertson also had good medical insurance before the ACA kicked in. Nothing has changed with his insurance plan; no new doctors, no hike in premiums. Nothing. If he had real issues to complain about, the kind of disaster ideological fucks like Robertson claimed would happen, you know damn well he would have enumerated them in whining detail.

No changes with Pat Robertson either. Same asshole he has always been. But he loves Jesus, so it's OK.



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Come Together?

Ralph Nader has a new book out, called Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State. In it, Nader argues that some elements of the Right and Left are beginning to come together as they slowly realize they have a common enemy, Wall Street in particular, corporatism in general.

Progressives, including Nader, had much of this figured out long ago; whether it be the corrupting influence of wealth and privilege, the contradictions of neoliberal economics, the laughable asininity of supply-side economics, the  illogical and self-serving gospel of free trade and more: It was the Left, the true Left, not the Clintons and their Democratic Leadership Council, nor the New Democrats, nor other Republican Lites, including President Obama, that long ago saw the corporate train wreck heading our way.

Only now, with so much evidence that even Fox cannot spin it all away, we see at least some working and middle class conservatives, including those who identify with the Tea Party, are finally realizing they have been played by the Republican establishment, those at the very top of the conservative wealth and power structure. 

The Left, broadly defined, has long wondered how the reactionary Right, especially working class rank and file Republicans, could so blindly and aggressively support Republican politicians who so clearly violate what teabaggers claim they stand for, or what they consider to be morally sound.

Nader is not alone on this. I myself have argued there is a substantial ideological and policy opening that could allow the two otherwise disparate forces to work together. Issues such as an abusive financial sector, corruption, inequality before the law, the bill of goods called free trade, secret offshore bank accounts -- an issue that hurt Romney with working class Republicans --are issues that animate both the Left and more than a few Tea Party adherents.

Mike Konczal argues that the Tea Party and Wall Street actually get along just fine. He makes some good points, but it is important to note that Konczal's focus is on elected politicians, those whose elections are financed by Wall Street, and not rank and file teabaggers. It is this latter group's interests which diverge most strongly with the plutocracy, even if they often seem doggedly unaware of it.

And ultimately, this is why Nader's belief that liberals and teabaggers will work against a common enemy may be wishful thinking, at least until even more pain is felt. Few conservatives, and especially tea partiers, even now, will listen to arguments made by progressives. Or to put it differently, many teabaggers will be open to an idea or policy until they realize it is a progressive one, or on those occasions when President Obama supports it. As an aside, I might add they also don't realize how often President Obama sides with the center-right, such as through his enforcement of domestic spying programs initiated by Bush, his unwillingness to prosecute Wall Street banks, or the continued care and feeding of a bloated military.

Their common sense is overwhelmed by a condition that Fox News has worked hard to develop. Fox News Channel President Roger Ailes once said he was less interested in giving viewers the news than in how they felt about it. Blame it on cable TV and the Internet, but fewer of us are willing to listen to, and think through, viewpoints we don't like and may not want to hear. Authoritarians, which populate the Tea Party, are especially impervious to uncomfortable facts and are especially rigid, often contradictory, in their views, but we are all susceptible. Add to this a visceral hatred for liberals that runs deep in America, even though conservatives support liberal policies far more than they realize, that ensures that many on the right will reject policies and programs they would otherwise support if psychology played less of a role and evidence-based economics played more. It does not help that progressive views are relatively complex and do not lend themselves to easy bromides, slogans, or bumper stickers.

It would undoubtedly gall many teabaggers, were they suddenly to acquire a more rounded education, that Marx was right; class defines everything. Those at the very top have always used the state for their own ends. The enduring challenge for the rest of us, one we are currently failing, is to keep in check the predatory nature of the neoliberal overclass.   

Innovation is Secondary

Ever notice how little time politicians spend debating the core issues that concern the politically literate? And how easily our media chases after, or creates, secondary issues? It was painful enough to watch the tepid and interminable process known as the presidential election campaigns. And now with mid-terms approaching, we are reminded just how shallow American elections, and the media that feeds off them, have become. What really is killing us is the abject inability or unwillingness to understand and confront our rigged and dysfunctional system. Our overclass has no intention of letting public discourse ever become constructive and insightful. Our corporate media is only too happy to fixate on the trivial, or otherwise shine its investigative spotlight on important but secondary issues, including education, the federal debt, and other seemingly constructive topics such as innovation.

As America continues to struggle, many continue to tout the value of innovation-- in technology and commerce, mostly-- but also in education and government. President Obama himself has often stressed the importance of innovation; how we once had it in abundance, how it now is eroding, and what we must do to get it back. The value of innovation would seem to be something that progressives and conservatives could mostly agree on, and that helps explain why the President talks about it. It seems, on its face, to be non-partisan.

However, when President Obama talks about the importance of innovation, he has often, inadvertently or not, folded it in with other conservative talking points. We need to "work harder," "stay in school," --or go back to school-- and get that degree or those credentials. It's a competitive world out there; if you can't get the job you want, it's because you are not properly trained and credentialed. And, of course, you cannot blame corporate America if you don't have the proper skills. We must not let down them down; work harder and prove your value to the job creators. This is the central tenant of individualism.

It's all quite clever, really, for the constant adulation of individualism tends to shut down debate and analysis of US political economy. It is all up to you. The rich earned all they have, and if you don't like your lot in life, it is your fault and only you can change it. This mantra allows the overclass to largely avoid honest media examination or a concerted pushback from a mostly insouciant population that is chockablock with low-information voters, has a short attention span, allows itself to be constantly distracted by inanity, and takes solace in religion. Corporate media operates within this milieu, invariably giving voice to conservative operatives who lecture and berate as class warfare any attempt to lay bare our breath-taking inequality. The ideology of individualism allows our overclass to pin society's ills on our growing underclass.

Obviously, there is much to be said for staying is school, seeking additional training, or more broadly, the role of innovation. American commerce still provides sundry example of where hard work and innovation can take you; they are the twin edges we must sharpen if we are to meet future challenges.

However, every speech devoted to either of these takes the focus away from the underlying causes of US difficulty; jobs, to be sure, but also wage levels for the jobs we still have. Most people are in fact employed, and most jobs have not been outsourced or lost to foreign competition. What is not being acknowledged is that a disproportionate number of the jobs Americans now have face little foreign competition. That's the good part; the bad part is modest wages, benefits, and skill requirements for so many of these jobs. You don't need a degree to work fast food, retailing, and the like. And what about that other more technical job you went to back to school for, got a degree in, and now are heavily in debt for? Sorry, that job has been filled.

The problem of our sluggish economic growth is not a lack of innovation. We have bought into an economic doctrine that sanctifies free trade, financial deregulation, including unfettered flow of capital, and an obsession with credit and debt. It is a system designed by and for banks and the investor class, with little regard for main street or the middle class. The result is an indifference to massive trade deficits, dangerously leveraged banks, and an increasingly ability of the wealthy to avoid taxation and accountability. Employees are seen as a mere input in this profit model. Low wages are good since they improve the bottom line. If workers are recalcitrant and actually want a living wage, management should be free to outsource production to low wage countries. To hear some tell it, management is virtually obligated to fire its American workers and seek cheap unregulated workers abroad for improving the bottom line is management's only real responsibility. It's what the investors want, you know.

And the people who work for the company? That's labor, an input. Lower input costs mean higher profits. Why pay more? Any manager who does not seek to maximize profits is doing a disservice to investors, just like they were all taught in American business schools. It's all very rational and efficient, don't you see?

Innovation does not directly address any of this. We have innovated like crazy and what are the results? Entire industries have been shipped overseas. Because we have allowed our industrial base and concomitant skills to erode, seeking out overseas producers has become the default position. A generation has grown up assuming that American reliance on foreign manufacturers is the natural order of things.

Nor do the calls for greater innovation say who will benefit from the results. Asia is a huge beneficiary of US economic policy. For generations our tax dollars have poured into basic R&D, much of it going to public universities. It has been a great success story, and it has played a key role in America's development. As with the recent rounds of stimulus spending, many of those tax dollars end up in Asia. Working harder, as both Republicans and Obama have exhorted, does nothing to change the imbalances. US corporations already have what they always want; cheap labor, huge profits, and a compliant, cheer-leader government. The investor class took a hit in 2008, but they have recovered nicely, and have fat dividends and lightly-taxed capital gains to show for it.

So the middle class needs to work harder? Because corporate America's profits are not high enough? Because the job creators need help? Americans are already working harder than elsewhere in the OECD; we also have, in recent decades, relatively little to show for it. Wages have been suppressed, union membership has plummeted, and pensions and benefits have become even more rarefied, not because of foreign competition, or globalization, but by design. It is the direct result of illegitimate policies made in response to legitimate economic challenges.

Innovation will help; it always has. But the role of innovation has been undermined for the same reason our middle class and techno-industrial base have. A little history shows that nations that support each of these have thrived. Those that let their financial sector dominate have crumbled. America will not be an exception.

Enrichment for the Few

Former AT&T Broadband CEO Leo Hindery recently acknowledged that executive pay in America has gotten completely out of control, and that it has caused a "structural breakdown of the meritocracy of our nation."

Hindery says it is "born out of cronyism." Well, yes, shameless cronyism is certainly a defining feature of American corporate culture, but who are the cronies and how do they get that way? Cronyism is an American way to avoid the obvious Marxian reality that corporatism in America is and always has been class-based and is intended to be an enrichment mechanism for the well-placed and the wealthy. It is all about enriching the upper class and not Americans in general.

All the same, Hindery's disgust is fully merited. In a recent interview;

Hindery observed that, even as CEO pay has skyrocketed in recent decades, it has not "trickled down" to workers, who must increasingly borrow money to finance their spending. That dynamic helped set the stage for the most recent recession and helps explain today's sluggish recovery.

That's exactly it; rich CEOs are not directly the problem, but more of a symptom. The real problem is how little of the country's growth in the last 30+ years has gone to the middle and working class and instead has gone to those at the very top, the 1/10th of 1%, a class of individuals who were already rich when inequality was merely significant instead of obscene. 

The problem is that too many of us must hunker down just to pay the basics. There is nothing left in a growing number of paychecks for families to buy groceries, pay the rent, pay or save for education, and put away some for retirement. So at the end of the week, something must go. A low-wage economy, which America now is, means increasing numbers of us have nothing left for an occasional splurge on just the products corporations want so much to sell us. Neoliberal politicians, some Democrats, mostly Republicans, have forgotten that one company's employee is another company's customer.
  
As Hindery states; "The only time the U.S. economy and any of the developed economies prosper is when there's a vibrant middle class that grows from the bottom up...We've trashed that whole principle."

To make matters much worse, the figures on inequality generally do not include assets CEOs and their investor class enablers are able to shield from taxation. And that means many billions of dollars leave the US and end up in foreign banks accounts. That does nothing for the US economy, though it is quite beneficial for places such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Switzerland. It isn't the middle class that sends these huge sums offshore. It is the very wealthy, who quite literally have more money than they know what to do with. While some of that wealth continues to be productively employed, an increasing amount is pumped into the political process--overtly creating a plutocracy--or is frittered away on ostentatious displays; the hyperwealthy's version of crass consumption.

Recent evidence of the astronomical sums the super-wealthy hide or send abroad, you know, people like Mitt Romney, demonstrates we have been seriously underestimating the amount of wealth that has left the United States. 

In a recent article in Slate, Jordan Weissmann shares the findings:

Economists Emmanuel Saez, of the University of California–Berkeley, and Gabriel Zucman, of the London School of Economics, are out with a new set of findings on American wealth inequality, and their numbers are startling. Wealth, for reference, is the value of what you own—assets like housing, stocks, and bonds, minus your debts. And while it certainly comes up from time to time, it has tended to play second fiddle to income in conversations about America’s widening class divide. In part, that’s because it’s a trickier conversation subject. Wealth has always been far more concentrated than income in the United States. Plus, research suggested that the top 1 percent of households had actually lost some of its share since the 1980s. 

That might not really have been the case. 

Forget the 1 percent. The winners of this race, according to Zucman and Saez, have been the 0.1 percent. Since the 1960s, the richest one-thousandth of U.S. households, with a minimum net worth today above $20 million, have more than doubled their share of U.S. wealth, from around 10 percent to more than 20 percent. Take a moment to process that. One-thousandth of the country owns one-fifth of the wealth. By comparison, the entire top 1 percent of households takes in about 22 percent of U.S. income, counting capital gains.

This is hideous, not because a few people are hyperwealthy, but because they helped create the deeply unfair and unsustainable economy that allowed them to attain that wealth. Now they dominate society, law, commerce, media, banking, and the democratic process to ensure their interests are protected and a Dixified, socioeconomic heirarchy is ever more institutionalized.

Say good bye to democracy. 

Morals or Ignorance?

It's not just a morality play.

There has been a plethora of books, papers, and articles in recent years on how personality determines politics. In particular we find an effort to understand the gap between liberals and conservatives on the myriad ways they, we, interpret social phenomena, our religious orientation, our social attitudes, and of course, our political motivations and, ultimately, how we vote. Prominent among these are Chris Mooney's The Republican Brain; Jonathan Haidt's most recent, The Righteous Mind, and material referenced in earlier posts, such as George Lackoff's, The Political Mind, Drew Westin's, The Political Brain, along with the numerous works of Robert Altemeyer.

It is true that different values are driving us, as well as different ways in which people process data, through a moral filtering process. There is also growing evidence that small physical differences in our brains may help explain our different emotional responses, whether we feel disgust, fear, or anger on the one hand, or acceptance, curiosity, or even indifference, on the other.

There remains something lacking in this narrative, however, a narrative that is promoted most enthusiastically by psychologists. And that may be the problem. In a nutshell, it gives too much credence to what are seen as additional moral foundations, and understates the role of ignorance. Indeed, there is a tendency for some, and that would include Jonathan Haidt, to lump such fine qualities as ignorance, prejudice, hate, bigotry, racism and xenophobia into a new sanitized category called morality. Doing so deemphasizes the demonstrable fact that many people are not just processing issues and data through a different set of moral filters, though that is part of it. Nor will it do to declare such reactionary attitudes as simply different but equally legitimate moral code, something that, as Haidt would have it, defines conservative values in ways that liberals seem to not understand and don't appreciate. 

Much of the other material by Mooney, et, al, is not prone to equating hate with morality, but it too may be understating the role of abject ignorance and how it helps drive behavior.

There is a component to all of this that is far more prosaic. Many of us are cocksure in our views on sundry issues and policies, yet the briefest of inquiries reveals not merely different opinions, but testable ignorance of the most elementary facts. In other words, many will arrive at their viewpoints not through or entirely through, considered analysis, different world view, moral framework, or ethical sensibilities. Instead, opinions and attitudes are far too often developed and retained through abject ignorance. People are, as the saying goes, entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.

You cannot, for example, make a scientific or factual case for creationism. You hold creationist views because they accord with your religion-imbued sense of morality, to be sure, but also because you do not understand evolution, will not consider it, and often find comfort making demonstrably misinformed comments about it.

Creationism is but one example; the same goes for so much else. I've mentioned Haidt, who has developed the idea of conservatism as additional layers of morality, layers he says liberals don't have. I will revisit his theses, because there is much there, and much that is challengeable.

Of course, the issue remains why many of us have the propensity to misinterpret or show a willful refusal to consider alternative analyses. Apparently it is easier for certain squeamish academics to pretend that wildly different viewpoints are, on some level, equally valid, than it is to declare that an opinion on various issues of the day is flat-out wrong and arrived at not because proponents have a factual basis for their view, but because they don't. They may have a moral filter that data must pass, as we all do, but their assessments are destined to be flawed without a greater determination to come to grips with empirical reality, no matter how irritating some find it. Perhaps this is why psychologists can more easily engage in sometimes dry and abstract theorizing on the nexus of personality, attitudes, and political orientation. Many political scientists and other policy wonks facing real world problems have more difficulty with such aloof equanimity.

Let me be very clear on this point. If I believed the crap that teabaggers do, I would be upset too. If I thought ACORN had helped Obama steal the election, or that he was willfully undermining our country because he is morally debased, or black, or Muslim, or Benghazi!, I would be upset too. But I know the stream of examples the Right trots out, such as stories involving the IRS or Benghazi, to be non-scandals, because I am willing to read complete analyses.

There is, of course, an element of subjectivity in deciding, for example, whether Obama used the IRS to attack conservative non-profits (he didn't). But what struck so many of us as ideological determinism-and jaw-dropping stupidity- was the astounding ability of right-wing voters to ignore mountains of data and context, and draw hard, fast, self-serving conclusions. It was not the venom so much as it was the mangling of the issues, facts, and storyline. It is clear that those with the most toxic views aren't even trying to understand hot-button topics. And yet if you tell Fox-viewing devotees that Ronald Reagan raised taxes multiple times, that he dramatically increased federal spending, or that the US went from the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation on his watch, they may go apoplectic with rage. But these are not opinions, or moral values, or policy preferences: they are facts. 

To be human is to be flawed, but conservatives are especially adept at holding views that reveal their indifference to how they arrived at them.

Austerity's Strange Logic

I have had a few things to say about Social Security over the years (including here, and here). My prime concerns have focused on how mischaracterized it is as a drag on the federal debt, which it isn't, and how successful it has been, despite repeated and wildly inaccurate claims to the contrary.

A recent article by Marty Wolfson has helped put some perspective on how Social Security works, and why current attempts, by Republicans mostly, but also by some Democrats, to curtail it in the name of austerity is so wrong. When speaking of the federal debt, Wolfson reminds us that: 

Two quick points should be noted here: 1) Recall the long-standing theme presented mostly by Republicans who howl that social security will run out of money by (insert scary date here), and use that questionable assertion as evidence that social security does not work, and that the solution is to either privatize it or cut benefits immediately. The implication is that cutting benefits will reduce the Social Security payout and thus increase its viability. Two) Although supporters of social security like to point out, correctly, that the program pays for itself, by law, through contributions, I now think I see why conservatives believe the system adds to the federal debt. By law, paid-in Social Security contributions don't sit in a shoe box, nor are they invested in stocks, like Wall Street would like. The US government takes the $ billions in cash it receives each year and puts it in Treasury securities. As Wolfson puts it:

The $17 trillion (federal debt) figure is a measure of “gross debt,” which means that it includes debt owed by the U.S. Treasury to more than 230 other U.S. government agencies and trust funds. On the consolidated financial statements of the federal government, this intragovernmental debt is, in effect, canceled out. Basically, this is money the government owes itself. What is left is termed “debt held by the public.” It is this measure of debt that is relevant to a possible increase in interest rates due to competition for funding between the private and public sectors. It is also the category of government debt used by the Congressional Budget Office and other analysts. (Of course, the full economic significance of any debt measure needs to be considered in context, in relationship to the income available to service the debt.) The total debt held by the public is $12 trillion. 

The Social Security Trust Fund comprises $2.7 trillion of the total $5 trillion of various US Treasury debt instruments held in those myriad intragovernmental accounts. Not bad for a governmental agency that is supposedly going broke.

Social Security accumulated all these Treasury securities because of the way that its finances are organized. Social Security benefits to retirees (and to the disabled) are paid for by a payroll tax of 12.4 % on workers’ wages (with 6.2% paid by the worker and 6.2% paid by the employer), up to a limit, currently $113,700. If, in any year, Social Security revenue is greater than what is needed to pay current retiree benefits, the surplus must, by law, be invested in Treasury securities (most of which are “special obligation bonds” issued only to the Social Security Trust Fund).

So why are the calls for austerity so ill-advised?  And why is it so obvious to those of us who bother to research the issues (and have a coherent analytic framework, but I digress) see that "fixing" Social Security is not the true objective? The fact that the program is running up large surpluses which then must be parked in Treasury securities sounds good in a way; surpluses sound better than deficits, which would surely drive fiscal hawks crazy. I'm guessing that some congressional supporters in years past helped to ensure a surplus condition so that conservative critics would have less to bitch about. No such luck, for now the critics bemoan the large surplus the Social Security Trust Fund now maintains, though they invariably just call it debt, and then they still insist that the money will run out in, what?, 28 years? 75 years? As if suddenly there were no adjusting allowed, as we have successfully done in the past.

Here is the simple reality. The Social Security Trust Fund was not envisioned to have such large surpluses as it currently has. The fact that there is a meaningful surplus is a signal that contributions are unnecessarily high, or that the payout in benefits is needlessly low, or some combination of the two.

As Wolfson writes: 

Therefore the $2.7 trillion of Treasury securities held by the Trust Fund came about not because entitlements are out of control and the government has been forced to borrow to meet retiree benefits, but rather because future retirees have paid more taxes than necessary to meet benefit obligations. Workers have essentially been prepaying into the Trust Fund in order to provide for their future benefits.

The most pointedly ignorant response, the one that Congressional Republicans keep making, is to suggest that we cut benefits. Doing so will only serve to drive the imbalance further by decreasing the outflow of benefits and further increasing the need to issue or maintain Treasury securities for the inflow of money earmarked for future claims. It is precisely the opposite of what austerity proponents claim. A far more useful solution would be to increase benefits, and pump more money into the economy and at the same time reduce the need to buy ever more Treasury securities. 

A careful reading of Republican proposals and positions makes it clear that actually fixing most government institutions, programs, or issues, is no longer that party's objective, certainly not with this tea bagging crowd. The most jaw-droppingly obvious solutions, which have worked well in the past, are studiously avoided, and kept from the public, the media, and legislative consideration. And that is because the objective, not of all conservatives, but of true Tea Party devotees, is to emasculate the federal government. Those who actually read American history know this has always been the case.