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.

Super Bowl Socialism

On this day, Super Bowl Sunday, we will once again witness the gawdy mixture of sports, excess, patriotism, and military pride. The US military and the National Football League are two institutions in America that are deeply socialist in their structure: They are successful for that reason.

Take the US military: Everyone from a fresh recruit to the Joint Chiefs of Staff is on the public payroll; housing, food, travel benefits, a retirement plan. And they all have a government-provided and regulated health care I suspect few are willing to abandon for the capriciousness of the profits-first private sector. Moreover, the military is chock-a -block with regulations, rules, requirements, and a thick code of behavior.

It is worth noting that the US military is a dominating force in the world because the US government wanted it to be, not because the markets made it happen. Military preeminence is this nation's industrial policy and power, complete with the world's most sophisticated weapons. Our defense industry is number one because our government put resources into it and fostered private sector support. 

At the same time, most observers will happily tell you the US military is full of courageous, dedicated, devoted, proud, and hypercompetitive men and women. All this and modest pay as well.

This is a combination that free market advocates say cannot exist. Any institution so encumbered will surely stifle innovation, resourcefulness, and personal responsibility.

We see a similar result with professional sports. The NFL, for example, exemplifies bounded competition: a highly circumscribed set of rules and regulations which define and control every aspect of the game. That set of rules and regs is exactly why the game works; they are designed to enhance competition because they do not allow a richer or better situated team to dominate the game. And they minimize cheating, which bothers Americans more in sports than it does in Wall Street and government. Players, union members all, compete fiercely within the confines of the rules, and abide by a thick rulebook that regulates every aspect of play.

Again this contradicts the free market doctrine that insists regulations are inherently burdensome and constrict creativity, competition, and glorious individualism. With no sense of irony, sports fans glibly cheer on their favorite franchises that make clear they win through team effort and pound out selfishness, arrogance, and self-centered individualists more concerned about their stats and their image. There is no I in team, as they say. And no, it is not because of high pay; the pattern fits all sports, including high school, college, and amateur players with no real prospects for riches.
    
I see that Bill Maher got my memo. In the video below Maher also notes the socialist structure of the NFL, what he calls the irritable bowl syndrome  He does stress different points, however. Watch it and note how the socialized structure of the NFL provides such different results than does major league baseball.

Social Security's Biggest Defender

Here is the guy voters have been told to shun, ridicule, and oppose at every opportunity. Why? Because Senator Bernie Sanders is un-American, he hates your values, and he wants to enslave you in government-run welfare camps.

Right? I mean these are the kind of tight, reasoned arguments that true patriots like Sarah Palin make about Sanders. They must be true. After all, Sanders is the only avowed socialist in Congress and we all know what they want. If you have any doubts, Sarah will tell you, for a fee, all you need to know about socialism (and everything else).

Those who value facts over diatribe know that Senator Sanders is one of the few who consistently works for the rest of us. Listen to Sanders on social security in the video below. His is one of the few voices in Congress that pushes back against the asinine and palpably wrong argument that social security doesn't work, it is killing the budget, and must be cut. Republicans are leading the assault, but more than a few Dems are willing to give in instead of defending your interests.

Aggressive, moneyed interests in the Republican party; Weak, hand-wringing facilitators in the Democratic party. No wonder Sanders is an independent.

Red State Mythology

Here's Rick Perry, trying to claim that abstinence is an effective means of adolescent birth control. Not only is there no evidence that abstinence programs work, he looks fairly stupid trying to claim there is. His handlers must wince when they see performances like this.



Meanwhile, Red State mythology suffers another bitch slap from reality. Conservatives, Republicans, teabaggers, Bible-belters and the rest love to claim that middle America is the real America; god-fearing, family-first types who honor traditions such as marriage and the wedding vows they swore to uphold. 

I can hear it now: "No gay marriage here, fella. Real 'merkins don't like that filth. If you want to see how weak socialistic liberals want to destroy 'Merkin culture, go to California or Massachusetts. But we take marriage seriously around here."

Apparently not, Teabags; here's a list of the ten states with the highest divorce rate. Leading the pack is Oklahoma, followed by Arkansas, Alaska, Alabama, Kentucky, Nevada, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, and Arizona.

Nevada is arguably purple, but the other states are bright red, the pride and joy of conservative America.

Always More for Defense

The post below is originally from a blog called Southern Belle, who is rightfully disgusted that the US continues to spend vast amounts of money on defense. As always, Congress finds piles of it to spend on lucrative defense contracts, meaning your tax dollars going to upper management of corporate America and the investor class. They just can't break themselves from this gravy train. And Congress just can't muster the will to do the right thing. All this crap about shared sacrifice is a supremely obscene insult to anyone who cares to pay attention.

And remember, it is immoral socialism only when the jobless get unemployement benefits or the destitute get foodstamps. When corporate America gets $ billions for weapons we do not need, well, that is moral capitalism. So naturally they get tax breaks on top of it, too. It's only fair, you see.

"We don't need these weapon systems," you say?  Son, you are missing the point. The military brass is addicted to shit that blows things up and we enrich ourselves off that addiction because we can, just like those financial types on Wall Street. You could do it too if you just stopped caring about people that don't matter.

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I am reproducing Southern Belle's article in its entirety. Go on over and read what else she has to say.

                       Because There’s Always Money For War!

WTF? We’re slashing budgets right and left, cutting back on “entitlements” and Medicaid and Pell Grants and having hissy fits over the paltry sums of money NPR receives, but we have a spare $7.5 billion to build nuclear bombs in Oak Ridge?

It’s a YES on the new bomb plant for Oak Ridge. Last Wednesday, the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration published its Record of Decision in the Federal Register. And the decision was no surprise: they selected the alternative they previously identified as their “preferred alternative;” a Uranium Processing Facility with the capacity to produce 80 nuclear secondaries per year.
The Record of Decision came on the heels of an audit performed by the Army Corps of Engineers that projected the cost of construction will soar to $7.5 billion. Of course, no one imagines costs will be constrained to that total over the next twelve years of construction. With half a billion dollars already spent on designing the facility and designers saying they are only 50% complete, it is clear that neither common sense nor fiscal responsibility will stand in the way of the bomb plant.

What the hell? Who are we building these bombs for? We already have more nuclear weapons than any other country on earth. What are we going to do, use them on some guys armed with box cutters? If 9/11 proved anything at all it’s what a colossal waste of money our Defense budget is. Anyone else remember how the big conversation pre-9/11 was the resurgence of the ridiculous “star wars” program?

It’s not just $7.5 billion for Oak Ridge, either. We’re set to spend $100 billion on a fleet of new ballistic missile launching submarines and $55 bilion on new bombers.

Why do we need these weapons? Who are we fighting? Who is the enemy? A bunch of men in pajamas in the hills of Waziristan riding around on donkeys? Are you kidding me?

I’m not the only one wondering:

At this stage in history, U.S. nuclear weapons serve no useful purpose other than preventing another nation from using nuclear weapons against the United States. And a study by two professors of military strategy at U.S. military colleges has suggested that that mission could be accomplished with roughly 300 warheads, compared with the 1,550 deployed warheads permitted under the New START treaty, and the roughly 5,000 currently in the U.S. stockpile if one counts all categories of non-deployed weapons. Going down to these levels would save additional billions in reduced operating and maintenance costs for the arsenal as a whole.
Not only have a growing list of former secretaries of state and defense, presidents and prime ministers, scientists and retired military officials called for the elimination of nuclear weapons, but if pushed by budgetary realities so would many current U.S. military leaders. While they won’t say so publicly, if forced to choose between nukes and major conventional systems it is my bet that nukes would lose out in that particular budget battle.

That wasn’t some pot-smoking DFH, that was William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.

It is the height of hypocrisy that Republicans and Conservadems like Joe Lieberman refuse to touch our Defense budget, yet keep crying about how the nation is broke. Oh my, we’re broke, we can’t pay our bills, oh dearest me, we’re just going to have to make grandpa go without his blood pressure medicine and grandma will have to eat cat food, what else can we do? Meanwhile we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on nonsense like this. We’re supposed to think of the jobs making those fighter jet engines, but somehow teachers and social workers don’t have real jobs?

This is insanity.