>> Free markets must thus be protected from the grasp of the corporate monster. The way to bring big business down is by deregulating even more.<<

Frank is right -- that's just mad enough a notion as to catch fire. Especially if repeated enough by Faux News and the radio pundits. Look how the anti-reform protesters and the tea-baggers got oodles of air time far beyond their actual size or real impact.

A fair marketplace REQUIRES regulation to protect it from bandits within and without. A necessity. When we had some real regulation our economy boomed once we made it through the Great Depression and, unfortunately, got hooked on the opium of war-time spending by government. It was the spending that fired up our economy and could have been projects that produced benefits, like the TWA or interstates.

But what with issues like this nonsense and the climate change anti-hoaxers, The Republicans can do what they do best -- lie to the American people like a two-dollar hooker. "I love your big one honey."

Americans have proved they are ignorant enough to fall for such crap.

Gary

We are experiencing the fatal flaw of our so called great two party system. If you don't like what the current party is doing you only have one other choice. So we are now in a death spiral were we bounce from one party that serves the rich and powerful to a crazy party that serves the rich and powerful. We bounce back and fourth again and again, and with each volley things get worse for the average person.

The question isn't will the the empire collapse, the only question now is when. I personally cant see how this current mess can be maintained for too much longer.

Watch out for GOP populism?

About 10 months too late there, dude. Since the Democrats have done so little to help people in need and have been so obvious in kowtowing to the corporations, the GOP has been able to use that to paint the Democrats as the only corporate-controlled party.

Oops.

Where do I go to express my rage at corporate control of the democratic party? To run a progressive against BlueDog Jason Altmire in the PA 4th congressional district would cost an estimated three quarters of a million dollars. The general would cost that much or more--and that money has to be gotten from individual contributions not corporate bundling. If there are 20,000 progressive Democrats in my district willing to give money they would have to give about $500 a piece to match Jason's corporate coffers. So that's out. I can vote Green as a protest but the Green party in PA while supporting Single Payer does not really line up with other progressive issues. I will not vote Republican. I may not vote. In the last general election for the seat between Altmire and Hart corporate money flowed evenly between both candidates, Corporate interests were going to be served no matter which one won.

So how do we get Democracy? We will only get it when no matter how much money a corporate candidate has, no matter how many lies he tells with 30 second spots, he will not win an election against a candidate who tells the truth. Are we there yet? Will we ever get there? Maybe the Republicans will have to win and the conditions will have to get even worse before voters are even ready to go beyond their resentments and listen to the truth. In that case Republican rule will become the terrible prelude to true democratic reform.

To me it boils down to the simple rule that any implementation of a democratic system has virtually no chance to fulfill its intended purpose without a well-educated and informed public. When a public operates with an extremely ill-informed and simplistic model of the underlying reality, that public is easily manipulated to vote against its own interests.

When a significant percentage of US voters hold the belief that "Guvmint is just plain evil," or even that it is a necessary evil, then those who propose and would implement well-reasoned and utilitarian policies face a tough hill to climb. A more sophisticated model would hold that government is a tool of the people, and how the tool is used depends on how many people, and which people, in the society control it and to what degree. It can be used by the vulnerable to protect themselves from predators (what the left strives for) or it can be used by the predators to better fleece their victims (what the right prefers).

In an effort that may well prove fruitful because of the number of low-information voters, Mr. Ryan claims government regulation must be rolled back to preclude predators from using it when he actually intends to prevent government from protecting the vulnerable against the predators.

Geez how can this guy be so perceptive? He's so so edgy sticking his neck out like this. Maybe his pimp (the Wall Street Journal) will punish him for letting us all in on his profound insights. All you have to do to take any punch away from these liberals is offer them a better house in a safer neighborhood and they'll put out for any corporate john that shows up at the window of their car.

If you can stomach the Keifer Sutherland introduction, I would recommend this speech/movie about Tommy Douglas. It pretty much sums up how our political system works .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqpFm7zAK90

Hopefully, someday this story will be a part of history and not something we are all living through. But, we have a long ways to go...

Red Inc.umbents, ALL, instead!

The American Left has got to be the laziest, stupidest Left in the world. No progress in this country can ever be made until the Left constructs a real Third Party free of corporate control. Harping about the dangers of Right Wing populism while still planning to vote DP once again just is no solution at all.

Another excellent timely perceptive piece by Thomas Frank, of "What's the Matter with Kansas" Fame. And he got it printed in the Wall Street Journal!

I hope a lot of CD readers/commenters read and heed. The libertarian-right is NOT an ally of the left.

Attacking big business fat cats and blaming the problems of the nation on socialists was the stock in trade of Hitler's campaign rhetoric. He associated socialists and big business through a Jewish conspiracy; today's right wing populists make the same association -- minus any explicit mention of Jews. Hitler's "socialism" was an extreme nationalism that contracted for public works through private providers, exactly the same formula used everywhere in the capitalist world to overcome the depressed economy. What differentiated him from traditional conservatives was his willingness to take action against such enemies. Nazis more genuinely in sympathy with the public interest such as Rohm were eliminated, others such as Goebbels, who continued to attack the non-Jewish business interests, were forced to publicly recant. Identifications of Obama with socialism of any stripe are manifestly projections of the today's right wing who take their doctrine from the John Birch Society and prefer conspiracy theory to political theory.

Progressives need to counter the GOP argument that "big" government is the problem. When we reduce the power of the government, we reduce the power of the people - because we ARE the government. The void will be filled by corporate and financial elites.

Big government is NOT the problem; BAD government is the problem. Before anything else can be fixed we need campaign finance reform, so our Representatives don't need corporate sponsorship to run for office. Only then can we be truly represented.

...that, and a multi-party system that allows for greater debate and fair exposure.

The disturbing truth is that, because of the rigged electoral, elections, voting and campaign system:

The only "choice" you have is to vote Republican. Just like Bill Clinton said back in his term when many Ds were upset with his conservative policies, he remarked "what are they going to do, vote Republican?"

Don't get me wrong, I will not vote Duopoly, however the corporate controlled big-money "elections" only allows for a D or R. It happens every time for decades. This time will be no different.

We cannot expect a fair outcome from a system that is corrupt to the bone.

"twisted and counter-intuitive"

Of course. Cognitive dissonance does that.

Fake populism is the stalking horse the PR people will use on both the left and the right to insert a new set of liars to replace the incumbents. Don't fall for it.

Given the GOP's doings over the past 30 years, such a reversal may strike you as implausible, if not downright ridiculous. But it can be done.

There isn't one iota of implausibility in it. I fully expect the Republicans to get control of the government again, beginning this year. Let's face it, this is a poorly educated and ill informed nation. The majority live their lives a half inch in front of their noses and have absolutely no desire whatsoever to look any farther. What their parents told them, even if it was eighty years ago, still holds sway. The Republicans will no doubt take Obama's entire campaign playbook of bald-faced populist lying and use it to their advantage. Once in office, they will govern again as Bush/Cheney. Americans will plunge further into the hole; the muddle class will continue to shrink. And the Republicans and Democrats will remain in power. As Kurt Vonnegut so often wrote: "And so it goes."

We shall see indeed! Right now polls show 45% of Dems. so disillusioned they don't intend to even vote in 2010.

We should all vote Green. Maybe all we can do this time is RUIN A FEW CAREERS. I'm up for it! And in addition, we could finally, at last, show our collective voice at the ballot box. The majority of us progressives have never been allowed to do that. I've been voting 3rd party for decades but just look at last election, Nader with a .05% of the vote. Disgusting!

Amazingly, author Frank purports to warn of "GOP populism" or "fake populism," but he makes no mention of the most important contemporary mass manifestation of same: the "Teabagger" movement, represented by such as Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Author Frank therefore errs when he singles out Rep. Ryan's Dec. 2009 Forbes article as "the first step in what could become" the populism in question. Where was Frank last summer when the Teabaggers--some flaunting semi-automatic weapons--shouted down public discussion of health-care reform?

Its not GOP populism that is to be feared,in fact the GOP has as almost as much to fear from the new populism as we do.

Frank makes the same tired old mistake and buys the Democrats propaganda that the Tea Party movement is led or represented by Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, etc. It is not. There is no particular leader at the moment, but one will show up. Perhaps Mario Rubio of Florida, I think he will beat Christ in any case.

Call them T-baggers if it makes you feel better to denigrate them, it doesn't mean a thing other than you are not seeing the new enemy.

These folks represent a large portion of America that are angry with Republicans, Democrats and politicians in general. And they are passionate in their anger. They are organizing while we fool around.

I'll also say again that people that underestimate their enemy are fools and by that criteria we are being led by fools.

Only in Bizarro America is it possible for the Party responsible for handing the keys to the vault to Big Everything and 10 years of ZERO net job creation to be 'voted' back into power on the promise of job creation and tough regulation of Big Everything.

Also in Bizarro America? Cats are dogs. And dogs are fish.

Populism? As in caring about what the people and their opinions instead of making deals behind closed doors
Where do I sign up? See I'm a former Obama supporter.

"This was once a familiar line of criticism: Big business's sin was that it wasn't entrepreneurial enough. If given the opportunity, business would use government to form cartels and suppress competition. Free markets must thus be protected from the grasp of the corporate monster. The way to bring big business down is by deregulating even more.

If this sounds twisted and counter-intuitive, that's because it is. This is an argument that might have sounded good in 1979 but for it to make sense today one has to disregard the wreckage all around us courtesy of three decades of regulatory rollback."

I am not anti-regulation, but I also believe you may need to free own mind a little more here.

Can you honestly say that what you have today in the banking industry is NOT, in fact, a cartel? That the top 4 or 5 (technically still insolvent) banking behemouths--with their vampire suckers in the Federal Reserve, backed by the taxing power of the US government--makes it difficult for community banks to compete with them? And that leaves the banking public with fewer options?

And that the nature of these 4 or 5 *government supported* incipient monopolies means that they are engaged in little more than highly risky speculative trading in their investment banking divisions--because that's what garners huge bonuses for the "talent"-- while making few main street loans because it doesn't make huge bonuses for the "talent."

Yes, you need to break the back of this socially pointless cartel. Cut off the high class WELFARE and put these technically insolvent *failed* banks, with their *failed* "business models" out to pasture, and let something new take its place. I don't see Democrats in Congress making that case. But I do see a highly compromised Chris Dodd dropping out of the 2010 election because he knows he probably can't win--even amonst such "populists" as you get in Connecticut.

I imagine that means down the road the American public will be required to attempt to bring its will to bear through whoever is in office, irregardless of what ideology you think they cling to.

There's more than one way to skin a dead cat.

As a member of the working classes for the past sixty years,
I say, let's move out of Move-on and Move-out of the Democratic party. If Slick Willie Clinton says, "Where will they go?"
I say, let's begin to destroy this animal that we have created, and has devoured us. The Democratic party no longer serves our interests, most of the leadership serves themselves. Look at former Sen George Mitchell the multimillionaire, look at the riches of Slick Willie, look at Sen Kerry, Look at Gore.
They have all become super rich because of our voting power.
It's time to destroy that power as it does not serve us anymore and never will until we kill the beast.

Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

The premise of this Frank article is only half baked. The real premise should have been 'beware fake populism from the GOP and the DLC wrapped in physically pretty candidates.' Obama ran a consummate campaign based on fake progressivism frosted sugar sweet with fake populism and personal charm. The only problem with DLC lies on these subjects when it comes to the American masses is that they are such intelligently crafted lies that only a tiny fraction of the public can understand them whether they believe in them or not.

Obama won because of his racial appeal to minorities; his youthful appeal because of his youthful good looks and his empty speechifying with lots of pretty sounding empty words. Most of the people who voted for him did it for the most superficial reasons of outward appearance. The next largest group voted for him out of desperate hope that the Dims could not possibly be so hopelessly corrupt and stupid as to waste a once-in-40- years golden majority in both Houses of Congress and the White House. I was in that second group because of the possibility of that super majority even though I normally vote Third Party or write-in. But in late summer 2008 I said that we would know very shortly after his election if he was a typical DLC traitor to the working-class and that, if so, then authentic progressives should begin to unite into a new national umbrella progressive third Party to first, lean on, and then hopefully gut the Democratic Party and confront the GOP directly as a true opposition Party.

Ronald Reagan and his campaign handlers were the masters of the GOP populist lie and they kept their lies simple for the simpletons: Return government to the people (deregulate polluters, natural resource extractors, corporate usury, Savings & Loans); reduce taxes so the people can decide for themselves how to best spend their money, and so create wealth (transfer wealth from the lower- and middle-classes to concentrate more wealth in the hands of the already super rich). Newt Gingrich was all about "getting government off our backs" and term limits for members of Congress--things Republican freshmen Newtzis in Congress universally reneged on within months of taking office the first time. They've never acknowledged the fact that the Pentagon is an enormous, obscenely bloated, parasitic part of the government that is on our necks along with its hordes of military & petroleum service industries, mercenaries, superfluous weapons manufacturers, etc.

What did these GOP populist lies translate into? Massive clear-cutting of our forests and destruction of all but 1% of our old growth forests; making the public responsible for cleaning up hazardous waste sites contaminated by corporations instead of the corporate polluters themselves, the S & L crisis, pay-day loan sharks that legally charge as much as 300% interest in some States; credit card companies that charge upwards of 30% interest and can rewrite the terms of their contracts at any time; the largest concentration of wealth in the hands of the richest one percent of any society in world history coming directly at the expense of the lower- and middle-classes; exploding federal spending with multiple oil wars; getting telecomm corporations on our backs surveilling all our formerly private communications for the government without a warrant, cutting the economic throat of our middle-class by offshoring our middle-class factory jobs thanks to corporate "free trade" treaties; deregulating banks & derivatives with Republican-crafted legislation; creating the biggest, most expensive government bureaucracy in over 40 years--the Department of Homeland Security--which still can't stop shoe or underwear bombers from getting on planes.

It's not just that the Tea-Baggers and stuck-in-a-rut Democratic voters are too stupid to learn from their own recent collective mistakes. It's not just that they are too medicated with anti-depressives. It's that they've been conditioned as corporate laboratory test rats for so many decades that they pretty much conceptualize the world on a rodent-like level. "No future for you," as Johnny Rotten said. Still, it is nauseating to the level of tumble down vertigo to see some 100 million Americans preparing yet again to lap up the DLC/GOP faux progressive/populism out of such passive desperation and more than a little infuriating to see that the only half-assed attempt at nationally organized public outrage about the present state of affairs is coming from the white trash rabble composing the Tea-Baggers.

The goal of these 'de-regulation' free marketers is to turn the US into a feudal order whether they think so or not. I battle these types on other forums and all you have to do is keep on the heat. They have a need to be taken very seriously, its not too hard to pin them in a corner.

The Republicans, like fundamentalist Moslems and Nazis, tap into the energy of repressed sexuality and thus are going to be hard to defeat until we improve our instruments of mass instruction—ourselves. The relentless intertwining of sex and pain in the early and continuing lives of people (especially in the US) makes our politics what they are. It's not just the concerted PR effort of the radical right since Goldwater that has led us to where we are, although that certainly has played a big part. And it's not just corporate control of money and media, although that also plays a huge part. Read Republican Gomorrah, read The Mass Psychology of Fascism.

People are prepared by their whole lives of anti-sexual (and thus anti-body, anti-physical, anti-reality) training and thus are ready to believe what authoritarians tell them, especially when it fits into the templates of ‘outside enemy’, rejection of reality, and gives permission and direction to expressions of rage. (The same impulses lead to religious rejection of this world in exchange for the supposed afterlife, and the rejection of science, which after all is democratic, sensory (body) based observation of reality, all anathema to the right).

Climate Catastrophe and Peak Everything mean it will soon get bad, because we haven't done nearly enough to keep it from getting bad, and with the failure of Rope-a-Dopenhagen, won’t do enough in time. When it does get bad, the right has a perfect petri dish to grow whatever particular variety of hate, tyranny and unreality that satisfies the moment, as the Nazis did in the ruins of the Weimar Republic (socially and economically devastated by war, pandemic and draconian reparations payments). They will suddenly seem to own both of our current/coming problems as well as the solutions (and I can’t see their proposals including nature, decentralized wind and passive solar.) They will blame the problems on Arabs and liberals, shut down dissent and react with the only solution they know: repression, within and without. Punishment and coercion. Rage unleashed.

We can stop this if we get psychologically healthy ourselves and bring as many of them along as we can. The other rounds of this have been practice--Black Panthers, Satyagraha and Zapatistas vs. Nazis, Fascists and Rovian Wolfowitzists. We're playing for all the marbles this time. Climate Catastrophe and Peak Everything mean we don’t get another chance for a thousand years. Maybe we should get on that.