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Today's Top News
Obama Turns Super-Hawk
Back in the last Century, when Bill Clinton was running for re-election in the "permanent campaign" he, with the advice of the smarmy Dick Morris chose to co-opt Republican positions to pre-empt their using them against him.It was called "triangulation" but also disguised a clear strategic shift to the right that has now surfaced in the Obama campaign. It appears that Team Obama does not take the concerns or values of its liberal support base seriously. They think they can be mesmerized by selective symbolic stands and they have nowhere else to go.
The Black Community has pledged itself to his re-election despite criticisms by black leaders who privately feel abandoned by him.
Robert Scheer, who edits Truthdig, says liberals will have to embrace Obama by "default". "The Republicans are a sick joke and their narrow ideological stupidity has left rational voters no choice in the coming presidential election but Barack Obama," he writes.
He also recognizes that Obama has now "backed Republican initiatives", calling the president the "moderate" choice in the coming election, "defending centrist programs that Republicans in the past helped originate".
'Hopey to mopey'
Van Jones, who Obama appointed to a job advocating green energy solutions until attacks by the right led to his dumping him, calls his former boss a "post-hope" candidate. He said in an interview on MSNBC:
We went from 'hopey' to mopey… I saw the misfires: how the White House didn't really understand the grassroots movement; the grassroots movement certainly didn't understand the grassroots movement…and there was this 'hope' bubble that collapsed. (with) both sides not understanding each other.
For years now, the president, in what some analysts say is a deeply engrained fear/reaction to a total assault by Fox News, has sought to keep the messengers of patriotically correct banalities off guard with a slew of hawkish/hardline foreign policy initiatives.
He escalated the two big wars he inherited with "surges" in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as drone offensive associated with continuing collateral damage, i.e, civilian deaths. He turned General Petraeus from his counter-insurgency specialist into a hero spymaster and gave him more and more power, perhaps to prevent his running against him. He turned the covert-action Seals units into a Presidential-sanctioned assassination squad and, then, practically went steady with the Pentagon. The flag pin he avoided as a candidate is now a staple of his "uniform".
You can understand why: he can't really run on domestic issues. His economic policies have failed to create jobs or a recovery because he banked on the banks. Despite all the Republican banter about his alleged socialism, he's given the capitalists just about everything they want, including the new JOBS bill that will erode financial reform rules and open the door to more fraud. His Justice Department has not waged a jihad to put financial criminals in jail. They've settled complaints with major mortgage fraudsters paying fines instead being locked up.
Promises abandoned
His "so-called" Obamacare is a law embraced by the healthcare industry which will profit from it. Advocates of Medicare for All were stabbed in the back early on in the process.
So, now the president, who aroused so many hopes for a more just America, has abandoned most of his promises from shutting down Guantanamo to prosecuting Bradley Manning.
He has decided to be born again as a hawk in sheep's clothing.
Stealing George W Bush's playbook, he has decided to repackage himself as a tough guy in the war against terror after signing the new NDAA law in the middle of the night. His criticisms of Israel's rhetoric about bombing Iran is to caution them against being too hasty, promising that he has their "back" and that the US would act. Many of the harsh sanctions he imposed on that country can be considered acts of war, (like many sanctions, they hurt the people, not just their government!)
All of a sudden, war talk is surfacing to take our minds off the economic collapse, and Obama will soon show us the electorate how tough he is by going after Iran even as the right and the Israelis portray him as a softee on the Ayatollahs.
He claims to support negotiations, but his conditions demanding Iran shut down its nuclear enrichment facility first is an inflexible demand that they know the Iranians will consider an ultimatum, and have to reject, setting up a scenario for a war of aggression. "That negotiating position will be the opening move (emphasis mine) in what President Obama has called Iran's "last chance" to resolve its nuclear confrontation with the United Nations and the West diplomatically," reports the New York Times.
"The hard-line approach would require the country's military leadership to give up the Fordo enrichment plant outside the holy city of Qum, and with it a huge investment in the one facility that is most hardened against air-strikes."
Global drone warfare
He's also stepped up the use of global drone warfare with one report suggesting drones may soon go nuclear. More telling now that what's been covert is becoming more overt, as the New York Times reports with the headline, "Obama Embraces National Security as Campaign Issue":
With a Republican opponent all but chosen and the general election campaign about to start, President Obama is preparing to emphasize an issue that few Democratic candidates have embraced in the past: national security, long the domain of the Republican Party.
At the same time, the Obama campaign is seeking to portray Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee, as a national security neophyte whose best ideas are simply retreads of what the president is already doing, and whose worst instincts would take the country back to the days of President George W Bush: cowboy diplomacy, the Iraq war and America's lowest standing on the international stage.
In the coming weeks, Obama advisers plan to release a list of national security "surrogates" - high-profile Democrats like former Secretary of State Madeleine K Albright and Wesley K Clark, a retired general - who will write newspaper op-ed articles, give speeches and take Mr Romney to task every time he opens his mouth about foreign policy, Obama advisers said.
The plan is to draw a contrast between Mr Obama - who, his advisers say, kept his word on ending the Iraq war, going aggressively after al-Qaeda and restoring alliances around the world - and Mr Romney, who will be portrayed as playing both sides of numerous issues.
"He was for and against the removal of Gaddafi, for and against setting a timetable to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, for and against enforcing trade laws against China, and while he once said he would not move heaven and earth to get Osama bin Laden, he later claimed that any president would have authorized the mission to do so," said Ben LaBolt, press secretary for the Obama campaign.
Playing the war card
He's planning to do to Romney what McCain's marauders tried to do to him by playing the war card. And the media keeps carrying stories urging him to be even tougher.
Two examples:
AP - The brother of a US soldier who was among three central Ohioans killed in an Afghan suicide bombing says Americans shouldn't forget "we are a nation at war".
Fox News is running the latest sermon on the mount by convicted Iran contra conspirator Colonel North who writes, "According to Matthew's Gospel, Judas Iscariot sold out Jesus of Nazareth for 30 pieces of silver. What is Barack Obama's fee for selling out Christians and Israelis?"
All of this sniping is unlikely to lead the president to pick a fight with the right even if a recent poll showed 69 per cent of all Americans want the US out of Afghanistan. The criticisms are just likely to encourage him to move further right to show his mettle and a posture that says he's ready to fight as a commander and chief who won't back down.
Haven't we heard all this before?
Comments
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146 Comments so far
Show AllNo, you're clearly so blinded what your ideology.
I'm not interested in what you or Hayek claim libertarianism is. I'm interested in what libertarians actually do. T
As for me not being willing to learn, again nope. I've read quite a bit of the rantings of libertarians.
Well I agree that is where things are headed, and they are getting close to achieving these goals. Indeed should the debt bubble burst then the entire economy will essentially be the government which by definition will be a totalitarian state.
The solution is to try and reverse course and the only one offering a solution is Ron Paul.
I hope progressives will look harder at this, but I fear they are too enthralled by the magic of the state and all its power to redistribute according to some (imaginary) benign leadership.
AM, the problem I have with libertarians is that when they defer everything to state and local governments it means, in most cases, turning decisions over to worse, more fanatical and stupider politicians than we have in our sorry Congress and administration. Just look at all of the vile, racist, corporatist, misogynistic legislation coming out of the red states.
There is always recourse to the Federal level when your fundamental rights are infringed upon (at least that would be the way it is supposed to work prior to the Executive overreach). That, if it is not caught at the state level it should be brought to the Federal level as it has in the past.
"I don't think Libertarians believe in abolishing the list of things you suggest(public roads and bridges). A"
Libertarians are a bunch of hypocrites. Ranting about TEH EVIL BIG GOVENRMENT on the one hand, yet, OTOH, supporting EVERYTHING TEH EVIL BIG GOVERNMENT to protect capital rights.
"think its unfortunate that Libertarians are often confused with anarchists. Wherever there is a good that cannot be supplied by a competitive market or where the market cannot perform the good out of its own interest than a Libertarian would suggest ways of creating it as efficiently as possible"
Hardly. Things like water cannot be supplied efficiently by a competitive market. Yet, libertarians still persist in screaming for privatisation. Privatised public services are often LESS efficient.
And environmental issues, and the linked public health issues (ie air pollution) fail completely utterly with a capitalistic approach, ie short term profit maximisation. Air pollution is a major public health problem. There is increasing amounts of scientific evidence associating it with cardiovascular disease, cancer (of various types), pulmonary issues, type 2 diabetes, even depression. There is also increasing amounts of evidence providing a mechanistic explanation of those associations.
What is the response of a efficient, competitive capitalistic approacht? Continue polluting, even more.
There is an unfortunate belief among progressives and/or socialists that all Libertarians are climate denying drillers. As I said in the comment, I am a Green Libertarian and would have had a big problem with Libertarianism were there not some understanding that market forces cannot solve all problems.
Libertarian thinking is not as naive as you seem to think (Hayek):
"Where for example, it is impractical to make the enjoyment of certain services dependent on the payment of a price, competition will not produce the services; and the price system becomes similarly ineffective when the damage caused to others by certain uses of property cannot be effectively charged to the owner of that property. In all these instances there is a divergence between the items which enter into private calculation and those that affect social welfare; and whenever this divergence becomes important some method other than competition may have to be found to supply the services in question. Thus neither the provision of sign posts on the roads, nor in most circumstance, that of the roads themselves, can be paid for by each individual user. Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, or of some methods of farming, or of the smoke of factories, be confined to the owner of the property in question or to those who are willing to submit to the damage for an agreed compensation. In such instances we must find a substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism. But the fact that we have to resort to the substitution of direct regulation by authority where the conditions for the proper working of competition cannot be created, does not prove that we should suppress competition where it can be made to function."
So. Where is the libertarian drive to regulate air pollution? To regulate global warming. Point me to it.
I just did. Read it. Hayek is the consummate Libertarian.
Hayek is dead and irrelevant. Point me to some libertarian politicians, libertarian organisations. who want to regulate air pollution. Who want to regulate global warming.
Go on.
Umm Rflow Hayek is acknowledging the need for regulation of pollution and deforestation in the passage, and admitting that roads may need some non market mechanism to exist, did you ACTUALLY READ the passage or just make assumptions about what it said based on who posted it? Lets leave that level of sloppy thinking to big statist neo-cons, shall we?
Umm, did you actually think before you posted?
Hayek is irrelevant. Hayek does not pass laws. Hayek does not pour huge amounts of money into the political system to get politicians to not pass laws that regulate air pollution. Hayek does not pour huge amoutns of money into the political system to pols to weaken air pollution laws.
Real life living libertarians do.
Stop engaging in sloppy thinking for yourself before lecturing me on sloppy thinking.
I am sick an tired of Libertarians, gotta say. For one, there hasn't been a single (functioning) country in modern times that even closely approximates a libertarian economic system. It is the most Utopian philosophy there is. People like yourself don't seem to realize that when you get rid of government you don't get rid of central planning. You simply hand over central planning to financial interests. The state has stepped back in recent decades. That hasn't resulted in mom and pop stores taking over the economy, or what economists call "perfect competition". In banking it has lead to massive consolidation. It has lead to de-industrialization in the productive economy. Overall, finance has taken over for production.
Look at the statistics. Finance represented 6-11% of domestic corporate profits in the mid to late 60's. Leading into the financial crisis in 2007 finance made up almost 40% of domestic profits. It went down after the crash but has risen to over a third, with an upward trajectory. You handed over the economy to banks. They now largely plan the economy and a handful of banks control the financial (and political) system.
Besides all of that, the financial and productive economy prefers different types of investment. The financial economy wants no capital controls, no regulation of any kind on finance. They want to the ability to take money in and out of countries and to buy and sell at the drop of a dime. The average financial investment is in an investors hands for seconds. Actual productive investment is different. It takes, at least, months to build factories. It will take years, if ever, to earn back the money you invested to produce something tangible. Investment is done years ahead of time in the productive economy. If finance is given free reign then productive investment is nearly impossible. If you need to plan for investment years in advance and finance can destroy any economy in the world, if it so wished, in a matter of hours, you have a conflict there. In reality you have to pick one or the other. In the first few decades after WWII finance was heavily, heavily regulated. Trade far less so. The original idea by the capitalist Western governments after WWII was for finance to be controlled and for trade to be liberalized. I, personally, object to the liberalization of trade or finance really, but even if I weren't against both, I'd have to pick one. If I had to chose I would pick free trade, not financial liberalization.
Beyond all that, as finance has take over, debt has grown. Debt is finance's product. Every segment of the economy is now drowning in debt. People like you talk a lot about government debt. PRIVATE debt has exploded. Household debt doubled, according to the Fed, between 1975 and 2005, increasing in the following years as well. Corporate debt, especially in finance, has also exploded. Government debt grew, more than anything because of war and financial bailouts. We have socialized at least 13 trillion of financial capital's bad bets since the onset of the crisis.
So again, you really are for central planning. The only difference is that a handful of banks, and not the government, will plan the economy. If I had to pick, I would pick an institution that I at least have a say and I would work to make it more participatory, to conduct more horizontal decision making.
I am sorry to hear that you are "sick and tired of Libertarians" Wilber1
I agree with most of what you say however, as ususal I beleieve that you have misattributed the primary source for the problems that we both agree are there. While corporations have used their influence on government to legislate in their favour, I would argue that government policies have led ever more towards this state and we have unfortunately allowed it to happen by failing to realize the institutions are responsible.
You say "Beyond all that, as finance has take over, debt has grown. Debt is finance's product. Every segment of the economy is now drowning in debt. People like you talk a lot about government debt. PRIVATE debt has exploded. Household debt doubled, according to the Fed, between 1975 and 2005, increasing in the following years as well. Corporate debt, especially in finance, has also exploded. Government debt grew, more than anything because of war and financial bailouts. We have socialized at least 13 trillion of financial capital's bad bets since the onset of the crisis."
To which I would completely agree but ther eason that debt levels have increased have to do with the systematic manipualtion of the money supply by the US government enabled by the Fed to constantly stimulate through fiscal (US Gov Debt) and Monetary policies (Fed interest rate policies of artificially low rates).
When you push the cost of money below its natural rates where there no Fed, you create incentives for people to take on debt. If yuo expect that year on year out yourmoney will be worth less due to the concurrent inflation, you do not have an incentive to save but to spend. That is the source/cause of the amssive debts throughout all sectors.
You say: "So again, you really are for central planning. The only difference is that a handful of banks, and not the government, will plan the economy. If I had to pick, I would pick an institution that I at least have a say and I would work to make it more participatory, to conduct more horizontal decision making."
I am not sure why you would think I am for Banks planning via their links with the monopoly producer of our currency, the Fed, our economy. That is hardly a free market scenario. The banks are now extensions of the government and can always rely on them to bail them out. Libertarians are at the forfrunt of being against that.
"To which I would completely agree but ther eason that debt levels have increased have to do with the systematic manipualtion of the money supply by the US government enabled by the Fed to constantly stimulate through fiscal (US Gov Debt) and Monetary policies (Fed interest rate policies of artificially low rates).
When you push the cost of money below its natural rates where there no Fed,"
You clearly don't know jack crap about economics. Finance grew when interest rates were, in real terms, negative and it grew much more (especially world wide) when Volker pushed interest rates above 20%. It increased more so in fact.
Besides, you do realize that banks create virtual money, credit money, on keyboards, right? We are supposed to have a "fractional reserve" banking system, which allows the banks to create credit money out of thin air. The vast, vast majority of "money" in the system, and the vast majority of inflation, comes from PRIVATE banks and credit money. Before you start the whole libertarian nonsense about the Fed this, or the Fed that, this has been the case for centuries. Not decades, centuries. Marx, in the third volume of Capital, talked about this. How one dollar would go from one bank to the other, creating "money" each time. He talked about how banks had lent out far more than they had in deposits and talked about what happens when "fictitious" capital grew (it sucked wealth from the workers and industrial capitalists). Again, finance has grown over a period of decades and it has grown largely by creating money out of thin air. The only way to stop finance, to stop it from sucking the life out of the productive economy (capitalist, socialist or otherwise) is for the big, bad government to play a role. I, and many other economists, would argue that the government should treat finance as a public utility and get rid of private banks. That could happen in a capitalist, socialist system (using the non cartoonish definitions of the terms), or something else entirely.
You have nothing but ideology, no understanding of economic history or reality. Stop preaching. Your philosophy is a-historic nonsense. You aren't going to convince anyone here, especially those like myself, that DO know something about economics.
"I am not sure why you would think I am for Banks planning via their links with the monopoly producer of our currency, the Fed, our economy. That is hardly a free market scenario."
Nope. Not what I was saying. I am sure you don't like banks. Not the point. The end result, whether you realize it or not, when you privatize the government or deregulate industry is not to hand the economy over to small mom and pop stores. It is also not to get rid of central planning. The end result (in country after country, for centuries) is to hand central planning over to banks. When the East Asian financial crisis broke out in the late 90's, government services were privatized, taxes were lowered, any capital controls that were in place were removed. Did that result in a libertarian paradise where small businesses competed with one another? No, the countries were handed over to (international) financial capital. This has been the case, again, without exception when your type of policies have been implemented. The financial industry has grown more and more relative to the real economy and the largest banks have massively increased their market share. So it doesn't matter what libertarians say will happen in theory, and it doesn't matter what you WANT. Your policies don't remove central planning, they hand it over to finance. Marxists thought that the dictatorship of the proletariat would be short lived and would result in a democratic, classless society. Didn't happen. Things don't always work in practice like they do in theory. I am sure they wouldn't have backed the concept if they cared about reality and how it worked in practice, but that would take an emotional maturity (to admit they were wrong and to alter their opinion) and intellectual clarity (to challenge their ideological precepts, to reflect clearly and realize where they went wrong, to be open to change). Time to grow up and learn about REALITY buddy.
"Libertarians are at the forfrunt of being against that."
You are naive to the extreme. Libertarians are the useful idiots of moneyed interests, especially financial interests. They don't really take you folks seriously either but can call on you at times to serve their interests. You'll talk a big game about individual liberty or whatever but they just laugh their way to the bank. You HELP them steal from working people and the government. Again, not consciously, but you do. IF PEOPLE WERE EQUAL IN WEALTH AND POWER, IF THE ECONOMY WASN'T DOMINATED BY GIANT CORPORATIONS, YOUR PHILOSOPHY MIGHT HAVE A SNOWBALLS CHANCE IN WORKING, BUT THAT ISN'T THE CASE! GROW UP!
Wow, what a tirade.
You assume too much and know too little about me. It is interesting how personal you and your fellow socialists take everything. I am so glad not to be as blinkered as you and to have emerged from your echo chamber and explore more than the post-Keynsian perspectives.
Perhaps you should know your "enemies" a little more than this before descending into attacks. Try picking up a book by Hayek, then you will be armed and dangerous ready to nail those evil "corporate-tool" Libertarians like me.
But I am sure you feel you know everything there is to know already, since you are such a knowledgeable economist.
Are you kidding me? Not only have I read Hayek, I bought his overrated Road to Serfdom for my father for Christmas. He is a right winger and I figured he would appreciate the book. I've read Rothbard, von Mises, amongst others (I really have), I know your economics. Say and Senior, who pre-dated the Austrian school but are close to it ideologically, too. I have read plenty of libertarian and Austrian economics. I am also tired of people like yourself for good damn reason. We have lowered individual and corporate taxes, have more not less "free trade", we have more liberalized finance, we have slashed and privatized lots of government programs, unions are far weaker, we have no capital and price controls like we used to. This has been a decades long, slow transition. I realize that we don't have a "libertarian" economic system, because that economic system doesn't and won't exist in reality, but we have moved in that direction and away from anything you could call socialist. So have other countries, and they have horribly failed as well, That is why it is impossible to get elected in most countries in the region if you come out during the campaign in favor of more neoliberal type of economic policies. They were tried, they failed, and the exact opposite of those policies have lead to economic development in the region since their "lost decade" of free market nonsense. Chile made the mistake of electing one for the first time since the fall of Pinochet and look at it now. Look at his popularity and the anger people feel towards the government there.
So, what has been the impact here? Have living standards increased? Has wealth inequality lessened, or at least stayed the same? Of course not. We have seen decades of stagnating wages, de-industrialization, an explosion in wealth and income inequality, a systematic corruption of government (thanks in large part to the wholesale handing over of government to private, capitalist interests), the financialization of the economy, and explosion in debt. It has been a disaster. What do people like you call for? MORE of it. More privatization, deregulation, lower taxes, more free trade. Not only has this nonsense harmed me, it has harmed the country and every other country who have put these policies in place. What do people like you say in response? Read Hayek. You must be joking.
If I were talking to a Marxist and they were still for the dictatorship of the proletariat, regardless as to what that did to people in the past, then I would have the same aggression and anger. Your utopia is not possible and trying to reach that impossible utopia harms people greatly, it makes the majority of people, this country & the world worse off. It is the exact opposite of the types of policies that lead to development, and that is not arguable. So, again, I have good damn reason for disliking what you are saying. Anyone who knows anything about economics, developmental economics, ecological economics (this is my area of focus), has the same attitude, although they might be nicer while disagreeing.
"I am so glad not to be as blinkered as you and to have emerged from your echo chamber and explore more than the post-Keynsian perspectives."
This is such a cheap comment. I see no evidence in anything you've said that you have read a wide range of sources. You don't know me, so how in the world would you know which economists I have read? I have disdain for libertarian economics because it IS a-historic, its assumptions are absurd, and because it is impossible to actually put in place a libertarian economic system. Say what you want about neoliberal economics or the economic policies of governments that call themselves Marxist, but at least they have a close enough relationship to reality to at least be attempted. They are flawed and not the answer, but at least they are realistic enough to be attempted in practice.
I like cosmology. Not an expert, but I read about it and think it is interesting. You might have heard about something called "string theory". I won't go into what it says, and my knowledge is not too deep anyway, but string theorists have not been able to come up with an experiment for string theory. If you can't come up with an experiment then you can't disprove or prove their existence. Some scientists claim that, to this point, string theory isn't even science because of this. You can't say something is science unless you can devise a test to prove or disprove it. Until you can, it is a theory and nothing more. That is what I think of libertarian economics. It can't be put into place, it never will be either. It should stay in coffee houses and academic seminars. It shouldn't be used to inform actual policy because it has no basis in reality. Moving as close as we can get to that economic system has been a disaster anyway.
"To which I would completely agree but ther eason that debt levels have increased have to do with the systematic manipualtion of the money supply by the US government enabled by the Fed to constantly stimulate through fiscal (US Gov Debt) and Monetary policies (Fed interest rate policies of artificially low rates)."
Over the past 30 years, as debt has grown, and as the price of capital has grown, property prices for example, median income has stayed stagnant. THAT is why debt has grown. Debt has grown because the price of capital has increased, relative to the price of labour.
Really?
You can't even get Marxist theory right.
It isn't theory. Maybe read Hayek and the like less and delve into reports and get to know actual facts a little more. The Economic Report(s) to the President, Federal Reserve reports, Treasury studies, non of these groups are leftist and they all show that private and corporate debt has exploded in recent decades. Wages HAVE stagnated for decades, again, this is a fact. Finance HAS grown relative to the real economy. When finance grows, so does debt. Again, not arguable. Theories come in when putting these facts together and trying to explain them. It is also fact that we have more, not less, "free trade". All but one of the twelve we have signed has WORSENED the trade balance, caused job losses, and helped to drive down wages. We have more financial liberalization, no more capital and price controls, weaker unions, we have privatized or eliminated lots of government programs. Please explain how this has benefited the general public, working people and the domestic industrial economy. Leave behind the empty talk of "individual liberty", or "freedom" or whatever. Most people think that the way libertarians use those words is comical. Articulate how this transition benefited working people and the country as a whole. Point to another country in which these policies lead, over the long term, to economic development and increased living standards. When you can't, what will you do? Ditch your philosophy or reality?
Yes really.
And I don't give a flying fuck what you think "Marxist" theory is, or whether you think I got it right. Since I'm not interested in getting it right.
"eople like yourself don't seem to realize that when you get rid of government you don't get rid of central planning. You simply hand over central planning to financial interests. The state has stepped back in recent decades. That hasn't resulted in mom and pop stores taking over the economy, or what economists call "perfect competition". In banking it has lead to massive consolidation. It has lead to "
Libertarians do not actually want to get rid of ALL government. They just want to get rid of the parts that prevent the maximisation of returns on capital by the owners of capital. That is why they are not so much a bunch utopians, but rather, a bunch of hypocritical liars.
Actually WIlbur anarchist Spain was working extremely well without a state or banksters and other corporate crooks before being crushed by the worst state centralists namely Franco, Hitler, and Stalin.
"Capitalism is simply the relations of private property. Socialism the belief in collectivizing property including through the taxation system. Attempts to find a middle course have a natural tendency towards more and more public involvement in the market and hence reduction in the individuals freedom to chose how he or she spends their money."
Nope. Capitalism is the belief that the rights of the owners to maximise profit, must be more important than anything else, and must be protected by government.
"In effect progressive/socialists work against the very things they sought to cure while losing their own freedoms in the process."
No not really. The problem is capitalism.
I assume that you're against corporate "socialism" and not populist style socialism, no?
Hi Max.
Yes definitely against the first but I am not sure what you mean by the second term.
I am for basic socialized medicine and socializing against the tragedy of the commons in the form of environmental regulation or dissinsentives to pollution and waste.
By the latter, I meant socialism for all and I think you're pretty much close. Thanks for clarifying.
Crony capitalism IS capitalism.
And capitalism needs Big Government.
It silly really to argue so much over semantics. However, the way libertarians define capitalism and socialism is cartoonish. Its their own worst enemy. Every single country that has developed used massive state intervention. The US was the most protectionist industrialized economy in the world for a century and a half, from the early 19th to the mid 20th century. It has a highly protectionist agricultural system. Most of its greatest inventions have come out of the socialist military system. We cover a good portion of biotech R & D costs. Britain did a lot of this too, it was just as protectionist as we were (and are). They moved to free trade as we started to develop, and pass them by. Japan developed using massive state intervention. Look up the MITI in Japan. Or the giant state/corporate partnerships. Even car companies like Toyota wouldn't exist without the government. The Japanese government supported, bailed out and partially owned Toyota for decades. There would be no Lexus if it wasn't for the Japanese government. South Korea copied Japan, as did countries like Taiwan. China is similar, with even more state intervention. China did reform its economy in the late 1970's but it didn't include what the Communist Party called the "commanding heights" of the economy (energy, heavy industry, telecommunications, finance). That all largely stayed in state hands. The 2011 Fortune 500 (the 500 biggest corporations in the world) listed 61 Chinese firms. All but two were state owned firms. Even in "free market" Singapore the government owns all the land, provides housing for most of the country & state owned companies, central planning and strict regulation played a central role in their development. Read Ha Joon Chang. This is how all countries have developed. Poor countries, or countries declining like ours, adopt something closer to what libertarians want. So what does "crony" capitalism mean, given all of this? If you go by the definition libertarians give, basically every developed country is crony capitalist. At the very least they were crony capitalist while they developed and have declined or stagnated as they moved away from "crony capitalism". Silly stuff.
"t silly really to argue so much over semantics. "
The meanings of words matters. Otherwise, how would people communicate and express ideas?
". Even in "free market" Singapore the government owns all the land, provides housing for most of the country & state owned companies, central planning and strict regulation played a central role in their development. "
A lot of "westerners", typically the free market liberal / libertarian types, wet their pants over the "free market" Singapore, without realising just how much "State Capitalism", ie the ownership of many of the most influential and powerful corporations in Singapore and East Asia, exists in Singapore, via the Sing gov's 2 investment arms (Temasek Holdings & GIC)
It is silly because the definitions libertarians, and many others on the right, use for those words are radically different than how everyone else defines them. The libertarians have their little religion and the way they define "socialism" basically describes every developed country as well as most developing countries. If a word can be attached to everything it describes nothing. Its easier anyway to use their own silly definitions against them. They have to tie themselves in logical pretzels to try and get out of it and they can't really.
"A lot of "westerners", typically the free market liberal / libertarian types, wet their pants over the "free market" Singapore, without realising just how much "State Capitalism", ie the ownership of many of the most influential and powerful corporations in Singapore and East Asia, exists in Singapore, via the Sing gov's 2 investment arms (Temasek Holdings & GIC)"
I would suggest, if you haven't, reading Vijay Prashad's "People's History of the Third World". Brilliant and goes into this in depth. Not just Singapore but Hong Kong, Taiwan and other "free market" Asian success stories.
"I would suggest, if you haven't, reading Vijay Prashad's "People's History of the Third World". Brilliant and goes into this in depth. Not just Singapore but Hong Kong, Taiwan and other "free market" Asian success stories."
Thanks. I will look it up. I spent most of my life in EA, which is why I'm well aware of the degree of government involvement in the EA economies. None of the EA govs are in anyway libertarian. The populaces of those countries are especially not libertarian. EAsians EXPECT the gov to meddle in, and manage the economy. The govs and people of EA, are, if I'm going to generalise, more "Keynesian".
I lived in China myself for a about a year and a half. Got to travel to Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam. I miss China and the people in that area of the world. In China there is a very strong leftist movement, called the New Left. When I say leftist, I am not talking about a, lets raise taxes on the rich by five percent type of leftist. There were over a 100,000 protests and riots last year in China, which are called "mass incidents" there. The government has admitted that the three biggest reasons for the unrest are inequality, environmental destruction and corruption. The Party just removed the very popular leftist Bo Xilai from power and have been making comments about the potential for a second Cultural Revolution, given the mood of the country. Throw in the very ideologically broad, "pro-democracy" Charter 08 movement too. There are some who want to move the market reforms even further. One thing I really found interesting in China, how broad the country is ideologically. There are free market folks like our libertarian friend here. I had a few as students. There is the new left, there are many in between. That is a very wide gap though. They don't have a democracy obviously and it is a one party state, but the discussion is very, very broad there. Here, with all our minor parties, with the two wonderful options we have at the top, with the freedom of speech we enjoy, the majority of the our political conversation is very narrow ideologically, especially amongst the elites. The two major parties agree on everything on a fundamental level, they disagree on the surface. Kind of sad but interesting. I would say that China is beyond description ideologically. If I had to put a label based on what I saw, experienced, what I heard from people there and what I have read about, I would place it in the same area as what I read about Tito's Yugoslavia. Whatever that means really. Anyway, nice talking to ya.
People thought justice would prevail when a Black Man got into the White House. Instead they got someone who can act like G.W. Bush AND get away with it. If I were an American progressive, I would feel pretty damn foolish, yet again.
HOW TO FIND THE CENTER
Man #1 -- "Is this the center?"
Man #2 -- "No, no, more to the right!"
Man #1 -- "Okay, how 'bout here?"
Man #2 -- "No, more to the right!"
Man #1 -- "Over here?"
Man #2 -- "Naw, move more to the right!"
Man #1 -- falls over a cliff.
Man #2 -- "He should watch where he's going."
People thought justice would prevail when a Black Man got into the White House. Instead they got someone who can act like G.W. Bush AND get away with it. If I were an American progressive, I would feel pretty damn foolish, yet again.
~ ~ ~
i had pretty much given up on politics. i dislike labels and self-define an a dyslectic, eclectic empirical philosopher. yet, i must admit that obama's persuasive ability ignited a spark of hope in my heart. i saw not a Black man, but a Jewish, Christian, Islamic White and Black man. however, when candidate obama took one giant political side-step away from the reverend, mr, wright, i felt great disappointment, a chink in that hope. i do not feel shame in hope, but have learned, hoefully once and for all, a lesson about politics and Truth. members of both parties, even the independent and libertarian, support capitalism. capitalism, i conclude is but an impossibe ponzi-pyramid scheme. the only tool governors have is in deciding where the money goes. those of us desirous of promoting a workable community of the living now begin to realiase that proponents in both parties protect the "state" that feeds them and their egos. quite reichly, RCallaghan!.
RCallaghan sez: "People thought justice would prevail when a Black Man got into the White House."
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People who were not aware of his FISA vote, perhaps.
"People who were not aware of his FISA vote, perhaps."
It's not so much that people were unaware of Obama's FISA vote, but that they chose to look the other way and vote for Obama, in spite of it.
OK, that's fine. But those people should not have expected "justice would prevail" going forward. That's PhD-level cognitive dissonance.
Obama voted for the FISA Bill, even after having gone on record as being opposed to it, which is a huge part of the problem. That being said, Obama lost my vote for the following reasons:
A) His vote for the FISA Bill and for continued funding for our war in Iraq, even after having gone on record as being opposed to both of those things.
B) His promise to ante up our war in Afghanistan, which he most certainly did, causing even more innocent blood on both sides to be spilled.
C) During the 2008 pre-POTUS Election debate on Foreign policy, Obama took the exact same positions as John McCain, who was then his Republican rival Candidate for the President of the United States.
When all this happened, it was clear to me where Obama's presidency was headed, and I was proved right.
Regarding point "B", I was unaware that there were any USAn civilian casualties that had been murdered by drones...
The good news is that war with Iran would almost certainly precipitate the collapse of the U.S. Empire... The bad news is that the Empire might want to take the rest of the world down with it...
Maybe there's hope (ah, that word!) that Ron Paul will run as a third-party candidate and provide a voice of reason against this imminent catastrophe, which has the potential to spiral into WWIII... Given the choice between Warmonger 1 (Obama) and Warmonger 2 (Romney), perhaps the electorate will have an epiphany and vote Door #3... At any rate, it will be interesting to see how so-called "progressives" for the Big O rationalize his growing hawkishness on Iran (and China and Africa etc etc)...
How these people manage to keep supporting Obama -- even in the name of lesser evilism -- is beyond me. But, then, Americans reelected Dubya for a second term, didn't they?!!
I think that RP going third party after the convention is higher than people think (assuming the has not been successful in getting the delegates in a second or third vote to nominate him).
I moved from the states just before the Iraq war precisely because i saw that the country was going to head towards a cliff. Everything that Bush and Obama have done so far have verified that fear.
I would however move back to the states were RP ever elected president.
It is unfortunate that many progressives have not studied the ideas that RP brings to the table (including the critiques and direction of socialist policies via Hayek) as their devotion to the concept of equality of material comfort and the dangers to liberty, are not really understood. Too often they fear Ayn Rand (personally find Rand irritating and she didn't even like Hayek because he did believe in basic safety net for the poor as well as a universal health care system working alongside private health care) and stop there.
Ron Paul will not run against the Republican Party and thus ruin the prospect of Rand Paul winning the GOP nomination in the future.
We shall have to wait and see. I hope you are wrong, but if he does not run third party (assuming he does not get the nomination) we can't for sure no the reason as well as you think you do.
As a Kentuckian, I can assure you that Rand Paul is a complete IDIOT and will never win any future GOP nomination for the office of President.
arkay sez: "But, then, Americans reelected Dubya for a second term, didn't they?!!"
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Actually, there is no proof of that.
Americans at large are far too willing to continue to grasp at straws just to cling to some sort of (dwindling) hope that change for the better will take place, which I, personally, do not see for the (near) future, anyway. Moreover, the Obama Administration has done little, if anything, to put the brakes on the United States' sliding into a fascist state, let alone stop it. Whether people realize it or not, Obama's a closet Republican.
I voted for Jill Stein of the Green Party in this year's Bay State POTUS Primary election, resolving to vote my conscience, rather than the "lesser of two evils", and I'm glad I did. Come the fall, I will vote for a Green Party candidate again. Ron Paul is too dangerous for my liking.
"Ron Paul is too dangerous for my liking."
Why?
Who cares? Do you think this is a "democracy'? In our winner-takes-all, BigMoney, Corporate Media stage-managed spectacle that we call "elections", Stein, Paul nor anyone else who does not dance to the tune of the Oligarchy has a snowballs' chance in hell.
In short, expecting a fair outcome from a rigged and thoroughly corrupt system is irrational.
I don't have high expectations that people will unite against the corruption that is the establishment. Partially, that realization is that only younger generation seems open to fighting this with any notion of what is at stake and how to take it apart.
Perhaps it will be too late by the time these youngsters come of age and it will be all moot. So I guess I am irrational but I think if a movement united effectively and quickly enough against the odds, there is still time to reverse course.
The problem with left leaning political animals is that they have great difficulty uniting and agreeing on how to solve the problems that are being created by the crony capitalists. Exhibit A is the Occupy Wall Street movement, rudderless, leaderless, and ultimately impotent. On the Right the Tea Party was co-opted and overrun by the neo-cons, essentially failing to lose their irrational fear of terrorism and enemies without.
A movement for god damned what? The freaking Gold Standard? Do you have any idea how the GS worked? How would it make sense to expand and contract purchasing power based on freaking metals, especially given the environmental and ecological problems we are facing? A movement towards self regulation? Hell freaking no. A coal plant creates costs that it passes onto others. Abiding by regulations and pollution abatement costs money. It is much cheaper to dump it in a lake or river. Maybe one you drink from. It could increase their profits, reduce their costs. YOU would pay. You, or others that drink from that water, have a better chance of dying young, of getting cancer, of having birth defects. A simple, easy to understand, conflict of interests. So what do libertarians say? Have them duke it out in court. Ain't that just peachy? A giant, multi-national corporation vs. Mr. AMeshiea and a few other peasants. They'll have an army of lawyers, "scientists", friends in the legal system. They can wait, and wait and wait. They can argue with the best scientists money can buy. What would realistically happen? What DOES happen when the government steps back in situations like that? The giant corporation settles for a fraction of the costs they pass onto others. Its like this with other issues too. I am with libertarians on war, drugs, abortion, stuff like that. The economic stances though, not a chance in hell. Far more Americans would agree with me than you. Far too many would agree with you, more than would benefit from that type of world, but still, YOUR position is unpopular. Slogans are nice and people might like the general idea, but when it comes to actual policy and what impact it would have on people, not a chance in hell.
Too much wealth and income inequality for people to stand for that. With that inequality comes large differences in power. If everyone were equal in wealth and power maybe things would be different. That isn't the case though, and that makes a huge difference.