David Michael Green: The Dismantling of Civil Society

[seafan]

David Michael Green sharpens his focus ever more tightly on our 'condition' as a nation, with every single trenchant piece he writes.

Behold the the ugly, unadulterated truth.



Happy Monday, everybody.

How stupid are you?

I mean, let’s just face it, shall we? That is precisely the question the right has been asking the American public for thirty years (and more) now. And that is the question the American public has been enthusiastically answering for the same period of time.

Like a crack junkie, in fact.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan presented America with a set of economic lies so transparent that even a monster like George H. W. Bush called them “voodoo economics”. When he was contesting Reagan for the Republican nomination, that is. Once Bush had lost it, and when he wanted to be added to the ticket as the Vice Presidential nominee, everything became hunky dory, and no more voodoo critiques were uttered. That was one of the greatest acts of treason (I choose my words carefully) in American history.

But back to Reagan. “Watch this”, he said. “I’m gonna slash taxes, especially for the rich, spend huge sums on ‘defense’, and balance the budget at the same time”.

Okay, so he wasn’t a math major in college. Two out of three ain’t bad, though, eh? Well, it is if you have to pay for his ‘mistakes’, plus interest, as so many of us continue to do to this day.

.....

Even though Americans hate taxes with the passion of the truly infantile, I’m sure they don’t mind working extra hours flipping burgers each week to pay for the enrichment of the previous generation of plutocrats and defense contractors. Right?

Or maybe it’s just that their answer to the “How stupid” question is: “Very”.

You might think that, because Reagan and Bush actually managed to quadruple the national debt with their little exercise in national folly. Or you might especially think that because Lil’ Bush came along with the exact same snake oil a decade later. You had to be stupid to buy it the first time, but you had to have been really stupid to buy it the second time. We, of course, were.

And not just in terms of federal debt, either. A generation of Reaganomics has now succeeded in suspending ninety-eight percent of the country in standard-of-living formaldehyde, so that they felt zero effect whatsoever from the substantial growth in GDP over the last thirty years, and now those policies are cutting off their legs from underneath them altogether. All while the people of Reagan’s class, of course, just piled on the riches. How stupid do you have to be to not notice who’s diddling you?

Very, of course, but not necessarily as stupid as is maximally possible. ‘Cause, guess what? Here they come again. This week Republicans once again have issued a manifesto calling for slashing taxes on billionaires and cutting deficits, all at the same time. And once again they will win big electoral landslide victories in November despite that patent idiocy. Or perhaps because of it.

Why don’t they just come out and do magic tricks, instead? Oh wait. That’s their Jesus bit. Never mind.

.....

Green goes on to describe the understandable logic of voting out the party in power if the voter feels that it has been ineffective in governing. You know, that slap-in-the-face feeling that you aren't better off now than before these people took power....

Looking at the landscape in front of them as it appears to voters’ blinkered vision, it makes perfect sense to desperately swing to the party not in government when the house is on fire and the party in government is showing up with squirt guns. What could be more logical? This is, indeed, the fundamental notion of ‘responsible government’ itself, and it is at the core of democratic theory.

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And second, because ‘the alternative’ to the Democrats are the very folks who put us in these crises to start with, and they are now explicitly devoted to making conditions even worse for ordinary Americans. That’s exactly what will happen, of course, and if you think the present moment is grim, wait until you see how much fun the next two years are gonna be. They’re gonna look like the mangled and ferocious spawn of a tainted marriage between the Depression politics of the Hoover era, the sick depravity of McCarthyism, the relentless scandal-mongering of the Gingrich era, and the completely unmitigated greed of the Cheney years. Welcome to the dismantling of civilized society in America. Yes, yes, I know – it’s quite arguable whether such a beast ever existed. Well, at least that’s one debate we’re about to put to rest definitively.

And we also know for sure of yet one more thing Ol’ W was wrong about. Remember when he said: “There's an old saying in Tennessee – I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee – that says, fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – You can't get fooled again!”

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For old time's sake.


Which brings us to the Republicans' "Pledge To America" that these fiends came peddling for the cameras this past week. (Did you notice how these guys shed their coats and ties, rolled up their starched sleeves, and pasted on the 'everyman' persona?)



Reuters photo
Link



Green continues:

It would appear that for Americans, at least, there is no limit, based on the contents of the Republicans’ just released “Pledge to America” manifesto, which I could have drafted for them, so predictable is its contents. There is of course, loads of debauchery and rampant destruction in there, dressed up as piety and patriotism. But the fiscal insanity is the most egregious. Can they really pledge the old voodoo economics once again – slashing tax revenue while simultaneously cutting deficits – and get away with it? Yes they can, and yes they have.

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As Paul Krugman notes, the Republican Pledge claims that “everything must be cut, in ways not specified – ‘except for common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops.’ In other words, Social Security, Medicare and the defense budget are off-limits. So what’s left? Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has done the math. As he points out, the only way to balance the budget by 2020, while simultaneously (a) making the Bush tax cuts permanent and (b) protecting all the programs Republicans say they won’t cut, is to completely abolish the rest of the federal government: ‘No more national parks, no more Small Business Administration loans, no more export subsidies, no more N.I.H. No more Medicaid (one-third of its budget pays for long-term care for our parents and others with disabilities). No more child health or child nutrition programs. No more highway construction. No more homeland security. Oh, and no more Congress.’”

And yet – of course – poll data shows that the folks purveying this heap of garbage are about to be swept into office. Meanwhile, city governments are folding their tents across America, slashing all their services entirely, and the GOP is nominating former witches, anti-masturbators, racists, wrestling promoters and every other form of personal screw-up and jive con-artist to be found everywhere killers and thieves congregate.

I’m sorry, but surveying the landscape, it just feels so over now in America. We seem like little more than a popped balloon, with only the faux blustering fart noises of rapid deflation remaining where once there was an empire and once there were truly revolutionary and truly valuable ideas.

It’s no accident, either, that the near-complete obsession of the tea party right and their followers is taxes. It’s naked greed, it’s more infantile than the politics of a kindergarten sandbox, and it’s as corrosive as can be. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society”. He meant it, too. When he died, he donated his estate to the US government.

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And Green looks beyond the continuing, looming debacle over the next two years to the ominous horizon of the 2012 landscape and beyond...



Green concludes:

I will be interested – as a political scientist, not as a citizen – to see what sort of budget proposal Republicans will pass out of the House once they control it.

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But, assuming the GOP can find a way around that problem (perhaps by proposing a draconian pretend budget that they know could never be accepted by congressional Democrats or Obama?), I would expect them to prevail again in 2012. Unless the jobs picture changes radically in 2011 – and no economist that I know of is predicting that – Obama is complete toast. Indeed, he is probably so wounded that we might expect a Democrat or two to challenge him in the primaries for the nomination. Doesn’t matter, though. Either way, whoever the Republicans nominate will be the next president.

Which is where I start to get real nervous. Governments that combine a commitment to holding power at all costs with a total absence of real policy solutions and an amoral willingness to do anything to serve their true aspirations are a truly scary prospect. History suggests that the years after 2012 could be the ones during which the wheels finally came off the wagon of what is left of American democracy.

But it could be far worse than that, too, for us and for others. The prospect of a hugely powerful empire lashing out at the rest of the world – whether in rage or seeking domestic diversion – is not a pretty one at all. The Soviet superpower was kind enough to implode rather innocuously. I’m not at all convinced that we yanks would be quite so gracious about doing the same.

I remain haunted to this day by the words of John le Carré, written on the eve of the Bush invasion of Iraq: “America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War”.

Sadly, I think he had everything right in his assessment, save for the word “periods”. That term implies a temporariness to our condition that might at least make it somehow barely tolerable.

But what if it only gets worse from here?

And let’s be honest. Given the nature of the Republicans, the Democrats, the media and the public in America today, how does it not?

(bold type added)



Took us 30 years, but here we are.


No manufacturing; no jobs; no thriving middle class; unending wars; corporate control over our government; shrinking civil liberties--


...and Republicans, salivating at the prospect of picking over the spoils for their corporate masters one more time, promise us more of the same.


Only this time, it will be for keeps.

[seafan]

1. Boehner: ’ Americans Aren’t Ready For Solutions.' After 30 years, still spreading the snake oil.

This illustrates David Michael Green's point perfectly.


From Dan Farber at CBS News, September 26, 2010:


Boehner: Americans Don't Need to Talk about Solutions Now

In an interview on Fox News Sunday, John Boehner (R-OH) was asked about the lack of solutions, such as for costly entitlement programs like Medicare, in the GOP "Pledge to America."

The House minority leader responded that the purpose of the Pledge was to "lay out the size of the problem," not "to get to potential solutions." Boehner reasoned that once Americans understand how big the problem is, then the talk can turn to potential solutions.

Boehner chastized the appearance of Stephen Colbert before a House committee on Friday. "Washington is spending more time with comedians than debating (our) economic future....They have time to bring a comedian to Washington, D.C., but they don't have time to end the uncertainty."

It seems that Boehner is content to leave the American people uncertain as to what the Republican's would do to help the economy besides extending the Bush tax cuts.

.....

Think Progress has the exchange:

WALLACE: Congressman Boehner, as Willie Sutton said about banks, entitlements are where the money is. More than 40% of the budget. Yet, I've looked through this pledge and there is not one single proposal to cut social security, medicare, medicaid.

BOEHNER: Chris, we make it clear in there that we're going to lay out a plan to work toward a balanced budget and deal with the entitlement crisis. Chris, it's time for us as americans to have an adult conversation with each other about the serious challenges our country faces. And we can't have that serious conversation until we lay out the size of the problem. Once Americans understand how big the problem is, then we can begin to talk about potential solutions. <...>

WALLACE: Forgive me, sir, isn't the right time to have the adult conversation now before the election when you have this document? Why not make a single proposal to cut social security, medicare and medicaid?

BOEHNER: Chris, this is what happens here in Washington. When you start down that path, you just invite all kind of problems. I know. I've been there. I think we need to do this in a more systemic way and have this conversation first. Let's not get to the potential solutions. Let's make sure americans understand how big the problem is. Then we can talk about possible solutions and then work ourselves into those solutions that are doable.

House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio announcing the Republicans "Pledge to America" agenda.
(Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)



Are we going to fall for this stale Republican snake oil yet AGAIN?



Colbert is so intellectually far ahead of these dolts.

Stephen Colbert plays an angry conservative man on television. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, plays one every moment of his life. On Friday morning, they met in the hearing room of the House Judiciary Committee. The result was kind of funny.

Colbert had been called to testify about one of his pet issues, the plight of migrant farmworkers. King's pet issue is also migrant workers, but he wants to get rid of them and replace them with "everyday American workers."

"Maybe we should be spending less time watching Comedy Central and more time considering all the real jobs that are out there, ones that require real hard labor," King said bitterly. He invoked the "Joe the Plumbers of the world who, many days, would prefer the aroma of fresh dirt to that of the sewage from American elitists who disparage them even as they flush."

There were groans in the committee room.

Colbert, in character, delivered his opening statement: "This is America! I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican! I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan, and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian."

King glowered.

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Colbert largely stuck to his stage persona. Was the farm work hard? "Certainly harder work than this." Does he endorse the GOP's "Pledge to America?" "I endorse all Republican policy without question."

But Colbert eventually dropped his Bill O'Reilly routine. When Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., asked him why he chose migrant workers as his pet issue, he scratched his head.

"I like talking about people who don't have any power, and it just seems like one of the least-powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don't have any rights," he said.

The punch line never came. It was awkward for everybody.

Stephen Colbert (photo via Globe and Mail)



Stick a sock in it, Boehner and King. And that goes for Steny Hoyer as well.


There isn't a toilet big enough to flush all of these putrid failures.