Sunday, May 27, 2012
Re: R.T and I have discussed this (What Digby talks about below)
I loved the Krugman column, and I think there is a lot of truth to it. Its a testament to the good things about this country that we don't worship the wealthy. Just because someone has become rich, doesn't doesn't mean they are deserving of respect (think about some of the incredibly idiotic people you have seen or heard of who are very wealthy!). It does, however, take a healthy self esteem to live in this society and still believe your life is as valuable as a rich person's. We've got to teach our children good values and self esteem.
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
in a general sort of way about how the ruling class/business elites/whatever want more than simply to further their economic status--they want respect to the point of reverence, and deference in all things...Besides their calculating hangers-on, there are the many deluded ones in the general population, including I would think many Tea Party types, who really believe that they are on some sort of continuum with these "Masters of the Universe." I submit this is one of the weaknesses of Marxist theory: a difficulty in taking such intersubjective factors into account.And what Digby says about Wall Street players is also true as well of the CEO types, according to Richard Wolfe. Wolfe has a book out about how Obama revived his political prospects after the electoral debacle of 2010 & he notes that Obama had difficulty understanding why the CEOs disliked him so much since he had never singled them out for criticism & even his remarks about the bankers were quite mild compared to the level of hate and discontent directed toward them by the general population. (Wolfe is something of an Obama adulator. I suppose I am too by default in that I think most of the criticisms of Obama are really criticisms about the limitations of conventional American electoral politics--which are often coupled with an inability to acknowledge or understand those limitations. Such critique is useful though if those limitations are understood and acknowledged--as in OWS.)So I'm disheartened by the anti-Obama vitriol coming from those FB friends who think of themselves as offering a *true* leftist view--and by the vitriol they direct toward Obama *supporters.* It seems to me they cut off possibilities for influencing the Obama-istas. Guess I'm a Menshevik.Interesting & passionate discussion about education on Melissa Harris-Perry's weekend morning show yesterday. I knew about the terrible experiment with charter schools taking place in New Orleans, but what Gov. Tom Corbett is trying to do with Philadelphia schools looks to be worse. Jonathan Alter tried to make the case for charter schools and I thought was pretty much blown out of the water by the reporter from Philadelphia who has been covering the story the past few years. Alter is, relatively speaking, a Good Guy within his context, but Alter is a mainstream media guy who tends to take the leftish side of whatever the conventional Washington wisdom is, but with more emphasis on the *conventional* part. Among those folks, it seems to me that they have adopted a pro-charter school stance out of a sense that it is somehow historically inevitable when it is (I hope) merely fashionable. (There are some excellent charter schools and many of the local supporters are in good faith, but there is a national movement that I feel hopes to ride the charter school movement into complete, profit-oriented privatization of public educaton.)MSNBC and Current TV have a pretty good lineup of news people such that between them you can get a pretty good picture of U.S. politics: Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris-Perry are the leading lights. Some lesser lights are Ed Schulz and Eliot Spitzer. Jennifer Granholm and Bill Press seem to be pretty good too, but I haven't seen much of them--there's only so much time. There's also reading, surfing the Net and staring vacantly into space.I haven't been watching much of Charlie Rose--I think he is most interesting when he interviews scientists or artists--not politicians or business tycoons.In other important news about the minutiae of my existence, on our walk today Carlo and I were physically threatened by a pair of mockingbirds--the thuggish little dinosaurs. The neighborhood is clearly going downhill.R.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Gekkoian Heroics
by digby
If you haven't read today's Paul Krugman's column yet, do it. I have no doubt that quite a few Masters of the Universe broke down and had themselves a good old fashioned cry when they read it.He writes about one of the main themes of this blog since 2009, which is the embarrassing and desperate need on the part of Wall Street players to not just be rich, but universally adored. He brings up something else, however, which I haven't been aware of:[L]et me take a moment to debunk a fairy tale that we've been hearing a lot from Wall Street and its reliable defenders — a tale in which the incredible damage runaway finance inflicted on the U.S. economy gets flushed down the memory hole, and financiers instead become the heroes who saved America.
Once upon a time, this fairy tale tells us, America was a land of lazy managers and slacker workers. Productivity languished, and American industry was fading away in the face of foreign competition.
Then square-jawed, tough-minded buyout kings like Mitt Romney and the fictional Gordon Gekko came to the rescue, imposing financial and work discipline. Sure, some people didn't like it, and, sure, they made a lot of money for themselves along the way. But the result was a great economic revival, whose benefits trickled down to everyone.
You can see why Wall Street likes this story. But none of it — except the bit about the Gekkos and the Romneys making lots of money — is true.
The chutzpah of these people never fails to amaze me. But this does explain their shock at being held responsible for this meltdown and the pain and suffering that followed. They really believe they are big heroes and the rest of us are a bunch of ungrateful wretches for failing to acknowledge it.
These people may not be the geniuses they think they are, but they aren't stupid and they do have to live somewhat in touch with reality in order to do their jobs. So they know they have reaped all the rewards of their heroic Gekkoian deeds. They just think this is a fair distribution of the nation's wealth and we should all be grateful for the crumbs that are left over. In other words, they believe they are heroes for making each other rich.
R.T and I have discussed this (What Digby talks about below)
in a general sort of way about how the ruling class/business elites/whatever want more than simply to further their economic status--they want respect to the point of reverence, and deference in all things...Besides their calculating hangers-on, there are the many deluded ones in the general population, including I would think many Tea Party types, who really believe that they are on some sort of continuum with these "Masters of the Universe." I submit this is one of the weaknesses of Marxist theory: a difficulty in taking such intersubjective factors into account.
And what Digby says about Wall Street players is also true as well of the CEO types, according to Richard Wolfe. Wolfe has a book out about how Obama revived his political prospects after the electoral debacle of 2010 & he notes that Obama had difficulty understanding why the CEOs disliked him so much since he had never singled them out for criticism & even his remarks about the bankers were quite mild compared to the level of hate and discontent directed toward them by the general population. (Wolfe is something of an Obama adulator. I suppose I am too by default in that I think most of the criticisms of Obama are really criticisms about the limitations of conventional American electoral politics--which are often coupled with an inability to acknowledge or understand those limitations. Such critique is useful though if those limitations are understood and acknowledged--as in OWS.)
So I'm disheartened by the anti-Obama vitriol coming from those FB friends who think of themselves as offering a *true* leftist view--and by the vitriol they direct toward Obama *supporters.* It seems to me they cut off possibilities for influencing the Obama-istas. Guess I'm a Menshevik.
Interesting & passionate discussion about education on Melissa Harris-Perry's weekend morning show yesterday. I knew about the terrible experiment with charter schools taking place in New Orleans, but what Gov. Tom Corbett is trying to do with Philadelphia schools looks to be worse. Jonathan Alter tried to make the case for charter schools and I thought was pretty much blown out of the water by the reporter from Philadelphia who has been covering the story the past few years. Alter is, relatively speaking, a Good Guy within his context, but Alter is a mainstream media guy who tends to take the leftish side of whatever the conventional Washington wisdom is, but with more emphasis on the *conventional* part. Among those folks, it seems to me that they have adopted a pro-charter school stance out of a sense that it is somehow historically inevitable when it is (I hope) merely fashionable. (There are some excellent charter schools and many of the local supporters are in good faith, but there is a national movement that I feel hopes to ride the charter school movement into complete, profit-oriented privatization of public educaton.)
MSNBC and Current TV have a pretty good lineup of news people such that between them you can get a pretty good picture of U.S. politics: Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris-Perry are the leading lights. Some lesser lights are Ed Schulz and Eliot Spitzer. Jennifer Granholm and Bill Press seem to be pretty good too, but I haven't seen much of them--there's only so much time. There's also reading, surfing the Net and staring vacantly into space.
I haven't been watching much of Charlie Rose--I think he is most interesting when he interviews scientists or artists--not politicians or business tycoons.
In other important news about the minutiae of my existence, on our walk today Carlo and I were physically threatened by a pair of mockingbirds--the thuggish little dinosaurs. The neighborhood is clearly going downhill.
R.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Gekkoian Heroics
by digby
If you haven't read today's Paul Krugman's column yet, do it. I have no doubt that quite a few Masters of the Universe broke down and had themselves a good old fashioned cry when they read it.He writes about one of the main themes of this blog since 2009, which is the embarrassing and desperate need on the part of Wall Street players to not just be rich, but universally adored. He brings up something else, however, which I haven't been aware of:[L]et me take a moment to debunk a fairy tale that we've been hearing a lot from Wall Street and its reliable defenders — a tale in which the incredible damage runaway finance inflicted on the U.S. economy gets flushed down the memory hole, and financiers instead become the heroes who saved America.
Once upon a time, this fairy tale tells us, America was a land of lazy managers and slacker workers. Productivity languished, and American industry was fading away in the face of foreign competition.
Then square-jawed, tough-minded buyout kings like Mitt Romney and the fictional Gordon Gekko came to the rescue, imposing financial and work discipline. Sure, some people didn't like it, and, sure, they made a lot of money for themselves along the way. But the result was a great economic revival, whose benefits trickled down to everyone.
You can see why Wall Street likes this story. But none of it — except the bit about the Gekkos and the Romneys making lots of money — is true.
The chutzpah of these people never fails to amaze me. But this does explain their shock at being held responsible for this meltdown and the pain and suffering that followed. They really believe they are big heroes and the rest of us are a bunch of ungrateful wretches for failing to acknowledge it.
These people may not be the geniuses they think they are, but they aren't stupid and they do have to live somewhat in touch with reality in order to do their jobs. So they know they have reaped all the rewards of their heroic Gekkoian deeds. They just think this is a fair distribution of the nation's wealth and we should all be grateful for the crumbs that are left over. In other words, they believe they are heroes for making each other rich.
http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
SCOTUS and the Road to Nullification
It is possible the media is playing up the Worst Case Scenario regarding the impending SCOTUS decision on the Affordable Care Act and now the case before SCOTUS concerning Arizona's Draconian anti-immigration legislation. I would certainly like to think that's all it is. Most of the news stories carry a caveat about how the oral argument does not really tell much about how SCOTUS will finally rule. I would like to take some comfort in that, but it seems it works both ways. I believe most people thought the Citizens United case would be decided on narrow grounds and be fairly inconsequential, based on whatever it was SCOTUS seemed to be signaling--or not signaling--before the case was actually decided. What the people got was a surprise: SCOTUS ruled orporations are people too and get to spend as much money as they like to spread their opinions around. Therefore, I am now wondering if it is only a matter of time before outfits like Angie's List or Consumer Reports get hit with a deluge of lawsuits for libel and slander because they dissed somebody or other's product in the ratings.
I still have not got my head around the re-interpretation of the second amendment that seems to nullify the many laws and regulations designed to cut down on the epidemic of senseless gun violence.
Even if SCOTUS only overturns the individual mandate and severs the rest of ACA from the ruling, it seems to me to throw the door open to arguments from, say, the fringe "sovereign citizen" movement--at least if the states are willing to entertain such, which, given the far right Republican condition of some of the state legislatures doesn't seem like such a stretch. Not so long ago a member of the U.S. Congress, speaking from the floor of the House, openly expressed sympathy for the man who crashed his plane into an IRS facility in Austin, killing himself and at least one IRS employee.
And how can allowing Arizona essentially to determine its own immigration enforcement policy fail to lead to a welter of state laws that could render U.S. immigration policy incoherent and/or futile. (It seems it should cut both ways. SCOTUS has ruled that California cannot enforce more stringent environmental laws than the U.S. has because it would infringe upon trade treaties the U.S. has made with other countries allowing foreign corporations to do business in the U.S. according to U.S. laws).
R.
http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/
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