On the Irrelevance of the Democratic Party and Liberal Identification

The Democratic Party, particularly under the direction of Barack Obama, has become a withering and sickly shadow of what it once was, and it wasn't much to begin with.  Furthermore, the "liberal" identification that comes with calling oneself a Democrat - though that is even less common now, thanks to the entrance of "blue dogs" on the scene - is totally devoid of definitional soundness.

The clearest example of the irrelevance of the Democratic Party is found in its apparent inability to address the real concerns of the least among us.  Even if you don't take it that far, and only focus upon the most surface level intentions of the party one is still left wondering what the point of the party is.  In a recent speech by radical journalist and activist Chris Hedges he referred to the Democratic Party under Obama this way: 

Obama has done nothing to alter the rape of America by corporations. He’s done nothing to alter the permanent war economy, 1 trillion dollars in defense-related spending, expansion of the imperial war in Afghanistan, 700 civilians dead in Pakistan from drone attacks since Obama took office. He hasn’t restored habeas corpus, revoked Bush's secrecy laws, ended extraordinary rendition or the torture of detainees in our offshore penal colonies nor, most egregiously perhaps, the looting of the US treasury by speculative interests on Wall Street.

All of the issues listed in that quote are precisely those which we, those who swallowed our pride and voted for a Democrat once again, thought were unflinchingly going to be reversed under Obama.  What seems obvious now is that he must have had a swift, closed door meeting where he was told exactly what he was going to have to do in order to save the country from absolute economic mayhem.  Either that, or he is a wolf in sheep's clothing.  No matter which is true, he and his cognitively dissonant Administration has rendered the Democratic Party completely impotent to implement the kind of "change" he campaigned upon.  And it doesn't appear that Obama, especially in light of the uprisings in Egypt, is at all prepared to challenge the powers that be in the American government.  That is, Wall Street, Corporate America, and the investment banks that make it possible for them to loot the American people year after year.  

Liberalism, the group of tenets that the Democrats are supposedly bound to, has also undergone a kind of cultural lobotomy, so much so, that the original meaning of the term has gotten completely lost in the new chemical makeup of the collective brain of liberalism today.  It's almost as though liberalism has been on an antidepressant drug as of late.  Here's a crash course.  Liberalism, as a sociocultural and political idealogical theory, was developed during the Age of Enlightenment.  It was an ideology bound by the basic belief that the human species would evolve if it was now bound by such things as absolute monarchy, feudalism, the "divine right of kings", heredity status, and so on.  This is what we could call "classical liberalism," a concept championed by John Locke.  Locke believed in a then revolutionary concept that governments should rule only by the consent of the governed, hence the development of democratic voting and of public comment.  This is also the basis for such concepts as the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  By today's American right-of-center Zeitgeist classical liberalism might as well be called "libertarian socialism".  In fact, it was liberation philosophy that was used to justify the armed overthrow of tyrannical rule in France and the early United States.  Liberalism today does not embody what Locke had in mind when he opined about the natural right of man to pursue happiness.  The pursuit of happiness does not naturally flourish, for the many at least, under capitalism.  And while capitalism is indeed the economic system developed by early liberals, it can only make people rich if it also makes a substantial portion of the population exceedingly poor.  This is where Barack Obama has completely failed in his liberalism, as did Bill Clinton, who in my mind is the worst President in the history of the United States.  

Today's liberalism has essentially been co-opted by the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, which has itself been co-opted by the socially conservative wing of the general public, fueled by religious cultural self-importance.  The Democratic Party has now been challenged, effectively, by the conservative movement in America, because of its successful co-opting of liberalism.  This is why liberalism has become one of the looser terms to use in today's political lexicon.  And progressivism is no longer a useful term either, as there is little to no labor movement present in this country, thanks to Presidents Reagan and Clinton.  

What needs to happen in America is a profound shift of the current American Zeitgeist, which means in the original German, "the spirit of the times".  Thomas Khun identified it as "The general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and/or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era."  And we need hope.  Not the kind of useless hope garnered from Barack Obama's flowery speeches, but the kind of hope that comes from the citizens of this country, and indeed the world, engaging in physical actions against the morally, ethically, politically, economically, and spiritually bankrupt Democratic and Republican Parties of the United States. 

A Few Thoughts on the Current Economic Debate in America

There is something missing from the current economic debate in this country.  Well, to be honest, there are many things missing, but let's just start with the big one.  We don't make anything in America except cars and cookie-cutter housing developments.  Virtually everything else that Americans rely on, are hooked on, and mindlessly desire are all made in foreign countries.  Meanwhile, President Obama keeps talking about the need to create more jobs.  In the words of Matias Vernengo: "Somebody should tell the president that one of the main reasons firms innovate is because they expect people to buy their goods, and that requires demand expansion. And education is certainly better than ignorance, but people with diplomas may not find jobs, which must be created by an expansion in demand."  In other words, if people don't have buying power, companies don't have production power.  So even if the government began to invest like crazy in all kinds of new industries, jobs might be created, but they all might as well be temp jobs, because there would be nobody to buy the things we are making.  At least not when the tax rates on the poorest among us are rising and falling for those at the top.  

Just once I'd like someone in government, on either side of the political spectrum, to admit that we, as a country, really screwed the pooch when we allowed the Clinton Administration and the rest of the neoliberal money worshipers to dupe the American people into believing the concept of "free trade".  The myth of free trade ruined what little manufacturing base we had left in America after the Reagan Administration (remember him?) got done with it's carnage.

The current debate about how best to rescue America from itself should not be absent of the importance of demand.  Furthermore, we should be honest with ourselves about what we actually need in our lives.  It's as much a behavioral issue as it is a economics issue.  Perhaps we don't want to get into the business of making electric coffeemakers or computer mouses, but things like clothes, building materials, and all other sorts of items we actually need in our daily lives could be more readily produced here.  And it stands to reason that these items could be produced by workers being paid a family-supporting wage, at factories that are sustainable and efficient.  That is where some steep government investment could really come in handy, while also creating demand in the marketplace.

What we need is not just jobs, but to end what Vernango calls "the war on demand".  Even a pot-smoking socialist like me can see the use of supply and demand.  Let's just get rid of the concept of free trade and free markets, because anyone with a modicum of sense knows it's a farce.

It's Capitalism, Stupid.

IT'S CAPITALISM, STUPID.

Christopher Robin Cox

     During Bill Clinton's Presidential campaign against George H.W. Bush in 1992, he spoke the now infamous words “It's the economy, stupid,” to a gaggle of media all desperate for a new buzz phrase. I even caught myself using it every so often, during some dope-induced debate with other twenty-somethings who, like me, didn't know jack about socioeconomics in the United States. Eighteen years later, it has become clear to me how misleading, and maybe even propagandist, that statement was. But the truth would have made a lot of cherished and charismatic people look buffoonish.
     It is not, nor has it ever been, the economy that leads us to wars of occupation in the Middle East. It is not the economy that makes our government support dictators around the world, even when there are internationally recognized citizen-led movements in opposition to those leaders. It was not the economy that made our CIA go into Central America and wreck havoc that still rages today. It is not the economy that gives us cause to instigate coup d'etats against democratically elected leaders like Chavez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, and Correra in Ecuador. It is not the economy that causes us to make budget cuts to the social programs that offer a basic standard of living to the least among us. It was, and has always been, capitalism at the root of these disastrous decisions.
     By definition, the economy is nothing more than the overall collection of inter-related economic production and consumption activities which aid in determining how resources are allocated in a given geographical location. Capitalism is the engine of our economy, and like the proverbial gas-guzzling engine of an oversized American car, the brand of capitalism we are using today is antiquated at best. At worst, it's inhumane and criminal.
     An economic system based primarily on competition as the main determining factor in the distribution of wealth, posses inherent savage inequalities. The artists, writers, thinkers, and all others who care first about their craft, are essentially left in the position of hoping to be in the small minority who “make it”. Along with the craftsman and thinkers, those who have physical or psychological conditions that limit their competitive participation are left behind as well, for they can not possibly turn a profit. Of course, the vicious bulls of capitalism will surely charge on. And they will say, regardless of physical or psychological condition, that every person is free to pursue their heart's content in America.
     Imagine for a moment what would happen if there were to be an open-ended public debate in this country about the real-life characteristics of capitalism, aired freely to all Americans, with participants from all around the world invited. That debate, if done objectively, would lead to a revolutionary change in the way Americans view themselves and their role in humanity. It would also separate out those who are on the side of pure, unfettered competition as the best method of achieving the highest good for the most people, versus those who are on the side of first providing for the least among us; a distinction that ought to be made in a country that posses the largest separation between rich and poor in the industrialized world.

Capitalism, along with its inherent misconceptions, is the most counter-revolutionary and conservative force in America. In the words of Andy Grove, ex-CEO of Intel, “The goal of the new capitalism is to shoot the wounded.” The American people are lying upon the ground in anguish, and it is the boot heel of capitalism that is keeping them there. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the best system that has been tried. It is the system that is most preferred among the world's most corrupt and powerful elite.
     Hitler was a capitalist. He called it "National Socialism.” In Nazi Germany, the means of production was solely owned by private corporations and individuals, who ultimately had to answer to the Nazi Party. This is not an assertion that the American government resembles the Nazi Party of World War II Germany; it is one that points out the simple truth that the engine driving the American economy is exactly the same as that which drove the economy of Nazi Germany.

     To Mr. Clinton I say, it's capitalism, stupid. What we need in America is a lot less of Bill Clinton's entertaining, but misguided concepts, and a lot more debate about the soul of America, and what we stand for as a people. The engine of our economy needs to be methodically dismantled, piece by piece, so that it can be rebuilt by the people.