When things are not going well, until you get the truth out on the table, no matter how ugly, you are not in a position to deal with it. — Bob Seelert, Chairman, Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide (New York), 2009
A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry. – Thomas Jefferson, circa 1776
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. — James Madison, circa 1776
The truth at any cost reduces all others costs. — Robert Steele, 2010
In recent years, months, weeks, and days the confrontational convergence of 2012 has emerged with startling clarity. The key negative trends are these:
In short, the horror story collapses as soon as anyone gives it any serious thought. The Wall Street gang can hardly be faulted for trying cheap scare tactics for pushing its agenda; after all it worked so brilliantly with the TARP two years ago. At the time the plot line was that unless we immediately gave all our money to the Wall Street banks, with no questions asked, then the whole economy would collapse.
Joseph Stiglitz outlines a very sensible approach for placing the United States on a pathway toward correcting the problems paralyzing our political economy. Of course, his ideas will never be seriously considered by the let-them-eat-cake oligarchs now running Versailles on the Potomac, because to put this plan into action, someone must smash the Hall of Mirrors that is distorting what passes for reality in our collective OODA Loops. CS<
A five-part plan to cut the deficit, narrow inequality, and strengthen the economy—and why special interests would block it.
By Joseph E. Stiglitz, Slate, Monday, Dec. 6, 2010
Technically, reducing a deficit is a straightforward matter: One must either cut expenditures or raise taxes. It is already clear, however, that the deficit-reduction agenda, at least in the United States, goes further: It is an attempt to weaken social protections, reduce the progressivity of the tax system, and shrink the role and size of government— all while leaving established interests, like the military-industrial complex, as little-affected as possible.
Precis: history includes massive increase in defense expenditures, growth in inequality, underinvestment in public sector including infrastructure, and growth in corporate welfare. Remediation demands increased spending on high-return public investments, cut in military expenditures “not just funding for the fruitless wars, but also for the weapons that don't work against enemies that don't exist;” eliminate corporate welfare; create a fairer and more efficient tax system; 5% increase in taxes actually paod (focus on top 1%).
Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is University Professor at Columbia University. The paperback version of his latest book, Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy,with a new afterword, was published in October.
Phi Beta Iota: The Deficit Commission has not produced any supporting documentation. The public intelligence available, of which the above is a small sample, is overwhelming in suggesting that the deficit commission is a criminal fraud being perpetuated on the American public. Wall Street and the two-party tyranny appear to believe that the public is both stupid and permanently inert, and that they can get away with this. Time will tell. We condemn it–and note that Joseph Stiglitz was appointed Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Virtual Cabinet at Huffington Post. We trust him.
Sudan: Sudanese media broadcast the following decree on Monday.
Marshal Umer Hassan Al-Bashir the President of the Republic, the president of the National Congress Party has authorized the state governors to expel NGOs and persons that do not respect the country's sovereignty, work guidelines within 24 hours. He added we respect the NGOs that come to assist us and we reject whoever intends to control us. He indicated that some NGOs have spread rumors that they work in Sudan without the need of the government approvals. He directed the governors to expel the NGOs that do not adhere to their authorities on the same day.
NIGHTWATCH Comment: The government in Khartoum remains highly suspicious of western aid organizations that it suspects of encouraging separatism in Darfur and the South. This decree is a manifestation of that suspicion because it mentions rumor mongering. A government has a right to control foreigners without further justification. Odd behavior…
Phi Beta Iota: This is the beginning of the end for predatory NGO's including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and of course all the religious NGOs and the corporate pseudo-NGOs. They have lost all trust for a good reason. On the one hand, they have been spending less than 10% of what they have collected under the various guises (Katrina, Haiti, etcetera) and on the other they are now demonstrably untrustworthy and ineffective. The next big step forward will be hybrid arrangements in which public intelligence both validates every move, every expense, every bona fides, and harmonizes a diversity of efforts toward a common publicly-appraised and accepted purpose.
EXTRACT: The basic platform for such a candidate is clear: Unequivocally call for an immediate end to the presence of U.S. troops, advisers and private U.S.-based security firms in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, and replace the “war on terror” with a Global Marshall Plan that roots homeland security in a strategy of generosity and concern for the well-being of everyone on the planet. Domestically, call for a massive jobs program; a freeze on mortgage foreclosures; a national bank that would offer interest-free loans to those seeking to create or expand small businesses; immediate implementation of the parts of the Obama health-care plan that would benefit ordinary citizens and build support for a health plan for all citizens; dramatically lower prices for drugs that treat critical diseases such as AIDS and cancer; a strong tax on carbon emissions; and immediate prosecution of those government employees involved in torture or coverups to justify the invasion of Iraq.
This candidate should push for the media to provide free and equal time to all major candidates for national office as well as for constitutional amendments requiring only public financing in elections and, separately, for corporations to prove every five years to a jury of ordinary citizens that they have a satisfactory history of environmental responsibility (as is sought by the Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment, or ESRA, advocated by the Network of Spiritual Progressives).
This policy platform must be matched with a willingness to talk clearly about the spiritual and ethical need for a new bottom line – one of love, kindness and generosity. We need a progressive push for a new New Deal, which in the 21st century could be the Caring Society: “Caring for Each Other and the Earth.”
EXTRACT: It's time to consider that the president accepts centrist and conservative policies because he himself is a centrist or conservative. This does not mean that President Obama is a Republican, or anything close to a Republican. The Republican Party is not conservative, it is extremist. But as the Republican Party has drifted farther and farther to the fringe, much of the establishment Democratic Party has intrepidly moved into the ideological space the Republican Party abandoned. The Republicans lead this movement to the right, and the Democrats follow, taking the political center with them and leaving the traditional left ever more disenfranchised, disenchanted, and politically alienated. The problem with Barack Obama isn't that he is worse than establishment Village Democrats, the problem is that he is one of them.
EXTRACT: Last February, writing about the health care reform meltdown, Glenn Greenwald offered a theory:
The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it.
Phi Beta Iota: The first article, written by the author of The Left Hand of God–Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right, misses the key point: Barack Obama is a bought and paid for member of the club who takes his guidance from Vernon Jordan, Colin Powell, and a handful of other members of the club. He did not spend $750 million ($300 million still unaccounted for) to become our President, he took it to solidify his status and earn his retirement as their representative…four more years. The second piece gets closer to the truth–inter-changeable villains, all a charade–musical chairs, lights, camara, and no action in the public interest. What interests us is that Barack Obama has a choice, such as we have written about at the Huffington Post, and he can Change the Game, such as Tom Atlee has written about. He probably will not, and already we see fraudulent organizations with hidden agendas and secret sources of funding (No Labels, America Elects, IndependentVoting.org) all intent of protecting the status quo by putting forward yet another candidate who is Of Wall Street but just different enough to fool enough of the people enough of the time to buy Wall Street four more years. ENOUGH! There is one litmus test, and what Barack Obama has going for him is that he has right of first refusal: Electoral Reform. Electoral Reform introduced upon the inauguration of the new Congress, with a roll call vote demanded and televised, would end these decades of carpet-bagging and war-profiteering, and give us a government BETTER than any wwe have had since Jack Kennedy–a government Of, By, and For We the People, in which all voters are connected with all relevant information and policies are evidence-based and in the context of a balanced budget. Show us that, and we will show you the first great President of the 21st Century.
EXTRACT: Some of the same people who warned of the looming subprime crisis two years ago are ringing alarm bells again. Their message: Not just small towns or dying Rust Belt cities, but also large states like Illinois and California are increasingly at risk.
EXTRACT: As the downturn has ground on, some of the worst-hit cities and states have resorted to fiscal sleight of hand to stay afloat, helping them close yawning budget gaps each year, but often at great future cost.
EXTRACT: It is these growing hidden debts that make many analysts nervous. States and municipalities currently have around $2.8 trillion worth of outstanding bonds, but that number is dwarfed by the debts that many are carrying off their books.
Phi Beta Iota: It merits observation that the states have not lacked for integrity as much as for insight and intelligence–they literally have made many bad, uninformed decisions, ignorant of the “true costs” of those decisions. The need for public intelligence extends to all elements of all governments at all levels, not only to the public itself. Informed governance, not just self-governance and structured governance, but hybrid governance, will be the mindset breakthrough of the 21st Century.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, had moved 37 times by the time he reached his 14th birthday. His mother didn’t enroll him in the local schools because, as Raffi Khatchadourian wrote in a New Yorker profile, she feared “that formal education would inculcate an unhealthy respect for authority.”
. . . . . . .
She needn’t have worried. As a young computer hacker, he formed a group called International Subversives. As an adult, he wrote “Conspiracy as Governance,” a pseudo-intellectual online diatribe. He talks of vast “patronage networks” that constrain the human spirit.
Far from respecting authority, Assange seems to be an old-fashioned anarchist who believes that all ruling institutions are corrupt and public pronouncements are lies.
Phi Beta Iota: We like David Brooks. He's less submissive than David Ignatius, less pretentious than Fareed Zakaria, and generally has something interesting to say. In this piece, most revealingly, he displays his limitations to the fullest. We are quite certain that David Brooks means well, but the depth of his naivete in this piece is nothing short of astonishing. The below lists of lists of book reviews will suffice to demonstrate that David Brooks is not as well-read as he needs to be, not as intellectual as he pretends to be, and not at all accurate in his assessment of Julian Assange. We share with Steven Aftergood of Federation of American Scientists (FAS) concerns about Assange's judgment in releasing some materials that are gratuitous invasions of rightful privacy, but we also believe that Assange is finding his groove, and the recent cover story in Forbes captures that essence. WikiLeaks is an antidote to corporate fascism and elective Empire run amok. It meets a need.
Where’s the evidence to back up the fear mongering? A challenge to the Fiscal Commission’s report.
James K. Galbraith
James K. Galbraith is General Editor of “Galbraith: The Affluent Society and Other Writings, 1952-1967,” just published by Library of America. He teaches at The University of Texas at Austin.
The report of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, issued on December 1, 2010 by Chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, is entitled “The Moment of Truth.” The words appear in block caps on the second page, weighty and portentous. They reappear in the first paragraph of the preamble:
EXTRACT: These sentences set the tone. The first is a bald-faced lie, as a Westerner like Senator Simpson knows perfectly well. To the contrary, we have often fallen under the sway of robber barons, water barons, oil barons, bison-killers, clear-cutters and strip-miners, hell-bent on maximum pillage in the shortest time. Only occasionally have a few heroes like Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot and Harold Ickes Sr. emerged to battle for the most precious physical elements of our heritage — and then only with limited success.
EXTRACT: Noticeably missing from the Commission’s plan are measures that would fall on the “leaders” themselves. The very richest pay cash for their houses. The commission would reduce, not increase, marginal income tax rates. There is no suggestion of a financial transactions tax.
EXTRACT: “…we spent the past eight months studying the same cold, hard facts. Together, we have reached these unavoidable conclusions. The problem is real. The solution will be painful. There is no easy way out. And Washington must lead.”
The reference to “studying” is suggestive. Are there any studies? White papers? Background analyses? Normally, one might expect a commission to produce some. In this case, it did not. The Commission’s web site makes no mention of any such thing.
Phi Beta Iota: The most important point in our view is that there are no studies to back up the hyperbole and the recommendations, at the same time that it is clear the deficit reductions are Of, By, and For Wall Street, not We the People. The White House and Congress continue to offer the public theater of the most absurd kind, lacking in all substance and assuredly not in the public interest.
