What was it? Big parts of it have been there all along: it’s called socialism. Or, for those who freak out at the word, like Americans or international capitalist success stories reacting allergically to that word, call is public utility districts. They are almost the same thing. Public ownership of the necessities, so that these are provided as human rights and as public goods, in a not-for-profit way. The necessities are food, water, shelter, all are public goods, all are never to be subjected to appropriation, exploitation, and profit. It’s as simple as that.
Democracy is also good, but again, for those who think this word is just a cover for oligarchy and Western imperialism, let’s call it real political representation. Do you feel you have real political representation? Probably not, but even if you feel you have some, it’s probably feeling pretty compromised at best. So: public ownership of the necessities, and real political representation. — “The Ministry For the Future” Kim Stanley Robinson
1.
I saw a Facebook post last week claiming that Democrats and Republicans are the same as they are both owned and ruled by corporations. True? False?
First I’d like to address the corporation idea. In this context, a corporation is portrayed as an evil entity that is only out to manipulate the masses using DARK money funneled into lawmaker’s pockets for nefarious purposes. Would that be Safeway? Maybe Ross Dress for Less? Could be Exxon, I suppose. ALL politicians accept money from various sources, PACs, and corporations. But consider how tied we ALL are to the corporate world. Pretty much your entire existence: vehicles, gasoline, electricity, other utilities, clothing, cell phones, TV streaming, TVs, guns, furniture (unless you make your own but I know you didn’t cut and mill your own damn wood), groceries, computers, paint, chocolate, university education, mortgages, other loans, most banks, healthcare, insurance, on & on…to separate our culture from the corporate world would require a total reboot.
Then there’s the BOTHSIDER argument, ironically encouraging the very dysfunction it condemns. It’s a statement of despair and dishonesty. I hope the people with no view, who are ‘impartial,’ enjoy their lofty view above everyone else. Air’s a bit thin, however. I mean, why bother to make a good-faith attempt to participate in governance at all if any failure to reach agreement will be blamed on "both sides" by a herd of political illiterates?
There are countless examples of the Right’s rejection of the responsibilities of governance. Witness this week alone how, according to Heather Cox Richardson, House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is having to grapple with the difference between the rhetoric that fires up the Republican base and the reality of governance. McCarthy, who is hamstrung due to his deals with the devil, seems to be trying to tie together the debt ceiling issue with balancing the budget. But this argument mixed together two separate things: the debt ceiling, which must be lifted to enable the government to pay for money already appropriated, and the budget, which is a plan for spending money in the future. Raising the debt ceiling is about protecting the country’s financial health, and refusing to lift it would throw the country—and possibly the world—into economic chaos. Negotiating over the budget is…normal. McCarthy is continuing to try to tumble these two things together, demanding cuts to federal spending before he will agree to raise the debt ceiling. (More on the debt ceiling in number three below)
Only one side that I know of has elected lawmakers who sabotage the government on purpose to gain political and economic advantage. Especially the newer crop of election-denying, abortion-hating extremists who do nothing constructive for the average American. Witness Marjorie Taylor Greene’s HR407: A BILL To prohibit the use of Federal funds to implement Executive order relating to reproductive health services. And the ludicrous HR570: To prohibit the award of Federal funds to schools that promote certain race-based theories to students, and for other purposes. Check out her other bills in the link…all just BS. And, from Politico, Republicans will start laying the groundwork on two tracks this week to potentially impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the border — a historically rare step that hasn’t been used against a Cabinet member since 1876. Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who would lead any impeachment inquiry, is holding what he promises will be the first in a series of hearings on the border on Wednesday, while Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) plans to launch his own opening salvo next week. And while one group of Republicans prepares to make their case, another is ready to start impeachment immediately. The House GOP’s right flank has already filed an impeachment resolution and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) is now circulating his own proposal. Meanwhile, centrists are warning they aren’t on board and recent polls have suggested the public is wary of an excessive focus on investigations.
Much of this has come about from over three decades of right wing talk radio hammered day and night into the tiny brains of the average Goober who laps it up, hate and all. Now, these are the people who have landed in the hen house, and who, incidentally, were ‘partying’ in DC on January 6th, 2021. (Daniel Caldwell, a 51-year-old Marine Corps veteran, delivered a tearful apology in court to the officers he sprayed with a chemical irritant, expressing remorse for his actions that day, as U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him Wednesday to 68 months in prison. “You’re entitled to your political views but not to an insurrection,” the judge said. “You were an insurrectionist.”) In that spirit, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted along party lines to remove Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from her seat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. And House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) used his own discretion to remove Democratic California representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the House Select Committee on Intelligence. At the same time, McCarthy reinstated Representatives Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to prime committee assignments.
I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: I live in a society that essentially runs on a two party system. I align myself with the Democratic party (the dreaded liberals) because I enjoy certain benefits that the government maintains and that I pay taxes on: roads, school systems, sewer systems, water pumped into my house, trash being hauled off, police and fire departments, national, state, and city parks, the Post Office, libraries, etc. Republicans are on record to dismantle the government, destroy Social Security, the EPA, OSHA, NASA, the Centers for Disease Control, the Dept. of Health and Human Services, Medicare, Health Care, collective bargaining rights, the right to vote, safety and health regulations, banking regulations, the EPA, the Department of Education…you get the idea. They also claim granting basic civil liberties to LGBT folks is an assault on their religion, oppose equal pay for women, are anti-minority, anti-science, and anti-worker. This is not ‘progressive’ opinion, these are goals, stated many times and put into legislation, and clearly reflected in votes, over many years, by Republican elected officials. The knife has already been taken to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and more recently the doing away with Roe v Wade as abortion rights have dwindled to zip in many states. Both sides? I don’t think so.
2.
And in keeping with the GOP’s tradition of attacking minorities and keeping everything gleamingly white (re: the removal of Ilhan Omar above), Gov. Ron DeSantis has directed the College Board to purge the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism. It ushered out some politically fraught topics, like Black Lives Matter, from the formal curriculum. Along with that, DeSantis has decided that courses in Western civilization would be mandated, diversity and equity programs would be eliminated, and the protections of tenure would be reduced.
DeSantis has appointed Christopher Rufo as a board member of the New College, who is best known for his activism against critical race theory, which he says "has pervaded every aspect of the federal government" and poses "an existential threat to the United States". Another new board member is Eddie Speir, who runs a Christian private school in Florida. He had recommended in a Substack posting before the meeting that the contracts of all the school’s faculty and staff be canceled. He verbally requested that his substack article “’Florida, Where Woke Goes to Die’ What Does It Mean?” be provided to the other Trustees as supporting material. Jesus Gawd.
This all seems to be tied to the gullible who believe in Conservative Christianity (not a blanket condemnation of those who are Christian…I say follow your muse). As my political mentor Mike Finnigan (RIP) penned several years back, Conservative Christianity in America is less a religion and more of a secret handshake, a group signifier of exclusion and moral superiority. Its swaggering and patriarchal cruelty is at once its greatest weakness and most attractive feature for working class white people who have seen their lifestyles greatly diminished over the past thirty five years. It’s a powerful and toxic stew that is about as relevant to Jesus as professional wrestling.
3.
The DEBT CEILING!! Most TeeVee news will have us trembling at the thought! Check out this bit between CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf and Robert Hockett, a law professor at Cornell University who specializes in public finance and consults for the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Thanks to Dan Sorenson for bringing this interview to my attention. Click here for the full enchilada.
WOLF: You’re saying not to worry about the debt, but do you agree with the commonly held belief that the safety net programs and government spending are currently on an unsustainable path? I think that’s a bipartisan view.
HOCKETT: I don’t think that that’s a bipartisan view. And I don’t think that that’s actually a serious issue. I think the only reason that has been talked about, at this point, is simply a matter of politics. It’s because of who has taken control of the House. They find political hay can be made by talking about that. But of course, if you ask any of them what they actually want to cut, only a few crazies will talk about looking at Social Security or other programs that are not discretionary budget items. And so then, if you ask them all, ‘What would you cut?’ They come up short; they don’t really have any answer for you. Government reports have said debt is unsustainable.
WOLF: But we’ve had bipartisan panels – I’m thinking of the Simpson-Bowles Commission some years ago. Every year, the Treasury Department puts out a financial statement for the US government – under Republican and Democratic presidents – that essentially says things are unsustainable. That the government pays more than it brings in and that it’s a cause for concern.
HOCKETT: That would be a concern if we knew that there was some sort of ceiling, some non-artificial ceiling, some natural ceiling to how much federal debt there could be. But nobody seems to have any idea as to what that “natural ceiling” might be. The other thing that’s maybe worth bearing in mind is that a lot of the legislation that’s been passed over the last year is designed to restore the productive capacity in this country that we outsourced over the last 30 years. As productive capacity comes back and the US economy begins growing at a robust rate again, that’s of course going to grow the size of the GDP quite rapidly. And then the debt will shrink as a proportion of that. And that’s always been the way it’s been historically. Any time that the deficit has been channeled in productive directions, the national economy has grown very rapidly, and then debt has shrunk as a percentage of the national debt. Don’t cut; spend!
WOLF: It sounds to me like you’re arguing the government should be spending a lot more money, not a lot less.
HOCKETT: Depending on what it spends it on, yes. Insofar as more can be spent to speed up the rate of the green transition and to speed up the rate at which the US reindustrializes in the industries of tomorrow, rather than in the industries of yesterday, then yeah, I think that would be money very well spent. It’s worth noting also that there was a time in the past when private sector capital expenditures were productive as well. But over the last 30 years or so, as the economy has increasingly financialized, most deployments of private capital seem to be really speculative. That is to say they’re blown on the secondary financial markets and the tertiary derivatives markets. Those just stoke inflation in the asset markets. They don’t actually bring about greater productive capacity or greater production or greater employment. For that reason, I think that the federal role has to be bigger in investment than it used to have to be. Debt to create industry is money well spent.
4.
I attended my 2nd Borderlands Adventure Club outing yesterday led by Sunday Sessions regular Kirk Astroth (M.A. UArizona, 2020) who, among other things, is an avid mountain biker and is acting board vice-president of the Sonoran Desert Mountain Bicyclists. He has also recorded petroglyph locations across the southwest. I don’t consider myself a hardy outdoorsman by any stretch—more of the ‘let’s go to the Doll Hospital’ type—but I enjoy the companionship of these outings. We had lunch at the Sus Picnic Area in Saguaro National Park’s west end just NW of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Attending were Kirk Astroth, Colleen Kelly, Ruth Cañamar, Deejay Bailey, Judy Browder, Karl Hoffmann, Sandy Benson, Tom Anderson, Mary Finn, Leslie Freed, Jana Miller Sweets, Jennifer Ann North, and Kristi Brennan. (Missing due to illness or other obligations were Jeff Jennings, Kim Kreutzer, Patti Bell, Connie Colbert, Kim and Tina Warner, and Tana Kappel) Apologies to anyone I left out…
And now…