Palin Makes Fun of Hope and Change

At a recent Pitty Potty Tea Party rally Sarah Palin mocking President Obama in her gum chewing breezy glib way said:  "How is that hopey changey thing workin out for yah?"  Is Ms Palin capable of using correct English?  Anyway,... thank you Sarah now I realise what you and the tea party are all about.  You have abandoned the hope of modernity that each day can be better than the day before, and that we can make the world a better place for everyone.  It is the cynicism of Fox News and the usually fellow travellers of doom, gloom, and despair having given up hope.  This was a remarkable revelation for me.

We have been indoctrinated through civics classes (do we even teach that any more?) that America is a place where you can make it, where you have a chance, and where hard work pays off.  Even Ronald Reagan believed that. It was not too bad of a social construct!  It provided the conscious of the civil rights movement and the women's movement.   The current bunch of hard core conservatives do not believe that stuff anymore..

The current tide of conservatism is cynical, greedy, and has turned its back on American values instead embracing some kind of Christian capitalism, Ayn Rand philosophy of the damned.  I opposed Ronald Reagan on some issues but I NEVER doubted his optimism.  He was many things but not a cynic. 

Our current struggle is not with communism, Islam, or any of that stuff.  It is much more insidious and much more powerful.  It is materialism. We have drank that hemlock.  Is it a fatal dose?

Cadillac Health Plans and Splitting the Democratic Alliance

President Obama was elected because he manged to create an alliance of voters who might otherwise have strayed into the independent and Republican camps.  These are marginal voters who often swing elections and they are incredibly difficult to define before-the-fact (as during an election or as an event is unfolding) since they are swayed by fractional micro-issues of an  uncertain pattern or logic.  One example would be a very liberal person who is adamantly against any kind of abortion, or conversely a very conservative person who was for gay marriage.  Yet, those examples are more broad and predictable than what I am talking about. Obama won his election on the margins and inevitably those margins are too fragile to hold up under the stress of a volatile political environment with as much polarization as ours has. Complicating this issue is that the Republicans have utilized a scorched earth approach as to dealing with Obama with a profound inclination to disavow any legislation he proffers just because of it's pedigree. Now the Republicans are exploiting a fundamental weakness in Obama's support by working stealthily to alienate labor from the administration. It is an opportunistic work of genius worthy of that archdemon Karl Rove. The exquisitely  ironic part of the whole debacle is that President Obama is doing the heavy lifting.  The conservatives are just setting back reaping the benefits regardless of the outcome.  The damage will have been done.

One of the pillars of organized labor has been to secure for its members good, no great, health care benefits.  Labor has even given up wage increases and other benefits for better health care coverage.  Desperately seeking a middle way to help the health care reform initiative pass the remaining hurdles the idea of taxing Cadillac health care benefits (see the excellent explanatory article by Slate:  http://www.slate.com/id/2232434/) has gained significant purchase.  Time magazine has a pretty good article explaining the basics of that strategy as well as their disapproval of it:  http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1913147,00.html

Is it a good idea to initiate some kind of tax on the so called Cadillac health care plans?  I do not know.  I do know though that it creates some animosity between organized labor and the Obama administration.  Even if labor leadership decides to stand with Obama on this emotional issue will the fabled "rank and file" stand?  Isn't it strange and disconcerting how all issues are now emotional as if our whole society has the mentality of an immature adolescent? An emo?  I think I liked hip hop better because I can not stand whining.  Think about it, Rush Limbaugh is more emo than hip-hop.

Obama will probably get his health care reform. Unfortunately in our current system of spite and animosity there is the very real danger of it being a Golem with no soul. Keep in mind that in Hebrew golem has the literal meaning of a shapeless mass.

Health care reform has turned into a conflict between those that have (no matter how little they have), and those who have nothing.  Those who have even a little bit have been cleverly convinced that health care reform is the hellish vision of a Muslim president who is not even a citizen out to destroy us all with the contradictory swords of Islam and socialism.  So, relax, turn on Fox and make a list of how illegal aliens (code for anyone who is Hispanic, gay, or well,... just different than you the pure blooded American) is ruining this country.  In the end you get exactly the government you deserve despite the efforts of those who would like to salvage some decency out of the ignorant morass we have become.  If  you are lucky there may even be a tea party within driving distance this Sunday after church.

Here is the problem with health care:  It costs money.  Even bad health care costs a lot of money.  Providing health care at any level is exponentially more expensive than a can of beans and a bag of rice and arguably we are not doing such a great job of even feeding the hungry.  So it is no surprise we are not willing to pay for their visit to the doctor.  In the end, health care reform is really about sharing the cost and anything that does not promote rank selfishness, requiring us to help others, is called socialism.  It is sad to see that we are a country that is more committed to the principles of Ayn Rand than Judeo-Christian values.  When Cain killed Able he haughtily  asked God "am I my brothers keeper?"  In American we are increasingly answering that question with a resounding "NO."

Capitalism: A Love Story

 Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:
       I saw the tears of the oppressed—
       and they have no comforter;
       power was on the side of their oppressors—
       and they have no comforter.(Ecclesiastes 4:1)

Michael Moore's latest movie, Capitalism:  A Love Story, is truth telling at the highest level.  For years I have said that capitalism in America has run amuck, running about in a murderous frenzy, trampling the vast majority of the American People.  We are the pawns, or rather the peasants, deluded thinking we are living in some kind of capitalist utopia. Capitalism in and of itself is neither good nor evil - it just is.  It is an economic tool that can be used for the good of the people or for the good of the top 1% who unfortunately do run this country now. As a citizen you have been voted out of office my friend.   Right now capitalism is good for the top 1%. (roughly 100,000 families) and bad for everyone else.  Very good for them, and getting better.

What is puzzling about all this is that through a well financed propaganda program, and the restructuring of laws and courts, that the elite has been able to convince the middle class (and even the poor) to do the heavy lifting for them.  Why that happens was the question behind the book What's the Matter with Kansas?  The current Tea Party movement is certainly right wing reactionary but it has several things right.  For one, it conveys a sense that somehow we are getting screwed over, and those who have been elected to look out after our best interest are instead lining their pockets.  With disturbingly few exceptions that is true. The other is that the movement is against the bailout which is the biggest con game ever perpetrated on the American people and a crime so large in magnitude that it makes Berny Madoff look like a jay walker.  I think the movement is wrong on health care though and a few other issues.  But, the Tea Party movement is a populist movement and populist movements tend to have real good ideas stained with bigotry.  Just one example of that is the Know Nothings which were anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic, but otherwise did have a real agenda for reform.

What happened?  It used to be that we put people first.  Help people and all good will flow from that.  Even the Republicans believed that.  That got turned around to where we now bow to the god of market capitalism, a religion created by the elite, and declare that our duty is to help, preserve, and coddle capital interest.  If we do not protect business, which certainly is not in the business of protecting you, with our own money then something "bad" will happen.  What is so darn fascinating about that is that many people without a pot to piss in, and many who are heavily in debt maintaining a middle class facade, or the most avid worshipers at that alter.  But, I digress.

Our current religion is Utopian Capitalism.  Many churches give lip service to Jesus (who most decidedly was not a capitalist but someone with populist tendencies who believed in democracy) but in reality worship the modern day golden calf in the form of the dollar. Most of modern day Christianity has become a grotesque parody of what it once was.  I am not a Christian, I am Jewish, but I recognize much wisdom and beauty in authentic Christianity which is so now so rare it is in danger of extinction. Money has become an end in and of itself.  Even institutions of higher learning, churches, and other organizations which are pledged to help people are more interested in their own financial interest that there very purpose gets subverted. As modern capitalism has been allowed to run rampant democracy has suffered proportionately.  That is the point of Michael Moore's brilliant movie.

The major prophet of utopian capitalism was Ayn Rand.  Rand believed that we should all act selfishly in our own best interest rejecting any notion an obligation to help others.  She believed blindly in lazzi faire capitalism which paradoxically has the mystical belief in the invisible wise hand of the market regulating and making things alright.  And, this is important for you to know.  Among her many acolytes are Rush Limbaugh and Alan Greenspan,  So the next time you listen to ole Rush keep in mind that his philosophy according to the gospel of Ayn Rand (her term for it was Objectivism which is just about as weird as Scientology) is basically "I've got mine so screw you." 

One last thing.  Wake up to the fact that WalMart, GM, Citigroup, your health insurance carrier (if you are lucky to have one at least for now), or your local bank do not care about you or your family.  They are not your friends.  They are predators feeding on your hopes, dreams, and most of all your hard earned money and you my friend are the prey.

I started with a verse from Ecclesiastes and so it is perhaps a good idea to end with one too:

Whoever loves money never has money enough;
       whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.
       This too is meaningless.  (Ecclesiastes 5:10)