jollyroger's picture

    We interrupt this revolution for a brief (80yr) message from FDR--Now back to our originally scheduled programming

    DISCLAIMER: Casting about during a cash short period, I volunteered ($450) to have a PET scan as a control for an experiment involving serotonin receptor efficiency as it varies with depressive susceptibility.  Turns out that I am pathologically optimistic (150% of normal number of receptors).

    I share this bit of personal data so you will know that my analyses are profoundly tainted by the same sort of strategic defects that led Napoleon to invade Russia and Alexander to try and conquer Afghanistan.

    That said, let us turn to the headlong unravelling of the New Deal that is in train, (conductor in chief, one Barack Obama .)

    Recall the field of play in 1932, and for several years thereafter.  From no less a bastion of conservative commentary than Stanford's Hoover Institution, (and in the debut product of its digest.)

    With the coming of the Great Depression in the 1930s, a sharp increase in protest and anticapitalist sentiment threatened to undermine the existing political system and create new political parties. The findings of diverse opinion polls, as well as the electoral support given to local radical, progressive, and prolabor candidates, indicate that a large minority of Americans were ready to back social democratic proposals. It is significant, then, that even with the growth of class consciousness in America, no national third party was able to break the duopoly of the Democratic and Republican Parties. Radicals who operated within the two-party system were often able to achieve local victories, but these accomplishments never culminated in the creation of a sustainable third party or left-wing ideological movement. The thirties dramatically demonstrated not only the power of America’s coalitional two-party system to dissuade a national third party but also the deeply antistatist, individualistic character of its electorate.

    Powerful leftist third-party movements emerged in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New York. In other states, radicals successfully advanced alternative political movements by pursuing a strategy of running in major-party primaries. In California, Upton Sinclair, who had run as a Socialist for governor in 1932 and received 50,000 votes, organized the End Poverty in California (EPIC) movement, which won a majority in the 1934 Democratic gubernatorial primaries. He was defeated after a bitter business-financed campaign in the general election, though he secured more than 900,000 votes (37 percent of the total). By 1938, former EPIC leaders had captured the California governorship and a U.S. Senate seat.

    In Washington and Oregon, the Commonwealth Federations, patterning themselves after the social democratic Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of Canada, won a number of state and congressional posts and controlled the state Democratic Parties for several years. In North Dakota, the revived radical Nonpartisan League, still operating within the Republican Party, won the governorship, a U.S. Senate seat, and both congressional seats in 1932 and continued to win other elections throughout the decade. In Minnesota, the Farmer-Labor Party captured the governorship and five house seats. Wisconsin, too, witnessed an electorally powerful Progressive Party backed by the Socialists.

    The Socialist and Communist Parties grew substantially as well. In 1932 the Socialist Party had 15,000 members. Its electoral support, however, was much broader, as indicated by the 1932 presidential election, in which Norman Thomas received close to 900,000 votes, up from 267,000 in 1928. The Socialist Party’s membership had increased to 25,000 by 1935. As a result of leftist enthusiasm for President Roosevelt, however, its presidential vote declined to 188,000 in 1936, fewer votes than the party had attained in any presidential contest since 1900. The Communist Party, on the other hand, backed President Roosevelt from 1936 on, and its membership grew steadily, numbering between 80,000 and 90,000 at its high point in 1939. Communists played a role in “left center,” winning electoral coalitions in several states, notably California, Minnesota, New York, and Washington.The Socialist and Communist Parties grew substantially as well.

     

    Co-opting the Left

    If the Great Depression, with all its attendant effects, shifted national attitudes to the left, why was it that no strong radical movement committed itself to a third party during these years? A key part of the explanation was that President Roosevelt succeeded in including left-wing protest in his New Deal coalition. He used two basic tactics. First, he responded to the various outgroups by incorporating in his own rhetoric many of their demands. Second, he absorbed the leaders of these groups into his following. These reflected conscious efforts to undercut left-wing radicals and thus to preserve capitalism.

     

    The authors go on to discuss the many ways in which the ameliorative impact of the New Deal defused the seething alienation inevitably wrought by staggering income inequality and grinding political oppression (eg, MacArthur's march on the bonus marchers...).

    Now we have come to a turning point in that amelioration, and it appears the ruling class has decided it was a bunch of chumps to permit the few vagrant crumbs of social justice to tumble from their plate.

    So it is that from my diseased, overamped and excessively serotonin stimulated forebrain, I offer a bit of progressive optimism.

    The Revolution is not dead--it was merely sedated--an intentional coma, if you will.

    The doctors have apparently gone off on some sort of drunken frolic, perhaps an orgy with the nurses, perhaps fun and games with the enema bags, who knows?

    Bottom line--They have decided to undo the New Deal.

    To quote the best line ever from Wyatt Earp:  "You tell'em I'm coming, and hell's coming with me."

     

    CLASS WAR, Y'ALL!

     

    Comments

    Lordy.  Here we go again.  I could put a lot of words here, but I put them in my blog This Ain't 1936.  The basic jest here is that if we couldn't get a good old class war going back then when the average American was making poverty wages, we ain't going to get one when the average American is making middle class wages. 

    this was America workers when FDR took control

    and today.

    Most Americans don't want to get into any war.  They just want a slightly bigger piece of the pie, with the shot at being one of those who want to go to war against.


    Give the undoing some time. ( Don't be obtuse)

    Since we really don't have an example of there being an "undoing," I would say that we are going to have wait a long time.

    And don't see how I'm being obtuse.  In FDR's time we were a poor nation.  Thanks to the post WWII boom, we are now a middle class nation (although one might argue that the current state of things has moved us from upper middle class to lower middle class).


    Lower middle class = Seriously indebted working class, more working poor and more hopelessly unemployed.


    All true.  But it is still nothing compared with the conditions of working Americans just before the Depression hit.  Back then most didn't have any memory of the good old days.  They worked for low wages in awful conditions, just like their parents, and their parents parents, and the notion of upward mobility was not part of their reality.  When the depression hit, it was barely keeping a roof over one's head and food on the table to not being able to keep a roof over one's head and food on the table. 


    All true.  And not a useful mindset to adopt, or point of view to express, if one is a Democrat.  Or if one simply wants actions taken that stand some chance of getting this economy to a better place. 

    The Republicans next year know there is a lot of misery this economy is wreaking on people.  They will say they can do better, and they will say something--no matter how flawed, or ridiculous, or counter-productive--about how they intend to do that.  And they will win the votes of  many people Democrats believe "should" be voting for them, on that account, if their perception is a Democratic Administration hasn't done well enough on that matter and doesn't seem overly focused on it.  Or if they simply have an emotional sense or feeling that the Republican challenger cares more about people like them than does the incumbent.


    All true.  And talking about class warfare isn't going to make the struggling working class citizen to think you going to be bringing them a higher quality of life in the short-term.  They want to know how you going to help businesses become more productive and hire more people at good wages.  Not how you're going to overturn the entire economic system.


    Shared and sustainable prosperity does it for me. 

    I agree that "class warfare" and "populism" scare some voters, including many whose economic well-being would be better served by some of the policies advanced under those labels (or, more often, given those labels by people opposed to such policies who are trying to discredit them or scare people away from them).

    I don't know what you mean by "overturning the entire economic system".  I don't know who you think is actually proposing that.  A few academics and radical activists, maybe.  Who at present have no organized political following actively pursuing that agenda to my knowledge. 

    As opposed to some significant adjustments or correctives to the economic system which seem to me to be overdue and necessary in order for it to function in some way that works more broadly for the society.  Which in fact this country has done at times in its past.  So, please, no "accusations" of advocating utopia. 

    If one advocates only for policy changes that won't make any appreciable difference, on the grounds that only such policies can or could ever pass the current Congress, one has already in my view forfeited any chance of a politics that works for the country.  That doesn't mean there aren't presently doable policy changes at the margins that could help and should be adopted.  There are.  And of course they should be.  Some of them quietly are being adopted.

    It's just that a sole focus on what conventional wisdom says is doable in Congress at this time is I think a perspective that doesn't give our society any chance of getting where we need to go, even just to keep the country from collapsing, let alone doing better than that.


    The point of war is to crush your opponent so badly that they give you an unconditional surrender.  That is if your point isn't to utterly eliminate your opponent.  When someone throws around the phrase "class warfare," you can say that reasonable and effective economic policy and regulatory changes is part of the equation.

    It doesn't matter if one claims that the wealthy elites started it, by embracing the class warfare frame, one is advocating an us or them approach.  To "defeat" the economic ruling class means overturning the entire economic system, which is currently based implicitly on the right of a business to do whatever that business deems best for the bottom line.  Of course, there are some limits.  If a company wants to move its manufacturing operations to Mexico, that it is the company's right to do so, regardless of the impact on the community it is leaving (and there are some areas of Mexico that are doing very well right now in terms of increased industrial output).  If the company wants to just sit on its reserves and wait for a better time to hire or invest in expansion, that is its right, too.  

    The notion that the government can make a company do something against its wishes solely based on the idea that to do this or that would benefit society more broadly is not accepted as the way our economic system works.  And when people throw out class warfare as the ideal approach to our woes, it is this notion, I would argue, that sits in the back of their mind, if not the front.  We will defeat them and make them hire more people at better wages, etc etc etc. 

    And while I don't see people advocating for the utopia vision, it usually doesn't take very long after someone adopts the warfare mentality before one starts thinking that once we win, the rainbows and gumdrops for everyone will magically appear.


    So you oppose any forms of government regulation of business, if those regulations require companies to do things that are against their current wishes?


    That is not at all what I am saying.  Forming monopolies and fixing prices, dumping toxic waste into the public drinking water supply, engaging in insider trading, etc etc are all things one or more company would like to do, but the people, through the government, say no way no how.  If a practice is shown to be against the public interest in a significant way, then people have no problem with it.

    Now personally I would love to see a law in which the corporations can only pay their executive staff a certain percentage of overall salaries and bonuses, a law in which companies can't lay off workers while giving the CEO a bonus and increase in salary.  But this level of government intrusion goes against the grain of the general sentiment of what is appropriate.  Try and pass a law that allows the government the power to decide whether a company can relocate or not, and see what kind of public support you get.

    Stepping into regulate and control business by government bureaucracies is something that has to be done with care.  The ease with which the conservative elements can use the line "they are the job creators" exemplifies what I am talking about.  In other words, people don't get as upset about private health insurance companies having death panels as they do with government having them.


     goes against the grain of the general sentiment of what is appropriate.

     

    With reference to the proposal that bank execs of institutions who were sucking at the Fed tit durng the meltdown, there was widespread agreement that bonuses and salaries should be capped (except among bank execs...) and when they slithered out from under Barofsky's eagle eye, it was (properly)  held against the Obama admin.


    Gee looking back on everything on this blog I didn't see where this was limited to the banks which took federal funds.  But I guess we could say that maybe 90% of the people laid off by a corporation while the CEO and other executives received bonuses and raises were working for a bank.  Okay enough snark again. 

    The point here is that those banks make up only a tiny fraction of the corporations involved in the economic elite.  They are definitely some of the wealthiest and wield considerable power.  But if we are going to address the gap between the workers and the top dogs in terms of share of the profits, one is definitely going to have to venture beyond just handful of banks that received a bailout.  And it is that point, when Obama goes to Walmart, Exxon, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, GE, Berskhire Hathaway, and so on and dictates what the CEO, CFO, CKO, and all the Os, can make is when you are going to see some serious pushback from your average citizen, where it goes against the general belief in Freedom and Liberty - which includes the right to make as much money as one can.


    To "defeat" the economic ruling class means overturning the entire economic system, which is currently based implicitly on the right of a business to do whatever that business deems best for the bottom line. 

    I disagree with that, as implied by what I wrote elsewhere in this thread on being a conservative reformer who favors adjustments, like we've had in this country in the past, precisely to avoid the disarray that would accompany "overturning the entire economic system".   You seem to think the situation is all or nothing--either "they" win or "we" do.  That seems like a hopeless position to put oneself in.  On that way of thinking, one either surrenders, or must destroy an entire existing system, whatever the heck that means and whatever that might lead to, including having no idea what might replace it.  I don't think everything about our economic system is bad, by any means.  But it does need some significant adjustments, ones that I believe would leave it entirely recognizable to ordinary citizens.  Ones which very few of our economic and political elites are wise or enlightened enough to see the need for as serving their own longer-run, as well as the broader society's, needs and interests.  (There are a few.  John Bogle I see as an enlightened capitalist, for example.)

    I have zero attachment to embracing "class warfare" language, even though I believe that is exactly what is being waged against workers in this country at the moment by the economic, and increasingly, political establishments.  If the remedy to that requires avoiding use of that term, I have zero problem with that, really.  Use "shared and sustainable prosperity" instead, if that works better for you.     


    It is precisely because I don't believe it is "we" win or "they" win situation that I have such a problem with talking up the whole class warfare meme. 

    And we can get shared and sustainable prosperity by working together in incremental steps and a whole lot of work, including get some significant paradigm shifts in parts of the electorate.  We need to get to a point where people in Alabama or Kansas ask "where's our Bernie Sanders?"  

    And it's going to take some time, a lot of time. Shared and sustainable prosperity isn't going to happen overnight.  I would argue that we never got there in the first place, but were interrupted on the way there and now a taking a few steps back. 

    Now exactly what shared and sustainable prosperity means and looks like is a topic for a whole lot of blogs.  One of those topics: when we were enjoying our increasing standard of living, and not letting the developing countries that supported this increase without getting any share, really shared or sustainable?

    But getting back to the main point: we ain't going to move forward embracing the warfare glasses through which to view the world around us.


    shared and sustainable prosperity by working together in incremental steps 

     

    Excuse me while I hurl...


    you're excused. 

    but maybe you can give an example of when shared and sustainable prosperity was experienced by the people through an "overnight" intervention.  More specifically, where people engaged in class warfare and were able to bring about shared and sustainable prosperity with a quick and decisive victory in that war.


      an "overnight" intervention.

     

    Dingdingdingdingding--Straw Man Alert

     


    It ain't a strawman.  I think when someone turns to the troops and yells "charge!," the troops, in a class warfare scenario at least, have the right to ask "and what is the likelihood of success, sir?"

    You pretty much like most others who embrace this whole class warfare frame: you avoid like the dickens providing any examples of what victory looks like.  We get a lot of "they started it" and "we must fight back," and little else.

    The only thing tangible you provided was Congress passing increased tax rate.  What a sad little war you envision.


    what victory looks like

    National Health. Free education at all levels.  Good childcare, paid for by the state. 6 weeks a year of paid vacation.

    In short, France. (add in impossibly hot women, a bonus for your humble interlocutor...)


    Actually a more to the point question the troops should ask: "Uh, just what are we charging at?"


     what are we charging at?"

    A poltical system that thinks you remedy 9%+ unemployment with a balanced budget amendment.


     Are you prepared to argue with the same passion for the right to package toxic mortgages into securitized instruments of mass destruction, to institute foreclosures on the basis of forged and false documents, to cheat county recorders out of their transter taxes by way of MERS?

    Jus' askin'.


     a company wants to move its manufacturing operations to Mexico, that it is the company's right to do so,

    So it is, but do they also have a right do import duty free the products that they now make with Mexican labor, in Mexican environmental cess-pools, with Mexican labor law racketeering permits?

     

    Do the have a "right" to have the fruits of their search for ever cheaper wage slaves taxed at a beneficent rate as they continue to enjoy the protection of the US Army in the event the new host country decides to nationalize their scurvy asses?


     To "defeat" the economic ruling class means overturning the entire economic system,

    Oh, please...spare us the hyperbole.  It merely means a return to Eisenhower Marginal Rates.

    Do that, and the rest will follow.


    I think that economically this makes sense, but how does one achieve this politically when we can't even return to Clinton Marginal Rates?


    So what you saying is that by returning to the Eisenhower Marginal Rates, this in turn would put an end to their ability to package toxic mortgages into securitized instruments of mass destruction, to institute foreclosures on the basis of forged and false documents, to cheat county recorders out of their transter taxes by way of MERS, to import duty free the products that they now make with Mexican labor, in Mexican environmental cess-pools, with Mexican labor law racketeering permits, to have the fruits of their search for ever cheaper wage slaves taxed at a beneficent rate as they continue to enjoy the protection of the US Army in the event the new host country decides to nationalize their scurvy asses. 

    Yup, yesiree, now that I think about this deeply, returning to the Eisenhower Marginal Rates would indeed do all these things.  It would mean the people in the trenches would be able to dictate to the those in the board rooms how much they pay their CEO, it would...

    enough snark for now. 

    And for the record - I am not for the rights of the corporations to do these things which you mentioned. Rather, I am merely describing the fundamental paradigm present in the people of this country, the voters which makes it difficult for the government to intervene at a level that would enable to government to effectively put an end to such practices. 

    It is doable but it can't be done overnight, not just because of the corrupt politicians, but because there are too many People out there in the trenches that would balk at such expansion of government power into the private sector. 

    I know it's a bummer that not all people are ready to join the socialist barricades, but that's the reality in the here and now.  Ten years from now who knows.  But it's going take sweat and tears and time.


    it can't be done overnight

    Who said it could?


    well, since incrementalism makes you throw up,...


    One other thing.  I think you're so wrapped up in a Power to the People mode that you're failing to come to terms with the fact that besides all the misinformed and misguides souls out there, there are a lot of those people who are unabashedly consumer capitalists, who as long as they are getting what they perceive as their fair share of the pie could care less that the products that they are consuming are creating toxic waste dumps in Mexico.  If you tell them about the amount of profits the corporate dudes are making, they say "more to power to them, that's what makes America great" because they want to some day make that kind of money, too.  Until they have some kind of epiphany, you're gonna be kind of lonely on your barricade.


    Until they have some kind of epiphany

    No argument here.

     


    They want to know how you going to help businesses become more productive and hire more people at good wages. 

    Very interesting.  And you base this conclusion upon what evidence?  You have surveys to point to, or is this what you hear in the barber shop?


    Just about every single person I talk to, just about every poll out there.  It's about jobs jobs jobs.  Unemployment and underemployment.  They want the economy to be stronger.  Why don't you show me a poll that shows that people are willing for a re-structuring of the business environment more than they want jobs to return. 

    Or show me a study that shows hauling CEOs and CFOs off to jail will increase employment. 

    Or show me a poll during the boom times that people were concerned about the unemployed above all else.

    Show me something that says people want something other than a return to good times. 

    Why are people who are concerned with debt concerned?  Because they believe it is one big reasons we can't get the economy rolling back to the way it was. 

    Why did the tea party candidates do so well? Because they said they knew how to restore things to the way they were.

    I really don't know what the color of the clouds are in your world.


    Just about every single person I talk to

     

    Ok, that would be the barber shop


    At the risk of stereotyping, I suspect that AT doesn't visit barber shops (although I wouldn't be surprised to find out I'm wrong). That said, clearly both of you have different orbits and different people you talk to. I'm more inclined to agree with AT, but then I suspect he and I are more likely to share a common orbit. Of course, I also have many family members who are in completely different orbits (the kind of orbits that involve Beck and Limbaugh), and that combined with other people I know causes me to think that the statistics that suggest that most people's views aren't that liberal (see also Blowing Smoke) are probably mostly correct.


    I would add that it is even the liberals who just care at this point in time about jobs and getting the economy back on track.  My "barber shop" is the nonprofit world of health and human services, so I float in the orbits of the generally leftist non-profit crowd, the generally republican executives of volunteer Board committees, and the households who are in dire straits.  I pretty much hear the same sentiments regardless of who is talking.  I have yet to hear anyone say "what we need is another stimulus package" although I know a number of them wouldn't have a problem with that.  Most don't have any particular thing in mind that needs to be done.  They just know something needs to be done.  But the key here is that when they think that, they are thinking private sector jobs, not an increase in government jobs.


    show me a poll

    I asked you first--it works like this, you made an assertion about popular opinion, I asked for support, so instead of mustering it, you reasserted your unsupported factoid.

    However, I will deconstruct the issues you attempt to raise when I have more time.

    Meanwhile, when come back, bring more than stuff you pull from your ass...

     




    The cnn poll does, in fact, go to the lumpen nature of our proles, and to the pernicious effect of allowing money (and hence media power) to accumulate at the top.

    Eisenhower marginal rates and a high estate tax would prevent some of this accumulation.

    Vigorous enforcement of fair labor practices would re-energize unions as a counterweight to capital.

    But yes, there is no question that our current media sucks, with attendant misinformation ramopant in the electorate.

     


    This one is more interesting in that vein, mho. Especially this part:

    While Republican gains in leaned party identification span nearly all subgroups of whites, they are particularly pronounced among the young and poor.


    Putting the "lump" in lumpen!


    If so, it is inapposite  The issue before us is the astounding, dangerous, and growing inequality of income and wealth.

    If anything, the deficit hawks are pushing to increase the inequality--thus, when polls show more concern with jobs, they are embracing the concept of lessening, not enhancing, the maldistribution that underlies and aggravates the recession.


    I agree with you on how these people should feel, but that doesn't mean it is how they do feel. Simply put, we're outnumbered. (Even though we share different strategies, I think we're all pretty much on the same side.)


    we're outnumbered. 

    That's the point of the lengthy quote.  Class consciousness has been suppressed in America.  My shred of optimism turns on the hope that if the ameliorative effects of the new deal are erased, popular opinion, in spite of the pernicious effect of corporate media, will slowly shift.

    Like I said at the outset-pathologically optimistic...


    Just because there is a consequence that is derived from an outcome desired by an individual doesn't mean that said individual perceives, embraces or is in anyway aware of that consequence.  He or she may be.  And no doubt there are people out there upset that while they and their friends and family are making less or nothing at all, the rich are getting richer.  But I would argue that there are plenty of those who upset about this phenomenon, would not advocate government intervention to fix it. 

    I can't remember which poll I crossed yesterday, but during the time of the election, the majority of people blamed the Republicans for the mess, but, here's the kicker, the majority of people thought the Republicans would be better at fixing the problem.  And say what one will about the Dems inability to articulate an issue, and the general low-information of the voters in this country, the one thing that the Republicans have done very well is ingrain in people that they are about free enterprise and getting government out of the way from the private sector to work their economic miracles.


    Yesterday, my film buddy was telling me about an old documentary of coastal fishing life in the Aran Islands. I said it sounded like Nanook of the North, and he said yeah, same deal. And it is staggeringly true that most of us live in more comfort with less toil than most of the people from fifty or one hundred years ago. I think we could be happier with less comfort and more toil. But it's one thing to voluntarily simplify and quite another to be pushed out of the game while watching Great Foodie Housewives Roadshow Vacation every night on the boob tube. That's a tough sell.


    Oh, I agree, donal.  I think simplification is the virtue we are destined to make of necessity, if we get that far.  I just think that even though is growing awareness of that, most of the public still wants prosperity, or thinks it does. And in any case there are people who in their present conditions really do need more resources to be able to meet some pretty basic needs, not a 2nd yacht or their first Lexus or whatever.  I also think that if we can get cap and trade or some other carbon emissions legislation passed that harnesses the power of profit-making incentives to fast-forward the process of weaning ourselves away from carbon dependency we are likely to get farther, faster.    


    Since we really don't have an example of there being an "undoing,

     

    Are you outta your fuckin mind?  Have you thought through the current budget proposals?  Do you think that the evisceration of labor laws, the safety net, the EPA, child labor laws, minimum wage, is chopped liver?


    Actually I misinterpreted what they meant by "undoing" if you are correct by what they were implying.  I guess the poster was a bit obtuse.


    I guess I was, at the least, unclear.

    My point was that if FDR ideed saved capitalism by co opting the left, undoing the ameliorative effects of the New Deal will (may?) lead to a restoration of the class consciousness that existed in the early thirties.

    The teabaggers, strangely enough, in their poorly focused anger, represent some stirrings of this sentiment, as they wave signs saying "Where's MY bailout..."


    There are a lot of stands that come off of this - but one of the significant is that the sign says "where's MY bailout" and not "where's OUR bailout."  Very little class consciousness exists in this country then and now.  More than than now, and I would argue that was because most of the American workers were in comparative dollar sense, poorer.  In fact, most of them were poor.  I would argue, too, that if a deep class consciousness existed in the 30s, the New Deal would have been seen as just the first step, since even after its implementation, they had little direct impact in the quality of life that could touched and felt.  Creating a minimum wage of $0.25 was a step forward, but it is hard to think that the workers making this wage in shops in a time before OSHA would have thought they had achieved the golden ring.

    I would say that when I think of someone as having a class consciousness, I see them (those in the lower tiers) as believing that current conditions experienced by their class are not acceptable and that society through the government needs to step in so as to improve those conditions. 

    And I guess these thoughts would also necessitate that when we talk about the left being coopted in the thirties, we specify that it was the leadership of the left was coopted. 


    American workers were in comparative dollar sense, poorer.

    Compared to who or what?  Give the  Pugs a little time, and american workers will be poorer than they were in the thirties, and certainly poorer compared to their plutocratic overlords (this is quite likely already true today..)


    Thanks, jollyroger.  I regard this as a public service announcement, and one well worth heeding.


    "These reflected conscious efforts to undercut left wing radicals and thus to preserve capitalism".

    The Hoover Institution just added this:

    "In the context of today's extremism from the right-wing the question arises whether the demands of the "tea party", just described as "a bunch of anarchists" by an "Anchor" on CNBC(see J. Cramer) is a mirror image of left-wing extremism in the 30's  and will, or should, the solutions be the same? That is, in order to preserve capitalism should the demands of the tea party for the elimination of the minimum wage, as an example, be incorporated into the domestic agenda of President Obama? Our conclusion is that what's good for the left is good for the right, the objective being to preserve capitalism. It should be noted that we are referring to U.S. capitalism and not state run "capitalism" in China--where streamlined methods for the amelioration of challenges to capitalism are practiced and which are under review at the Hoover Institute as possible future options in the United States." 


    It should be noted that we are referring to U.S. capitalism and not state run "capitalism" in China--where streamlined methods for the amelioration of challenges to capitalism are practiced and which are under review at the Hoover Institute as possible future options in the United States.

    Yeah, that part kind of stood out for me.  

    And by such "streamlined methods", they have in mind what, exactly?  Maybe beating and imprisoning people who try to organize labor unions?  Employers being able to fire those folks with slap-on-the-wrist penalties isn't streamlined enough for the Hoover Institution apparently.

    The beatings, while local "law enforcement" looks the other way or obligingly assists with the task--we've been there, done that in this country.  So maybe they think we need some freshly legalized, innovative union-busting practices?  Maybe they'll call it "labor law reform" and get the Washington Post to editorialize in favor of it. 


    Every time someone like Roger shouts, "Class war, y'all!" somebody responds, "Oooh, don't talk like that; you'll frighten the children."

    The idea seems to be that leftists, progressives and/or DFHs are advocating class war. Not so, they are recognizing that class war has already been declared -- and not by us.

    As always, the oligarchs aren't anywhere near the front lines themselves. They recruited an angry mob to do their street-fighting for them, but the monster they created is proving wildly uncontrollable. As we speak, they are holding an entire country hostage, and they're willing to shoot a few to impose their will.

    If Wisconsin wasn't a declaration of war, I don't see what is. You have a choice: either fight these people or surrender to them. Then beg for quarter.

     


    Then beg for quarter.

    Or beg for A dime


    Well said.. And the mob is not going to back down on the issue of a raise in the debt ceiling. Their leader, Bachmann,  has laid down a marker--no increase. Which means a bi-partisan agreement would have to be passed over their heads. Which means establishment Republicans would leave themselves wide open in upcoming primaries--not likely. Which leaves the only possibility of cover for establishment Republicans a two stage debt ceiling deal--if somehow a package deal with a two stage debt deal could pass both houses and reach Obama's desk.  Well, their other source of cover is a financial meltdown that so tarnishes the tea party, and not them--that's tricky-- that the tea party will be buried in the next election.

    I agree with you we are facing a class war, fought by tea party mercenaries. If Obama signs a two stage debt ceiling deal, it will be total capitulation. Aside from the horrid details of the actual spending cuts, the tea party will not only have backed him down but they can keep the debt ceiling hostage for the better part of another year, depressing hope, depressing the economy, and insuring Obama's defeat--which is their objective. 

    To me the 14th amendment is not the way to go because it would unite Republicans where as of now they are at each others' throats.  

     


    To me the 14th amendment is not the way to go because it would unite Republicans where as of now they are at each others' throats.

    What do you think is the way to go at this point, oxy?  Good to see you in these parts, BTW.


    Thanks, Dreamer. At the moment Reid has just gotten his teeth kicked in by McConnell, who has effectively delayed Reid's vote on his plan until at least early Sunday morning. And McConnell has said he wants to negotiate with the President (which I assume means Obama has so far successfully given Republicans ownership of the current stalemate.) I had been of the opinion that Obama might get a chance to veto something, which would make him look "presidential", and McConnell may be trying to block that possibility. In any case McConnell has kicked it up several notches.

    One pundit said McConnell wants everyone to be in the room for a package deal. If that's the case, we could be closer to a final package than I had thought. But I think it is more likely that McConnell will pull a "Boehner", walk out of the meeting, etc., increasing the tension, trying to blame Obama. If McConnell stalls, allowing things to deteriorate, he will eventually force Obama to use the 14th Amendment--which the Republicans will then use to run against him, and also to clog up the media between now and the election. So even if it's a bad option, it may be the only one.  It's a very, very dangerous game, with a lot of possible damage in the markets. If he gets the stall tactic, I don't think the President has much of a choice but to ride it out and time it, and eventually use the 14th Amendment.

    If McConnell doesn't simply stall, he'll get the most he can in a package, allow it to be voted on in the Senate and take the road of a bi-partisan solution in the HR over the heads of the tea party. What bothers me is if he takes this road he has to be sure the public is overwhelmingly against the tea party wing of his party, with the collateral damage to all of us. Otherwise he is handing DeMint the leadership post.

    Sorry for the long winded response and the speculation. I think the stakes are very, very high.


    So what does "fighting them" translate into in the real world? 

    Here's a thought, we get our candidates elected into office.  Politically speaking they have no power if there are none of them win an election.  If every tea party candidate ended up like Angle, we wouldn't be in this holy shit storm of a mess.  We wouldn't be out of the woods, as the past Democratic control of House and Senate proved, but we might be at least having the right battles.

    You can be snarky and say "it'll frighten the children," but for many voters that kind of talk does frighten them.  We are already losing elections.  Moreover, it is ineffective strategy at best.  Try and fight your war and you will lose.  Maybe visions of Che runs too deep for some.  Maybe people just think it's cool to think about taking to the barricades.  I don't know. 

    And maybe, just maybe, those other guys never declared a war on the lower classes.  Maybe they just became indifferent to them.  Maybe our suffering and hardships come not from some blitzkrieg attack, but from a group who care less one way or another whether we prosper or don't prosper.  Long ago I read an psychology article about how emotionally-speaking it was more difficult to deal with an indifferent parent than than an overtly abusive parent.  It was that article or someone else who said we create benevolent gods and angry gods, but we don't create indifferent gods.   So maybe it is just more comforting to think we are in a war rather than being ignored.


    So maybe it is just more comforting to think we are in a war rather than being ignored.

    That's a very interesting perspective, and I think very apt.


    I think the distinction for being in a war depends on if one chooses to embrace being ignored or has reached to point of asserting themselves and finally say enough. What I see is that some folks are to that point and want to challenge the status quo. Others are trying to suppress these people and keep the heretics in line - by any means necessary. Which, in no small part, involves belittling the idea of opposition and those who engage in it.

    The whole thing is just lame. What's there to talk about? Democratic leaders don't plan on doing anything ... and Democrats don't plan on asking them to ... because Teabagers are so dang scary, apparently, Democratic leaders don't have to actually do anything at all to be declared totally great.

    Wonder who'll win in 2012. Wonder who the fuck cares?


    People who behave have never changed history. 

     


    Perhaps Trope would prefer "class solidarity, y'all" but 

    1. it doesn't scan

    2. the ruling class has declared war on us, as you say, for years with the latest round simply being more explicit.

     


    Wikipedia has an interesting list of leftist critics of the New Deal, like this, for example:

    Francis Townsend, a retired California doctor who proposed a guaranteed income plan for senior citizens; his plan proved to be so popular that FDR adopted the Social Security Act to halt the growth of Townsend's movement.

     



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