What's Next Kook?

We should all be humbled by his titanic intellect and shining  insight...

First he came out as a birther, then he promoted his anti-government paranoia,  then he launched his bigoted and unpopular crusade to repeal civil rights protections for sexual orientation, now he's on a mission to undermine climate change research and stifle academic freedom with a lawsuit against UVA.....in addition to his equally fanatical legal attacks on the EPA and health care reform.

I'll bet those Big Oil-drenched Louisiana fishermen would just love a little more of that "big government" EPA and health care right about now. At least they still have NOAA.

Cuccinelli: Virginia's embarrassment

Meet Ken Kookinnelli, the Attorney General of Virginia:
homophobe and paranoid religious zealot who recently recanted his push to amend the seal of the Commonwealth to cover up a bare breast on the Roman Goddess Virtus...but wait! Isn't that Kookinnelli under her heel?

Perhaps Mr. Kookinelli received his advanced aesthetic training at the Glen Beck Institute for Art History.

Drill Baby Drill?

The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana is another reminder of the high environmental cost of oil, the necessity for stronger safety and environmental regulation, and the utility of having a "big government" agency like NOAA to help with monitoring and cleanup which has been delayed due to bad weather. Seven Deepwater Horizon workers were severely injured and eleven are missing and have been presumed dead - but what about their families?

Well-paid petroleum evangelists assure us that this is just the cost we must bear for plentiful energy - drill baby drill.

Blankenship and the Big Branch Bonanza

During a tour I took of the Quincy Copper Mine on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the tour guide told about how early miners worked by hand without power tools. Miners worked in teams with picks and shovels, or one holding the "bit" while the other swung a sledgehammer with only a candle for lighting - a candle they had to provide for themselves because the mine owner wanted to save on expenses.

Intellectually I had "known" that mining was grueling, difficult work but these details awakened me to the superhuman efforts and history of danger that miners have faced across the US. A look at West Virginia mining history reveals that it wasn't until FDR's administration and increased government oversight that miners began to get any significant legal protections. The recent tragedy at the Big Branch mine in WV is the latest example of the short-sighted profits-over-people mentality of laissez-faire capitalism.

Safety has long been a problem at this mine, though Don Blankenship would argue otherwise. When approached by a reporter  Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, became a bit of a bully, so I felt inspired to engage in a little photographic editorializing with GIMP the free image manipulation software. I thought perhaps I could offer my commentary in a different form this time....
(click images to enlarge)

Of Left & Right: Our Skewed Perspective

In the media, and consequently in our public discussion, there is a chorus of "moderation" that evades responsibility and avoids close attention to the claims and language of political debate. Moderation is certainly a positive value, but in some circumstances, moderation is the wrong stance. For example, when Martin Luther King wrote "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" he noted that our "inescapable network of mutuality" meant that a comfortable moderate position risks creating  "dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress." Moderation is often the best approach, but not when it serves as an uncritical default position on matters of  social justice.

The moderate often equates left and right as being equally extreme or equally shallow in thinking, but a brief review of the major TV networks will easily demonstrate otherwise. The differences are stark and calculable. Regardless of political perspective, there are basic principles of communication and interpretation that we can apply which reveal much about the differences between political parties. It is obvious that a slogan is not a sufficient replacement for thoughtful, specific thinking when taking a stand on important political issues. Sloganeering, or the repetition of cliche phrases, is an ancient, effective form of rhetorical influence but it cannot take the place of articulated positions arrived at by thinking individuals.

Any individual or party whose argument relies on repeated cliches, or whose rhetoric never passes beyond simplistic sloganeering should be suspect and subject to critical analysis rather than robotic repetition. Such rhetoric is an indication of a weak position; the lack of an articulated argument is camouflaged by emotionally manipulative and inaccurate cliches meant to distract the discussion.

If the left is "as bad" as the right, I'd like to see the same number of examples that can easily be provided of the extremist rhetoric and bad behavior of right-wing zealots. Even if we don't count the
"tea party" parrots and their ugly antics, the lists would be wildly disproportionate. If such lists could be compiled, I would happily and heartily condemn leftists as I do the foamings of the far-right, but I seriously doubt that such an equality of expression exists. For example, there is a clear and significant difference between the rhetoric, intelligence and civility of Bill O'Reilly and Rachael Maddow. Take a look for yourself and ask which one offers the more thoughtful and articulated coverage and demonstrates the most respect for their guests.

Our fashionable moderation has led us to believe that the scale of left and right is absolute, unchanging and that our current perception of the spectrum of debate is accurate.  A little reflection on history might cause us to reconsider this skewed perspective. For example, Republican President Richard Nixon, certainly no socialist, was an advocate of health care reform (ironically defeated by Democrats) and he was a proud Keynesian economist. I still remember the relief and gratitude I felt when, as the child of a single mother widowed late, Nixon put a freeze on food prices to keep inflation from spiraling out of control. By today's skewed perspective of left and right, Nixon would be a radical socialist dictator - an absurd assessment.

There are probably dozens of other examples, but Nixon can serve to demonstrate how far to the right America has been dragged since the 1980's. Policies and positions condemned as Leftist extremism today are actually right-of-center positions espoused in the past. Recently we've witnessed a spike in the hysterical fear of socialism and "the radical Left" but who are these socialists and Leftists, and why don't we hear from them if they are in control?  Where are the boogeymen we're supposed to fear? Where are "Obama's Shock Troops?"  Where is the "totalitarianism" claimed by Republicans and tea-party folks alike? Sounds like untreated paranoia and mob mentality to me.

If the threat of socialism is real, where is the Socialist Party? Yes, we have one, but when is the last time we heard one of their leaders speak? What are their names? Most who fear these boogeymen cannot answer these questions. Some would argue that the Democratic Party is the den of iniquity full of secret socialists, but regular Democrat support of corporatism undermines this silly claim.

If we feel confused today between left and right, and we are tempted to respond with fear to misleading rhetoric, perhaps our dilemma is partly a result of our false assumption that left and right are absolute, fixed points throughout history. For example, John Winthrop's "A Modell of Christian Charity" cited in our last posting describes a type of community (based on Acts 2:42-47) that would be attacked today as "communist" though it was seen as a divine direction in 1630.

There is plentiful evidence that America has drifted further and further to the right over the past several decades, to a point where criminal wars & torture are OK, corporations get the loudest voice & least accountability and the Unions that brought us the merciful limit of the 40-hour work week and the weekend are now weak shadows of their former selves, mistrusted by many workers. We live in a time where the worker trusts his employer more than his government, regardless of what his employer does or how may benefits get taken away over time. Ivan Pavlov & Frederick Taylor couldn't have done it better.

The right's economic model of "laissez-faire" capitalism that trusts big business to do the right thing and regulate itself has been proven completely bankrupt after decades of repeated failure. Contrary to the propaganda that "trickle-down" economics benefit all, the only thing that has trickled down to the American worker is a self-defeating but rabid ideology that has repeatedly failed to live up to its claims.

Anti-Government? Just try the alternative.

            Maybe it’s just me, but there is something very disturbing about the recent media blitz of “broken government” stories just days after an anti-government extremist (terrorist?) flew his plane into the offices of the IRS in Austin Texas. In spite of his rambling and desperate manifesto, the suicide pilot was no hero - he was only a tax cheat hiding behind a cloak of patriotism. In spite of the belligerent selfishness that passes for patriotism in some circles these days, the truly patriotic American is community-minded and willing to do his part and pay his share – he doesn’t shirk his duty to contribute to the common good. Nobody likes a freeloader.

            As frequently as the phrase “city on a hill” is invoked by those who oppose paying their taxes and reject social programs, we might expect that they had read John Winthrop’s 1630 “A Modell of Christian Charity,” a founding American document that emphasizes the biblical values of community and social responsibility.  Contrary to the selfish patriot approach, Winthrop wrote that “it appears plainly that noe man is made more honourable than another or more wealthy &c., out of any particular and singular respect to himselfe, but for the glory of his creator and the common good of the creature, man.” Our original patriotic values emphasized individual responsibility for community welfare and an awareness that our wealth does not make us more important or worthy than our neighbors but is meant for the “common good.”

            Anti-government rhetoric appeals to a misguided sense of the romantic when it solemnly invokes the Founding Fathers with a fundamentalist reading of the Constitution. But the brilliance the Constitution they composed is that it evolves as we have evolved beyond our primitive days when the natives were fair game, slavery was an acceptable way to maximize profit and women had no status.

Like all of us, the suicide pilot had no doubt heard the litanies of slogan slinging politicians as they cynically condemned the very system from which they derive great benefit. Unfortunately the anti-government zealot didn’t notice this glaring hypocrisy in his disturbed rage at the “Big Brother” of American government.

            It would be logical to ask anti-government folks to specify exactly how they are being tyrannized, but with a few notable exceptions, the mainstream media avoids challenging or even examining the claims of anti-government protesters - no matter how absurd they are. Are they afraid of being called a “liberal elitist” just for being critical journalists?  Or is it just easier to ignore the illiterate signage at anti-government rallies?  Why is the press afraid to question the laughable comparisons of President Obama with Hitler and Stalin? Why is the press so impotent to challenge hysterical claims that America is being taken over by socialism? 

            The ridiculous comparisons we see at anti-government rallies seem almost rational next to the signs carried by birthers, science deniers, death panelists and other extremists who also hate the government. If we’re not careful, next we’ll see signs claiming that the witches have taken over and the earth is really flat. That may sound ridiculous, but the belief that we can have a happy, healthy country without taxes or a central government is no less ridiculous. If the behavior of anti-government folk is any indication, it’s a foolish fantasy that would lead to a dangerous and potentially irreversible chaos.

            We can joke about it, but media validation of anti-government fever is not only weak journalism, it is potentially dangerous. Creating an uncritical echo chamber of anti-government slogans can make guys like the suicide pilot feel justified, like a martyred patriot. In this light, we might consider the sobering fact that a litany of anti-American propaganda is one of the ways al-Qaeda motivates its suicide bombers. Do we really want to go down that path? If the comparison seems extreme, consider the fan sites on the web created within hours of the plane attack celebrating the suicide pilot as a patriotic hero – another tactic of al Qaeda.

             Perhaps the most alarming aspect of anti-government fever is the naïve and dangerous belief that we don’t need a strong national government, we need only have faith in privatization and the neighborly efforts of tax evaders. In denial of the realities of our current economic crisis, devotees of the laissez-faire faith still believe that the “private sector” will come to the rescue and be sufficient to take care of all that the government does now.

            Tell that to someone in New Orleans. How different the Katrina disaster would have been if a government program like Americorps had been fully funded and deployed to help with rescue and clean-up. Instead New Orleans got goons from Blackwater and strawberry pop-tart PR from Wal-Mart – what a rescue. The private sector panacea has had decades to prove its superiority but it has yet to do so. For most Americans privatization has been a consistent failure wrapped in a confusion of corporate propaganda.

            When Aldous Huxley reflects on the balance of freedom and democracy in Brave New World Revisited, his 1958 collection of nonfiction essays, he reminds us that population explosion and the increasing complexity of the world will necessitate some kind of centralized management if we are to survive in any civilized form. This is a practical matter, not a political one. Anti-government folks want us all to believe that without the “burden” of government, our country would self-organize or be led capably by corporations that have consistently acted with a short-sighted greed and astonishing incompetence. 

              Look around the world: warring factions, tribes and militias that spring up in the absence of strong central government are a major cause of instability.  In our age of suicide bombers and weapons of mass destruction, such ungoverned nations are a serious threat to global security. And if we don’t rigorously reject the ravings of anti-government zealots, a laissez-faire America will only multiply that threat.

Psyched Out or Psyched Up?

            Born two centuries ago, Edgar Allan Poe is Virginia’s favorite adopted son and one of America’s most renowned authors. His work is as creepy and insightful today as when it was written – and surprisingly relevant. For example, Poe’s detective story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” was written in 1841 in the context of a previous speculative disaster, the panic of 1837, offering us potentially useful insight for today about errant attention and the warping of perspective. His main character August Dupin critiques the method of Vidocq of the French police force, noting that too close or too frequent an inspection can mislead us and limit our vision:

                       

“…he erred continually by the very intensity of his investigations.

                        He impaired his vision by holding the object too close.
He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter as a whole…
By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought…” 

This could be an accurate description of the obsessively focused perspectives of our handsomely compensated economic “experts” on the news. Under their daily drizzle of dreary economic numbers and the droning drip of their expert opinion, we might reconsider whether we should allow them to “perplex and enfeeble” our thought with their frightful predictions. Our expectations become excessive and our fear becomes magnified us as we become hypnotized by the assumed certainty of their numbers. Though we consider numbers absolutely precise and infallible, they are often more fuzzy than we realize. And like words, numbers can be manipulated to mislead – just ask the investors who put their faith in Bernard Madoff’s fictional calculations.

             Despite their ubiquitous media presence, experts that did not foresee this crisis, or the failures of the laissez-faire model that caused it, can no longer be considered credible. Of this group, we can at least tip our hat to Alan Greenspan, perhaps the only expert with the integrity and courage admit his error and the failure of the laissez-faire model – a model built on “invisible hand” magical thinking, deceptive rhetoric and rigged numbers. In spite of our pretense to a rational economic approach, the truth is obvious: the market is distinctly not rational, and all the experts in the world cannot reign in its hysteria.

            It doesn’t take a study to prove the self-generated nature of our economic woes, nor does it take a detective to locate the people and ideas responsible for the collapse and our continuing panic. However it does take a keen eye to see through the hocus-pocus and hysteria
to envision fresh ideas and new solutions. Greenspan’s famous and accurate phrase “irrational exuberance” might give us a clue about how to do this.

            The word “exuberance” usually denotes emotional enthusiasm, but it also refers to prolific production, and overproduction is one of America’s least examined economic dogmas. When it becomes the norm to overproduce, or to spin out complex and questionable investment “instruments” in order to force double-digit profit margins, distorted expectations and disaster are certain to follow. As Doc Sarvis puts it in Edward Abbey’s Monkey Wrench Gang,
an obsession with unlimited growth is “the ideology of the cancer cell” . Because some have followed this cancerous ideology, we are currently adrift in a sea of irrational fear, but the good news is that Greenspan’s phrase also suggests that there can be a rational exuberance that is both sustainable and socially responsible.

            Parroting the party line of laissez-faire, our experts demonstrate that they have neither foresight nor new ideas. Their sniping at Obama’s Keynesian rescue package is less about its potential for success than it is about their uncritical devotion to a failed economic model. In their attempts to frighten us with  

the boogey-man of “socialism,”

laissez-faire devotees demonstrate a simplistic understanding of economics and a sad lack of community concern. We should be suspicious when their exaggerated concern over deficits caused by social spending never occur for huge deficits caused by criminal wars that boost corporate profit.

            Instead of allowing overrated, overpaid experts to get us all psyched out, we could choose to get psyched up for the new day dawning in America.  And with the shameless greed of our Wall Street hucksters and incompetent bank executives, we desperately need a new dawn. Maybe we can consciously shift from selfishness to responsibility, from exploitation to sustainability, and from short sightedness to wise forethought. What if we deliberately chose a “rational exuberance,” dismissed our discredited experts and deliberately cultivated our classic American “can-do” attitude?  What if we chose to foster genuine independence via local organization and community solidarity instead of competition, separation and exploitive corporate models?  

The stupidity of cupidity is obvious so perhaps it’s time for a new priority and a new approach.

            Maybe our experts don’t know any more than we do. Maybe we should start to have a little confidence in ourselves, in our own ideas and in each other. After all, when it comes to economics, we’re not talking about the laws of gravity here. The machinations of the market are neither natural nor inevitable - they are completely invented and clearly out of our control. However, we do have control over the focus our attention. We can choose to be like those French police, obsessive and narrow in our focus on the numbers and quarterly profit margins, or we can turn our eyes from this crumbling short-sighted scheme and look at one another, at our communities, and at what we can do to help repair the damage and collaborate to invent sustainable, just and honest economic models that are more worthy of our investment. We can have the courage to try something new, or we can return to the same old corporate program, chanting the same old slogans and hope that this time they will come true.