Fact-esque

The Rich Win. Always

It occurred to me when I was reading a book on the beginning of the Civil War that we, us ordinary shlubs, have been under the thumbs of the rich since the beginning of what we are foolishly pleased to call "civilization". From the very beginning of socialized tribal life, the guy with more cows, more otter skins, more chickens, thought he should be the one to tell everybody else what to do - mainly to give him all our cows, otter skins, and chickens. Sure, they've thrown us a few bones now and again, especially after we took a few of their heads off with swords and clubs, but basically they've kept the goodies for themselves and thrown us scraps.

For several thousands of years.

Now they want us to like it and their media plebes explain it all with logic that makes Alice in Wonderland seem like algebra.

Our Plutocracy

In case you had any doubts, this is a plutocracy (Via Avedon):

 

The financial world is tres concerned that after 30 yrs of outsourcing, globalizing, union destroying, automation, and stock-friendly lay-offs, there isn't much left in the way of employees. (Via FDL's Blue Texan)

Randian Libertardianism and Traffic Lights

Since none of us get anywhere these days espousing intelligent, workable, rational solutions to our deadly problems, and seeing as how the Randian views of the batshit crazy Right (BCR) are so much easier to pursue what with their not having to provide any sort of proof that any solution they propose has any connection whatever with what any one of us not born with a silver spoon thrust through their cerebral cortex would consider reality, not to mention that their simplistic and/or fantasy solutions are far more welcome in the Halls of Power than our own practicable and successful but unfriendly-to-the-rich ones because we would require them to cease stealing everything they can get their grubby, grasping little hands on and put some sort of limits on their greed, I figure if you can't beat em join em.

Now, given that the Corporate Right has seized on the Randian "idea" that govt has no right to tell anybody what to do as a way of justifying their claim that it doesn't have the right to tell corporations they can't kill us no matter how profitable it is, I've been looking for an issue of unwarranted govt intervention in our freedoms which the BCR has overlooked, and I think I've found one.

Traffic lights.

The Rich Need Our Help - $$$ Addiction

No, this isn't another one of those tongue-in-cheek attacks on the rich that have become so fashionable lately, what with them making such horse's asses of themselves. (Via Mark G) I actually have come to believe that rich people really do need our help, not just because it would prevent them from eating us alive but because it's the humane response, the right thing to do.

New Liberals = Old Conservatives

David Sirota is having a little difficulty telling the difference between Neoliberal economic policies and the kind the GOP has been pushing for decades. (Via Norwegianity)

In simplistic, Lexus-and-Olive-Tree terms, the neoliberal economic argument goes like this: Tariff-free trade policies are great because they increase commerce, and we can mitigate those policies' negative effects on the blue-collar job market by upgrading our education system to cultivate more science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) specialists for the white-collar sector.

Known as the bipartisan Washington Consensus, this deceptive theory projects the illusion of logic. After all, if the domestic economy's future is in STEM-driven innovation, then it stands to reason that trade policies shedding "low-tech" work and education policies promoting high-tech skills could guarantee success.

Of course, 30 years into the neoliberal experiment, the Great Recession is exposing the flaws of the Washington Consensus.

Yah think?

David's concerned about the latest neoliberal scam - that the unemplopyment situation can be fixed if we just reeducate and retrain "yesterday's workers for today's jobs" or some shit - but while it's important not to fall for yet another BD excuse for keeping everything as tilted toward their rich friends and Republican soulmates (and their rich friends), wehat's cranking my case is the Orwellian notion that there's anything liberal about neoliberalism.

Obama's Labor Day Kabuki

Everybody, it seems, wants to believe Obama isn't a corporate puppet sell-out. Bob Herbert, who has been very tough on Obama's willingness to give Wall Street anything it wants while refusing Main Street more than the absolute minimum of what it needs, "finally" hears what he's been wanting to hear for a long time.

Bare-Knuckle Barry: More Guns, Less Butter

There has been a feeling in some quarters (not mine, of course) that President Obama has been holding back. If that was true, it is true no longer, I'd say. In the last couple of days we've seen two pretty bold moves on his part, not that he expected anybody to notice.

The Plutonomy Score: Wall Street 1, Main Street -1

Two articles this week demonstrate between them how our new plutonomy works, and you'll notice that in neither case does any actual product have to be made or sold. Nodody has to build anything so it doesn't have to be quality-controlled and no laborer has to be paid to put it together. In fact one of them requires that you stop paying a certain number of your employees. (Via eRobin by email. Remember her?) Viz:

Open Letter to Paul Krugman: They Can't, Silly

Dear Mr Krugman:

I am a big fan and much appreciative of the courageous stands you took during the Bush Years and the balance you've tried to maintain in the early Obama Admin, but I must say I think you continually miss the point when it comes to explaining Obama's actions (or lack of same), your latest column being a case in point. You write:

The Last Independence Day: Welcome to the Corporate States of America

For those of you keeping track, it was last year. This year the truth has become all too painfully obvious. Joel Pett, political cartoonist for the Lexington Herald-Leader, sums it up neatly.

We are locked down, locked into a system which, wherever we look, gives rights and money to the rich, the powerful, and the corporate - often the same group - and at the same time takes them away from us. And it doesn't seem to matter to anyone that this only makes things worse and worse. Believing that giving the rich control of the society will lead to economic prosperity for everyone is now dogma for the religion of $$$, also known as Molochianism. Like the Catholic notion of the Virgin Birth, there's no evidence whatever that it was or even could be true and plenty of evidence that it isn't but we've decided to take it on faith anyway. Because the rich told us to.