Dear President Obama:

Over the weekend you announced that you have the right to assassinate American citizens without “due process”, a quaint term. Kudos – it’s teabagging time!

I special request: Please kill Thomas Friedman and Bob Woodward. They are annoying and stupid.

Sincerely,
Mark Tokarski
Morrison, CO

PS: No torture please, even though that is your right too. Don’t do them them what they have done to us. Just kill them. Thanks.

The contradictions, duplicity and hypocrisy of this incident are delicious. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the Tea Party, as they are just a manifestation of the larger powers at work behind the scenes in our country. Such stupid people as I have seen at the rallies are not capable of large organizational projects, long-term vision or policy expertise. They are just rubes with good reason to be upset, but not really understanding what those good reasons are. They don’t know where to direct anger, and so, like attack dogs, go where the master points. I sympathize with them, but honestly, in a country as stupid as this, there’s nothing more to be done than to sympathize. It is the other end of the leash we need to focus on.

Nonetheless, here’s a story that needs wider exposure. Nichole Sandler is a radio host, which on the left wing is one step removed from food stamps. She went to a town hall meeting in Broward County, Florida, sponsored by Congressman Allen West, a Tea Party beneficiary. West’s town hall was done in the standard PR format to give the illusion of an open public gathering. Questions were to be submitted in writing, and his staff selected those that he would answer. This leaves them free to discard tough questions and even to make up softballs for the jackass to answer.

Sandler was having none of it. When he stood there talking about how he is going to save Medicare by destroying it, she stood up and challenged him. A security guard pointed her out to local police, who sought to forcibly remove her from the room. She is heard saying things like “get your hands off me” to them. She was put in a police cruiser, held in solitary, and when challenging one of her captors to please let her go, was maced. Not a little bit – heavily. The Broward County police obviously had a power boner.

The charge against her? Trespassing. Attending a public event in a public auditorium sponsored by an elected official was trespassing. They did not charge her with speaking up, as that would imply that she had no right to speak. After being arrested for trespassing, they claim that she was a bad girl, justifying the imprisonment, isolation and macing. Maybe it’s all proper, but certainly it ain’t right.

That’s all well internalized here on this end. I understand this country better than most folks. I remember Ralph Nader being arrested when he tried to attend the Gore/Bush “debates,” another controlled forum where dissent is not allowed. He had a ticket, was not barging in. He was Nader, that’s all, so they arrested him. What is so deliciously funny about all of this is all of those Tea Party numchucks who were bussed to town hall meetings during the health care “debate,” how they were loud, obnoxious, disruptive; how the floor was open for unrehearsed questions … how they rode their buses home fully self-satisfied. No arrests that I recall.

What a country.

I wrote yesterday about the insignificance of replacing Democratic Senator Jon Tester of Montana with his Republican challenger, Congressman Dennis Rehberg. This brought to mind one of the weapons that people in office use to keep their base in line: The voting record.

Here are the last ten recorded votes in the current Senate without regard to issue or party: 81-19, 42-58, 47-53, 96-0, 64-36, 57-43, 100-0, 50-50, 12-88, 7-93. In those ten votes there was one where the vote of one Senator could have changed the outcome. That vote was on Amendment No. 183, which would prohibit the EPA from doing anything related to climate change. The 50-50 vote means it failed. Important? Yes. Tester’s vote? To reject the amendment. One Republican joined with the Democrats in rejecting the amendment, and four Democrats joined the Republicans to favor passage.

Now, suppose that Dennis Rehberg held Jon Tester’s seat – it indeed appears that the final vote would have changed the outcome. But we don’t know that. Prior to a close vote being taken, is is usually known how it will come out. Prior to that, a practice known as “vote trading” takes place. Republicans were mostly obligated to support that amendment, as their base requires it, and the Republican base tends to remember stuff. But are all 50 of Republicans unreasonable? Not likely. Democrats, on the other hand, are not obligated to oppose the amendment, as their base doesn’t hold them to ideology. So four of them jumped ship.

Even so, it appears we have a victory. I won’t deny that.

However, it could be that in the vote trading scheme, one Republican (Collins, Maine) agreed to take the Democratic side to defeat the amendment, and both sides were agreeable to that. That is a win-win – everyone pleases the base, and the vote tallying agencies will ‘score’ the vote for use in coming election campaigns. In the meantime, the issue dies.

In 1994 the League of Conservation Voters released its voting score on Montana Senator Max Baucus, and he scored 80% “favorable” to the environmental community. A closer look revealed that three (going on memory here) of the votes were about changing the designation of the the Joshua Tree National Monument into a national park and expanding the old wilderness. Two of those votes were procedural. Important? Yes. But the votes were all lopsided. Baucus could vote for or against the issue without changing the outcome. It did not affect his home state. It was not a true test of his environmental credentials.

Did LCV shill for Baucus? I suspected so at the time. A better test of Baucus’s wilderness creds was his behavior regarding Montana wilderness. He opposed expansion of designated wilderness throughout his tenure in office. Whenever the issue would arise, Baucus would trot out a “rocks and ice” bill designed to thwart attempts to protect heavily forested areas from development. That’s behavior that has consequences. The LCV scorecard does not reflect it.

It is hard to know the mind of a Senator, and voting records are of little use. More important is the behavior behind the scenes, and we don’t get much reporting on that. Our impression of the worth of a legislator is based solely on the record of votes and the “scorecards” put out by interest groups, and public utterances. Those votes can be tailored as necessary to please the base. Public words of politicians are designed for impact, and carry no substance. Notice that 7 of 10 votes above were lopsided, and two were far enough apart to allow the luxury of switching a vote here and there without affecting outcome. On the one that was close, we may or may not have pegged Senator Tester. He may indeed be the right guy in the right place. But it is far from certain.

There’s a great swill of controversy now about having Rehberg in office instead of Tester. Democrats are, frankly, scared out of their panties of Rehberg. They needn’t be. Part of the beauty of our two-party system is the ability of politicians to focus their base on the other party as they do their business. The only way to have an impact on the system and the outcome of votes is to pressure the person in office. Democrats, who perpetually swear to support their party no matter the behavior of the office holders, do not offer meaningful pressure. They are the problem.

One of the frustrations of watching Democrats in action is the frustration of watching Democrats thinking they are in action. But it doesn’t hurt to step back and take the long view. Democrats are, after all, just people, subject to illusion and delusion. I too am a people with my own set of I&D’s that are hard to even identify much less root out. So I will do what I do best – identify the failings of others.

My focus is Montana Democrats, but it is no different in Colorado. This is about Senator Jon Tester, but Colorado Democrats recently elected or re-elected Senator Michael Bennet, Congressman Jared Polis, and Governor John Hickenlooper, all of them corporate whores, just like Tester. But Colorado blogs are not active in the manner of Montana’s, or I have not come across them yet, so I focus my attention on my life-long home state, Montana.

I doubt that Tester is going to survive the next election, as his opponent, Congressman Dennis Rehberg, will be as well-funded even in spite of Tester’s continuing whoring. Rehberg is also, in my view, more representative of Montana’s self-image – cowboy go-it-alone independent thinkers, all an illusion, of course. Also, Tester’s need to appeal to his base will be a detriment as he at the same time seeks to appeal to the right wing.

Keep in mind that each man either supports or is forced to support the same agenda, so that we are really only talking about perceptions.

Tester insulted a significant percentage of his base when he called people who opposed his “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” as “extremist.” But that is not unusual – Democrats in office are usually free to spit on all or part of their base, since they do not fear a backlash. But that particular comment might hurt him in the end, as the ones he insulted are smart and dedicated, and so will not pull his lever if they see that doing so makes no discernible difference.

The Democratic base is less attune to environmental issues, and frankly less attune in general. They are rallying around Tester now, and claiming that those who are not going to pull his lever are purists, selfish, and unable to see the big picture, or even to compromise.

Are they right? No. Not even close. The ones I know who are opposing Tester are not only able to see big, but are also willing to compromise when compromise is needed to achieve a larger goal. (“Compromise,” as the term is used by Democrats, entails giving up objectives before entering negotiations.) “Selfish”? That’s a personal trait that has no place in politics. “Purists”? Maybe. I prefer to use the term “dedicated.” They are not mealy about what they want and fight hard. That by itself separates them from regular Democrats, who do not understand dedication to an idea over a man.

Being a Democrat and supporting Tester is really the path of least resistance. It does not require attention to detail or dedication to ideas. But it is more than laziness – it is something far more common among us, lazy and energetic alike: Democrats suffer from the illusion of control.

Supporting their man through thick and thin, writing to thank him when he does something right, defending him when he is wrong – it is all part of the need to be in control of events. Indeed, those who will not pull his lever even if it means electing someone supposedly worse are told that they are fools for effectively putting Dennis Rehberg in office. That’s self-delusion – elections where differences between candidates are insignificant don’t much matter anyway. The principled ideas are still there, and those who fought for them against Tester will continue to fight for them against Rehberg. Success is never guaranteed, in fact, in our corporate oligarchy, success is usually a long shot. Those damned “extremists” do not suffer from the illusion of control, however, and so work hard for their idea no matter the candidate.

Voting itself is an illusion of control, and I have too often run to the polls to choose the lesser of evils. But I suffered from another illusion – that I could actually identify the lesser evil. Lately I’ve come to believe that the best office holder is the one that rallies the base. In Montana, from January of 2013 forward, that man will be Dennis Rehberg. He will do what Tester could not. He will rally the Democratic base, and Democrats and environmentalists and all the other Montana activists will again be united in their pursuits.

Do you believe in democratic governance? Ayn Rand didn’t. Her followers don’t. They are not unique in that regard, but I want to focus on them. Given that central fact, we might be able to predict that if they succeed in the electoral process, they will quickly set that process aside and rule according to their own dictates. Godwin be damned, didn’t Hitler behave that way?

OK, I apologize for that. It’s not an unwarranted comparison, but might serve to confuse the issue. Let’s focus on Scott Walker in Wisconsin – he’s doing everything in his power to institute “reforms” that are wildly unpopular and for which he never explicitly campaigned. That’s true to form for a follower of Rand – the opinions of the majority of people might be interesting, but are irrelevant. Randians might pander to majority opinion as they seek power but otherwise have no use for democratic processes.

Do I believe in democracy? Not really, I suppose. I don’t seek power, and think it important to be able to remove tyrants from office by peaceful means. But I don’t have any great respect for the intelligence of the average voter. C’mon now – says what is real! It’s a stupid country. Here in the U.S., and probably in other places too, we are seriously lacking in critical thinking capacity and are far too easily manipulated by propaganda.

So it appears that our choices are rule by tyrants, or rule by idiots. False dichotomy? I hope so. My thinking does not go much deeper on this subject, so I’ll defer to Bertrand Russell:

Democracy was invented as a device for reconciling government with liberty. It is clear that government is necessary if anything worthy to be called civilization is to exist, but all history shows that any set of men entrusted with power over another set will abuse their power if they can do so with impunity. Democracy is intended to make men’s tenure of power temporary and dependent upon popular approval. Insofar as it achieves this it prevents the worst abuses of power. (Unpopular Essays, 1959).

We are right to be horrified by Stalin’s ruthlessness, but we are wholly mistaken if we think that, given opportunity, we should be any better. It is only democracy that makes us better. While the English upper class had a monopoly of political power, it was just as bad as Stalin. Democracy is to be valued because it prevents such large-scale atrocities. This is its first and greatest merit.

Where there is no democracy, if any large section is discontented, it has no remedy except rebellion. Democracy gives a legal method of redressing grievances, and makes possible a respect for law which can hardly exist in an autocracy. (Fact and Fiction, 1961)

Democracy is desirable, not because the ordinary voter has any political wisdom, but because any section of mankind which has a monopoly of power is sure to invent theories designed to prove that the rest of mankind had better do without the good things of life. This is one of the least amiable traits of human nature, but history shows there is no adequate protection against it except the just distribution of political power throughout all classes and both sexes. (Mortals and Others, 1975)

Enough of that – Russell wrote so much that others were able to condense his writings by subject, and I only needed to refer to “democracy” in an index of his selected writings. I don’t want to pretend some great scholarship here. I only put up those words to show that our current environment is not new – nothing ever is. All of the right wing, the followers of Rand, the “Objectivists” and “Libertarians” and whatever else they call themselves, have done what Russell says they always do: They have set out to convince us that most of us are better off doing without the good things of life. Those things should be reserved for “them,” and part of the beauty of Rand was her ability to convince the most mediocre minds and limited achievers among us that they are deserving of the good things that the rest of us should not have.

Take one important aspect of our lives, access to health care: What do Rand and her minions tell us? It’s not a right. We don’t deserve it unless, and by their standards, we are worthy of it. The vast majority of us want access, and do not want to deal with the power brokers who have roped off the health care system and charge extortion and royalty for entrance. We have tried to change that by voting, but the ruling monopoly, which controls “both” of our outlets for democratic governance, the two parties, is denying us. They leave us but one choice – rebellion.

The United States is not a democratic republic. It is not a republican democracy. It’s a country ruled by a monopoly – we call them by names like “the wealthy”, “the oligarchy,” “the corporations,” and the “upper classes.” The intelligentsia are merely the “bought priesthood.” The economists, the think tanks, the financial class, are mere servants of wealth. The Randians, objectivists, libertarians – those who really believe that philosophy, are the useful idiots.