This video is making the rounds … I cannot help but notice as Rand answers Mike Wallace’s questions that she is totally devoid of compassion, taking about the fate of millions of people as if they were lice. (She is oddly very unsure of her own presence – see how her eyes dart about.) This might be her appeal to the modern-day capitalists – her call to go it alone, not to be burdened with concern for fellow humans. Given this and other known attributes of the woman, is is not a reach to suggest that she was probably a sociopath.
The movie Atlas Shrugged, part one of three, is a real snoozer I am told, with people standing around reading long contrived lines, much like the book itself. Do bad books make even worse movies? It is interesting that it is playing here in Denver at the same time as the movie I AM, which celebrates our caring, loving and sharing attributes, and makes the case that these are as much a part of us as competition and selfishness. I AM is Atlas Shrugged for the 96% of us who suffer those damned things called empathy and conscience.
Long a student of politics, I could not help but notice that Paul Ryan has copied Ronald Reagan’s hair style down to the the side and size of the part. That both are graced with widow’s peaks is useful for Ryan, but who knows – maybe he had plugs. And I would not be surprised if Ryan has added color. This is part of the sublime art of politics, and is evidence that Ryan has high ambition and good advisers.
As seen in the image to the left, taken during his 2010 campaign, this is a new hair style for Ryan. Don’t you just love the politics of sublime manipulation?
Al Granberg image used in ProPublica reporting***A Denver radio caller yesterday defended the practice of “fracking” (some spell it “fracing” … that just looks wrong). He said that to this time there had been no accidents, proving that the practice was safe. (He’s wrong about that, but set that small point aside.)
That did not sit right with me … there is in there a logical fallacy. I’m no expert in such matters, but the one I use is called “the gambler’s fallacy.” It goes like this: Suppose I flip a coin ten times, and it comes up heads eight times. A gambler might intuit that the odds of the next toss coming up tails are greater than 50-50, as heads-tails has to even out eventually.
The chance of the next toss coming up tails is 50-50. The past says nothing about the future. Past coin tosses are completely independent of future ones.
Fracking is a little more complicated than a coin toss, of course. It’s a process by which millions of gallons of chemicals are injected by high pressure into gas-bearing formations underground to free up trapped gas. The danger is migration of those chemical into water-bearing formations, and localized earthquakes. Assuming we’ve never had an accident, what are the odds that we will have one in the future?
We don’t really know. The past says nothing about the future. If accidents are small and if they can be remedied, this is not a big deal. If accidents are large and cannot be remedied, we have a problem. Put another way, certain nuclear reactors in Japan were deemed safe, and had three back-up systems built into them. They were built to withstand an earthquake as large as the one that happened on March 13th. They were not built to withstand both an earthquake and a tsunami, but what the hell – up through March 12, nothing bad had happened!
It’s worse than that with fracking in that we do not know the risks and are not getting good information. The chemicals that gas companies inject into the ground are a trade secret. We must rely on them for our information. They have a conflict of interest, the profit motive, and a great incentive to lie not only to us, but to themselves, about the safety of what they are doing.
Consequently, the government needs to step into the process, find out what is in the fracking fluids, do detailed studies and simulations, and decide if the process is safe. If not, it needs to be outlawed. If risky but if the risk is deemed acceptable, then the process can go forward, but only under heavy regulation.
It’s only sensible, but next I intend to write about the phenomenon known as “regulatory capture,” which explains why fracking is not transparent, outlawed, or even regulated, and why the prospects of this happening are dim.
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***Buried Secrets: Gas Drilling’s Environmental Threat, ProPublica, by Abrahm Lustgarten, February 25, 2011
“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. (Sinclair Lewis)
I had a nasty thought over the weekend, and cannot make it go away.
Once in a college history class in open discussion, I was so foolish as to say that ideas are not so important as actions. I doubted that Napoleon or Stalin gave a damn about the underlying ideology that led them to power. Having power was all they cared about.
I was quickly put in my place by both fellow students and professor. Of what importance was, say Karl Marx and his ideas? Marxism became a virus, and that virus opened the door for Stalin and Mao and Ceaușescu and others. And indeed the idea did not matter to those thugs, but it was their gateway to power. Marxism became a scourge, and it took 75 years and countless lives to break free of it. It also allowed the United States to sit atop a perch and claim its faux-capitalism to be the antidote. Now we see that the antidote is worse than the poison itself.
Right now in the state of Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder is using his new-found powers given him by a Tea Party legislature to shut down democratic governance in one lone Michigan town, Benton Harbor. He has appointed a local dictator. He can do it once or a hundred times. The law does not limit him. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker has the advantage over his opponents of not having to play by rules. He can freelance his way through his self-generated “crisis” to change state government to his liking. He does not seem to care about the rule of law, or even rules of fair play. He will do anything to win.
These are not “evil” men in the sense that they want to hurt people. But they are dangerous in the Machiavellian sense that they believe their ends so just that their means are acceptable. So too might Marx have approved of the events in Russia, not having the foresight to see how power corrupts ordinary people makes ordinary psychopaths into historical tyrants.
This disease, the idea that is the gateway to power for the Walkers and Snyders is not Marxism, but is equally dangerous. It is called Randiansim, Objectivism, Libertarianism, and is all done in the name of freedom. The spear-chuckers are true beleivers, and are so certain they are right that anything they do to advance their cause is justified. In so doing, they will open the door for a Stalin or Ceaușescu. Remember that the people behind the actors are not ideologues, but rather cold and calculating power-seekers. It is the bane of civilization, perhaps our ultimate undoing, that power cedes to those who want power. Our best leaders are those who do not want power for its own sake, and they don’t run.
Ayn Rand’s philosophy is a a poison, a disease that is working its way through our society. Like smoking, people inhale Rand when they are young, and the less thoughtful do not discard her as they mature. It takes a wise person to see that an ideology imposed on us by force, and this is what Walker and Snyder are doing, cannot give birth to freedom. Imagine behind Walker a Cheney, for instance, waiting in the wings, ready to take power and impose his will without the annoyance of legislatures and courts and voters. Every move by the extreme right these days in some way undermines democratic governance. It is no accident, and when the tyrant comes to power, we will have no tools left to unseat him.
That was the nasty thought I had this weekend – it took 75 years to dislodge the meme called Marxism, and might take that long to dislodge Randianism. And, at what cost?
_______________ PS: How, you might ask, do I know that Walker and Snyder are Randians? Fair question. Answer: I don’t know it. I just know it.
PPS: Just for chuckles read here how Rand accepted Social Security and Medicare as she died from lung cancer (believing the scare tactics about tobacco was government propaganda).
After giving a speech this week in which he sounded surprisingly progressive, Obama was caught off-microphone in Chicago saying
“I said, ‘You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we’re stupid?’ … Put it in a separate bill. We’ll call it up. And if you think you can overturn my veto, try it. But don’t try to sneak this through.” … “When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he’s just being America’s accountant … This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill — but wasn’t paid for. So it’s not on the level.”
Taken as a whole, the two events – the speech, and then the “candid” comments “accidentally” picked up at a stump speech, and it is plain to see that Obama needs progressives to get elected. The question is, are they dumb enough to fall for words when there have been no actions in over two years?
‘Budget cuts’ may even amount to $3.3 billion increase
WASHINGTON – The budget deal struck last Friday to avert a government shutdown cuts the fiscal 2011 deficit by just $352 million, not the $38 billion touted by both parties, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
A CBO analysis found Wednesday that the measure negotiated by President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to fund the government through September would yield less than one-100th of the deficit savings touted.
The study confirms that the resolution cuts federal spending authority by $38 billion, but concludes that most of the money was unlikely to be spent anyway.
The CBO figure was achieved after clearing the smoke and mirrors, by adjusting for savings that are likely to occur in a future year, spending increases elsewhere in the budget, and the hike in the military budget.
When factoring in war funding, the analysis found that the legislation could even increase total federal outlays by $3.3 billion from 2010 levels.
The trimmed-down figure reflects the harsh realities of cutting spending at a time when dozens of lawmakers were recently ushered into Congress on a mandate to attack the federal budget.
The House is expected to vote on the measure Thursday.
If one were to remove the smoke and mirrors and be really cynical, one might say that $38 billion in social spending was replaced by $41 billion in military spending. Nice job, Obama!
Post-speech progressivesI listened to President Obama’s speech again, and found it soothing. And that created internal turmoil.
There are certain maxims in politics, such as “they lie, they lie, they lie,” “if it’s worth fighting for, it’s worth fighting dirty for,” “the facts, although interesting, are irrelevant,” and “‘no’ is only an interim response.” It is wise to keep those concepts in mind, to use them as an orientation point as we wander through the hall of mirrors called American politics.
The most important maxim of all is one that progressives need to have tattooed on the inside of their eyelids, that “a porcupine with his quills down is just another fat rodent.” Since Obama’s election, the pwoggies have lived with quills down and suffered a significant weight gain.
After I listened to Obama’s speech, my quills were down, and not too long after that I realized why this man is a successful politician. He was patting me on the head, speaking soothing words, telling me to go to sleep now, little boy, and tomorrow will be a brand new day. Obama the candidate had re-emerged.
In American politics words uttered in public are usually meant for effect, and do not contain policy. So it follows that Obama’s message yesterday was intended for effect. What effect? Well, I’m fairly typical. I voted for him once. What effect did it have on me? It relaxed me. It reassured me that he is looking out for my interests. I put my quills down.
I took away three messages – three lines that stuck with me:
1: Social Security is not causing the deficit. I’ve known this from the beginning, but as easy a concept is it is to grasp, those words are rarely, if ever spoken in public policy debates. Why now?, President Candidate Obama? Why now?
2: Medicare and Medicaid recipients will not be turned over the the private insurers via private vouchers. Obama version 1.0 talked about single payer. This was before he was thought to resonate presidential timbre. Candidate Obama supported a public option. President Obama gave the insurance cartel everything it wanted in the health care debate. Why has President Candidate Obama now turned on them?
3: The wealthy among us need to step up, endure a tax hike, do their share. President Obama had his chance last year when the Bush tax cuts were being debated. He didn’t even try. The teams have left the field, the stands are empty and wind is blowing wrappers around. Why, after his total capitulation, is he calling for a do-over? Why now, President Candidate Obama?
Every possibility is always available. It could be that every word was genuine, that he has spent time with the Oracle and has returned to be our general. It could be that what the progressives like to call the “real” Obama has returned. But we’ve had two years of him now, and if these past two years are not real Obama, then these past two years have exhibited one of the weakest men ever to hold that office.
The odds say that it is a good time to have quills up, and not down.
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but it was already impossible to say which was which. (George Orwell, closing passage from Animal Farm)
It would be so refreshing to be wrong about this guy, but Obama is giving a talk today on the deficit. I’m hiding my wallet. It’s me he’s after.
Food for thought:
1. The deficit only becomes a “crisis” when the two parties decide it is a crisis. We didn’t have serious deficits until World War II, when they consumed more than half of the economy. Then they got paid back. After that, we were pretty much deficit-free until 1980, when Ronald Reagan took office. Through Reagan, Bush and Bush again, we’ve been on a merry spending spree. Now they decide it’s a problem. Hmmmmm ….
2. Since he took office, Obama has expanded the Central Asian war global war on Islam, extended the Bush tax cuts, and has now started a war in Libya. But when it comes to social programs, man, we are fresh out of cash!
3. He’s going after Medicare and Medicaid. That’s been the whole point of the Kabuki Theater of the threatened shut down of government … a three act play, and today is the third act.
Hope to be wrong. I hope he talks about how Social Security is not part of the General Fund and is not running in the red. I hope he talks about how private sector health care costs (run up by the private insurance cartel) and not just Medicare and Medicaid, are bleeding us dry. I hope he talks about how there is no known connection between economic vitality and tax rates. I hope he distinguishes himself in some manner from the two parties, and acts like a leader.
Hope to be wrong.
___________________ Follow-up: I heard parts of his speech but the phone at that moment started ringing. What I heard is somewhat encouraging – although he acts as if our whole political debate is contained in the short walk between the two parties, he did say some things that are encouraging: One, he acknowledged that the health insurance companies are not good “persons” (Citizens United variety), and so refuses to voucher out senior health care and expose our seniors more to those persons than has already been done via Medicare supplements and Medicare Advantage; two, he acknowledged that Social Security is not causing any part of the deficit (music to my ears); three, he acknowledged that the tax code needs to be simplified (I just did a return that is 159 pages long for a guy who has some oil and gas and some rental properties – that’s absurd!); and he said again that he will not extend the Bush tax cuts (he already backed down from that fight once, so I’m not trusting here).
All in all, his message was tailored for his liberal base, and so resonates. Devil will turn up in details.
Hey! I never got my rucksack!Many, many years ago, when I had just bolted from the right wing, I joined the local branch of the Sierra Club in Billings, Montana. There were maybe ten of us, and with such numbers posed a lethal threat to the business community in Billings. I am not kidding … they even sent in a spy! (Spies are not hard to spot in groups of ten people.)
It was a technically a much larger group. Here’s how that works: For a pittance, people “join” the national Sierra Club, and get a tote bag and the national magazine. They are then referred down to the local group, and are put on the local mailing list and receive the local newsletter. So from maybe 200 people in the Billings area formed the “branch,” and from that came the ten who actually went to meetings. (I later learned from Montana Wilderness Association that membership counting is quite an art, and often includes spouses and children of the joining member. But not pets. Well, dogs maybe. But no cats!) “Members” serve as a front to give the group a grassroots feel as they pull down money from Pew or other foundations that are their true funding source
Many environmental groups, like Alliance for the Wild Rockies, really are grassroots. Wild West Institute is another, and each of these websites will lead to other worthy groups. These groups understand that to sell out for funding is to sell out the mission. I belonged to Montana Wilderness Association for years when it too was mostly grassroots. Since I left its budget has mushroomed, paid positions multiplied, and the mission is down the toilet.
I soon became the newsletter editor for Sierra Club, and in the early days of desktop publishing, it was an excruciating task. I had to fill four full pages each month, and so wrote things to fill space, and eventually was taken aside by the Grand Poobah whose name I have long forgotten and told that all writing had to go through him for vetting. That’s fair, I know. But I just could not bear the idea that my thoughts had to be subordinated to his. So I didn’t do it much. It was my first indication that I am not a good person to have in a group.
David Brower, the Sierra Club's "Archdruid," was a Sierra Club Foundation founder. He became an outsider as the club went mainstream, and made it a point to cast his vote for Ralph Nader before his death in 2000. One thing I did do without permission of the Poobah gave me indication of what was to come in the ensuing years. I thought it important that groups with differing viewpoints meet each other face-to-face. There was a local right wing pro-development anti-wilderness group, name also long forgotten, that was headed by Charles Hauptman, an oil geologist. I picked up the phone and called him and ask for an interview. I told him it would be respectful, that I would not be hitting him from the bushes. He agreed.
I was nervous, as I had never done such a thing before. Further, because I had worked in oil and gas, where there is great technological expertise, I assumed that there was also great political intelligence on the right wing, and that I would be challenged by a strong intellect and fierce competitor. I prepared a list of questions and on the day of the interview called Chuck to double-check time and place. He said forget it. No interview.
I have long since learned that there is not much more intelligence on the right than on the left, and that the best minds are often outliers. I’ve met people from all ideologies, and so have developed a disdain for isms and ogies. All I want are smart people with good hearts.
Prototypical talk radio hostI had often heard the word “polarization,” but never really understood the psychological mechanism behind it. It’s both fear and projection. If we are to hate someone, it is best not to know the person we hate, as that only makes it harder. It was much easier for Hauptman and his group to sculpt the left and environmentalists as a mental construct, a demon, than as real people. Polarization is a large part of propaganda, as groups need to be isolated from one another to promote hidden agendas.
The greatest polarizing force in the media is radio. As McLuhan discovered, radio is a tribal drum, a one-on-one medium – one speaker, one listener. It has inflammatory power. A talented radio speaker is able to make the listener angry, and the angry listener has to do something with that anger. Since radio does not allow feedback (“talk radio” is an illusion), the inflamed listener seeks other outlets. From there it is easy to manipulate him.
In case you don’t know it, I have just outlined the origins of the Tea Party – they are polarized talk radio listeners. People on the left who have ‘infiltrated’ rallies are surprised to find out that they are often intelligent and well-educated, but the one common theme among them is sources of information.
This is the reasoning behind imposing a Fairness Doctrine on public air waves. It’s good public policy. It forces people to deal with one another.
The Internet is an anti-polarizing force. Or could be. But once polarized, the natural tendency of people is to stay that way.
_____________ PS: Polarization even happens within groups. I’m going on memory here, often faulty and selective. David Brower, pictured above, led an insurgent movement within the Sierra Club, called the “John Muir Sierrans” to remove the club from the grip of professional Democrats like its leader, Carl Pope. In 2000 some who ran for the national board said they would endorse Nader instead of Gore, enough that they might swing the vote. Two were from Montana, as I remember, and they won their seats. Even though board members had fought for their seats based on the promise to endorse Nader, once seated, they changed their minds. (Budgets were probably the lever – Pope likely told the two from Montana that their state would suffer if they did not endorse Gore.)
Later I talked to a regional organizer for Sierra working out of Bozeman. She was salaried help with an office and budget and all of that. I asked her about her thoughts on the Brower/Pope battle. She knew nothing of it, didn’t even know it had happened. Apparently professional staff knew less than outsiders.
Michael Moore, speaking at a rally in Madison last month, mentioned that “Just 400 Americans — 400 — have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.” That’s an interesting statement, and coming from Moore instead of, say, Joseph Stiglitz, it needs to be analyzed carefully. (Try here.) But I think it is safe to say that there is probably more concentrated power each year nested in Bohemian Grove than at Burning Man, so that Moore’s statistic, while perhaps indicative of a huge imbalance of wealth in this country, is not worth haggling over. It’s a nice talking point.
The question can be rephrased in the following manner: Who has more power: The 69 million people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, or the people who decided that our only available choices were to be Barack Obama and John McCain? That terribly oversimplifies a complex process, but the bottom line is this: If not those two men, it was going to be two others, and those two would be determined by an apparent voting process that was mere Kabuki Theater. There were perhaps a dozen viable possibilities, and none of that dozen would be objectionable to Bohemian Grove. Burning Man, on the other hand, was high as kite and could not care less.
The problem is academic: How does power work? Even more academic: What is power?
Power is the ability to make another person do things in your favor even if that person does not want to do those things. The essential power relationship is parent-child, where the child is dependent on the parent for sustenance. “Good” kids are submissive to parental authority. From there we enter school, and the authority transfers to teacher/coach/administrator, and the “good” students again, are submissive. From there it is the strained relationship that virtually all of us endure forever – boss/employee.
We are so inured to power that we accept it, usually without question. It never occurs to us that bosses should not have such power over other people – we accept it as normal. We accept absurdities as normal … health insurance companies can exclude us from access to the health care system; mobile phone providers can insist that we use only their phones and sign two -year contracts; the president, once elected, will abandon campaign rhetoric (and even acknowledge that much of it was a lie).
Wait a minute! We accept that campaigns are meaningless exercises?
Yes, we do. Just as parents in a household might allow children to have an opinion, schools have student councils, and bosses have a “suggestion” box, campaigns and elections are transparent fictions that willfully ignore the power equation. But we willingly go through them because, honestly, if we didn’t have that, we’d have nothing.
Moving on then, how do the people at Bohemian Grove* manage to exercise their authority over the rest of us, controlling our choices for elected office and rendering our vote meaningless? What are the mechanisms?
My thoughts on this subject pop up here every now and then, but are not well-developed. I fall back on ethereal notions like “propaganda” and “illusion,” each very real, but also vague enough to lack real explanatory power.
If I stop here and say that I don’t know how it works, but do know that it does work, can I get on with my day?
I’ll stop. I have so much more to learn. But a good starting point can be found in William C. Donhoff’s 2005 essay, The Class-Domination Theory of Power. The roots of this essay go much farther back in his career, and the essay is really just a capsule of a 1967 text book, Who Rules America.
I’ll have more to say, of course, as blogging is a Latin term that roughly translated means “Can’t STFU.”
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*The annual gathering at the Bohemian Grove complex is a weird orgy of rituals and substance abuse, like Burning Man, but the phrase is used here to mean the 1/10 of 1% of us who hold real power.
