As Uncle Sam heads towards chaos

Tom Englehardt believes that "…we've finally entered the Soviet era in America." What might Englehardt mean by this? He wishes to suggest that the elite in the United States has committed many of the same blunders committed by the Soviet gerontocracy as it destroyed the empire Stalin had built. One lesson the prudent would draw from the Soviet experience: Monumentalism run amok can entail a monumental disaster sometime down the road.

Cutting big government down to size

Socializing costs, privatizing profits

It appears that Congressional Republicans are showing their true face yet again. As Talking Points Memo reports:

Congressional Democrats and the White House are toying with different ways to force BP to cover the costs of damages from the Gulf oil spill. But they face stiff opposition from industry...and it seems leading Republicans. In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner said he believes taxpayers should help pick up the tab for the clean up.

"I think the people responsible in the oil spill — BP and the federal government — should take full responsibility for what's happening there," Boehner said at his weekly press conference this morning.

Does it matter when the federal government chooses to add another massive bailout to the deficit when said deficit can be used by fiscal conservatives in both parties as a compelling reason to demolish the remainder of America's anemic welfare state? I bet it does not matter at all. This situation, as ripe as it is with hypocrisy and greed, is common enough these days; it expresses the essence of James Galbraith's predator state — the use of governmental institutions and power to extract value from the weak and underrepresented, much as a "protection racket" would (p. 147).

John Boehner has, as one would expect, choice company in this most recently noticeable effort to loot the commons. His is not a lonely fight:

Boehner's statement followed comments last Friday by US Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue who said he opposes efforts to stick BP, a member of the Chamber, with the bill. "It is generally not the practice of this country to change the laws after the game," he said. "Everybody is going to contribute to this clean up. We are all going to have to do it. We are going to have to get the money from the government and from the companies and we will figure out a way to do that."

Shamelessness is too mild a word to describe work of this sort. The remorseless looting by America's elite indicates one thing above all else, namely, that the country's 'leaders' are, to put it charitably, hardened sociopaths.

Update

Boehner and the Chamber of Commerce clarified their already stated positions on the role of the federal government in the cleaning up the Gulf disaster (see here and here). Their clarification: They do not support the use of government money (tax revenue both present and future) to pay to clean up the Gulf. But, what about the damages which Gulf residents would have the courts impose on BP?

Last updated on June 12, 2010 at 3:14PM

Property rights trump civil and political rights

Surprise, surprise, surprise…

Mother Jones reporter Mac McClelland wrote:

When I tell Barbara [Martin, a BP flack] I am a reporter, she stalks off and says she's not talking to me, then comes back and hugs me and says she was just playing [when Martin told McClelland that BP owned the local police departments]. I tell her I don't understand why I can't see Elmer's Island unless I'm escorted by BP. She tells me BP's in charge because "it's BP's oil."

McClelland continues:

"But it's not BP's land."

"But BP's liable if anything happens."

"So you're saying it's a safety precaution."

"Yeah! You don't want that oil gettin' into your pores."

"But there are tourists and residents walking around in it across the street."

Obama needs to get off his skinny ass…

…and fix the mess in the Gulf of Mexico, as Rayne writing for FireDogLake suggest:

It's been more than 30 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and the well nearly a mile below on the sea floor began to erupt oil and methane, killing 11 of our fellow citizens and injuring even more both immediately and in the continuing damage which followed.

And nothing has happened of any consequence since then.

Oh, we've had a Category 5 hurricane of hot air, some decent questions from Congressional hearings, but zippo-zilch-nada in the way of an effective solution. (I pity the people of the Gulf who had to deal with another hurricane they couldn't escape.)

We had a big metal box set over the leak, not to stop it but to try to capture the oil. Anybody with the wherewithal to Google could predict this was going to fail because of the hydrates. They crystallize on contact with a solid surface in deepwaters below the average depth of the Continental Shelf.

And then we've had a tiny little pipsqueak of a hose nosed into the well pipe, which might as well have been a toothpick stuck in our mouths.

Now the White House is having a hissy behind closed doors with the media because dammitall, they can't stop asking questions about the spill. Oh that'll work, that'll make a difference; the biggest environmental disaster our country has experienced will go away if only the media shuts up about it.

Screw that. This has been nothing but a corporate-induced environmental and socio-biological experiment perpetuated on our commons without our consent, and the American public doesn't take well to experimentation without debate in advance. Witness our slow-moving policy on stem cell research, for example. We don't frigging like it.

She follows this invective by enumerating the steps the Obama Administration should if it intended to address this crisis with the seriousness it demands. Her article is must reading for those concerned about the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and the political disaster in Washington.

The health care filibuster

Rachael Maddow and Glenn Greenwald expose here the corruption of Joe Lieberman (Asshole-CT) and Evan Bayh (D-IN):

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Entitled to loot

This is one to savor as the world plunges into the abyss

One may find this sentiment expressed in the Guardian:

One of the City's leading figures has suggested that inequality created by bankers' huge salaries is a price worth paying for greater prosperity.

In remarks that will fuel the row around excessive pay, Lord Griffiths, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said banks should not be ashamed of rewarding their staff.

Speaking to an audience at St Paul's Cathedral in London about morality in the marketplace last night, Griffiths said the British public should "tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all".

Is a new populist movement emerging?

Frank Rich of the New York Times believes such a movement is now gestating. While mostly addressing Obama's recent Cabinet nominee debacles, Rich had this to say:

The tsunami of populist rage coursing through America is bigger than Daschle's overdue tax bill, bigger than John Thain's trash can, bigger than any bailed-out C.E.O.'s bonus. It's even bigger than the Obama phenomenon itself. It could maim the president's best-laid plans and what remains of our economy if he doesn't get in front of the mounting public anger.

With respect to the President and his administration, it has surely become evident this past week that Obama's pressing political problems cannot be confined to the "bad apples" which surface from time to time. Rather, each mini-problem — or scandal — also points to a growing and public discourse about the country, one that expresses the belief that "our way of life" might cease to exist sometime soon.

A fear of this sort can be quite potent, as one would expect, especially when it is reinforced by evidence and collective agreement. In this instance it expresses the evidence-supported sense that the existential survival of the American people cannot be taken for granted and the sense that the future is known in some way (Americans expect to be worse off than they were in the recent past) but also uncertain in its particulars (will I and mine survive). When considered as such, this fear can and eventually may produce a significant political problem for any sitting federal government since it can, when prevalent and active, undermine the motivations individuals and groups need to respect and use if they are to participate as committed members of this society. In short, a legitimation crisis awaits America as just one of its possible futures originating in the developmental path now before the country. This kind of crisis reflects the existential threat of the moment.

Although this particular fear may seem fantastic with respect to a wealthy and powerful country like the United States, it has been just this kind of crisis that has recently troubled countries such as Iceland and Latvia, Greece and South Korea, as Naomi Kline points out. The United States need not be immune to an eruption of popular protest. Nor should it be considered safe from a disastrous instance of social disintegration. It has known both traumas before this moment. And together they might generate the kind of system collapse last seen when the Soviet Union imploded.

In any case, I would guess that the presence of popular contention would be the sort of events that could "maim" the Obama administration, as Rich puts it.

Yet, and to conclude, is "maim" the right word to use here? I ask because I wonder whether the Obama administration actually deserves the strong popular support he has had so far given his reluctance to tackle the real problems which vex the country. Given the Obama administration's centrist and co-habitationalist tendencies, we may surely wonder what America's "people" might do once the crisis deepens and both parties appear complicit in origin and course? What the present moment requires is a new social contract, one that includes a more equitable and rational distribution of the country's wealth and risks. This would be change in which many Americans can place their trust. But is this the path that Obama and his administration plan to take?

SEC enabled Wall Street grifter!

While writing about Wall Street insider Bernie Madoff, Pam Martens' latest article contains a retelling of Harry Markopolos' story. An accountant working for another investment firm, Mr. Markopolos took the time to document Madoff's fraud. He began to inform the Securities and Exchange Commission about Madoff's scam in 1999! The SEC, however, did nothing. The choice paragraph in Martens' account:

Mr. Markopolos, a private citizen, uses his personal time and energy over a seven year period to document a fraud occurring under the nose of the SEC that could impact the international reputation of the United States along with the financial well being of pensioners, university endowments, foundations and private investors. After losing track of the case for five years, the SEC finally gets around to investigating using taxpayers' monies. They come up with nothing despite being given a perfect path to follow to the fraud. And their final suggestion for dealing with the investigation is to destroy the files! With regulators like these, who needs Ponzi artists?

The SEC did file a complaint against Madoff on 12.11.2008.

Crook gets one thing right