Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
When I awoke a short time ago my mind was in its usual morning fog that slowly dissipates as I go through my wake-up routine which includes laying out the 35 or so pills that I take to stay alive. That fog mentally is usually a jumble of wide ranging short thoughts that are later forgotten as the fog lifts after my first coffee. On the way to the bathroom for my morning ablutions I found myself thinking about the biggest news all week which had been the shutdown of the government and the crisis that ensued. Suddenly, as an idea arose that woke me from the fog. Political Theater, it is all political theater. The threatened shutdown by the Republican Congressman, led by John Boehner et. al. was merely a show whose purpose was to destroy the publicity that would have surrounded the inception of enrollment in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) dubbed by the conservative PR geniuses “Obamacare”. How obvious this was took my breath away and also gave me some chagrin that it took me so long to see this con job in the making, while I mulled over the ramifications of a government shutdown. As the President has said and as some Republican have opined the GOP’s great fear regarding “Obamacare” is that it will succeed. Since enrollment was scheduled to begin on October 1st, without the shutdown speculation dominating the news cycle there would have been much publicity on the beginning of people enrolling in the plan. There would have been actual discussion of the plan and not just the cacophony of misinformation deftly spread by well placed conservative rumor mongers, broadcast blaringly on FOX News and flacked by the innumerable leaders of the “Tea Party”. Our mainstream media would play their continuing game of false equivalence by blithely accepting all information as being equal and not bothering to supply context when lies are told in the service “informing” the public.
Instead we have a manufactured crisis that sends the ACA to the back pages of virtual news media and we have faux layoffs and service loss endlessly debated. Now in truth this thought make me even a little sad for those “Tea Party” congresspeople that haven’t been let in on the nature of the game, nor their role as pawns in the manipulations of some the wealthy elite in this country. As I explained awhile ago in these guest blogs: http://jonathanturley.org/2011/08/02/tea-party-and-the-myth-of-a-grassroots-movement/#more-38049 and http://jonathanturley.org/2013/02/16/tea-party-a-phony-movement-mantled-as-legitimate/ the so-called “Tea Party” is not a grassroots movement, but the creation of the Koch, via an organization known as “Freedomworks” which they fund. On the Bill Maher show last Friday night one of his panel guests was the President and CEO of “Freedomworks” Matt Kibbe. From my perspective he was debunked by the panel, particularly Congressman Alan Cranston. What caught my attention though, was that Kibbe was at one point railing about how big government was run by insider lobbyists. None on the panel, or Maher, were perceptive enough to call him out on this since he is the quintessential lobbyist for the Koch Brothers. To my mind there is nothing to see here folks, move along and allow yourselves to be distracted by yet another manufactured crisis, designed to prevent you from actually evaluating the health care plan that is now available to you without adequate health care, or who are paying far too much for what should be a basic right of citizenship, health care. The Affordable Care Act is not my ideal of what American health insurance should be about because I believe in the “single payer” system used in most civilized nations. However, it is far better than what we already have and because of that should be fairly evaluated by the public. Perhaps though that fair evaluation will never get a chance since there are those who consciously work to distract us through propaganda, mythology and political theater into supporting what is in our own worst interests.
After I had written and posted this to my surprise I discovered this article in The New York Times. “A Federal Budget Crisis Months in the Planning” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/us/a-federal-budget-crisis-months-in-the-planning.html?hp&_r=0 . A short excerpt:
“WASHINGTON — Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan.
Out of that session, held one morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed “blueprint to defunding Obamacare,” signed by Mr. Meese and leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups.
It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans — including their cautious leaders — into cutting off financing for the entire federal government.”
Perhaps my subconscious was channelling, but it seems that my idea through the morning fog has some weight to it.
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
Thank you, Gene, for rescuing my comment.
The Roosevelt Institute quote was supposed to have a link, but I inadvertently left it off. Here’s the link so the quote will be properly cited:
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/obamacare-health-insurance-subsidy-not-health-care-reform
PR,
That was the only comment you had in the filter. If you had another with two links, it has been eaten by the WP Vortex of Doom(tm). Three links sets off the filter. Sorry.
Oh, bother. My comment had two links and got sucked into the WordPress naughty corner. A little help, please? Sorry for the inconvenience.
Elaine,
Good post–I definitely agree with your sentiments.
“They have the common people warring with each other–red against blue…Democrats against Republicans…liberal against conservative…private sector workers against public sector workers, etc.”
Yes, and it’s happening right on this site! I keep reading from each side that we don’t want the corrupt to be lining their pockets with our money or the NSA spying, yet we keep getting distracted by (at the moment) unimportant differences. President Obama is glad of the current showdown because it’s a distraction from the NSA issues, Syria, and drone strikes.
“And while we the common people are arguing with/fighting each other, the corporate and political manipulators are robbing us blind. ”
Perhaps I need to read up more on the ACA, but I thought a good share of it was written with the help of or with plenty of lobbying by healthcare corporations–insurance companies, etc.
“In 2008, the Obama administration wrote the ACA in collaboration with all the major players in the health care industry, the drug and insurance companies, the major hospital chains, and lobbyists representing the largest employers in the country.” And this from Speak-Out Now, a socialist website: http://speakout-now.org/obamacare-or-corporate-care-the-writing-of-the-affordable-care-act/
And this from the Roosevelt Institute, an organization dedicated to the progressive vision of FDR: “the health care bill just signed into law entrenches the centrality of private health insurance companies and contain no serious proposals to limit costs.”
So even this bill, which the Democrats and President Obama are bickering about keeping, will effectively allow corporate manipulators to continue robbing us blind.
Let’s face it. The law is lousy. It isn’t what Democrats really want and it isn’t what the Republicans want.
The only thing the law is achieving is the very thing neither the liberals nor the conservatives on this site want: the corporations get to continue lining their pockets with our money.
And, considering the innuendos that certain congress-critters have possibly enriched themselves with inside information, that means some of our congressmen are lining their pockets with our money, too, so-to-speak.
Lovely.
Bron,
In all fairness, at the turn of the 19th Century the Fabians were not the only political group to embrace eugenics (which was and still is a fantasy based on an improper understanding of natural selection and artificial selection). It was quite en vogue at the time. Eugenics is an inherently dangerous idea no matter who is backing it or why.
The real concern today about it should be that with advances in genetic engineering, artificial selection may again become a fashionable idea as it applies to the human genome. Prometheus suffered mightily for daring to steal fire from the gods, but if we as a species are not careful with the fire of genetic engineering? It could do a lot worse than chain us to a rock for eagles to eat our liver day after day.
Oro Lee,
Regarding your article about Linz:
Did the “diffuse American parties” become more ideologically divided due to the passage of the 17th Amendment? Would repealing the 17th Amendment make the system more stable again? Or, would instability have been the trajectory of our system regardless?
I dont think that is a good exercise, the problem with it is that there are poor who are going to become rich. And there are rich who are going to become poor.
I dont like this exercise.
Then you also get into categorizing people by worth to society and then you are no better than George Bernard Shaw talking about gassing people who dont contribute as much as he or some group of individuals think a person ought to.
This Objectivist/Libertarian wants no part of old Fabian Socialists talking about killing poor people because they dont contribute enough.
We dont want to kill people, we want to help them to a higher standard of living.
Bron wrote: “I dont like this exercise.”
I understand. I just see a problem with people glorifying the poor. The poor need our compassion and empathy, but they are not to be admired while demonizing the rich.
Here’s an actual scientific experiment that can be done to illustrate the hypocrisy of those who demonize the rich as exploiters. Have a homeless guy like Ted Williams go around to 100 people and a rich man like Donald Trump go around to 100 people. Each of them tells the same story. “My wallet was stolen and I need to borrow $5 for lunch. Can you help me out?” Videotape the reactions and record how many of those 100 give the man $5. Have someone also ask and record their political party affiliation afterward. I suspect that someone like Donald Trump would receive $5 from more people. It is common for people to be more trusting of the rich, because experience tells us they are more trustworthy. Yet, the Democrats want to pretend that mostly the rich are the untrustworthy ones. They do not recognize that qualities like faithfulness and a hard work ethic are required for their success. These are the qualities that need to be instilled in the poor to help them out.
The Democrats think taking money from a wealthy citizen in society and giving it to the poor solves the problem. It doesn’t. A real person needs to give that money to that poor citizen voluntarily, because he cares, and then he needs to become a friend and help instill values in that person that will make them productive in society. Bad character, bad values, and bad decisions have much more to do with the creation of poverty in our society than exploitation by the rich. The rich are rightly criticized for not caring enough and not giving enough, but I do not think they are the primary problem that causes poverty.
‘It is common for people to be more trusting of the rich, because experience tells us they are more trustworthy.”
David,
This is nonsensical. BTW you mean the same Donald Trump who has filed for bankruptcy 4 times and is being investigated for his wealth training programs?
Looking at the man you see him as looking trustworthy? Actually one needs only to look at American history to see that objectively the rich have not only not been more trustworthy, but they have been downright rapacious and criminal. With you, however, a recitation of facts would do little good since you don’t live in a fact-based milieu. What has become so amusing about you is that in your time here you have exposed more and more of yourself. Now that you’ve dropped any pretense of having an inquiring mind and shown yourself to be a tea party drone, you’re are at least being honest as to where your true beliefs lie.
Mike Spindell wrote: “… you see him as looking trustworthy?”
No, this is not about me. I am saying that most people would be more likely to loan Donald Trump $5 than a homeless man. Sad, but true.
DavidM:
how about we dont push either button?
Bron – the point of the exercise is that if you had to push one, which would it be. Assume the people are removed, not killed. They are simply moved to a utopia somewhere where all their needs and wants are fulfilled. Would you rather do without the rich or without the poor on our earth ship?
Dan the Squirrel Hill blogger doesnt like Mr. Obama:
http://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/
tony c:
I think that sounds like a very good idea, I would vote for you in a heartbeat if that was your tax plan.
no deductions either.
Yes, Democrats are totally and completely manipulated and loving it!
“If the Right Really Wants a Crisis, We Should Give Them One
Burning Down the House
by ROB URIE
For some forty years before this week’s government shutdown the governing class in the U.S., Democrats and Republicans, has been playing ‘good cop, bad cop’ with public policy. Lest we forget, the bi-partisan cuts in public spending under sequestration were already underway when the current partial government shutdown began. And the disinformation campaign by Republicans against ‘Obamacare’ only serves to shift that wholly inadequate debacle into the realm of ‘reasonable’ in the spectrum of public policy debate. In fact, getting liberals and progressives to heartily endorse health care ‘reform’ designed by the right-wing Heritage Foundation with the intent of precluding universal health care ties to the decades old move rightward by ‘liberal’ Democrats under the guise of pragmatism. Democrats play the good natured but ineffectual sops—the good cops, while Republicans play the crazies with their guns to our foreheads to divert attention away from the fact that actual policy differences between the two are but marketing ploys.
The economic pain caused the poor and vulnerable by the government shutdown is real. But the assertion that Democrats object to this is ludicrous on its face. President Barack Obama has spent his last five years in office studiously ignoring the plight of the poor and unemployed while he has actively pursued policies that benefit America’s richest through unconditional bailouts of corrupt bankers, mortgage ‘settlements’ that allowed banks to steal the entirety of accumulated black wealth, secret trade agreements (TPP– Trans-Pacific Partnership) that reconstitute predatory political economy and intricate state spying on citizens by the NSA to secure and maintain corporate-state control over us.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/10/09/burning-down-the-house-3/
Bron: The median income is about $50K (family). How about 0% for all earnings up to $50K, and a flat tax of whatever it takes for all earnings over $50K? (So if the flat tax is 25%, and you earn $51K, you pay 25% of $1000, or $250 in taxes.)
I do not think low-wage earners should be taxed at all, I think the percentage of people that voluntarily earn in the bottom half are vanishingly small, and I think the life deprivations of paying taxes for the poor is impossible to match for the rich. I have no interest in equal percentages of unequal pay, I do not think that is fair at all. I am interested in equalizing the pain of supporting government, and I do not think that is remotely possible without a “deductible” under which no taxes are paid. Personally, I think that level should be whether one is in the bottom half of earners or the top half. The median income (personal or family). AFTER the deductible, a flat rate makes sense to me.
TONY C:
that is why a flat tax is what we need. 20% across the board if you make less than 150k and up to 35% over 300k.
Thanks, Tony C. Here is another one:http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19298-bill-moyers-on-the-sabotage-of-democracy
Swarthmore: Thanks for a good article.
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/09/right_wing_coup_deluded_secessionists_have_already_won/
Bron: so they will raise your salary so the government can take more from you.
First, the rich pay an average of about 15% income taxes (the capital gains rate), compared to the middle class that pays about 30% income taxes. The rich pay, overall, around 20% of their income in taxes, compared to the middle class that pays about 50% of their income in taxes.
Second, the income tax is never 100%, so if you earn $1 more, you keep some of it. Even if your taxes go up, the amount you keep always increases if your pay increases, and since some of the taxes you pay are regressively tied to the amount you buy instead of your salary (sales tax, gasoline tax, property tax), and the rich spend a much smaller percentage of their income on such things than the middle class spends as a percentage of their income, the rich keep more of every dollar they earn than the middle class does.
You really are arithmetically challenged. You may not have to work integrals anymore (as I still do) but geez, I’d think you could at least still do some grade school arithmetic.
you are being ripped off by government and they are telling you the rich are doing it so they will raise your salary so the government can take more from you.
A few hundred years ago, the average man could never have afforded caviar.
God bless rich people, they are why I have a job and a decent standard of living.
Hug a rich person today and thank them for all they do for you.
Except for the ones in congress and at the FED, they are trying to lower your standard of living.
DM: The rich, unfortunately, do not live in a different world than you, and they exploit you to make their lives better.
DM says: The truth is that most people today live much better economically than their parents did. I live better than my parents did.
So? We would expect our parents by working to do better than break even, we would expect ourselves by working to do better than break even, so we would expect increases. Economic benefit is ultimately the result of transforming resources (which may be valuable in their own right) with intelligence and labor into something more valuable.
So of course we expect to be better off than our parents, that is not the issue. The issue is how much better? Are we $1 richer when we should have been $5 richer? Are we getting a fair split of the profits of our labor? Or are we being exploited and ripped off by the rich?
I happen to believe the latter, not out of ideology but by comparing the levels of human effort required to make a buck; I don’t think it is a fair deal, I don’t think the rich add that much value or work that hard or are even all that smart.
The question is what is fair, and your assumption that the rich are being fair is ludicrous. I also feel great pity for you, comparing yourself and the rest of us to dogs that gets scraps from the master’s table. Shame on you. We are not the pets of the government or pets of the rich, we are their moral equals (and often betters). Why aren’t THEY the dogs living off our scraps? You might as well endorse anarchy and the precept that Might makes Right, that the rich are like Royalty and divinely entitled to riches the rest of us are not worthy of. I am nobody’s property, and nobody is entitled to treat me unfairly by virtue of wealth or anything else.
Tony C wrote: “… we being exploited and ripped off by the rich.”
I do not really question the concept that we are being exploited by the rich. I mean, nobody should be making the obscene amount of money that people like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett make. Who can spend that much money, and how can either of them possibly justify the idea that they earned that money.
The problem is that they live in a different world from me. I’m a nobody to them. I don’t have anything they want, so they do not DIRECTLY exploit me. Instead, you might say that I find ways to exploit them. The rich established a credit card system with incentive rules that allow me to exploit them for virtually free trips around the world and free hotel stays. They establish companies that export jobs to places without a minimum wage so I can buy products really cheap. I can actually afford smart phones and computers. I am able to get these things, not because of what the poor have done, but because of what the rich have done. You might claim that the poor worked on putting the devices together, and you would be right, but they did it for a wage they agreed to, and without the rich making it happen, nobody would have been able to do any of it. I am able to create a business and earn a living to support me and my family because of what the rich have done. I have built something based upon their scraps. If I need money to expand my business, it will be the rich I turn to in order to do it.
I understand what you are saying about how their money cannot possibly equate with their labor, but I truly do not feel that I am in a position to judge how they have done this exploitation and what their punishment ought to be. If I were President of the U.S., maybe I would be better positioned for that, but I’m not. I’m just a humble software developer who appreciates what I have, and I appreciate the opportunities that the rich have provided for us.
I hate to say this, and I know people are going to scream at me for this, but do you really want to know the people in my world who directly exploit me? It is the poor. Yeah, it is the guy who says he will clean off my driveway for $20 and wants to be paid up front, but then he never shows up to do it. Why didn’t he just ask me for $20 instead of pretending he was going to work for it? It is the neighbor who sells me a lawnmower, then later asks to borrow it. Next month he moves away and takes the mower with him. It is the drug addict who helps himself to my possessions and pawns them at the local pawn shop to buy his drugs. It is the person I put in an apartment, then trashes it and removes all its contents. It is the person who asks for a ride to the doctor, and then constantly hustles me for money. It is the person I give a motorbike to in order to get to work, who then does not follow instructions and ends up burning up the motor. It is the man I give a car to for getting to work who then runs out of gas and leaves it on the side of the road and never tells me. The car gets towed and the impound fees are more than I can afford. Truth be told, I’m not looking over my shoulder worrying about how the rich man making millions is trying to steal from me or exploit me in some way. Nope, sorry, but it is the poorest of the poor that causes me to be most on the alert. I often hope I have enough street sense to avoid his wily way.
Not to belabor the point, but suppose there were two magic buttons, one red and one blue. If you push the blue button, one million of the richest people would disappear and their money would be distributed evenly to everybody in the world. If you push the red button, one million of the poorest of the poor would disappear and their money would be distributed evenly to everybody in the world. If you had to push one, which one would you push?
I think I would push the red button. The rich are economically more beneficial to us, even if they seem to hoard wealth. The wealth that would be distributed by pushing the blue button would be squandered quickly by the poor, and ultimately the world would become a much poorer place to live.