Category Archives: Political Rants

Political Rants

Week that was (5.0).

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It has been another one of those weeks, packed to the gills with news, mostly bad. Of course, this is not a bug but merely a feature of the times we live in, so I will make my usual lame effort at grappling with a small subset of what has been assailing us over the past few days in the final full week of the third year of Our Lord Trump, king of the chimps.

Debate #7. Not at all sure I see the point of these corporate exercises in superficial political sparring. The CNN questioners were clearly excited to dig in to their “breaking news” story about what Bernie said to Elizabeth a couple of years ago in a private conversation. The moderator who queried Sanders on this when straight to Warren with a question that assumed he was lying in his response. I am disappointed in Warren, frankly, for perpetuating this line of attack. It plays on the odious claim the Sanders and his followers were misogynistic in their race against Clinton in 2016 – something Clinton alumni cling to as one of the rationales for their loss. This is toxic, and I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to suggest that it could ultimately blow the election. WTF, people … time to put the movement above your personal fortunes. Knock. it. off.

When a billionaire has to intervene, you know there's a problem.

Impeachment. A historic week in terms of the delivery of articles of impeachment to the Senate for only the third time in American history, with respect to presidents, at least. It seems like a forgone conclusion that Trump will walk away from this, but not unscathed – impeachment without removal is a kind of accountability. If there is history after this presidency, this action will be indelibly recorded next to his grisly name. As for the trial, well … I expect a relative circus as compared to the already ridiculous Clinton impeachment. The G.O.P. has decayed considerably over the past 20 years, such that there’s some question as to whether all of them will keep their pants on for the entire proceeding. We shall see.

War lies. Bernie had it right Tuesday night: our two biggest foreign policy disasters in recent decades were spawned by lies – Vietnam and Iraq. Though with Vietnam, I’m pretty sure he’s talking about the Gulf of Tonkin incident that never happened, with the U.S.S. Maddox and Turner Joy. (There were a lot of lies that preceded that with regard to Indochina.) Of course Trump is lying about Iran … that’s the same as saying he’s speaking about Iran. We are in a similar boat with Iran as we were with Iraq back in 2001-03; elements within the the administration want to have a war for whatever reason, perhaps ideological, perhaps mercantile, likely some mixture of both. It appears that the general population is more against the idea than it was in the case of Iraq 2003, and that that opposition is broad-based enough to make Trump somewhat cautious. Ironic that this heightened tension is taking place in the immediate wake of the release of the Afghan papers, the DOD internal history of the Iraq conflict, and the big Intercept / NY Times scoop on the activities of Iran’s intelligence services in Iraq. (Of course, these were all one or two-day stories at best.)

Natural Disasters. Heartbreaking climate-fueled fires in Australia, earthquakes in Puerto Rico, volcanic eruptions in the Philippines. Jesus H. Christ, what next?

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Dodging bullets.

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Fuck all, what a week this has been. The Suleimani assassination has turned Trump’s disastrous approach to foreign policy up past eleven, and that is a positive danger to organized society. Domestic president Bam-Bam is dangerous enough, but give him a war that he has started himself and god only knows where the hell we’ll end up. It’s like someone let a chimp loose in the oval office, and after months on the job he’s going stir crazy, pulling levers, pressing buttons, and randomly throwing feces at his political enemies. Does this kind of governance really work for anyone? It’s like living on a very active volcano. We may have temporarily dodged a bullet this time, but nothing has fundamentally changed.

Times like these I am grateful for podcasters, bloggers, and independent journalists. The mainstream press have been of very little use through this recent crisis. There is this insistence, for instance, on calling Suleimani a terrorist or a bad guy, over and over like a mantra. Usually tagged on to that is the claim that he was directly responsible for the killing of hundreds of Americans – I’ve heard talking heads put the number around 700 – during a certain phase of the Iraq war. This is total shit. I remember those days pretty well, as does the Progressive’s Stephen Zunes, who wrote a good treatment of this claim this past week. It is well to remember that the Bush administration, even in the face of their disastrous invasion of Iraq, still had Iran in the cross hairs and were working to build a public case for yet another regime change enterprise. They didn’t succeed, but what they did manage was to plant this notion in the heads of journalists and commentators that Iran was responsible for every EFP roadside bomb planted in southern Iraq, a vacuous claim that assumes every Shi’ite resistance fighter is subject to mind control by the Ayatollah.

Once again, let’s be clear – the people responsible for the deaths of the more than 4,500 U.S. service members killed in Iraq are named Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, etc. We can try to blame the people we invade for resisting our armed forces, but doing so doesn’t hold a lot of water. We should never have been in Iraq in the first place; anything that proceeded from that criminal decision is the responsibility of our own decision-makers. It took virtually no time for the same crop of insane leaders to exploit the deaths of the people they sent over there and attempt to utilize them as a means of starting yet another needless war. And now the current incarnation of the Republican regime change machine is working overtime to make war with Iran inevitable. That includes most prominently that overstuffed geiser of pig shit – a veritable Old Faithful of rancid manure – Mike Pompeo, who is in many ways worse than Trump.

Arrgh. I could go on, but my main point is, agitate for peace. Make your voice heard. Don’t think someone else will do it. This is like the election – you need to participate and encourage others to do the same. That’s the only way out of this shithole.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Happy new war.

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President Bam-Bam has started off the new year with incoherent threats against Iran, and it appears as if the entire corporate media establishment is pretty much on the same page as him. I was greeted on New Year’s morning by the usual cavalcade of retired generals (e.g., Barry McCaffrey, etc.) and inside-the-Pentagon correspondents (e.g. Hans Nichols, etc.) that MSNBC (a.k.a. “the liberal news channel”) trots out whenever someone challenges the U.S. empire somewhere in the world. This time it’s Iraqis, and of course Iran is to blame … because we seem to want war with Iran. That’s why whenever they talk about our opposition in Iraq, these Iraqis are termed “Iranian-backed militias” or “Iranian-backed extremists,” though they would never call the forces we fund and train “American-backed militias”. Yes, Iran has substantial influence in Iraq – they share a long border and a troubled history with Iraq, so it’s no surprise. We, on the other hand, come from the other side of the Earth, and yet somehow we consider our enormous influence on Iraqi affairs more legitimate.

The Trump administration decided last week that it was a really, really good idea to conduct air strikes on an Iraqi Shi’ite militia group Kata’ib Hizbullah, killing 45 of them in supposed retaliation for mortar attacks on U.S. positions in Iraq that recently killed one U.S. contractor. (See Juan Cole’s blogpost on this for details.) The protests and intrusions at the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad were a predictable response to what General McCaffrey and others consider a proportionate use of force. (That was quickly followed by their assassination by drone of the Iranian Quds force leader Qassim Suleimani in Baghdad, a major escalation by Trump.) Not being a member in good standing of the American Empire Positive Propaganda Force, my first question is … just what the hell are we doing in Iraq in the first place? In all fairness, I think that question is on the minds of many Iraqis right now.

Okay, this isn't going so well.

In my humble opinion, there are a couple of things going on here. Of course, Trump likes to look tough, hence the drunken threat tweets and the rushing of 3000 more U.S. troops to Baghdad. But despite the fact that these threats are directed at Iran, I think deep in his tiny lizard brain he understands, albeit tenuously, that war with Iran would be a disaster for his presidency far worse than his impending impeachment trial or his failing trade war. It doesn’t take a genius to understand why. No modern president has had as high an approval rating as George W. Bush did in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and yet just a few years after invading Afghanistan and Iraq, his presidency was in tatters. His wars are still going on, metastasizing again and again into new, more toxic cycles of violence. And Bush’s wars were against one nation that was totally destroyed (Afghanistan) and one that was partially destroyed and starved to death (Iraq); we have essentially lost both of those wars. Iran would be harder to beat, and the events of this week demonstrate part of the reason why – the exercise of power by proxy, to put it in terms an imperialist might understand.

I have no doubt Trump’s foreign policy establishment is working towards war with Iran, whether or not that is their full intention. Smarter presidents than Trump (a category that includes every other president) have blundered into disastrous wars that have essentially destroyed their presidencies. Whatever Trump’s intentions may be regarding Iran, this escalation in Iraq may be the start of his ultimate undoing if he’s not careful. And the entire establishment – Trumpist and faux resistance – will wave him on into the catastrophe.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Sharing the wealth.

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I should start this post with the standard disclaimer that I am not an economist. Inasmuch as this is a nominally free country, at present, I am going to opine on one of the central issues in the Democratic primary debate – the idea of instituting a wealth tax. Advocated in some form by both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, taxing wealth is not a new idea by any means. Chris Hayes’s recent conversation with Gabriel Zucman gives a really good overview of the question, so if you want to hear someone knowledgeable discuss the merits of instituting a wealth tax in the United States, by all means give that a listen. For now, here’s my once-over-lightly. right in time for the holiday season.

First, while this idea is remarkably popular, there is a lot of howling on the part of articulate opinion over it. If I were to guess, I would say that the reason may be simply that virtually everyone you see on television has some magnitude of wealth in the form of stocks, property, etc. in excess of what Warren or Sanders would deem taxable in their proposals. The reasons they typically give, though, are the standard capitalist tropes about stifling innovation, misdirecting funds to inefficient government programs, etc., etc. There is honestly no credible evidence to substantiate this claim, but even if some version of it were true, the revenue generated by such a tax would be more than worth the cost of inspiring some caution on the part of the billionaire class. Also, I think it’s important to fully understand what being a billionaire means. Having billions of dollars is not merely being wealthy; billions are about power, and I don’t mean purchasing power. I think there’s a strong argument to be made for putting a cap on wealth simply to constrain unaccountable power and influence on the part of billionaires, but that’s another conversation.

Bernie: just tell them they'll pay less property taxes. Piece of cake.

Zucman, a recognized authority on income and wealth inequality, points out that in America we already have a form of wealth tax, and it’s one that most potential readers of this blog (or any other blog, for that matter) are directly affected by: property taxes. For decades, home ownership has represented far and away the principal form of wealth held by ordinary (i.e. non-rich) people in the United States. I suspect it’s no accident that homes are taxed in a remarkably regressive way – specifically, not indexed to income in any way. Also, as Zucman points out, the property taxes we pay (either directly or indirectly as renters) are at the same level regardless of whether the owner holds a mortgage or not. So you may have less than 40% equity in your home, shell out half of your income on your mortgage, but still pay taxes on the full assessed value of that property. (I don’t know about other states, but here in New York, you can roll your taxes into your mortgage payment for added convenience. How thoughtful!)

A true wealth tax, on the other hand, would consider all forms of wealth, not just this narrow category that disproportionately impacts workers. It would be progressive – the less you own or earn, the less you pay – and a hell of a lot more fair than our current property tax system. So don’t buy the hype, people. As with our health care system, we are already doing it … we’re just doing it wrong.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Clueless Rudy.

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Impeachment is now officially under way. That’s not what I’ll write about today, however, because you are most likely hearing about that absolutely everywhere else, and I have little or nothing to add to what’s being said elsewhere. Today I’ll opine on the career and slime trail of former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose evident losing battle with dementia is being televised nightly. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people ask, what happened to Rudy? The answer is simple: nothing. Like Trump, he’s just as nasty as he ever was, only older and more scrambled.

Because of the nature and the timing of the 9/11 attacks, many people remember Giuliani fondly as “America’s Mayor”, I think mostly because he didn’t run up the street screaming when the towers fell. What he was then, of course, was a failed mayor at the end of his term, a man with the blood of many people of color on his hands, and an immensely corruptible individual whom Jimmy Breslin once famously described as a small man in search of a balcony. Well … he found that balcony, and then some. Anyone who remembers Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, and Abner Louima knows something about what policing was like in NY City under America’s mayor. His personal abuses were legendary. At one point during his tenure, I remember a random cab driver (unofficial one; the 90s equivalent of an Uber driver) complaining about how Giuliani’s lover’s kids would run wild in the driver’s apartment building, bragging that they had mayoral protection. But I digress …

Why pick this photo? Because he effing deserves it.

After achieving hero status in the wake of 9/11 (despite his placement of the emergency command center up a few precarious floors in the World Trade Center after the 1993 attack and his sweetheart contract with Motorola for emergency communications that failed on the fateful day), Giuliani went out into the world, proffering his supposed expertise in security and anti-terrorism, helping police agencies, despotic governments, and corporations keep the rabble in line … for a steep consulting price. I suspect he thinks of Trump as just another despot who needs his services, and he would be right. Now, in his dotage, Giuliani may make a lot less sense, but he is still treated with some deference in foreign capitals, and more so thanks to his close association with the president of the United States.

Let’s be clear: in 2016, Giuliani openly bragged just days before the election about the New York office of the FBI having the goods on Hillary Clinton. A short time later, the story broke about Anthony Weiner’s laptop and the revival of the email probe, effectively torpedoing any chance of a Clinton victory. He and Trump relied on this tactic to get candidate Trump over the electoral finish line. It worked then, and it may work again without some real effort on the other side.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Raising the Barr.

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Last week, Attorney General William Barr gave an address to a gathering of police at an awards ceremony held by the Justice Department. Much was made, and rightfully so, of his comments about “communities” that do not show enough respect for law enforcement possibly finding themselves “without the police protection they need.” This is a remarkably lawless comment by the nation’s chief law enforcement officer – police are sworn to protect the communities they serve, regardless of their political views, attitudes, etc. But what’s even more troubling is Barr’s lead-up to these comments, which I’ve only seen reported in any detail on by the Majority Report.

He began with a long rant about the fabled widespread vitriol and contempt shown to veterans returning from the Vietnam war, and how the public sentiment about members of the military turned around during the Gulf War, when Barr was serving in the first Bush Administration. His point with respect to policing was that officers are no less at war than soldiers on the battlefield; that police endure a daily conflict with “predators”, and when they come home at night, there’s no parade, no celebration, and their “war” never ends. This extremist, adversarial view of policing sounds like that of an unreconstructed Reagan-era ultra conservative, in favor of mass incarceration and heavy-handed police tactics. But Barr’s worldview draws from a much deeper well.

Movement conservative s.o.b.

When Barr was a freshman at Columbia University in 1968 during that year’s massive protests against the Vietnam war, he followed his father’s example in criticizing the protesters. Of course, Barr was draft age. Before his confirmation last year, he had said that he wasn’t required to register for the draft, but later retracted that statement as it obviously wasn’t true. Barr was draft age in 1968; I don’t know, but my guess is that he had a college deferment that year, then drew a high number in the first draft lottery at the end of 1969. According to Vanity Fair writer Marie Brenner, Barr hated the protests because they kept him out of the library. He saw them as anarchic – a view his conservative headmaster father shared. Barr’s father lost his job at the somewhat progressive Dalton School for his right-wing views. Brenner suggests that may have contributed to his contempt for liberals. Hard to say … but he seems to embody some of the same nastiness you find in other chicken-hawks.

Of course, the line he spreads about Vietnam veterans returning home to a land ruled by ungrateful hippies is nothing new or unique. Old-school conservatives have been repeating this trope for years, and those of us old enough to remember those years know that it’s mostly hogwash. My family was full of anti-war people. We had friends who went to Vietnam, and we loved them to pieces. They were as against the war as we were, and I hasten to add, it was an era when nearly anyone could end up in Vietnam via conscription … so today’s hippie was often tomorrow’s infantryman.

Barr is a menace to justice in America. He is also a shameless front man for a crackpot president … and, dare I say it, more dangerous even than Jefferson Sessions. Frankly, we can do better than either of them.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Stalking horses.

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The Democratic race for president is one candidate smaller today than it was a couple of days ago. Kamala Harris dropped out this week, and it took about five minutes for the talking heads in the corporate media to attribute the failure of her campaign to the push for Medicare for All. By Wednesday morning, Claire McCaskill, failed candidate for senate, was on Morning Joe taking shots at M4A as a far-left government takeover of insurance, amounting to some kind of expropriation from hardworking Americans. They’re taking our corporate insurance away! People from the heartland won’t like this!

Let’s think for a moment of what would be taken away. I have one of those insurance policies people like McCaskill and Scarborough think so highly of. (I’m sure they have nothing like it, by the way.) My plan is what used to be termed a “Cadillac plan”, not because the benefits are so generous but because my employer pays 80% of my premiums. Even so, the plan costs me thousands of dollars a year even when things don’t go wrong. What M4A would take away from me are co-pays, which are considerable, and a $3,600 deductible, plus additional costs associated with out-of-network providers. Would I pay more in taxes than I do currently? Possibly, but when we’re sick, we can go to the doctor, to the hospital, to urgent care, and not even think about cost. That’s a level of liberation I have never experienced.

It’s not hard to work out why shows like Morning Joe make such a determined effort to scuttle any attempt at bringing about M4A. Just look at their advertisers. No, not the military contractor ads – they’re mainly shooting at a more specific target (i.e. lawmakers and congressional staffers). The drug companies, the hospital groups, the medical device manufacturers, and of course, the big insurance firms. They are dropping a lot of coin on advertising and lobbying, as always, but if either Bernie or Warren gets anywhere near the White House, you can bet they will be directing their ample coffers to a concerted comm strategy to kill M4A before it is even drafted. That strategy will include targeted ads, but it will also involve appearances on talk shows, columns, video news releases and inserts on local TV news broadcasts – you name it. We saw some of this during the Obamacare fight. This will be much, much more determined.

I don’t say this to discourage anyone on the left from fighting for M4A. Quite the opposite – with the forces arrayed against us, we are going to need a sustained effort like nothing any of us has experienced before. It’s a fight worth having, so please … be ready both before and after election day.

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jp

Political Rants

Heavy lift.

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I want to open this week with a message to my fellow leftists. I know, some of you right now are probably saying, “Okay, boomer … “, but hear me out. For the more deeply committed among you, the upcoming presidential race is probably not the most important item on the agenda, but for those who plan on participating in the Democratic party primaries and caucuses, I have one modest caution: Don’t rip a new asshole into every candidate other than Bernie (whom I personally support). Many of us who are participating in electoral politics want Bernie to win, but that goal is in the hands of the voters. If we out-organize and out-vote all of the other candidates, we can win … but losing is a possibility, and given that eventuality we would still need to beat Trump in November … regardless of who wins the Democratic party nomination for president.

It's going to take all of us

The fact is, achieving top policy priorities like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal will be tremendously difficult no matter who the next Democratic president turns out to be. Obviously, Bernie Sanders is the best choice, in that we can be confident that we won’t have to convince the president to push for them. This is true of Warren to a lesser extent. But even with a reliable progressive / socialist like Bernie in the White House, M4A and the GND will demand massive organizing and activism outside of government, as well as more progressives in both the Senate and the House. All of that amounts to a heavy lift, and the difference a progressive president would make would be significant but not sufficient in and of itself.

In other words, there is no universe in which we can elect Bernie on a Tuesday in November and have him deliver M4A, for instance, sometime over the following year, all by himself. We need to build momentum for this and other progressive policies now and throughout next year, and when we defeat Trump with whatever candidate gets the most primary votes, we will need to push even harder and keep our eye on the ball. The presidential component of this project, while important, is relatively minor; no Democratic president can pass such sweeping legislation without a movement behind him or her. We will be opposed in all progressive proposals by the richest, most powerful institutions in the world, so it’s going to be a fight no matter who wins.

If we work extremely hard, we will get the nominee – Sanders – that we want and need. And then the real work begins.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Ten in Georgia.

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It would be hard to overstate the sheer joy being felt by our corporate media over the last couple of weeks. It reminds me of those times when there’s three major stories and a hurricane. They are never so happy as when the news machine is firing on all cylinders, and that is certainly what’s happening now – impeachment hearings, international upheaval, Democratic debates. Lots and lots of content, and very little effort needed to push it out.

So here I am, sitting in front of the television on debate night, watching the long wind-up led by erstwhile nightly news anchor Brian Williams, basking in the lights, moderating a conversation between failed Senate re-elect candidate Claire McCaskill, former Howard Schultz vendor Steve Schmidt, perennial talk show host Joy Ann Reid, and Chris Hayes, smartest man on TV.

The ten candidates include a billionaire who basically bought his way onto this stage. Cautionary comments from Schmidt and McCaskill counseling centrism. Hoo boy.

First question from Rachel Maddow to Warren, about impeachment. She gives a strong, sharp answer. Klobuchar nervously harkens back to Walter Mondale. Bernie starts with focus on poor and working people – thank you, senator. Birthday Joe stumbles into his first response … hoo boy.

Still too big by half.

Cory Booker’s criticism of Warren’s wealth tax is as vacuous as Buttigieg’s criticism of Medicare for All. Biden thinks 160 million people are happy with their health insurance.  I suspect he’s including me in that count, and if so, he fucking bonkers.

Gabbard vs. Harris is, frankly, irritating. They are both deeply problematic people.

The billionaire speaks! He’s pushing power down to the American people. The other rich guy compliments him. Tom Steyer wants to build millions of new housing units. Sounds good, but … how? Amy Klobuchar, who happily votes for $750B military budgets, thinks we can’t afford more than 3 months of paid parental leave. Priorities, right?

Climate change question! But it’s put to Tulsi. Let’s start that one with someone who, I don’t know, might be president. Tom Steyer gets the second whack at it. Really? Pissing match between him and fellow white guy Biden. Bernie leaps in, like Lester (ask your jazz fan mother).

Harris defends confrontation with North Korea. Joe doubles down on that, and gets the stand off between Russia and NATO backwards. I’m no fan of Putin, but NATO expansion is a legitimate concern for any Russian government, given their history of being invaded from the west.

Kudos to Booker for raising the war in Yemen. Double kudos to Bernie for his comments on Israel-Palestine and Saudi. He’s way out ahead on that. Commercials. Someone has to pay for that expensive stage set, including, apparently, a California based anti-immigration group.

Joe responds to a question about #metoo and resorts to an unfortunate metaphor for his fight against partner violence. “Keep punching at it” is a poor choice of words.

Finally an immigration question! That’s what happens when Castro and Beto aren’t invited.

Halfway decent (and congenial) conversation on abortion rights, though I wish to hell they would raise the judiciary in this context.

That’s about it. Cue commercial.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

The utility of experts.

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I haven’t been following the Democratic primary contest very much on this blog, as it receives so much coverage elsewhere it seems massively redundant for me to comment on it as well. When it becomes a substantive policy discussion, however, it certainly warrants comment. When Elizabeth Warren released the explanatory document on her version of Medicare for All (M4A), it was greeted with derision by supporters of the more “moderate” candidates. Morning Joe, of course, rolled out their resident fiscal policy expert Steve Rattner, who deployed a series of charts and graphs that demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt the very thing that the recent George Mason University study made clear: health care in America is expensive.

Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.

Rattner used a pie chart to show what portions of total health care cost would be picked up by M4A, then a line graph to illustrate how much higher federal spending would be if such a plan were implemented. He was attempting to make the point that the federal government would have to spend a third again as much as it currently does, and that …. shudder …. that’s a lot! What of course neither he nor his Morning Joe colleagues mentioned was that this money is being spent by us anyway … and that the current result is more than 80 million people uninsured or under-insured, half a million medical bankruptcies a year, and assorted other disasters. In other words, the current system is a massively costly failure.

M4A, on the other hand, would cover everyone. It would eliminate much of the cost to families and individuals, and decouple health care from employment. There would be no more medical bankruptcies, and (icing on the cake) it would cost less than what we’re currently collectively spending. With the right funding plan, it would cost individuals below a certain income level less than what they’re paying now. We can disagree over how that will play out, but M4A is the only way to ensure that health care is a right, not a privilege. When I hear the middling candidates so beloved of Morning Joe complain about single payer, it reminds me that none of them ever had to deal with inadequate health coverage. I have, and it’s a massive pain in the ass. Even the so-called good plans that people supposedly love so much are massively complicated and involve all kinds of hidden expenses.

This fight for M4A won’t be easy. We need to be ready for it.

luv u,

jp