In These Times (4.00 / 2)

I've read In These Times on and off throughout the years, I knew its founders, it's a great mag.

However, as far as I know, no magazine subscription is tax deductible.  Charitable donations might be, but that's a different story.

sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.

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by: sTiVo @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 14:12:19 PM UTC

It is a war of ideas. (4.00 / 4)

The entire world view of Reagan must be demolished.

Empirically, it failed.  

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by: Tom Wells @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 14:20:11 PM UTC

What happened in the 1970s.... (4.00 / 1)

...that made it possible for middle class and working class Americans to buy into Reagan and his supply side economic message? Does Bunch's book address this? Assuming that we are heading into a neo-Keynesian era, what are the shortcomings of demand side economic policy that need to be addressed so that we can avoid another corporate takeover of our country in the future? Specifically, what could have been done about stagflation in the 1970s that could have averted Reagan? Any ideas or recommended reading?  

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by: greenwood63 @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 14:29:31 PM UTC

Recommended reading (4.00 / 8)

Read Nixonland by Rick Perlstein.  Backlash against "the sixties" was a key factor in the rise of the Reagan right.  It wouldn't have been possible otherwise.  

In other words, you won't find the answer in economics alone.  The economic prescriptions of the New Right never made the least bit of sense.  Had people been thinking clearly and had the New Rightists been honest about their economic intentions, they would have been dead in the water.  Something else was required to sell this shit, and that something was the backlash.

What is amusing to me now is the Republican attempt (apparently sincerely believed by some) to say that Republicans moved away from their principles, which were sound, in the Bush era, and that reverting to this golden age is their path back.  This is nonsense.  Nakedly honest trickle-down politics is a losing formula - as seen in Jindal's absolutely pathetic speech last night.  The anti-sixties backlash has lost a good deal of its sting, and the Republicans are having a hard time putting Humpty Dumpty back together.

sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.

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by: sTiVo @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 14:50:15 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yep, it was "the culture wars". (4.00 / 4)

I totally agree with you that the GOP would have gone nowhere if they had just revealed their true intentions. So instead, they began an orchestrated effort to shift blame from corporate titans to "welfare queens", "deadbeat dads", "radical Left hippies", "environazis", "feminazis", "homosexual perverts", "Hollywood Socialists", and "Manhattan Limousine Liberals". And because all of us "deviants" on The Left were supposedly "corrupting American society" and "destroying Heartland Values", they were needed to "save the country".

We saw this with Dumbya Bush using thinly veiled attacks against President Clinton in 2000 when he talked about "restoring honor & dignity to the White House". We saw this again in 2008 with Sarah Palin's "small town" speeches. The "culture wars" faux-populism has been an old trick of theirs to distract from their trickle down economic policies, but with the economy spiraling into depression thanks to their "Reagan-Bush-o-nomics", they can't distract any longer.

Yes, Virginia, there are progressives in Nevada.

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by: Andrew Davey @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 15:20:26 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oil prices, inflation (3.43 / 7)

The main thing is that oil prices went from $3 a barrel to $35 a barrel between 1971 and 1981.  Republicans love to blame Lyndon Joihnson's social spending but Johnson left with a surplus, it was the oil that did it.

Combine in the nightly humiliating coverage of the Ayatollah and the Iran Hostage Situation and the Republican propaganda machine (unemployment + inflation = the misery index).  Nightline started as a nightly show on the hosatage crisis.  "America Held Hostage: Day XXX" was the start along with a picture of a blindfolded hostage held at gunpoint by a guy in a khaffiyeh.  You couldn't get any more inflamatory than that.

Grumpy?  The Government was crooked (Watergate, investigation of CIA).  We had just lost a bad and bloody war and the chicken hawks were fuming, looking for any excuse to shed somebody else's blood to "restore their manhood."  Oil and energy prices were out of control.  The economy wasn't really thast bad but inflation was and the constant talk made things look ridiculously bad.  Mortgages were well up into double digits (I got a deal at 12% on a private mortgage from the previous owner).

I can't emphasize enough though how much of this was the hostage situation and Iran.  The Ayatollah was like ten or twenty times bigger and more hostile than Saddam Hussein in the American psyche and we did worse than nothing.  We tried to rescue the hostages and botched the deal.  The helicopters were kept in the mideast too long and choked on the sand.  Carter looked totally inept.  He entered a race and collapsed.  Well the Bushes did that (George with his collapse into the dinner plate and W with the pretzel) but Carter was endlessly ridiculed for that, the "killer rabbit" story, the sweater and more.

Reagan cranked the economy into full scale disaster and people were looking for a miracle and a strong hand and willing to give him a shot at trying it.  When the propaganda machine made mediocrity look fabulous, the supply side/tax cut mode was set in stone as the Republican answer to anything and everything.

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by: David Kowalski @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 15:14:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

the 70s (0.00 / 0)

David, I basically agree with you and the others who responded to my comment based on what I have read about the decade. However, is there not a fundamental deficiency with demand side economics over the long term that needs to be addressed? I'm thinking the oil shocks of the 1970s combined with the bill coming due for the Viet Nam War were certainly key economic factors that helped do in the Keynesian consensus. And the troubles of stagflation gave the new right an opening to try out their culture war. However, during that decade it does seem as if there was a crisis of capital accumulation, and corporations were looking elsewhere to invest because the cost of business was too high in the US, due to the strength of unions, social safety net, and regulations. What should have been done to address this to prevent the weiners from taking over?

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by: greenwood63 @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 17:32:57 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

"is there not a fundamental deficiency with demand side economics " (4.00 / 1)

there are, but it's more been that the Democratic Party -- and Democratic officeholders overall -- have been moving away from -- and refusing to defend -- government as a force for tangible good in all lives -- since the 60s (i'd say 1968-1972 specifically).

overall societal things too --selfishness, tribalism, racism, and the shriveling of "civics" and the belief in "we're all in this together" etc, has been a large part as well --

but i'd say that without a counterforce powerful enough to make the case for welfare and social programs and government action, etc -- to fight to keep, strengthen, and expand the historic successes and strengths of the Democratic Party -- and that government alone can -- and must -- do these things -- it's been all too easy to cement incredibly harmful ideas everywhere.

Even asking about "economics" shows how pervasive the ideas are -- it's not an economics or a money problem -- it's about principles and power and priorities and programs.

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by: amberglow @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 21:37:05 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Good points (0.00 / 0)

Thanks!

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by: greenwood63 @ Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 03:43:18 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

glad it helped -- (0.00 / 0)

even today's health "reform" stuff was all about costs and numbers and the budget -- and not about providing actual healthcare.

and at the very same time, about banks/wall st. -- "U.S. officials, speaking to reporters after the announcement, said there would be no limit on how much money the program could provide banks" -- http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/...

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by: amberglow @ Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 05:30:04 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

That's a great article by Sanders (4.00 / 4)

I look forward to listening to Senator Sanders on Thom Hartmann's show every Monday morning ("Brunch with Bernie.")

It sounds like the new Friedman institute may become the Hoover institute of our time. Using the name of an iconic right ring failure: now that is something the right can really rally around. The "we're so misunderstood" meme is one of their favorites, and they will need something to hold them together during the lean times ahead for the GOP.

After watching Bobby Jindal deliver few sentences last night, I felt like I was really watching the end of the two party system. It is very hard to see any way out for the GOP. The emergence of a viable third party seems more likely in 2016 than a real comeback for the GOP.  

ec=-8.50 soc=-8.41   (3,967 Watts)

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by: Mark Wallace @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 15:12:57 PM UTC

Like this... (4.00 / 5)

From Senator Sanders:

Well, it turns out that when the shoe is pinching their foot, they have become the strongest believers in government intervention-especially if working people and the middle class are bailing them out.

But the issue here is not just economic policy. It goes deeper than that. It touches on the core of who we are as a society and as a people. Are we as human beings supposed to turn around and not see the suffering that so many of our brothers and sisters are experiencing? Are we content to be living in a nation where, thanks in part to the Friedmanite ideology, the richest 1 percent owns more than the bottom 90 percent and the top one-tenth percent owns more than the bottom 50 percent?

Should we ignore the reality that under Bush, more and more billionaires were created in a period when we had, by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world? Some 18 percent of our kids are living in poverty and we are shocked that we have more people in jail than any other country on earth, including China. Are we supposed to ignore those realities?

With all due respect to the late Milton Friedman, his economic program is nothing more than a wish list for the greediest, the most monied interests in our society. At the same time that this ideology is supported by the rich and powerful-except when they're lining up in Washington for their welfare checks-this same ideology is almost unanimously opposed by working families and middle-class people across this country.

We really do need to get to the heart of this problem, which is the failed Friedman policy that Reagan & the Bushes used to get us into this disaster.

Yes, Virginia, there are progressives in Nevada.

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by: Andrew Davey @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 15:26:23 PM UTC

It is Obama who is demanding SS, medicare, et al.. be cut, isn't it? (2.00 / 2)

The great progressive phony, is the one pushing for cuts in social security, medicare and other programs to pay for the massive debt he's placed upon us to line the pockets of his corporate owners, for which he will no doubt receive massive kickbacks.

No coverage of O-man's speech last night, where he demands democrats stop protecting even necessary programs, or are we supposed to ignore the man behind the curtain?

Face it, Obama is embracing Friedman, for the same reason Reagan and the lot did, he's in their pockets. The left has allied itself with the neo-cons and the corporate elite. It's not about human or civil rights, it's about eroding human and civil rights. The left doesn't care that it's revealed itself to be fascistic, they feel that they won't have to answer such charges, because the corporate owned media certainly won't report on it. Censorship and persecution of those who speak out is after all, something leftists feel very comfortable with.

Come on, David, you have to start tearing down the left's myths.

GM lied to the Senate Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs committee, claiming that not one penny of the bailout would be sent overseas, yet as soon as they received it, they sent 1 billion to Brazil. Lying to a Senate committee is a federal offense, fraud. Nor did GM tell the truth about it's financial situation. Claiming that it had suffered losses in '08 was a lie. It's profits from a 17.1 percent increase in market share for the year, for some reason weren't mentioned at the committee hearing.

The premise for the bailout was to prevent job losses in the US, yet democrats are now saying that GM must decrease jobs in the US to receive more of a bailout.

Chris Dodd, who protected corrupt banks, investment firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from being subjected to new regulation and oversight, and who got a special deal on his mortgage, is making millions off the sale of a new book on the collapse. He claims to seek transparency, yet refuses to make his mortgage documents public, as he was petitioned to do, and he was allowed to conduct his own investigation of his mortgage deal, and he pronounced himself innocent of any wrong doing. Sounds just like old Soviet Russia.

But we can't disrupt the myth of the left, that it's all about rights and freedoms, can we?

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by: ceol @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 17:12:28 PM UTC

almost forgot, Obama refuses to end Bush's tax cut for his fatcat friends... (2.00 / 2)

but let's cut social security, medicare and stick it to those awful poor and middle class folks, especially when we're bleeding their jobs out of the country and allowing companies to fire them, to replace them with cheap foreign labor.

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by: ceol @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 17:19:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

"do the same for Social Security, while creating tax-free universal savings accounts for all Americans." (0.00 / 0)

How is this not privatizing Social Security? (another Republican plan for decades -- based on myths about Wall Street always being the best place for all money -- private and public)

from transcript of speech -- which is chock-full of many myths -- http://www.realclearpolitics.c...

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by: amberglow @ Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 21:19:00 PM UTC