The Republicans won control of the House and picked up seats in the Senate in the midterm election on nebulous promises to slash spending and reduce the size of the federal government. House Speaker John Boehner has pledged to reduce spending to 2008 levels, as per the GOP's campaign manifesto, known as the "Pledge to America."
The Economist, Great Britain's magazine for the American elite, recently published a special report on Latin America. While the magazine noted the continuing challenges facing Latin America, it also perceived that Latin America has made great strides in the past decade. This has especially been the case with reducing inequality, a perpetual curse of that region in the world - and perhaps the greatest obstacle to economic advancement in Latin America.
In doing this, The Economist published the following table:
Executives Collect $2 Billion Running U.S. For-Profit Colleges
By John Hechinger and John Lauerman
Strayer Education Inc., a chain of for-profit colleges that receives three-quarters of its revenue from U.S. taxpayers, paid Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Silberman $41.9 million last year. That's 26 times the compensation of the highest-paid president of a traditional university.
Top executives at the 15 U.S. publicly traded for-profit colleges, led by Apollo Group Inc. and Education Management Corp., also received $2 billion during the last seven years from the proceeds of selling company stock, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show. At the same time, the industry registered the worst loan-default and four-year-college dropout rates in U.S. higher education. Since 2003, nine for-profit college insiders sold more than $45 million of stock apiece. Peter Sperling, vice chairman of Apollo's University of Phoenix, the largest for-profit college, collected $574.3 million.
Education corporations, which receive as much as 90 percent of their revenue from federal financial-aid programs, are "private enterprise that's almost entirely publicly funded," Henry Levin, director of Columbia University's National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, said in a telephone interview.
Students at for-profit colleges are defaulting on their loans at three times the rate of those at private, nonprofit institutions, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education, which is tightening regulation of the industry. The graduation rate for first-time, full-time candidates for four- year degrees at for-profit colleges is 22 percent, compared with 55 percent at state colleges and 65 percent at private nonprofit universities.
This is about as clear an example one could want of how much more efficient and productive the public sphere is compared to the private sphere. Of course, all the ideology goes the other way, largely because private enterprises are experts at externalizing their costs, so that they can appear to be more efficient. But as the above passage shows, top executives are able to extract massive paychecks from large private institutions that massively under-perform their public counterparts.
This is also about as clear an example one could want of America's conservative welfare state, the re-purposing of America's welfare state from Reagan onward to specifically benefit America's oligarchy and specific privileged sectors of industry and society.
[H]ere's a chart from this week's edition of Too Much, an online weekly publication of the Institute for Policy Studies. It turns out that over 90% of Americans would prefer to live in Sweden, rather than the US, so far as wealth distribution is concerned:
The chart was based on a paper, "Building a Better America - One Wealth Quintile at a Time" by Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University, and is Forthcoming in Perspectives on Psychological Science. The abstract begins as follows:
Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of "regular" Americans into these debates, by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current distribution of wealth in the United States and to "build a better America" by constructing distributions with their ideal level of inequality.
This is, in fact, as the authors go on to explain, an attempt to essentially operationalize philosopher John Rawls "veil of ignorance" from his Theory of Justice. And the results are truly eye-opening:
First, respondents dramatically underestimated the current level of wealth inequality. Second, respondents constructed ideal wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution. Most important from a policy perspective, we observed a surprising level of consensus: All demographic groups - even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy - desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo.
What this tells us, in essence, is that our political system is far out of whack in creating the sort of nation that the vast majority of Americans want to live in. The Constitution says in its preamble that it exists in part to "promote the general welfare", and this is what almost all Americans believe that the general welfare looks like. Something is deeply and seriously wrong, and it's not just a matter of liberal opinion. This is cold, hard data.
It's also worth noting the vast gap between the outcomes of the "marketplace" (which is, of course, nothing like the simple, idealized competetive market of early capitalist economics) which are assumed to reflect the totality of individual preferences and the explicityly expressed preferences found in this poll. This is but another indicator of the profound disconnect in the field of economics.
A more general take-away from de Wall is just how important it is for those who wish to perpetuate inequality that they figure out some scam or system of scams that makes things seem like they're equal, even though they're not.
Appropos of that, here's a chart from this week's edition of Too Much, an online weekly publication of the Institute for Policy Studies. It turns out that over 90% of Americans would prefer to live in Sweden, rather than the US, so far as wealth distribution is concerned:
The last three and a half decades have seen a disturbing increase in inequality in the U.S. The wealthiest Americans have made significant income and wealth gains, while the rest of us have treaded water at best. And yet, as our national dream of economic security and mobility dies, we don’t even care enough to offer a eulogy. As Willy Loman’s wife reminded us, “Attention must be paid.”
President Barack Obama's decision to appoint Elizabeth Warren to set up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) couldn't have come at a more critical time.
Now that health care reform has finally been enacted, a host of critical economic issues are taking center stage, including financial reform, unemployment and deeply rooted economic inequality. But it's important to note that with its health care vote, the U.S. House of Representatives actually approved a very important, and often overlooked financial reform: Student lending.
Pedro de la Torre III of Campus Progress explains the current student loan nightmare in an interview with The American Prospect's Rebecca Delaney. For years, the U.S. government has paid massive subsidies to some of the worst-run companies in the country.
Thanks a lot, Sallie Mae
As de la Torre notes, instead of directly making loans to students, the government spent years funneling money to firms like Sallie Mae to actually make the loans. When things went sour, taxpayers covered the lender's losses from student loans that ultimately went bad.
Taxpayers were also footing the bill for the loans and taking on the risk, while private companies and their executives enjoyed the benefits. The executives made quite a haul. In 2008 alone, Sallie Mae CEO Albert Lord took home an astonishing $46 million. Even among CEOs, that's a princely sum-more than double what Halliburton CEO David Lesar made the same year. All of that money could have financed a lot of college educations.
Fortunately, the student loan landscape is almost certain to change as a result of the health care vote. The House bill included a provision to end student loan subsidies and boost funding for direct grants from the government to students.
Since the student loan reform and health care were both eligible for reconciliation in the Senate (meaning only 51 votes are needed for passage instead of the 60 to clear a filibuster), House Democrats decided to move on both at the same time. It's a significant reform, and one that will soon become law with President Barack Obama's signature.
What would an overhaul of the consumer finance industry entail?
The student loan system is just one aspect of the consumer finance industry that needs a major overhaul. On mortgages, credit cards, overdrafts, and payday loans, the banking status quo is one of outright predation. As Heather McGhee of Demos explains to The Nation's Christopher Hayes, there's a reason why federal agencies do a lousy job regulating consumer banking abuses.
Right now there is no agency responsible for consumer protection alone. Every regulator also focuses on making sure banks don't fail, which generally means that regulators support anything that increases short-term profits. Egregiously predatory practices generally lead to big short-term gains in banking.
A new consumer financial protection bureau
Last week, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) introduced a bill that would create a new bureau of consumer financial protection, with no constraints from bank profitability. It's a step in the right direction, but as McGhee notes, there are plenty of problems with Dodd's proposal. Most problematically, the bill gives existing agencies a veto power over any new consumer protection rules. That's a terrible loophole. Existing regulators have actively opposed consumer protections in the past, and there is every reason to expect that practice to continue.
Rapid tax refunds scam the poor
It's late March, which means tax season is getting into full swing. All over the country, mascots from Liberty Tax are spilling into the streets wearing goofy costumes, trying to win your business. But millions of Americans don't realize that Liberty, along with H&R Block, Jackson-Hewitt and hundreds of smaller businesses are engaged in a monstrous scam disguised as a complicated accounting service.
As Alexander Zaitchik emphasizes for AlterNet, these tax preparers have used deceptive advertising and slick salesmanship to con people into taking out "refund anticipation loans," also known as "rapid refunds" and a handful of other pleasant euphemisms. It's a simple gimmick: H&R Block does your taxes, and then presents you with your tax refund, right away, no waiting. But the check you receive is not actually your tax refund-it's your tax refund minus a truckload of fees that you didn't realize were being deducted. This is the tax-time equivalent of payday lending.
When the government sends in your actual, larger tax refund one-to-two weeks later, you won't see it-it goes straight to H&R Block's bank partner. Those banks are making big money taking from your tax returns. Here's Zaitchik:
"In 2008, more than eight million Americans spent nearly a billion dollars paying interest and fees on RALs-often based on misleading or incomplete information-swelling the profits of tax preparers and their partner banks."
The one break low-income people get under the U.S. tax code is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the nation's largest anti-poverty program. Only about 16% of taxpayers qualify for the EITC, but as Zaitchik notes, nearly two-thirds of the people who take out refund anticipation loans receive the credit. Tax preparers are making a concerted effort to prey on the poor, making the EITC program more expensive and less efficient for all taxpayers-not just those who go to H&R Block or Liberty Tax.
More action needed on jobs
Beyond finance, the U.S. economy has a serious jobs problem. Last week, Congress approved an $18 billion jobs package that is simply far too small to make a serious dent in the nearly double-digit unemployment rate. As Art Levine explains for Working In These Times, the package will create 250,000 jobs at best. That number shouldn't be acceptable to anyone watching the U.S. economy, which has shed about 7 million jobs since the recession began.
There are much stronger options available than the $18 million bill the Senate approved. Rep. George Miller (D-CA) has introduced a bill in the House that would quickly save or create one million jobs, and the House has already passed a separate $154 billion jobs package that would prevent 900,000 lay-offs. If the Senate moved on either one, the result would be a major economic boost.
The link between poor economies and poor health
All of these problems-unemployment, student loan scamming, refund anticipation loan sharking and other forms of financial predation-reinforce economic inequality in the United States, which is at levels unseen since before the Great Depression. That inequality is ultimately actively damaging to public health, as epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson explains in an interview with Brooke Jarvis for Yes! Magazine. Rampant economic inequality in the United States is literally making us sick.
"We looked at life expectancy, mental illness, teen birthrates, violence, the percent of populations in prison, and drug use," Wilkinson says. "They were all not just a little bit worse, but much worse, in more unequal countries."
With health care finally finished, Congress and the administration have an opportunity to make serious headway on the economy. They've got plenty of work to do.
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More than 5,000 people are packing the streets of downtown Chicago this morning, chanting, marching and rallying against Big Bankers and financial institutions that have taken taxpayer money and are using it to give big bonuses to CEOs and to lobby against financial reforms that would ensure they don't go back on the public dole.
The crowd is marching to the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, site of the American Bankers Association meeting, to protest the banking industry's greed and irresponsibility that crippled our economy, leaving millions of workers behind.
After the house of cards they built collapsed, bankers and the financial industry took $700 billion in taxpayer funds for a bailout. But rather than reform their failed practices, they want to go back to business as usual-with the chance of again precipitating another financial collapse and need for taxpayer bailout in coming years.
We Need To Redistribute Wealth Through A Progressive Taxation System.
Interesting article in the London Review of Books entitled "What Matters." Link below. The author argues that efforts to eliminate or minimize racism and sexism and homophobia have had no positive effect in changing society for the better, except for the benefits received by the small, elite group of women and minorities and gays who are now members of higher-paid professions. The lack of focus on inequality in income and asset ownership, or class differences, and the focus instead of racism and sexism, has allowed the situation for most people to deteriorate over recent decades.
I think his position can be summarized as follows: assuming that the top 20% of our society owns 80% of the country's assets, and takes home 80% of the country's income every year, then the bottom 80% of society is economically unequal -- they are denied their fair share of wealth. If we succeed in eliminating sexism and racism so that the top 20% has a representative number of whites and minorities, but the distribution does not change, then society as a whole has not benefitted. Society is just as unequal, and unfair, for 80% of its members, as it was during the height of racism and sexism.
It's an interesting analysis. It may be that it's easier for people to demand "equality" based on natural-born characteristics, and harder for people to demand economic equality based on a government-sponsored redistribution of wealth. In other words, most people might agree that it is wrong to refuse to allow any woman to go to law school. But they might not be able to articulate an argument about it being wrong to allow some of our citizens to have no home, no food, no money, no safety net. It's almost as if the powers that be might be willing to give up racism and sexism, but would never consider income redistribution.
Income redistribution is the legitimate purpose of a progressive tax system. When people earn ten million dollars, for example, a progressive tax system should take most of that money for public purposes. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that we should try to prevent any group of people from accumulating so much wealth that they can, essentially, put every single politician on their payroll, and control the country without ever having run for office. Which is what's happened in our country today.
For example, we used to have laws that prohibited one person or company from owning multiple TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, believing that democracy is best served when many voices can be heard. But some scum-bucket like Rupert Murdoch comes into this country and starts bribing politicians, and suddenly the laws are changed to allow him to buy up much of the media in the country and use it to promote fascist propaganda. Rich people destroy democracy, and that is why they should not be allowed to get too rich.
For another example, if Bill Gates had been taxed at 90% on his "earnings," maybe he wouldn't have charged the public so much for his crappy operating system, maybe he wouldn't have been so eager to keep competitors from entering the marketplace, maybe he wouldn't have devoted so much time to getting H1b visas to bring in 6-year immigrant labor and pay them less than Americans, all being the types of predatory conduct of people who know they're not going to pay much in taxes, so they are motivated to get as much as they can.
Of course a percentage of our taxes, and those from every country with any wealth, should be turned over to an NGO supervised fund for development, and used to end poverty in the third world. Why should a few ultra-rich people in this country have gold-plated toilets and multiple homes, while millions throughout the world starve? Why is it considered radical to say that this type of inequality must be ended?
We have gone through a period in which we theoretically have a national commitment to being more "fair" to our own people, but the end result is more unfair. Fewer people run everything, the politicians are openly selling their votes, a few rich people own and control all the media, we have more people out of work, more people homeless, fewer people can afford to own a home, states and cities are bankrupt, schools are underfunded, the rich pay less in taxes, more people have been forced into poverty. This isn't progress towards a more fair society. It's just a bit more mixed in terms of gender and race.
"What Matters"
Walter Benn Michaels
"Who Cares about the White Working Class"
edited by Kjartan Páll Sveinsson
"... [I]t would be a mistake to think that because the US is a less racist, sexist and homophobic society, it is a more equal society. In fact, in certain crucial ways it is more unequal than it was 40 years ago. No group dedicated to ending economic inequality would be thinking today about declaring victory and going home."
"In 1969, the top quintile of American wage-earners made 43 per cent of all the money earned in the US; the bottom quintile made 4.1 per cent. In 2007, the top quintile made 49.7 per cent; the bottom quintile 3.4. And while this inequality is both raced and gendered, it's less so than you might think. White people, for example, make up about 70 per cent of the US population, and 62 per cent of those are in the bottom quintile. Progress in fighting racism hasn't done them any good; it hasn't even been designed to do them any good. More generally, even if we succeeded completely in eliminating the effects of racism and sexism, we would not thereby have made any progress towards economic equality. A society in which white people were proportionately represented in the bottom quintile (and black people proportionately represented in the top quintile) would not be more equal; it would be exactly as unequal. It would not be more just; it would be proportionately unjust. "... ...
"Thus the primacy of anti-discrimination ... performed the intellectual function of focusing social analysis on what she calls 'questions of racial or sexual identity' and on 'cultural differences' instead of on 'the way in which capitalist economies create large numbers of low-wage, low-skill jobs with poor job security'. The message of Who Cares about the White Working Class?, however, is that class has re-emerged: 'What we learn here', according to the collection's editor, Kjartan Páll Sveinsson, is that 'life chances for today's children are overwhelmingly linked to parental income, occupations and educational qualifications - in other words, class.' "
Walter Benn Michaels teaches English at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His most recent book is The Trouble with Diversity; his next will be The Death of a Beautiful Woman: Form Now.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n16/m...
A new study by Economist Emmanuel Saez revealed this week that income inequality in the U.S. is more severe today than at any time since World War I, and the current recession is taking its heaviest toll on the worst-off members of our society. As our government rebuilds the financial sector using taxpayers' money, it's important to remember that both financiers and the government are responsible to our communities, not just bank shareholders. If we want to strengthen our country's economic foundation, we need to demand better wages for workers and an end to all kinds of predatory lending.
Saez's new data on income inequality is, as Paul Krugman put it, "truly amazing." Saez, who teaches at the University of California at Berkeley, found that the top 0.01% of U.S. earners had 6% of total U.S. wages, more than double the level in 2000. Earners in the top 10%, meanwhile, took home an astonishing 49.7% of all wages. That gap is larger now than during the Great Depression or the Gilded Age of the Roaring '20s.
"We're seeing Depression-era inequality again-only now it's slightly worse," writes Steve Benen for The Washington Monthly. Benen also notes that this level of inequality is not an inevitable consequence of a market economy: It's an extreme historical aberration. In the U.S., prosperity for much of the 20th Century was shared. But in 2007, at the economic bubble's peak, the wealthy simply got wealthier.
In that context, it is beyond absurd that the government is allowing 8-figure bonuses to be doled out by bailed out banks. Writing for Salon, Robert Reich dissects the policy implications of Citigroup's plans to pay its top executives an average of $10 million this year and award over $100 million to its top trader, a man who literally owns a castle in Germany. Citigroup was one of the most reckless U.S. banks during the housing bubble, a major subprime offender that received $45 billion in direct bailout money, as well as hundreds of billions in federal guarantees. How much is $45 billion? With the median U.S. home price at $174,100, that's the full market price of over 258,000 foreclosed homes. The company says that $10 million a head is necessary to attract and maintain top "talent," which Reich notes is a somewhat misleading term, given recent history. The problem is not just that Citigroup and other Wall Street firms are paying tons of money to a few people, it's that these people are being rewarded for the same kind of activities that got us into this mess to begin with: Risky, highly leveraged securities trading.
"Over the last several years Wall Street has exhibited a truly astonishing lack of talent," Reich says, noting that, "The Street is back to the same, relentlessly untalented tactics that made it lots of money before the meltdown-which also forced taxpayers to bail it out, caused the world economy to melt down, and tens of millions of people to lose big chunks of their life savings."
In truth, Reich argues, most large financial firms in the U.S. are much more like public utility companies than private-sector businesses. Even in good times, they depend on government guarantees and other support systems to function. In bad times, we bail them out. Instead of paying financiers tens of millions of dollars to reinforce a flawed system, Reich argues that we should impose rules that result in salaries similar to the public utilities sector, where top earners are generally restricted to 6-figure incomes.
The American Prospect features two pieces emphasizing problems in the current financial sector. Under a law known as the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), enacted in 1977 we require banks to make loans in communities where they collect deposits. The loans have to be to dependable borrowers and they have to be relatively inexpensive. The law works very well-institutions covered by it made only a tiny fraction of the high-interest subprime loans that brought down the financial sector, as National Community Reinvestment Coalition President John Taylor notes for the Prospect. But CRA only applies to actual banks. You know, the places where you deposit your paychecks. CRA does not apply to subcompanies owned by the same corporation, and it does not apply to giant Wall Street securities firms like Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs. Taylor says we need to expand CRA to cover these other big players in the financial world.
Why? As Alyssa Katz details in a piece for the Prospect funded by The Nation Institute, many Wall Street firms are bidding on foreclosed properties and selling them at rip-off rates to low-income borrowers.
But as Mary Kane notes for The Washington Independent, banks have also devised several methods of making money without making a loan. By charging tremendous fees on borrowers for minor infractions, banks generate billions of dollars without producing anything of social value. One of the worst forms of abuse, Kane writes, comes in the form of overdraft fees. When you withdraw too much money from your bank account, the bank fronts you the money, and then charges you a fee for this "protection." The trick is, banks almost never tell you that this has occurred, and often play around with the timing of your charges and deposits to maximize the fees they collect. Banks are on track to collect $38.5 billion in such fees this year alone. The worst part is, the fees come from the poorest customers-rich people don't overdraw their bank accounts, because they have tons of money.
In the case of credit cards, banks routinely slap borrowers with outrageous fees and interest rate hikes when the borrowers are making payments on time. Over the years, banks have targeted younger and younger credit card customers, as Adam Waxman notes for WireTap. After years of declining wages for all but the wealthiest citizens, consumers have been turning to pricey plastic to finance basic necessities.
Sadly, corporate America does not seem very focused on helping workers establish their financial independence. The Real News talks with Richard Wolff, an economist with the New School who emphasizes that, while worker productivity has jumped in recent months, wages have not made the corresponding increases. Quarterly productivity numbers tend to jump around a lot, but the trend of not compensating workers for improved efficiency has been around for years.
In a consumer-driven economy, major problems can't be fixed by giving lots of money to a few people, especially if those few people are already rich. To support broad, meaningful economic growth, we need to tailor our policies that empower those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. And when we bail out giant corporations with taxpayer money, we need to make sure those companies arrange their business to improve the lot of taxpayers.
As students of American history know, in 1932 and 1933, after the election and around the inauguration of FDR, there was a significant portion of the public that wanted a dictator. FDR even toyed with the idea but chose not to do so. At that time Fascism wasn't necessarily frowned upon here. Mussolini was actually well respected, and the Reichstag fire just happened in March 1933 when Hitler took complete control. So they can argue that we need a dictator. But, let's be consistent. Shred the constitution, if necessary. But they never take me up on it: instead, they pretend to love democracy. You can't have it both ways. My biggest problem, I tell them, with Bush and his thugs is not that he was moving close to dictatorial power; but that the slobs tried to hide that they were doing so. Just he and Cheney and Rumsfeld and the other scumbags took it upon themselves to do what they did. That's why I say they belong in public cages where they can be on display, like a zoo. But, we should be able as a country to have a rational discussion as to the future form of our government.
Maybe we'd be a lot better off if we agreed on a dictatorship. Freeze the borders, bomb anywhere in the world if they don't give us their raw materials, lock up the colored peoples in camps, and eat big meals. We can then wash it down with alcohol and really not give a shit. Oh, and only wasps can be on TV commercials and the women can argue over how clean they keep their linoleum floors. Yes, those were the days! And if I stop in a store, English is always spoken exclusively. An all white world! No more of that 3rd world riff-raff. Bring it on!!
The problem, as I see it, is that we can't even debate rationally whether we'd be better off with a dictator because they are total liars and won't admit the obvious. They have a vested interest in pretending that they love democracy...that they're patriotic. No, it has gotten to the point where, if almost any subject is even brought up to them, the right wing quickly reveals itself as being little more than a poorly concealed reservoir of bigotry. For example, let's face it, they favor vouchers rather than pay to improve public education, because they want to "legally" send their children to all white schools. And, even more to the point than that, at all costs don't share the wealth. No problem that for the last 30 years we've witnessed unprecedented growth in income disparity, the rich can never get enough. I could go on and on with examples of their blatant class bigotry but, what's the point? I trust you understand. "Vouchers" is a mere slogan, used by the real elite, like "patriotism", to solicit the prejudice that is just below the surface of every human being.....and they know it.
You want to experience receiving a blank look? Try explaining to any one of these slobs that Obama just wants to let expire the Bush tax cut for the rich, his proposal doesn't even come remotely close to what the rich were paying under Eisenhower, Nixon, or Bush Sr. Naturally, they are left speechless because their position is indefensible. They apparently think they have an absolute right to any wealth they have acquired. They will not give up anything without screaming as loudly as they can........Unfortunately, be ready for more and even louder noise.
And yet, for example, according to the right wing, when welfare was "reformed" over a decade ago, that was reduction of a mere privilege, not a "right". The poor don't have a right to much more than the air, according to the elites,.....they should just be thankful that they live in this country, and be appreciative and obedient, and wave the flag. After all, everything's fine the way it is, no need for this call for "change". Who needs change when you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want it, and wherever you wish? To them (the real elite), the only possible "change" is that they should acquire even more wealth because they "deserve" it. (How has the overwhelming majority agreed to this crap for so long?).
We have to finally fully admit the truth that it is human nature to always want more. It will never end, so stop waiting for it. The elites understand human nature and use bigotry to their advantage. We (the human race) have to be in a constant struggle to battle our own tendencies, to fight to promote equality. It's true that there will be no such thing as "equality" unless we are engaged in constant struggle to achieve and then maintain it.
Presumably we know that people are not born equal, we can only hope and aspire to equality of opportunity. But, it must be kept in mind that at any given time there is only so much "pie" to go around. Therefore, it's also human nature for these Sarah Palin fans, to do what they can to prevent the underclasses from "succeeding". For every little bit of monetary "success" by those without, the elite must surrender something of value. They'll never do it voluntarily, and never without loud screaming. Vouchers, low taxes, wars, patriotism, abortion, etc., are all bigotry-based slogans used to keep those without in line, all to the benefit of the real elite. Certainly, it's time to ignore those distractions and treat them as just that: "distractions", thrown in the way by the elite to try to prevent the masses from focusing on what must truly matter to them: distinctions of wealth.
And, it would seem to necessarily follow, that although we would achieve much in the way of needed efficiency, if we were to move to a dictatorship, there would be the likely prospect that Mr./Ms. dictator would protect the wealth of the real elite. and bigotry would be even more expanded and out in the open than it now is. And, almost by definition, the masses would lose whatever access they now have to appeal (question) the decisions that are made, so the overwhelming majority of humans in this country would be worse off. That being the case, dictatorship must be prevented.
It is no surprising announcement to say that we (the USA) now face an enormously large problem. There is a good chance that in attempting to resolve this problem, we will end up in an ultra-rightist, dictatorship, with even more inequality than is now present. In looking into the foggy future, I can't help but see a USA that is very good for the dwindling few and ever worse for the growing majority. Until what? (because things always do change). It continues to "grow" until it just bursts and I don't want to be around for the explosion. But is it even fair of me to leave such an existence to my children? Probably not.
Accordingly, we cannot morph into a dictatorship. Instead, we must continue with some sort of lame attempt at democracy until we get it right or, at least, acceptable. And due to a great many reasons, including how well the right is organized and how loud will be the screaming, we have no choice but to mobilize now, and urgently. This should be the existing short-term plan, anyhow. As to the long-term, and disputes of capitalism v. socialism, etc., we at least have several months within which to argue and decide.
I see this as akin to a life and death struggle: run, work harder, and harder, and "beat" the outnumbered into submission. There is no choice.
Obama, whatever you may think of him, represents our best hope. If he fails we get at least 4 or 8 more years of idiots and scoundrels, at a time when not only is it highly undesirable but, humanity can simply not afford it. So, we have no choice but to support him in mass. I think he has requested such support. Push him! We have no choice but to help and now! It may actually surprise us as to how much we can achieve. After all, there really must be some hope.
(Following on Chris's argument in "The End Of Bubba Dominance", if a religiously and racially diverse coalition is the future of American politics, will we actually be able to govern effectivel? Community organizing and national electoral politics are not the same thing, but neither are they totally unrelated. Hence, there's a lot of food for thought in this diary, even if community organizing isn't your primary focus. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
We would all like to be able to just sit down with diverse collections of citizens from all walks of life and work together to solve the problems we face. My last post , however, discussed research showing that diverse contexts are unlikely to generate robust, free, and equal democratic dialogue.
I also asserted that it is really difficult to train people to stop dominating each other. But I didn't really provide any evidence, and commenters were rightly skeptical.
This post looks at a book by Eric H. F. Law that gives a good description of the ways people from some groups unintentionally end up dominating in small groups while others are silenced. Law's book shows how subtle the dynamics of domination can be.
(Another installment in this excellent series. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Externally, community organizing groups split the world into an always flexible "us" and "them." Until fairly recently, the group I work with, at least, didn't look very closely at the internal fractures we had across boundaries of race and class. However the social and cultural power of privileged and less privileged members can create destructive patterns if they are not dealt with directly from the beginning.
In my limited experience in Wisconsin with CHANGE--a congregational organizing group that is a member of the national National Organizing network--I have watched a range of race and class issues emerge that were not dealt with effectively. (Later I'll talk about how intermediary organizations like National Organizing work with local groups).
From what I have read elsewhere (see also this and this ), a reluctance to focus specifically on race and class in favor of more pragmatic and general visions of "self interest" and coalition building has been a problem with mainline community organizing groups more generally. This has led to the development of new groups outside of the larger national groups that deal more directly with issues of racial identity, nationalism etc. More recently, I know that groups like National Organizing have begun to address these issues more directly, but since my participation has been mostly limited to local work in our education committee, I am not a part of these wider discussions in the network.
(I Don't care if it's not apathy. It's a BIG problem. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
With the incredible problems facing poor people in the United States, it is easy to look out on the lack of resistance, the silence in the streets, and assume the problem is apathy. "These people just don't care."
Here, I argue that "apathy" is not a useful way to understand why collective action is so lacking.
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