Tfgray’s Weblog

Fascism is the merging of state and corporate power.

–Benito Mussolini

One of the lines being used against health care reform is that it is Fascist in nature. Sarah Palin fears that “Obama’s death board” will decide that her Down Syndrome child will be deemed “not productive enough” to recieve health care.  Now, poverty is considered a general marker of being non-productive. And, if memory serves, those who cannot afford to pay either a doctor or an insurance company are denied medical attention under the current system. Well, ok, if you are totally SOL, you can get Medicaid, and if you’re retired, you get Medicare, both of which are generally well-run government programs (when we can keep Rick Scott’s fingers out of the till.) But, if you’re one of those marginally productive types, not broke enough for the government programs nor affluent enough for out glorious free-market system, well, you are deemed “not eligible.” Um, on account of not being productive enough.

Interesting.

It’s particularly interesting to note who is behind all these “jes’ folks” behaving like brownshirts at town hall meetings. Corporate interests. Rick Scott, for example, founder of CPR–Conservatives for Patients Rights–formerly of Columbia/HCA, at least until it was hit with a world record $1.7 billion fine for defrauding Medicare and he was shoved out the door clutching his $10 million golden parachute. Now he’s on the tube, talking about how “government bureaucrats” will tell you if you can get health care…conveniently ignoring the fact that corporate pencil pushers do exactly that every day of the week. He’s only one of the herd financing these fancy busses crossing the country and slick websites telling you which Democrat’s town hall to trash. They’re spending $1.4 million dollars per day to see to it that the competitive free-market system remains free from not-for-profit competition. You think that money’s coming from po’ folks?

In a sense it is. It comes from the pockets of every person who has paid insurance premiums for years, only to be told that their treatment will not be covered; who have lost their jobs and with it their benefits, after years of faithfully-paid premiums; who paid their medicare tax, only to see it sucked into the pockets of corporate scammers; from the pockets of the folks who flock to these meetings terrified by the hall of mirrors erected by these con men.  

This is how Hitler did it. He lied. He made people afraid. He set up minorities to be blamed for problems they had no part in causing. He started by encouraging his followers to shout down other opinions, then to destroy their property, then to kill them.

Listen to talk radio, largely controlled by big corporate right-wing sympathizers like Clear Channel communications. Watch Fox, another giant corporate entity. Hear them–Beck, O’Reilly, Limbaugh and all their small fish imitators–call Obama a fascist, that is, when they’re not calling him a communist. The Nazis called it the “Big Lie” technique. Apparently, it still works, at least for some people. As Adolph himself put it:

By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.

These are the times that try men’s souls.

Again.

It’s been a fascinating few weeks. Mexico is pretty close to a Feds vs. Heads civil war, armed by us, Iraq continues to be a dangerous neighborhood, Afghanistan gets worse, and prepares to add us to the list of empires that ended their existence by invading them, screwy things continues to go on on Wall Street, with the screwers being paid handsomely by the screwees via the magic of the Bailout.

The Right has lit a major firestorm over Obama’s use of the teleprompter, which is sort of like criticizing him for being able to read. Michael Steele has declared  that his feud with Limbaugh, and subsequqent groveling was a deliberate strategy to “discover who the enemy is and who’s inside the tent.” I’m not sure whether he ascertained that Limbaugh is the enemy or “inside the tent,” but I sure wish that the interviewer had asked. Michelle Bachmann is determined to protect us against our dollars not being the world’s default currency, by writing a bill that prevents us from doing something that has nothing to do with creating a worrld currency. House and Senate Republicans unveil their budget  outline  template, or, in the words of Captain Barbossa, “More like guidelines, actually.” I really like the part about how we will get out of debt by reducing taxes by 30% on the taxpayers who allegedly pay 87% of all income tax. Palin’s high schoolish V.P. debate performance was due to her not being able to get anyone to pray with her beforehand, not due to any lack on her part. Glen Beck wrapped a dead fish on his show [I could not, for the life of me understand the point., but he seemed to think he was pretty funny naming it Larry and talking to it.] Oh, and Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurtzelbacher is horny.

 It’s sad to watch a once, or at least occasionally, great party (Lincoln, Eisenhower) fall into babbling incoherence. It’s even sadder to realize how much power they still wield. It’s frightening to think that there are 16 nationally elected Democrats who are willing to stand with them against President Obama’s budget.

 Ok, let’s take on the steaming issue of the day, at least according to Congressional Republicans.

Pig odor.

Don’t know if you’ve ever lived on or near a pig farm, but it’s not something that will make you rave about fresh country air. Used to be that people lived in cities and towns and pigs lived on farms. The people who lived on the farms with the pigs were sort of looked down upon by the city folk, but now they’re called “neighbors.” We had this post-war suburb boom, and a real estate boom, and well, the cities melted into puddles of suburbia and the puddles began to lap up against the pig farms. Somewhere over the course of this, the US population doubled (1945-72, to be precise) creating the need for all that new housing.

And the city folk who had moved into the suburbs, thrilled to get all that space at such a great price when they signed the agreement in, oh, December, turned to each other in April and asked, “What’s that smell?”

As a Georgia farmer once said to me, “Smells like bread and butter to me.” To the suburbanites, thinking What will this do to my property values? Well, not so much.

Voila! The birth of pig odor research, a perfectly reasonable strategy to balance the comfort and real estate values of non-farmers, the economic interests of farmers, and the food budgets of all of us who eat pork.

Congressional Republicans who, other than Tom Harkin, apparently do not live downwind of pig farms, are enraged and have singled it out as the poster child of all of the 9,000+ earmarks available for public scorn. The fact that they are ranting, in many cases, against their own earmarks, inserted into the budget before Obama’s election, much less his inauguration, bothers them not one whit.

It’s a game of Gotcha, which, of course, Republicans abjure. (See Sarah Palin’s comments re the gotcha nature of that most softball of questions, “What magazines do you read?”) Now, with three days to the shutdown of several Federal Agencies if the bill is not passed and signed, They Who Write Earmarks cry, “Obama must not sign this, or he as bad person! A hypocrite! Hah! We Told You So!” This will be embroidered by the Four Horsemen of the Conservative Apocalypse: Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Hannity, and Coulter, into a full fledged Tapestry of Doom.

Just remember their concept of morality, “It’s only okay when we do it.” And then ask, WWRD? What Would Republicans Do? Hmmmm….government is not the solution. Government is the problem. Science is poopadoodle. What does that leave, exactly?

The Suburbanites sue the Pig Farmer for creating a public nuisance. The Pig Farmer points out that his family has been raising pigs there for four generations, that there was no problem until the developer built the neighborhood, and sues the Suburbanites for, I dunno, restraint of trade. Its hard to see this coming out any way other than a/ making millionaires of a bunch of trial lawyers (Trial Lawyers! Sacriledge!) or reciprocal mobs armed with torches and pitchforks. Pig odor research sounds positively civilized, nay, sensible, by comparison.

One:

Obama will have effective control of the government by the end of the year, possibly sooner. I’m not meaning this in a bad “he’s staged a coup” way, but in response to two facts: first, there happens to be a many-faceted diamond of a crisis going on right now, and second, the Bush Administration and it’s many minions aren’t doing anything about it. One might excuse this as evidence of their belief in the Libertarian throw-the-baby-in-the-creek-and-see-how-fast-he-can-learn-to-swim theory of economics, but I can’t help but notice that our current leadership is obsessed with wringing as much out of the situation for their own interests as possible (their own interests being that of the American corporate world.) While Wall Street burns through trillions of OPM, Bush focuses on executive orders that will gut the Endangered Species Act, give Big Oil more virgin acres to ravish, and put nukes next to the Grand Canyon….oh, and implant their Regent University grads in the federal bureaucracy so as to continue their obstruction of the work of numerous agencies. (Prediction 1-a: Look for lots of lateral transfers to basement offices after January 20 and the return of experienced hands who quit during the Bush years.) Oh, yeah, and Bush agreed to a truly bizarre treaty with Iraq so he could declare victory, which the grateful Iraqis celebrated by burning him in effigy. Priceless. Bush was always better at the “destruction” part of “Creative Destruction,” anyway.

I’ve got lefty friends wringing their hands over the notion that Gates will continue at Defense, but I see a strategy here. For example, Obama just picked Geithner to head Treasury. Not only is Geithner the person who publicly called foul on CDOs back in 2006, when everyone, including the sainted Alan Greenspan, were saying they were just peachy, he is also the President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, which, in case you don’t spend your time boning up on the banking system, is the 800-pound gorilla on the Federal Reserve Board. He’s already in place, doesn’t need to take more than 5 minutes to dictate his letter of resignation, doesn’t need to finish grading term papers before starting his new job. He’s already doing it. He’s been working with Paulson for years, but in a subordinate position, 800-pound gorilla to Bernanke and Paulson’s half-tonners. Now he’s an equal.

I was in the cafeteria when Paulson gave his latest speech. I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the conversational hum, but I could see that every time his lips moved, the stock market ticker next to him on the screen trended downward.  Later I found out that the summary of his speech was, “I don’t have a clue, so I’m handing it off to the new guy.” Within 24 hours, there was the new guy, already standing at his elbow.  So the question is: Will Paulson obstruct, or will he work constructively with his successor? Assuming that Paulson’s calculus revolves around the equation, “What’s in it for me?” I’m thinking that he will listen and act. One, standing by clueless while the economy tanks doesn’t look good on your resume. Two, the political winds have shifted and he will set his sails accordingly. Prediction 1-b: Those toward the Left will squawk: “They call this change!? Where’s the new blood?”

In a similar fashion, I think that if Gates remains, and Bush continues to focus on the vital business of deciding how to write a pardon that will absolve everybody from everything back to the Beginning of Time, Gates may be amenable to proactively chatting with the incoming administration. (Maybe Bush should just take the entire White House staff and Cabinet down to the Potomac and dunk ‘em. Hallelujia!) With this paradigm in mind, It will be interesting to watch the unfolding saga of Obama’s picks.

Two:

The Republican Party is pretty much sorting itself out as I predicted in my previous post. Thanks, guys! The Rightosphere is planning to flex their muscles, now that they can point to the Obama campaign’s successful use of the internet. It won’t work, at least until they grapple with their underlying problems: a philosphical mindset that is opposed to what most people in this country want, a history of winning elections by misrepresenting their true goals (Compassionate Conservatives, anyone? How about a slice of humble foreign policy pie?) I lurk on several right-wing sites, and they are still focused on strategy, not on a deep examination of conscience, or even demographics. Right now, Huckabee seems to be the only one who is taking that tack. A second problem with the notion that the Internet will save the Conservative cause is that Conservatives tend to be reluctant to adopt the new, just by their nature. While the blogger I read used conservative leadership’s rejection of the Internet as a campaign tool as his example, it brought to mind a conversation I once had with a fellow who wouldn’t have a computer in his house because he didn’t want the government spying on him. Lots of luck reaching him with your enhance graphic capabilities and sophisticated database management, Sparky. Read an excellent analysis of the issue here.

 Three:

Tina Fey willing, Saturday Night Live will feature a “Palin” interview  in front of an outhouse, with sound effects. Or maybe in front of a mugging. Or a couple of guys field dressing a moose. Or World War III. Or a lumberjack pissing on a tree. Or all of the above. Prediction 3-a: She will never hold national office, but either she or a family member will eventually have their own reality show.

Sometimes, reading political commentary, I think back to an early review of the Harry Potter movie, in which the writer chortled that it would be very weird to watch “an 18-year-old Daniel Radcliffe play Harry Potter in the seventh movie,” apparently not having done the basic homework of finding out that the characters age a year in each book as they progress through the Hogwarts curriculum. Today’s gem was the notion that by choosing Rahm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff, Obama was going with a Left-wing Clintonite Washington-insider agenda. Basic homework again. Rahmbo has represented Chicago in the House of Representatives since 2002 and their families (yes, that includes wives and kids) are friends.

So, like, if even that guy can make predictions, why not me? Here they are:

• John McCain will position himself as the go-to guy for the moderate wing of the Republican Party. Lindsay Graham has already positioned himself as wingman, and I suspect that Lieberman will offer himself as Third Musketeer.
• If Ted Stevens is dumped (and they don’t find the missing ballots in Anchorage that might conceivably go to Mark Begich) Sarah Palin will run for the Senate. The fact that she said she wouldn’t is proof enough for me.
• The rightward edge of the Republican Party will become a dogfight between the Social Conservatives and the NeoCons. If Palin makes it to the Senate, the SDs will coalesce behind her, if not, Huckabee. The NeoCons, not having realized that the rest of the country thinks they are criminally insane, will try at least one highly dramatic legislative stunt, which will backfire. It is also possible that the SDs will also try at least one highly dramatic legislative stunt, to similar effect.
• The moderates will stay out of the dogfight, cut deals with Obama, and wait until things sort themselves out before aligning with the winning faction.
• We will make more progress toward developing alt energy and solving global warming in the next 8 years than in the last 30.
• Someone will notice that Sarah Palin talks more than Joe Biden and call her on it publicly.

• Cost of paying Sarah Palin per diem to stay home while governor, $17,000, paid by the State of Alaska
• Cost of ferrying her children around on oficial business, $21,000, paid by the State of Alaska
• Makeup artist for one month, $13,200, paid by RNC
• New clothes for the whole family, $150,000, paid by RNC

Just think what she will be able to do once she has access to the US Treasury, especially since she thinks that the VP’s job is to run Congress and tell them what bills to pass.

Can you say, “Dick Cheney wears Prada?”

A few years ago, when I lived in Elkton, MD, I got to chatting with a fellow on the road crew fixing my street (after years of potholes, busted water mains, cheap patches, and neighborhood complaints). He asked me what I thought of the Bush Administration. That can be a loaded question in Cecil County, MD, a finger of Appalachia poking into the eye of the Eastern Seaboard, so I answered carefully. “I think the country’s being run by a bunch of whited sepulchers,” I said.

He nodded. “Yep,” he said.

Now for any of you not inclined to Biblical reference, that’s a term Jesus used to describe the Pharisees, then the dominant sect of Judaism. Jesus may have loved everybody, but the Pharisees annoyed the bejazus out of Jesus, and he returned the favor. A sepulcher, you see, is a tomb. People liked their family crypts to look nice, showing respect for the dead and all, so they would whitewash them. The paint, as Jesus pointed out, did not change the fact that there were rotting corpses inside, “filth,” I think he termed it. White sepulchers, all shiny outside and gross within.

I remembered that term when I saw Governor Palin on the news today, claiming that the recent investigation in Alaska had cleared her of any wrongdoing, “legal or ethical.” When the reporter pushed back, pointing out that Finding #1 was that she had violated the state ethics code, Palin again cheerfully asserted that yes, the report had cleared her.

This was the same code of ethics that she used to discredit the head of the Alaska Oil & Natural Gas Commission, on which she served, which is the linchpin of her reputation as a maverick. Let’s add in a few other emerging facts:

• Palin was associated with Wasilla residents Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll, members of the Alaska Independence Party, which has connections to theocratic movements and other secessionist parties, particularly neo-confederates in the South. When preparing to run for governor, they advised her to register as a Republican. Since then AIP vice chairman Dexter Clark has bragged about his success in “infiltrating” the Republican Party and urged his fellow theocrats and secessionists to do the same with both Republican and Democratic local organizations.       Source: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/10/palin_chryson/                               Although her campaign is careful to point out that she was never a member and that her husband Todd, a member of 7 years, did not take part in formulating party policy, (he switched to Republican right before her first mayoral campaign) she has remained supportive of them and their agenda, including praising them in her welcoming speech at their 2008 convention. Who is being played here? The AIP wingnuts who hate taxes in all forms and want to secede from the Union (bye-bye Federal funding)? Palin, their Manchurian Candidate? The GOP base? McCain? Voters? All of the above?
• Tonight’s blockbuster news is that their lovely Wasilla home, which Todd, “built himself with the help of some contractor buddies,” was, in fact built for free with the labor and materials contributed by the “contractor buddies” who would go on to build the palacial Wasilla Sports Complex. When looking at the pictures, keep in mind that this facility is in a rural town of approximately 6,000 people and was paid for by a combination of Federal earmarks and raising the city sales tax to a whopping 25%. By comparison, the combined state and city sales tax for New York City, that hotbed of tax ‘n spending, is 8.375%, and far-left pinko Massachusetts, 5%.
• Go listen to the question at the end of the Biden/Palin debate, the one about “if, God forbid, you would have to succeed your running mate” and compare Biden and Palin’s replies.

By their fruits shall ye know them.

In just one day we have McCain trying to bail not only himself out of debating Obama but Palin out of debating Biden, his lying to David Letterman in order to go down the street to talk to Katie Couric (after telling Letterman he was canceling in order to go to Washington to deal with the mortgage thingie), and suspending his campaign on the high-minded pretext of needing to focus on the TARP bill right after he launched a week’s worth of slanderous mud at Obama that leaves him wide open to a retrospective on the Keating 5.

Surely, this marks the end of his presidential ambitions, right? Not quite, according to Jonathan Chait, writing in today’s The New Republic:

Last February, political scientists Brendan Nyhan of Duke and Jason Reifler of Georgia State published the results of an experiment designed to test the effects of political untruths. The results would unsettle any idealist. The first conclusion they found was that lies work. When subjects were confronted with an untrue political claim (President Bush banned stem-cell research; weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq) respondents naturally moved toward those positions. When the lie was corrected, however, the effect of the untruth in moving opinions largely remained. The truth, in other words, is no antidote for a lie.

Their second conclusion was even more disturbing. Subjects who identified as politically conservative were not only immune to the effects of having a lie corrected, the correction made them even more likely to believe a lie. So, for instance, one group of conservative subjects was presented with a news story that depicted President Bush claiming weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. A second group of conservatives was presented with the same thing, along with a paragraph noting that Bush’s statement was untrue. The second group was more likely than the first to believe that Iraq possessed WMDs. The very fact of the press challenging their beliefs seems to have made conservatives more likely to embrace them. If this finding is broadly correct, then the media’s newfound willingness to fact-check McCain will only succeed in rallying the GOP base to his side.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=71756e51-a09c-4b7d-b270-c6327191b341

If you read my earlier post, What Gives Neo-cons Their Power? you’ll recognize the Authoritarian mentality at work here. According to Bob Altemeyer, who did 40 years research on the subject, about 25% of us are subject to such thinking. Perhaps you’ve noticed that in the past few elections, only about 50% of eligible voters showed up at the polls, and the Right left no stone unturned making sure that the Authoritarian 25% made up half of that total. Add in the 1% or so that actually benefit from Republican policies and you have a recipe for squeaker victories for the Right.

Obama’s got the right strategy. Get out the vote.

Hoo, boy! John McCain appears to be running a parody of a political campaign. Here’s my prediction: within two years there will be a comedy film about it. It will consist of actual campaign footage intercut with dramatized scenes of the backstage workings of the campaign. Tina Fey will, of course, play Governor Palin. Richard Dreyfus would be my pick for the top of the ticket, with Morgan Fairchild as his lovely wife. The campaign advisors will be played by Cheech and Chong.

You read it here first, and I want royalties.