IT ALL REDUCES TO LABOR-MANAGEMENT

The following two sentences capsulize politics universal, why the world was nearly plunged into a nuclear nightmare vis-à-vis the Cold War, and why American political seasons are so polarized in recent years. (1) To earn a living wage, labor must constantly struggle with management to attain sustainability. (2) To make profit in competitive markets, management must constantly struggle with labor to tamp down wages and benefits – whereby “human resources” are placed on the same table with raw materials.

On surface, both objectives seem benignly principled. However, the tactics and clandestine methods selected to weaponize the two competing forces make for a toxic atmosphere and destructive politics. Americans not well-informed politically hate the system for that reason. The devices used (i.e., negative ads, fabricated rhetoric, denigrating sparring) turn off the voter.

Labor (the 99%) recruits the Democratic Party as its representative.

Management (the 1%) recruits the Republican Party as its representative.

Several decades ago the Republican Party decided to use dirty tricks to fight: Hence, Watergate, Southern Strategy, election fraud, hacking, voter suppression, Katherine Harris, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, FOX, right radio, union-busting, undisclosed corporate contributions, etc. At the same time, key Democratic leaders arbitrarily decided to counter by taking the political “high road” – small campaign contributions, “truth-telling,” and “civil” rhetoric. (Which side wins: The cheater or the intellectual nerd?)

The Number One political story for our time is not the labor-management struggle that’s been going on for centuries. It’s the tactics employed by one of the contenders, the Republican Party. Anecdotal to RNC tricks is Democratic capitulation. Mr. “High-Road” decides to fight fair just after the other guy kicks him in the nuts.

The word “compromise” is a virtue to Democrats, but a vice to Republicans.

Most pundits have a tendency to make a false equivalency of the two warring parties. However, there is one equivalency that rings true: A simple disconnect. Both factions cannot see. While one uses despicable tricks, the other is oblivious to the fact below-the-belt tactics work if not countered with equal energy. When Kerry was swiftboated in 2004, he argued the attack didn’t dignify a response – that it was merely an act of desperation. He lost.

Like Anthony Weiner elaborated, “Democrats shouldn’t bring library books to a knife fight.” Unilateral disarmament in an arms race is insane. Thus, Democrats are as nuts as Republicans – but in a far different fashion. One side is blasting the shit out of the other, while the “other” tries to negotiate politely with the shit-thrower. The over-used Hitler-Chamberlain analogy comes to mind.

Because of this situation, unions, although discrete in downplaying discontent during election season for obvious reasons, are quite annoyed with their representative: the Democratic Party in general and Barack Obama in particular. Workers realize the floor has been knocked out from under them as a “bargaining chip” to appease the other side. And for what benefit? Nothing gained, much lost. Labor is completely perplexed why Obama gives away so much while getting nothing in return. He’s union’s chief negotiator that seemingly sold them out by relying on the false theory the other side would reciprocate.

Now that the 2012 election cycle has arrived, Obama again courts labor in hope they’ll forget the past three-years’ concessions. Sure, there’ve been crumbs and morsels along the way, much better than had McCain-Palin won. But labor’s expectations have been dashed. Now the only hope is that a second term will bring out the “progressive Obama” that campaigned 2007-08. It’s infinitely harder to be energized by hope once it’s been broken.

Blindness on the Republican side stems from the embrace of unbridled capitalism. It’s proven throughout history: A pure profit-motive leads to financial ruin. No rules for the rich; many for the poor. The double standard not only crashes economies but seeds revolutions. History is obviously not their forte.

Rightwing extremism, as manifested today, has led to polarization. But not much can be done about it if the left continues its passive ways. There may be outbreaks of “Occupiers,” etc., but the struggle still favors the right if the left’s nature remains stubbornly inert.

Israel’s War On Democracy (and why Americans should care)

From its birth more than 60 years ago, Israel has always presented itself as “an oasis of democracy in a sea of despotism,” an outpost of pluralism surrounded by tyranny. While that equality never fully applied to the country’s Arab citizens, Israel was, for the most part an open society. But today political rights are under siege by right-wing legislators, militant settlers, and a growing religious divide in the Israeli army, all of which threaten to silence internal opposition to the policies of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Since that may include a war with Iran—and the probable involvement of the U.S. in such a conflict—the move to stifle dissent should be a major concern for Americans.

The U.S. media has reported on growing tensions between Israeli women and the ultra-orthodox Haredim over the latters’ demand for sexual segregation of schools, public transport, and public life. But while orthodox Jews spitting on eight-year old girls for being “immodestly dressed” has garnered the headlines, the most serious threats to democratic rights have gone largely unreported. Some of these include:

*A law that allows Jewish communities to bar Arab families from living among them. Arabs make up about 20 percent of the population.

*A law that makes it illegal to advocate an academic, cultural or economic boycott of Israel, including settler communities.

*A law that would limit the power of the Supreme Court.

*A law that bars any state institutions, including schools and theaters—from commemorating the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” the term Palestinians use to describe the loss of their lands in the 1948 war that established Israel.

*A law that prohibits Palestinians from living with their Israeli spouses within Israel proper and denies them citizenship.

*A law that drops Arabic as an official language.

*A law that requires anyone obtaining a driver’s license to swear loyalty to the state.

*A law that would limit the number of petitions non-governmental organizations, including peace and human rights groups, could file before the Supreme Court.

*A law that forces human rights and peace groups to limit the money they can receive from abroad, and forces them to go through burdensome registration requirements.

Tzipi Livni, former foreign secretary and head of the Kadima Party, told the Knesset that Arab states were “trying to become a democracy, while we—with these bills—are headed toward dictatorship.”

Most of these laws are being pushed by Israel’s rightwing Likud and Yisreal Beiteinu parties, but the proposal to drop Arabic comes from the Kadima Party. Ram-rodding many of these laws are Lukid’s so-called “fantastic four”: Danny Danon, Yariv Levin, Tzipi Hotovely, and Ofir Akunis.

“We are in the process of reducing freedom of speech and the freedom of association, and we are infringing on the right to equality, especially vis-à-vis the Israeli Arab,” Mordechai Kremnitizer, a professor of law and vice-president of the Israel Democracy Institute told the Financial Times.  “We are also weakening all the elements in society that have the function of criticizing the governments, including the courts.

Israeli society is filled with sharp divisions on everything from war with Iran to growing economic inequality. Israel has the highest poverty rate out of the 32-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and ranks twenty-fifth in health care investment. The poverty rate for Israeli Arabs is between 50 and 55 percent.

Starting in the 1980s, Israel began dismantling its social safety net, a trend that Netanyahu sharply accelerated when he served as finance minister in 2003. While slashing money for housing, education, and transport, he cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations.

Most of all, however, Israeli governments poured the nation’s wealth into colonizing the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights, where, according to Shir Hever of the Alternative Information Center based in Jerusalem, Israel has spent about $100 billion. A vast network of bypass roads, security zones, and walled settlements siphoned off money that could have gone for housing, education and transportation in Israel. Special tax rebates and rent subsidies for settlers added to that bill. Some 15 percent of the Israeli housing budget is used to support four percent of its population in the Occupied Territories. Add to that the 20 percent the military budget sucks up, and it seems increasingly clear that the settlement endeavor is no longer sustainable.

Wealth disparity—a handful of families control 30 percent of Israel’s GDP—was partly behind last summer’s social explosion that at one point put some 450,000 people into the streets of Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem demanding reductions in rent and food prices. But so far, organizers of those massive demonstrations have avoided making the link between growing income inequality and Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories. Many of these new laws are aimed at organizations that have been trying to do precisely that.

There are other divisions as well. Israelis are split down the middle over whether to attack Iran—43 percent yes, 41 percent no—but 64 percent support the creation of a Middle East nuclear free zone, and 65 percent feel that neither Israel nor Iran should have nuclear weapons. Those are not exactly the home front sentiments that a government wants when it is contemplating going to war.

Besides the avalanche of right-wing legislation coming out of the Knesset, Israel is increasingly at war with itself over the role of religion in daily life, a conflict that is playing out in one of Israel’s core institutions, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Two years ago, soldiers of the Kfir Brigade, a unit deployed in the West Bank, unveiled banners declaring they would refuse orders to remove settlers. By international law, all settlements in the Occupied Territories are illegal, but Israel claims that only unregistered “outposts” are against the law and subject to removal. The soldiers held signs that read, “We will not expel Jews.” Six of them were arrested and spent 30 days in the stockade.

The soldiers were graduates of army-sponsored “hesder yeshivas” that allow orthodox soldiers to divide their time between active service and Torah study. Settler rabbis rallied around the six and even provided money for some of the soldiers’ families.

Writing in the progressive Jewish weekly, the Forward, Columnist J.J. Goldberg says that a “secret report” in 2008 warned that such “yeshiva graduates comprise 30 percent of the junior officer corps and rising. In a decade they will be the military’s senior commanders. If a peace agreement is not reached in 15 years or so, Israel may no long have an army willing to carry out its side.”

A majority of Israelis support some kind of compromise to achieve a settlement with the Palestinians, but in the most recent set of talks, the Netanyahu governmentmade it clear that Israel will not surrender any settlements, any part of Jerusalem, or the Jordan Valley. In essence, Palestinians would be forced to live in isolated enclaves surrounded by networks of restricted roads and over 120 settlements. The Netanyahu proposal not only violates numerous United Nations resolutions and international law, no Palestinian government that accepted such an offer would survive for long.

But Israelis who protest an offer that is widely seen as little more than a way to kill the possibility of serious negotiations may find themselves treated in much the same way as Israel has dealt with its Arab citizens.

Those who agitate against the current government may find themselves hit with the new libel law that no longer requires plaintiffs to prove they were damaged and increases awards six-fold. Bloggers, who lack institutional support, are particularly fearful of the new law. Organizations critical of the government that try to raise money from sources outside the country could face huge fines.

According to Hagai El-Ad, director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, there is growing resistance within Israel to the attempt to silence critics, as well as pressure from abroad, including the American Jewish community. Even a pro-Netanyahu hawk like the Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman warns “the very democratic character of the state is being eroded.” That resistance has delayed some of the more odious proposals, but the “fantastic four” and their allies are pushing hard to get them on the books.

Why should Americans care? Because if Netanyahu silences his domestic opponents, he will have carte blanche to do as he pleases. And if Tel Aviv attacks Iran, it will be very difficult for the U.S. to keep clear of it. For starters, the IDF will be firing U.S.-made cruise missiles, flying American-made F-15s, and dropping “made in the USA” bunker busters. With the exception of the monarchs from the Gulf states, no one in the Middle East—or most of the world—is going to give Washington a pass on this one.

Does America need another war? If it doesn’t protest the assault on democracy in Israel, it may get one, whether it likes it or not.

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Conn Hallinan can be read at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and middleempireseries.wordpress.com

How We Humans Lose Our Basic Freedoms and Why We Are Going to the Dogs

This little story is about how we humans give away and then set fire to our basic freedoms as a society, a nation, and a people. But first the destruction begins on a grass roots local level. It begins in our neighborhood.

Once there lived a massive German Shepard dog who whenever he saw me or my wife drive up to our new house, rushed up to the wrought iron fence to bark, bark, bark. Quite a paradox in fact, because we were next door neighbors, actually. He had seen us come and go and stroll about our backyard as we planted flowers, trees, and threw the bouncy blue racquetball for our 15-pound Bichon Frise, Quinn. The big dog barked and tried to get through the iron bars on several occasions to eat Quinn, no doubt about it. Viciously. Threateningly. Slamming his muzzle against cold steel bars.

He was telling us in dog trash talk that he was out to hurt us, given the chance. He had been doing this rush up to the fence and threaten us drill with us for over 7 months at that point. And shucks, we were the epitome of docile, non-threatening, neighbors. You would have thought that by then he might have become bored and regarded us as non-threats to him and his territory. Yet when you tried to befriend and speak softly to him, he snarled and bared his canine teeth all the more and nipped menacingly at the air between you and the iron bars. He wanted to bite you, to scare you, and to put you on notice that he would do you harm if ever got the chance. Even though I had owned many dogs in my 71 years, including 3 German Shepherds, for the first time in my life I had become afraid of a dog.

He wanted to eat our 15-lb. Bichon Frise, Quinn who wanted only to stroll about our own property, unmolested, minding his own dog business, and chasing bouncy blue rubber racquet balls. 

The barking in itself had become a grand annoyance. It was a blatant violation of the rules, deed restrictions, and covenants of our wooded, country subdivision in the woods. 

“No animals, livestock or poultry of any kind shall be raised, bred or kept on any Lot in the Subdivision except that dogs, cats or other common household pets and two (2) horses per acre may be kept on Lots consisting of at least one (1) acre, provided that they are not kept, bred, or maintained for commercial purposes and do not become a nuisance or threat to other Owners.”

But forget all of the above. Those rules are hollow and empty and a private joke laughing matter of Sheriff’s Departments all over America simply because there is no one willing to enforce these covenants and deed restrictions and printed rules of any subdivision from Oregon to Florida. I can sympathize with law enforcement and their larger priorities to chase and apprehend criminals and other more serious matters needing attention where a civilized society lives and breathes. 

So what about the Property Owners Association Elected Officers? One might think that they are elected to office to help homeowners with issues and problems that occur from time to time. You know, to serve us property owners, what? But barking dogs? Think again. Don’t make them laugh; it’s an inside joke, barking dogs, O, Geez, ya know what I mean (wink, wink)? But aren’t the POA Officers supposed enforce the deed restrictions and rules in the By- Laws and Covenants of the subdivision? Well, yeah. But honestly, bottom line is that they will even tell you that they have no power to enforce stuff that is written into by law or onto any official or unofficial paper when it comes to barking dogs. Why they will tell you they cannot even collect past due POA dues from property owner human beings, do you love it? Try Animal Control, the POA will tell you. Tell them you feel threatened by the animal in question, they advise. That you are afraid. But don’t try to put the buck on my desk because I will pass it on and tell you to contact the County Department of Animal Control.

You got to understand. The POA exists to thwart the logical solutions to problems by arbitrarily prohibiting you from building something that just might improve the community and the neighborhood, to wit, a privacy fence NOT in conflict with existing County Building Permit Guidelines, plats, rules, laws, surveys, building deed restrictions, or anything else for that matter. When 2 neighbors agree that a privacy fence just might help or cure a barking dog nuisance problem one of them has and the other one owns why would a local POA try to thwart it? Why would they try to keep it from happening? Public servants, dedicated to the betterment of the community, my ass.

So what about talking to the owner? Tried that. No soap. The owner said that his dog was a part of his family. You mean, like, a dog has the same rights as humans, I asked him? The air-ringing sound of the silence said it all: yes, the dog did have the same rights as humans, it went without saying. But on further investigation, I found that in essence, the dog actually had more rights than us humans. Why he could violate the subdivision rules and animal control agencies within the structure of local, county, and state government, and no one would step up to the plate to enforce any rules, regulations, or laws about nuisance animals that posed a threat to people or a community. Sure, if you jumped through a bunch of hoops, could prove that the dog barked with witnesses or videos as evidence, maybe someone might listen. But bottom line, nobody in the appeal process got all that excited about it. After all it was just a barking dog. But what about human rights? What about us? Must we grin and bear it when we know that the rules have been violated?  That despite written laws on the books a dog can continue to bark our stress levels up to the Stratosphere every day of our lives? What about our human rights? That’s when the other shoe dropped. A dog has more rights than a human!

So a dog then has more rights than a human, and these rights are conveyed from a society that makes the laws then laughs when somebody complains. We fool ourselves into believing that we are rational creatures who make real laws to keep our neighborhoods, our cities, counties, states, and our very nation safe, secure, and environmentally conducive to the pursuit of happiness and then what do we do? We turn right around and we throw it all away. It becomes trash, and we become cardboard people who we created out of indifference and ignorance. We become so puffed up with our unimportance and preserving the bureaucracy that we aren’t even fit for the cardboard shredder that is to be our final and ultimate destination on the road to Dumbassville, USA.

Oh, I know, I know, a barking dog is a small thing, just tune it out. We have become quite good as a people at that. We can tune it out on the smallest level where barking dogs have more rights than people. Or we can tune out how a rogue president like George W. Bush can thrust us into a war with Iraq with cardboard images and drawings of Weapons of Mass Destruction facilities in Iraq as illustrated by the illustrious former General and Secretary of State Colin Powell. Pay no attention to the millions of deaths and casualties. Pay no mind that no Weapons of Mass Destruction were ever found. Pay no attention to the fact that America under the 8 years of George W. Bush as president borrowed and spent an additional $4 Trillion that got added to our National Debt. Shoot, we had to finance the Iraq War and subsequent occupation of a foreign country with boots on the ground for 9 years of self-abuse as a nation and people, dontcha know?

We also tuned it out that National Reserve forces were not trained as combat soldiers nor ever intended to fight in tour after tour of overseas wars. We allowed our president to declare that we had a ‘National Emergency’ what with Iraq pointing nucuylar missiles at American cities, so by George we could and would damn well exercise our right as Unitary Executive to use our State Militias or the National Guard to fight and get blowed up, if necessary, by roadside bombs on the to Baghdad.  So who was to argue with Bush? Not Congress, you can be sure. Those Chickenshits wouldn’t even hold his feet to the fire about declaring the Iraq War to be an ON-BUDGET expense. That way nobody could criticize Bush as scathingly as he deserved to be for starting us down a road of horror that has divided us forever. Humans can see the truth even if it lights unexpectedly on our shoulder like a butterfly. Before Karl Rove tries to crush it. We know that attacking Iraq and occupying the country with our own troops for almost 9 years was probably the biggest travesty the United States ever caused to happen. It was sick.

In Reaganesque speak, you got to ask: “Are we better off?” Did we accomplish anything of real value? Did we bring democracy to Iraq? Did we help the Iraqi people by killing all the terrorists that overran Iraq after we toppled Saddam Hussein? No, no, no, and NO! Did we cause great suffering of 100s of thousands, perhaps millions of human beings? Did we borrow enough money off-budget to destroy our country? Is the ‘End of America’ become a reality as many prophets of doom have warned as they pack their luggage to escape to other world latitudes?

It is a disease of the spirit. Denial and destruction of the truth is the order of the day when it comes to us humans when there is a hidden agenda. Usually when one is following the money one stubs his toe on the hidden agenda, but if so, he keeps on walking, unaware and tuned out. Such hidden agendas give credence to the likes of Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly and the rest of the slime talkers that promote the hate of Democrats, Liberals, College Professors, Hollywood actors, Global Warming Advocates, and Muslims, not necessarily in that order. Fox News would have us believe Sarah Palin would be the next Einstein if there were a buck in it for the Mad Hatters of Neoconia. But only with millions of Rupert Murdock and Koch Brothers ad dollars spent on media clips to persuade those flabby minds grasping a controller on the couch that she is a true ‘merican who wants to help all us Billy Bobs evolve to higher branches in the tree of Redneck reasoning, Creationism philosophy, and Anti-Obama political correctness.

In short, we lose our basic freedoms from not paying attention to the right stuff, the truth we all know that lives deep within us and never dies, the truth that we as a people have lost the courage to stand up for and defend. And just for fun do we Americans who forgot to show outrage and protest at invading and occupying Iraq have a clue that, thanks to George W. Bush, we borrowed over $4 Trillion that will haunt and hurt us Americans for the rest of our lives? Do any of us Americans know or care what kind of government Iraq has now after the 9 years of occupation? Do we know that the Bush family just bought 200,000 acres in Paraguay, rich in natural resources, water, minerals, and next door to a 400-man U.S. Marine air base? No extradition allowed from Paraguay. Do the BIG DOGS know something about Armageddon the rest of us don’t?

From your own backyard and neighborhood to the world stage in faraway places like Paraguay, the BIG DOGS seem to rule. We are going to the dogs, I tell you.

A Suggested Strategy for Secularists To Discourage School Prayer Initiatives

Some of us are losing faith, not in faith (we long ago dismissed that as a preposterous concept), but in reason, at least as a tool for communicating with religious fundamentalists. This is particularly so concerning their unrelenting assault on the principle of church/state separation. While violations take many forms, one of the most common takes the form of attempts to reintroduce prayers in public schools.

In towns, cities and states across the land, secularists must engage in a never-ending struggle with theists to stop their efforts to inject prayer rituals in sporting events, graduation ceremonies and other assemblies and in classrooms. True believers, often undereducated Right Wing Republicans, can’t seem to get that the 1st Amendment establishment clause originally and at present separates church and state functions. This provision has worked well for more than two centuries. It has benefitted not only secularists but the religious freedoms of believers.

Christians and others are free to pray all they like - but they can’t impose prayer on others - at least not yet. Hold your hat - the future lies ahead. The make up of the current Supreme Court is such that this separation tradition is not secure.

I live in Florida, where the fundamentalist mentality is very strong at state and local levels. The Florida Legislature, an overwhelmingly Republican body, is infamous for attempted church/state violations. The latest is of special note.

A Senate Bill (#0098) would authorize school boards to encourage school prayer, including sectarian prayer, “at the discretion of the student body.” The Center for Inquiry (CFI) and other national secularist groups have noted that this “mischief-making proposal to encourage students to inflict prayer on other students is unconstitutional.” Others have noted that #0098, if it enacted, would once again create conditions where "religion’s effect would be to inflame peer pressure to conform to a ritual of the Christian majority, promote bullying and exclusion, erect barriers between students, magnify differences and reward conformity."

Many secularists in other parts of the U.S. might have thought that it was well established by now that a captive audience of young, impressionable students should not be subjected to proselytization, either by authority figures or by a “class vote.” The CFI stated that, “the First Amendment places freedom of conscience above majority rule. The Supreme Court has ruled in more than 60 years of consistent decisions that prayers have no role in classrooms, graduations or school events. The Court has ruled so-called ‘student-initiated’ prayer equally inappropriate.”

And yet, the Florida Legislature is now moving toward creating a law that would ignore all these objections. Reason has little chance in the face of religious fervor or, perhaps, cynical manipulation of voters by politicians seeking political advantage.

Over a century ago, a Florida jurist wrote this in a landmark decision: “There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel, fights, malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the state, as religion. Let it once enter our civil affairs, our government would soon be destroyed. Let it once enter our common schools, they would be destroyed.” Weiss v. District Board, 44 N.W. 967, 981 (1890).

If this legislation passes, taxpayers will be burdened not just with bad law but with the costs of defending a foolish statue that will eventually be rejected, even by the current Supremes.”

To put a halt to this legislation, a different strategy should be considered by Florida and other secularists interested in separation of church and state in general and safeguarding against pernicious school prayer rituals. How? By supporting a prayer of their own!

Normally, finding a prayer that would prove acceptable to freethinkers, atheists, infidels, heretics, apostates and the like - who, by the way, can’t even agree on what to call themselves, would be impossible. However, not so in the case of the prayer I have in mind. It comes from the Holy Book of Python, Chapter II in The Meaning of Life under Growth and Learning, as follows.

O Lord, ooh, You are so big, so absolutely huge. Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell you. Forgive us, O Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying and bare-faced flattery, but You are so strong, and, well, just so super fantastic. Amen.

This prayer can be led by a headmaster, principal, teacher or student elected as prayer leader by other students. Or, best of all, it could, on important occasions, be led by a member of the Florida Legislature who voted for bill #0098, or the governor who signed the legislation that made it official.

DOES CAPITALISM HAVE A FUTURE? Or is a Better World Possible?

Despite the current discourse about the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’ and the need for a ‘responsible’ or ‘moral’ capitalism, it is generally taken for granted that there is no alternative to capitalism in some form. Everyone is aware that something is seriously wrong with the way the system is working and that there is no easy fix. But discussion rarely goes beyond questions about bankers’ bonuses and how to deal with banks that have become too big to fail. There is great concern and debate about the apparently intractable problem of sovereign debt in the Eurozone and whether ever-tougher austerity is the right way to reduce deficits. Governments express concern about unprecedented levels of unemployment and a ‘lost generation’ of ‘neets’ - young people who are ‘not in education, employment or training’, but denounce ‘feral youths’ who riot in the streets, stubbornly denying that their rebelliousness is an expression of their alienation. As the bankers’ bonus bonanza goes into full swing again, public anger, fuelled by the cold pinch of austerity, shows no sign of abating. There’s a lot of political capital to be made out of all this. In the last few days, Labour’s threat of a parliamentary debate on bankers’ bonuses was sufficient to persuade RBS boss Steven Hester to waive his £1 million bonus. Today (February 1), disgraced former RBS boss, Sir Fred Goodwin, was stripped of the knighthood awarded on Gordon Brown’s advice in 2004 for “services to banking.” This is the man who, a few years later ran the bank into the ground, leading to its nationalization at a cost to the taxpayer of £450 billion.

Prime Minister Cameron is keenly aware that his government is vulnerable on this issue. In recent weeks he has won plaudits from the right-wing press (and that means most of the national newspapers) for vetoing a European treaty to impose tighter fiscal discipline across Europe and for his tough stand against those the tabloids refer to as “welfare scroungers.” He clearly hoped that waving the flag and trouncing the “undeserving poor” would take people’s minds off the complete failure of the austerity programme to stimulate economic growth. He also hoped to divert people’s minds from the growing gulf between the super rich and the severely squeezed majority facing relentless cuts to their living standards. But public anger against the fat cats of the financial sector is palpable and cannot be ignored. Neither can he ignore his Lib Dem coalition partners, who, under pressure from their restless rank-and-file, need to demonstrate some minimal inclination to rein in the bailed-out bankers. In the last few days Ed Miliband has found his populist voice again and has scored a few palpable hits against the prime minister in parliament. The hastily accomplished removal of  Fred Goodwin’s knighthood by a little known committee of senior civil servants was certainly initiated by Cameron. Whether there will be further action against others honoured for their services but equally culpable, remains to be seen. Few tears are shed for “Fred the Shred”, but this latest gesture is obviously part of a political game that is being played. Cameron needs his government to be seen as responsive to popular demands for some redress against a class of super rich billionaires who, though responsible for the financial crash of 2007-8, have got off scot-free. Upping the ante at Prime Minister’s question time, Miliband goads Cameron, demanding to know why he hasn’t made good his promise to name bankers paid bonuses over £1 million, and why he hasn’t accepted the high pay commission’s recommendation that an ordinary employee should sit on every pay committee. Cameron side-steps the questions and turns the table on Miliband by reminding him that he was part of a government that signally failed to regulate the banks and sanctioned multi-million payouts to bankers. Thus a serious issue is reduced to a point-scoring charade affording much amusement to members of parliament but doing nothing to get to the heart of the matter.

The record of the Blair-Brown New Labour government is the rod with which the Tory-led coalition can beat the opposition. And as long as there has been no decisive break with New Labour, Miliband remains vulnerable. Brown as chancellor championed “light-touch” regulation and Miliband was part of his team after he became prime minister in 2007. Like all members of the shadow cabinet he has refused to make any serious criticism of New Labour and its record in government. Shadow chancellor Ed Balls recently made clear that, if returned to power, Labour would not commit to reversing any of the cuts imposed by the present government. So there is no radical alternative to the Con Lib-Dem coalition.

At the heart of the matter is the capitalist system itself. During the last four years it has become clear beyond doubt that this system is in deep crisis. “The crisis of capitalism” is no longer a phrase confined to the lexicon of the Marxist left; it part of the vocabulary of serious discourse across the mainstream political spectrum. But, at best it is used to refer to the neo-liberalism that has been dominant since the 1970s. This, say the critics, has reached the end of the road and now it is time for capitalism to be managed in a more responsible, morally acceptable way. The idea that the neo-liberal model - unregulated capitalism, red-blooded and raw in tooth and claw, may actually represent the essential nature of the beast (as its advocates claim), is firmly rejected by the champions of “capitalism with a human face.” But, it can be argued that finance monopoly capitalism, is the essential and irreversible form the system takes in its latest, possibly final phase. If it is, then the present global crisis, however long it may last, is one from which there is no exit route into a radically reformed, humanized capitalism. And that begs the question, what, if anything is to take its place?

A socio-economic system that has survived many crises may survive this one. But it is not too pessimistically apocalyptic to conclude that if the future is to be dominated by an unreformed (and unreformable) global system driven by the dictates of profit maximization, the prospects for the survival of our own and other species on earth are bleak indeed. Whether it will be possible to change course and reverse the present drive to social and environmental disaster, is uncertain. But, if there is to be a future worth inheriting, it must be done. And this means that economic and political power must be taken out of the hands of the 1% who now wield it and transferred to those who will use it to effect a thoroughgoing democratic redistribution to serve the 99% who are now effectively powerless. This form of social organization is what has often been called socialism. One of the reasons why the concept of socialism has become so tarnished is because it became closely associated with the bureaucratic, statist dictatorships in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. Also, the right in Britain has damned as “socialist” the nationalization policies of the post-war Labour government.

The Marxist left, which almost everywhere now has only a marginal existence, must also share part of the blame for widespread public ignorance about socialism. In Britain, and throughout most of Western Europe, Marxist parties and groups have rarely devoted any time or effort to trying to explain what a socialist society might look like, and how, in the advanced capitalist world, it might be possible to bring it into being. Here it is only possible to state briefly what such a society would not look like and to mention some of the features it might possess.  The subject will receive further attention in future Letters from the UK.

1. Such a society would bear no resemblance to the bureaucratic state-controlled dictatorship established in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Despite the abolition of private ownership in the means of production and the formal establishment of “public ownership” through state control of industry and collectivization of agriculture, these measures were imposed through a ruthless exercise of state power by a bureaucratic dictatorship over the working people. In its worst manifestations, power was exercised through terror which resulted in the deaths of millions. Such a system cannot possibly be regarded as socialist.

2. Such a society would have no place for the medieval institution of hereditary monarchy and the aristocratic privilege of “honours” that corrupt public life in Britain today. Other, publicly sanctioned methods of recognizing public service, would be found.

3. While recognizing that absolute social equality is not achievable, such a society would work actively towards establishing the greatest degree of social equality possible. This would be made incomparably easier as the present system of private and corporate ownership would be replaced by various forms of public and co-operative ownership in which remuneration would be democratically decided by unions and employment bodies. Education would be free for all. Privileged, fee-paying, public (private) schools would be abolished.

4. Such a society would reject entirely both (a) state control of the media as practiced in the communist ruled countries of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and elsewhere, and (b) corporate, multi-millionaire control of the media such as exists in Britain and throughout the capitalist world. All mass communications media would be brought under various forms of popular democratic control. All forms of censorship and restrictions of genuine freedom of speech would be removed. However, expression and dissemination of racist, misogynistic and homophobic prejudices would be subject to prohibition, as would all forms of incitement to act on such prejudices.

These are just a few of the features we might expect to find in a society that would be part of the “better world” that must be created if we are to have a future fit for human beings.  

WHEN HATE IS PRIME

My disagreement with so-called evangelical fundies isn’t over basic Christianity. It’s over their desecration of Christianity. Their embrace of the evils hate, falsehoods, fear, and fanaticism contradicts Christ. How can one claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ and at the same time advocate the elimination of whole classes of people and the murder of the President?

And hatred of Barack Obama is the religious right’s driving force in this election cycle, not to mention the recent 2010 mid-term. It’s well-noted in South Carolina exit-polls the Number One quality Republicans seek in the field is a candidate who can beat Obama. Every other issue pales.

No wonder the nation suffers.

Republicans at campaign stops jeer “String him up!” and “Obama’s a Muslim. Get him out of government,” with no correction from candidates. At least McCain in 2008 had the decency to set the record straight.

America suffers from a polarization not seen since the Civil War. While President Obama extended an olive branch, Republicans countered with a hand-grenade.

The reason the GOP is so infused with anger in recent years is simple to understand once one recognizes the now-completed Nixonian “Southern Strategy,” renowned for its plot to capture the majority by exploiting southerners angry over civil rights.

The party is dominated by the South – by old former Dixiecrats whose prime motive is race. So, a Black President in the White House is absolutely abhorrent to them because it goes against everything they were taught to believe. Evidence of African-American intelligence contradicts their long-held doctrine of white superiority. “Put him in his place” is their outcry, like a Gingrich supporter shouted in South Carolina.

The principal force behind the Old Confederacy was misguided Christianity hijacked by plantation aristocrats in their attempt to preserve slavery – their means of accumulating wealth. The principal force behind the modern Republican Party is misguided Christianity hijacked by plutocrats in their attempt to preserve unbridled capitalism – their means of suppressing labor and, thus, resurrecting slavery. It’s not merely the 1% vs. the 99% or class warfare, but far more complex.

It’s the same spirit of greed that threatens the nation, and it’s the same apostate “Christianity” that plays the central role in backing greed in all three centuries. The Southern Baptist Convention (largest Protestant body in the U.S.) was formed in 1845 when southern churches disagreed with their northern brethren over the issue of slavery and whether Africans were actually human or not. (Lynching was sanctioned by Baptists in the Old South because they considered Blacks animals and property.) The SBC became one of the driving forces behind the South seceding in 1861, culminating in the Civil War. Yes, most Confederates were evangelical fundamentalists, of which the largest denomination was Southern Baptist.

To be fair, Southern Baptists have attempted to correct their image and apologize from that period.  But they still carry a measure of latent racism, as evidenced at campaign and religious rallies, not to speak of their voting pattern.

Now consider that the majority of the modern Republican Party consists of fundamentalists and the largest segment of those have southern origins, particularly Southern Baptist roots along with auxiliary and break-off denominations.

Considering these facts, one cannot discount the impact of the GOP “Southern Strategy.” Bush’s consultants (Doug Wead, Ralph Reed, and Karl Rove) spiked 84% evangelical “values” vote for Bush in 2004 – which clinched the election, and 78% of evangelicals went for McCain in 2008. The “magic” number is somewhere around 80% to secure any determination. Hence, fundamentalists can control any American election if energized.

The U.S. is at a tipping point. If evangelicals continue to increase while mainstream denominations stagnate or decline, elections could swing further to the right. The only caveat to this theory is growth of the Latino population. How ironic to have Mexicans rescuing America from itself.

Maps on election nights since 2000 have resembled the Union-Confederacy schism from 150 years before, and the reason is religion. The North and West are mostly a mix of diverse religions, while the South remains staunchly evangelical Protestant [with the exception of Catholic Louisiana] – of the same belief-systems held a century or more ago.

America’s only other hope (besides the growing influence of the Latino population) is for the evangelical movement to experience a reawakening of true Christian principles. The core teachings of Christ are in direct contradiction to the modern movement. In time, perhaps, they will see the light and return to the Gospel. If not, the consequence may be a schism resembling 1861 where old fault-lines are unlocked.

The nation is bitter and disillusioned at this time – not because a Black man sits in the White House, but because of false propaganda spun by the right. Hate breeds irrational thought where the hater easily accedes to angry outbursts and violence. Millions dominated by these unfounded emotions become a movement – which transforms into future civil unrest, if not skewed elections giving way to bad choices and destructive policies. One cannot think clearly if overcome by hate and anger, especially if those passions are based on false premises.

And this bitterness and disillusionment directly stems from the off-base religious right. Certainly, Republican consultants may be faulted for capitalizing on the evangelical white vote, but the base itself is at fault for bastardizing Christianity. Jesus is not pleased.