Liberal Is the New Right Wing

Roberto Unger, a law professor at Harvard under whom Barack Obama studied, recently issued a statement that Obama must be defeated if the Democratic Party is ever to be returned to its roots. Huffington Post

While I don’t believe in the Democratic Party or its roots any more than I believe in Santa Claus, I see Unger’s point. A successful return of the Obama presidency will validate and solidify the Blue Dog Democrat cooptation of that party. The Democrats have never stood for all the wonderful ideals liberals imagine they have stood for. FDR was a racist, Truman an anti-Semite. Southern Democrats controlled the party until Fannie Lou Hamer and her Freedom Democrats stood up to them and to the Party itself, which supported its bigoted buddies. JFK and his beloved brother Bobby called the Freedom Riders “rabble rousers” and insisted the “time was not right” for black Americans to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed rights. Clinton replaced welfare with “workfare,” hawking the canard that getting paid $11 an hour would bring dignity to the poor, all the while subsidizing business instead of people. And the list goes on.

Even so, the illusion of fundamental differences between the two parties held somewhat more validity with the presidencies that preceded that of Bill Clinton.  You can trace the degradation of the Dems through the decline of our economy. Beginning in 1985, during Reagan’s term, the share of pre-tax household income enjoyed by Americans in the top brackets began to escalate. The only period in recent American history in which the wealthy held onto as much of their riches as they do currently was during the Great Depression.

Under Bill Clinton, that share climbed more steeply than it did under George W. Bush. By 2005 and beginning in 1979, the top ten percent feasted on a 175% increase in their post-tax income. Again, the initiation of this increase came under Ronald Reagan and continued through Bill Clinton. Wikipedia

Unger argues that while Mitt Romney and Obama differ in some respects around domestic policy, they do not differ at all as foreign adventurers, eager to draw “enemy” blood in order to convince Americans they are true warriors. (Enemy is in quotes because the new definition of terrorist places anyone in the vicinity of a putative terrorist in that category, including children.) Americans seem to like warriors, along with presidents they can drink beer with. We are a belligerent people.

One disturbing aspect of a Romney presidency is uncertainty about his judicial appointments, in particular to the Supreme Court. I suppose they are hoping for more liberals of the sort that voted to allow Arizona and other states to demand the equivalent of an identity card. Perhaps under the new regime, younger people don't recoil at the idea of identifying themselves whenever asked. My contemporaries feel disgust at this violation of a basic American right. It smacks of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. But then so does "Homeland Security" and nobody's bitching about that.

The definition of liberal has swerved sharply right over the last thirty or forty years. Obama, for example, would not have passed for a liberal in 1970. He would rightly have been perceived as a right-wing conservative. So-called “conservatives,” as I’ve argued here before, would not have passed as “conservative” because they are not. They want to conserve nothing. They long to prevent government from reigning in the profit motive (whether it leads to killing workers, via, for instance, mining, or consumers, via, for instance, the pharmaceutical industry) and to intrude more deeply into American family life. They are right-wing revolutionaries and they have effectively stolen our democracy while we keep mislabeling them and misperceiving their intentions.

Like Obama, we have compromised our principles into dust. In choosing “the lesser of two evils” because the alternative would be unthinkable, we have plunged our country into the unthinkable.

Many progressives speak of fascism casting its ugly shadow over our nation. The trouble with talking about fascism is that it really doesn’t mean anything except right wing dictatorship. Because we don’t live in an obvious dictatorship, those who defend the Obama presidency aren't getting the point. More useful are questions of how our country looks today and how it got there.

My life spans two terrifyingly oppressive eras in US history: McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and now. This affords me access to a wider view than my juniors could possibly have (which doesn’t necessarily mean I have that wider view, merely that I could have it and, naturally, I believe I do). When I carried a picket sign in the streets, Vietnamese children were being napalmed courtesy of Dow Chemical Company’s profit motive. When I protested working conditions with teachers in Oakland, California, many years ago, that city’s children were attending schools that resembled the prisons too many of them would eventually populate.

It took many deaths to get voting rights in Mississippi for its citizens. It took many bodies on the line to end the Vietnam War (which the Vietnamese naturally call “the American War”). But during the years in between the rampage of the lunatic Joe McCarthy (who destroyed many lives) and the lunatic Fox News (destroying more), I witnessed, first, the rise of the American middle class, the opening up of possibilities for at least some African Americans and some other people of color, and the public shaming of language that had once been the prerogative of bigots. But since Reagan, all that has been under attack, yet the defense of those (admittedly humble) gains has steadily dwindled.

Under Obama, we continue to see abrogation of the Constitution, arrogation of executive privilege, secret wars and murders of civilians abroad, including young children, and here at home the ever widening gap between rich and poor. Obama has not changed that. The primary advantages he brings to the presidency domestically will be enjoyed solely by the middle and upper classes.

Record joblessness still haunts our nation, in particular in minority communities. Foreclosures have picked up again now that the banks have slipped back under the radar. States have usurped monies paid by the Federal government to aid those facing eviction, dumping those funds instead into the general budget. It scarcely matters since the funds allocated were a pittance compared to what was needed. The proof of Obama’s failures lies in part in the failure of the housing market to recover. Had half of what was paid to the banks been given instead to householders on the verge of foreclosure, we would have seen a strengthening of the housing market, not a steady free fall. Had the banks been forced to restructure loans instead of being given that as an option, one they just about universally did not take, the housing market would have recovered. Go back even farther: Had Bill Clinton’s administration not endorsed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae’s participation in the sub-prime mortgage market and had they not repealed Glass-Steagall, our entire economy would not have needed a “recovery”.  Here’s Clinton’s admission:

I think [Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers] were wrong and I think I was wrong to take [to take their advice], because the argument on derivatives was that these things are expensive and sophisticated and only a handful of investors will buy them and they don’t need any extra protection, and any extra transparency. The money they’re putting up guarantees them transparency. And the flaw in that argument was that first of all sometimes people with a lot of money make stupid decisions and make it without transparency. Washington Independent

Wrong, indeed. According to this same article, as a result of that “advice,” at least 4.3 trillion dollars escaped all monitoring.

So what does Obama propose to do to strengthen our economy and ensure that these wildly irresponsible (and greedy) practices never trouble us again? A bill that ties executive compensation in institutions that receive TARP funds to their repayment, a bill that permits ongoing investment by banks in the derivatives market, a bill that still permits an unconscionably low (real) balance on the books, and a bill that relies on the creation of agencies and bureaus to “fix things.” This latter presumably took its inspiration from the SEC’s “diligent” oversight. We all know how thoroughly government agencies supervise their targets.

In fact, the banks raced to pay back TARP funds so they could continue to feed voraciously from the profit troughs, reinstating obscene bonuses instantly. And we're back to business as usual. Just as Nancy Pelosi refused any investigation of the mendacious rhetoric leading us into the Iraq War, Barack Obama refused to investigate the financial industry, both in spite of obvious illegal practices.

Apart from abortion and Obamacare, few domestic issues likely to pass Congress mean squat to the homeless or the jobless. But do we have abortion rights still? In 2011 24 states enacted 92 abortion restrictions. Think Progress Restrictions together with harassment and even murder have effectively gutted the center of our country of access to abortion, certainly in all rural areas, and increasingly in urban centers. None of these restrictions, of course, will end abortion; they will merely result in more deaths of women at the hands of butchers. But our putatively Christian nation relishes such punishment of women for the sin of fornication.

One Nation letter writer argued that when Mr. Obama entered the White House, he learned many things he hadn't known about "how to keep us safe." Because he knows things we don't know, she insisted, we should cut him some slack. This is the President as Daddy, the Protector. At this point, Obama more closely resembles Vlad the Impaler. And would that we could ask this tolerant lady whether she might cut George W. Bush the same slack since her argument applies equally well to his presidency.

What about Obamacare? It will almost certainly be invalidated by this Supreme Court in spite of those so-called liberal justices. In other words, progressives have very little to look forward to in a second term for Obama or a first term for Romney.

In hoping to win minor league skirmishes, progressives have squandered opportunities to wage the more important war against those who have been steadily taking over this nation. By pretending Barack Obama does not represent those same people, in spite of so much evidence to the contrary, progressives have relinquished the right to be called progressive.

Follow the Money

In May of 2009 Derek West Harris, a well-liked barber in Newark, New Jersey, drove an unregistered car. The officer who stopped him discovered a slew of unpaid tickets and Mr. Harris found himself shipped off to a modern debtors’ prison, in this case one posing as a privately run halfway house. Delaney Hall operates under the auspices of the extremely profitable and benignly named Community Education Center, a corporation currently vying to lock up America’s most unwanted. Unfortunately for Mr. Harris, failing to pay his traffic fines wound up being a capital offense.

But, wait. We’re assured there’s no reason to get excited. According to Community Education Center, the demise of a prisoner is an unusual event—which may come as a surprise when you realize how lax the oversight is, that the halls are equipped with nonworking security cameras, and that prisoners remain vulnerable in rooms without locking doors while violent offenders wander the halls after the final count.

A mere four companies have cornered the market on purchasing prisoners according to Prison Legal News. Two in this racket, GEO Group, Inc., and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), sucked up over four billion dollars in pure profit from American taxpayers last year. London Guardian

In 2010, Capitol Weekly reported

In three years, a private-prison construction and management company, the Corrections Corporation of America, has seen the value of its contracts with the state soar from nearly $23 million in 2006 to about $700 million three months ago – all without competitive bidding. Even in a state accustomed to high-dollar contracts, the 31-fold increase over three years is dramatic.During the same period, the company’s campaign donations rose exponentially, from $36,750 in 2006, of which $25,000 went to the state Republican Party, to $233,500 in 2007-08 and nearly $139,000 in 2009.  The donations have gone to Democrats, Republicans and ballot measures. The company’s largest single contribution, $100,000, went to an unsuccessful budget-reform package pushed last year by Gov. Schwarzenegger. Capitol Weekly

From the first enactment of the idea, nearly twenty-five years ago, private prisons have been cesspools of scandal. The cause seems obvious. Capitalists minimize costs to maximize profitability, a fundamental maxim of the free enterprise system. When the care and feeding of human beings must be scrimped on to gouge out those unfair shares of the take, somebody’s going to suffer.

A trusting public became aware of some of the pitfalls of supplementing dwindling public funds by selling off prisons and prisoners when, in 2011, two judges in Pennsylvania, Mark Ciavarella (known as “Mr. Zero Tolerance” for his consistency in sentencing everyone who had the misfortune to land in his court) and Michael Conahan, received stiff sentences for selling juvenile defendants to two local for-profit detention centers. In the end the convictions of thousands of juveniles had to be vacated because of the judges’ failure to accord the defendants constitutionally “protected” rights. One young man received three months for being in the company of a shoplifter. Many youths received stiff sentences for schoolyard brawls that, under normal circumstances, would have drawn a warning or perhaps a suspension. No child had hope of being found “not guilty.”

The wedding of politics, prison, and money leads to temptations few of the criminals running our democracy* can resist.

In 2009 two men, allegedly from CCA, showed up in a small Arizona town, close to the Mexican border to pitch the construction of a new prison specifically to house women and children who were illegal immigrants. Local officials were not convinced that the prison could be kept full, but that is, perhaps, because they were unaware that, at the time, CCA was one of the key groups involved in drafting and promoting the Arizona Senate Bill 1070 (which requires police to lock up anyone who cannot prove they came to the US legally), under the auspices of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which specializes in model legislation. London Guardian

In an investigative series on Community Education Center, the New York Times uncovered what led to Mr. Harris’s horrific death. While the State of New Jersey chose to whitewash Community Education Center and sentence the three vicious convicts housed with Mr. Harris, the Times reports numerous agency claims of “inspection,” none backed up with a written report. Further, the authorities maintain that Delaney Hall serves as a therapeutic alternative only for nonviolent offenders, yet two of the killers had been transferred back to prison because they were considered “too disruptive”. They were bounced back to Delaney mere days later, a decision prison authorities have yet to explain.

Mr. Harris, screaming as he was kicked to death for the three dollars in his pocket ($17 short of what his attackers demanded), lay in his own blood for at least another ten minutes before one of Delaney’s “counselors” (paid $10 an hour) responded. The nurse the counselor telephoned, one serving 1,200 inmates, took an additional fifteen minutes to arrive. Nevertheless, Delaney Hall received a better-than-passing grade from those who “looked into the matter.”

Essex County in New Jersey has excellent reasons for relaxing barriers to tossing vicious offenders in with those who haven’t paid their traffic fines or were caught smoking a joint.

By placing inmates at Delaney Hall, the county frees beds at its jail. It then earns a significant profit by renting those beds to the federal government to house federal inmates and immigration detainees. About 40 percent of the county jail’s roughly 2,400 beds are now reserved for federal use. NY Times 

The Times series focuses on New Jersey and Governor Christie who has ties with Community Education Center. But from California to Florida, private prisons are flourishing. As the Guardian reporter notes, their profits flow into the pockets of those who lobby for courts to be tough on crime. Undocumented workers attract much of the venom.

Although there have been some concerns that any relaxation of sentencing or drug laws might negatively impact their bottom line (profit), they remain confident in their ability to drum up new ways of generating their taxpayer-funded commodities (also known as inmates): lobbying California for their excess prisoners being one; caging juveniles on trivial charges another. But the favorite, by a long shot, is the accelerated drive to lock up America's immigrants.
So far, these strategies seem to be working nicely. In their 2011 third-quarter earnings report, the GEO group proudly announced an increase in profits from the previous year. This joyous news can be at least partially attributed to changes in immigration law, particularly in states like Arizona and Oklahoma, which allow for, among other things, the indefinite detention of illegal immigrants, including those whose asylum proceedings are underway. The majority of immigrants who are picked up by law enforcement officials, mostly on civil charges, like being caught with a broken tail light for instance, will end up in privately run prisons. In many of these facilities, they will be charged $5 per minute to call their loved ones, whilst earning $1 per day for their labor, from which the corporation running the facility will profit. London Guardian

These facts put a new light on the Republican screeching over the President’s recent relaxing of the Federal posture on “illegal immigration.” Sure, it’s an election campaign ploy to stir up the voters against foreigners yet once more, but Obama’s plan, no doubt, will hurt many of the fat cats where they keep all their feelings: in their pockets.

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*Will Rogers used to say we had “the best [government] money could buy.” Actually, he said “the best Congress”, but I think he’d agree, post-Citizens United, that the purchasing power of those who used to settle for buying Congress has greatly expanded.

For more information on the efficacy (ha ha) of private prisons, see this academic study: UK Sage Publication

Betrayal--It's Only Human

Apologies to my loyal readers. I'm ill this week so won't be posting. I hope to come roaring back next week with yet one more tirade against dreck! Thanks for your patience.

As a young woman, I saw Marlon Brando in a film called "Viva Zapata." The young Zapata (Brando, who else?) begins as a firebrand, determined to free the campesinos of Mexico from their oppression and exploitation by Porfirio Diaz. Zapata, in the opening scene, stands shoulder to shoulder with a line of poor farmers, complaining bitterly to Diaz about the theft of their land. Diaz demands to know the belligerent Zapata’s name and then circles it meaningfully on a list. Together with his compatriots, Zapata eventually succeeds in overthrowing Diaz (which in fact happened). But his brother proves as corrupt as Diaz. In the next to the final scene, a group of poor farmers have requested an audience with Emiliano Zapata. One man steps forward to complain bitterly about Zapata's brother stealing the land. Zapata demands the man’s name and its spelling. He then circles it on a list.

That he subsequently resigns power doesn’t invalidate the film’s premise: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

(In fact, Zapata did betray a friend, Otilio Montaño Sánchez, who had fought beside him. He abandoned Sánchez to the nonexistent mercies of his enemies in Zapata’s army after they accused him, probably unjustly, of disloyalty.)

John Steinbeck, a passionate anti-communist, wrote the script for Viva Zapta, which became a movie in 1952. Steinbeck had already written In Dubious Battle (1936), a clumsy screed posing as a novel, but in reality merely a tirade against Communism populated with stick figures. As for Elia Kazan, who directed Viva Zapata, he became infamous during the McCarthy era as the rat who made possible the Hollywood blacklist by informing on several friends to the House Un-American Activities Committee, headed up by the crazed Joe McCarthy.

Steinbeck and Kazan therefore had reason to portray radical leftists as men who could not lead after the shooting stopped. Although the eponymous Viva Zapata honors the Mexican hero on whom it’s based, his misstep (occurring just prior to the ambush that kills him) undermines the notion that justice can ever emerge out of revolution.

It’s easy to succumb to the logic of that repudiation.

My generation watched the betrayal of the Communist dream, doomed from the outset in the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks ignored entrenched Russian personality characteristics. At that time, the population was predominately composed of peasants, fiercely committed to ownership of property and equally resistant to collectivism. Marx's economic and political structures, as he explained them, were supposedly workable solely in an industrialized society.

In this way, the Communists backed themselves out of Communism and into totalitarianism, because, without it, you cannot rule people who don’t want you to rule.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, my generation noticed that Mao had disintegrated from the brave idealist of China’s revolution into a funnel for cronyism, viciousness and despotism. And then there was Castro, besieged by the fanatically anti-Communist bully to the North, forced (as he saw it) to abandon his original democratic vision for Cuba to find shelter in the patronage of the corrupt Soviet Union.

In other words, my generation watched blueprint-utopia after blueprint-utopia emerge as updated versions of overthrown dictatorships—sort of like modern Egypt.

True, even these tyrannical leaders instituted some reforms. Castro took Cuba from a nation of illiterates to 99% literacy. Ironically, the rate has fallen somewhat (to 97%) under his brother, who has initiated some economic reforms welcomed by the United States, which has promptly called for more. Castro also instituted a national health system that took Cuban life expectancy from under 60 years to just over 77.

When the Soviet Union and its satellites collapsed, women once again faced the unchecked brutality of their husbands. And a decade after the wall came down in Berlin, East Berliners responded to a survey, noting that, although in general life was better, they missed belonging to a community in which people cared about one another. China has attempted to prevent peasants from tossing baby girls into the river, although population controls and the urgent need to produce males had probably accelerated that practice.

Currently, we are watching our own country trash its Constitution. President Obama circles names on a list just as Porfirio Diaz did. As our freedoms shrink, many Americans feel helpless. Some of us who fought for justice in the 60s experience the same impotence, perhaps doubly.


Too often we have witnessed reforms that haven't changed things for the better. Or when they do change things for the better, those changes occupy a precarious position, such as voting rights for African Americans in Florida.


The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. But who can afford eternal vigilance?