COMMENT: The title of this post may appear extreme to some. A follow-up post will discuss “austerity” and its effects will be analyzed in some detail and against the background of the Nazi T‑4 program and the theoretical principles of Carl von Clausewitz.
We could do no better to begin this long post than to reference a characteristically incisive post by “Pterrafractyl”–who’s work is now featured in its own section, highlighted on the front page of this website (“Pterrafractyl’s Nest”). Users of the website are emphatically encouraged to digest that post and consider it in the context of this entry.
In Pterrafractyl’s detailed article, we observe the potential resolution of the global economic meltdown threatened by the failure of the Euro. That resolution is the kind of subjugation of European national sovereignty to German hegemony that was envisioned by the Third Reich in its plans for postwar victory and consequent control.
Failure to rescue the Euro threatens a global economic meltdown. In effect, Germany is in the position of blackmailing the U.S., as well as the rest of the world. “As goes Europe, so goes the world.”
The United States is, of course, in a Presidential election year, with 23 Senate seats held by Democrats up for grabs, as opposed to 10 seats currently held by Republicans.
In a follow-up post, we’ll look at the possible effects of European economic turmoil on the U.S. electoral scene, the Presidential contest in particular. In that context, we will also touch on the passive role of the Federal Reserve Bank and its chairman Ben Bernanke in this imbroglio.
In order to see the current electoral horse race in perspective, it is important to review and understand the nature of the contemporary Republican Party.
As discussed in FTR #465 (among other programs), a core element of the post-World War II GOP is a direct offshoot of the Third Reich and its central European allies.
Following Dewey’s narrow defeat by Harry Truman in the 1948 election (blamed on the “Jewish vote”), Allen Dulles and his protege Richard Nixon set about recruiting Axis veterans, many of them war criminals, to serve as political mobilizers in the Eastern European ethnic communities in the United States.
This recruitment program was inextricably linked with an illegal domestic covert operation, the Crusade for Freedom. The CFF enlisted Romanian Iron Guard veterans, members of the Hungarian Arrow Cross, the Bulgarian National Front, the Croatian Ustachi, the Slovakian Hlinka Party, Ukrainian fascists from the OUN/B of Stephan Bandera, Baltic fascists from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Byelorussian Nazis and others as combatants against the Soviet Bloc and as political cadre in the United States.
Significant for our purposes here, it is important to remember that Ronald Reagan was the chief spokesman for the CFF, the covert operation cemented to the formation and operation of the GOP “ethnics.” The State Department machinations used to bring the Nazis and fascists into the U.S. were overseen by William Casey, later Nixon’s head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and, later, Ronald Reagan’s head of the CIA.
Shepherded by Nixon, this Nazi GOP element was viewed as being able to deliver five key swing states in Presidential election years. During Nixon’s second term, the GOP “ethnics” were installed as a permanent element of the Republican Party, when George H.W. Bush was chairman of the Republican National Committee.
The 1980 election marked the triumphal ascension of the CFF/Nazi “ethnics” to the pinnacle of American political power. With CFF spokesperson Reagan as President, George H.W. Bush (who oversaw the installation of the Nazis as a permanent, standing element of the GOP) as Vice-President and William Casey (who handled the machinations to import the Nazis under State Department auspices) as CIA director, the Nazi machinery was in control of American political process.
The selection of personnel for the Reagan administration is worth noting as well. In charge of drawing up the list of individuals from which Reagan made his appointments was Helene Von Damm, a close associate/protege of Otto von Bolschwing, another “Dulles Nazi” imported into the United States. In the Third Reich, Von Bolschwing served as Adolf Eichmann’s superior in administering “Jewish matters” for Hitler.
(Yours Truly played a small role in the actual breaking of the Von Bolschwing story in 1981. Von Damm keeps the last name of her second husband, Christian Von Damm, who was managing Bank of America’s branch in La Paz, Bolivia in the early 1980’s. It would be a reasonable supposition that the bank was handling a fair amount of capital derived from the operations of the “Coca Fascisti” who ascended to power in the “Cocaine Coup” of 1980. Later, Von Damm became Reagan’s Ambassador to Austria. There, she married a hotelier named Goertler, who later died of an allegedly self-inflicted gun shot wound.
Exemplifying the people tabbed by Van Damm was Ykaterina Chumachenko, Deputy Director for Public Liaison for Reagan and, at the same time, head of the UCCA, the key front organization for the OUN/B! She went on to become first lady of the Ukraine under Victor Yuschenko.
The war crimes committed by the OUN/B on behalf of the Third Reich are a subject of contemporary political tension between Poland and the Ukraine.
EXCERPT: . . . .On July 20, 1988, George Bush reaffirmed the ties between the Republican Party and the ABN by making a campaign stop at Fedorak’s Ukrainian Cultural Center in Warren, Michigan. Bush delivered a hard-line foreign policy speech to those attending the annual Captive Nations banquet sponsored jointly by the Captive Nations Committee and the ABN. Sharing the dais with Fedorak and Bush was Katherine Chumachenko, formerly the director of the UCCA’s Captive Nations Committee and currently the Deputy Director for Public Liaison at the White House. [Emphasis added.] Ignatius M. Billinsky, President of UCCA, had already been named Honorary Chair of Ukrainians for Bush, and Bohdan Fedorak named National vice-chair of Ukrainians for Bush. . . .
COMMENT: In assessing the Nazified character of the GOP and the Reagan/Bush I administrations, one should remember that evidence suggests the Nazi hierarchy and chain of command remained intact, with the Bormann network in charge of an NSDAP gone underground.
Furthermore, the Nazi emigre milieu is inextricably linked with the Gehlen organization. Even as Gehlen was cementing his deal with U.S. intelligence, he was clearing his activities with Admiral Karl von Doenitz (Hitler’s designated successor) and General Franz Halder.
EXCERPT: . . . . As Gehlen was about to leave for the United States, he left a message for Baun with another of his top aides, Gerhard Wessel: “I am to tell you from Gehlen that he has discussed with [Hitler’s successor Admiral Karl] Doenitz and [Gehlen’s superior and chief of staff General Franz] Halder the question of continuing his work with the Americans. Both were in agreement.” Hohne and Zolling, op. cit., n. 14, p. 61.
COMMENT: Returning to the subject of “austerity” and the elections, it is vital to remember the the Reagan/Bush I Nazified GOP administrations campaigned against big government and preached austerity. At the same time, Reagan/Bush drastically increased the military budget, increasing the national debt three and a half-fold under Reagan. By the time Bush I left office, the national debt had increased five-fold!
The Nazified GOP had created the very situation which they claimed to be able to solve! (It is worth noting that the U.S. had been a net creditor nation from the end of World War I through the Carter administration. By 1983, the U.S. was a net debtor nation. This is related to, but distinct from, the national debt per se.)
In eight years, Clinton, by contrast, had actually had budgetary surpluses in some years.
When Bush II took office, he slashed taxes while waging two wars, dramatically increasing the debt once again.
The actions of five administrations of Reagan and both Bushes have been utterly disastrous for this country’s fiscal situation, setting the stage for a roll-back of the New Deal under a prospective Romney administration (with a GOP-dominated Congress).
In passing, we should remember that the Bush II administration heavily overlapped a parallel network to the Nazi “ethnics.” Karl Rove–“Bush’s Brain”–and Grover Norquist created the Islamic Free Market Institute to counter the “Jewish vote” of the Democrats. That milieu, in turn, is inextricably linked with the Nazi-linked Bank Al-Taqwa and the funding apparatus that helped support Hamas, Al-Qaeda and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Also in this context, remember the thesis presented over and over on this website and in the broadcasts–that the Bush family is the point element of the Bormann capital network–what banker familiar with its operations termed “The greatest concentration of money power under a single control in all of world history.” We should also bear in mind the links of the GOP presidents, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush I to the assassination of President Kennedy.
Also in the context of GOP/Nazis, as set forth in FTR #652, Sarah Palin appears to be a cat’s paw for the Alaskan Independence Party, a seditious correspondent party for the Aryan Nations.
California’s “Governator”–Arnold Schwarzenegger manifested a Nazi political ancestry, Nazi cultural and behavioral affiliations, Nazi political connections and a possible Bormann network financial backer.
In the current campaign, Mitt Romney is joined at the hip with “alternative” candidate Ron Paul, whose Nazi/fascist links are a matter of record.
In a follow-up post, we will examine the budgetary and austerity question at greater length–both in terms of the possible impact of matters European on the U.S. election and on the real nature of “austerity” itself, from an economic and social standpoint.
This is an important post. I’m emailing it to everyone I can.
You mean the existential threat to liberty isn’t due to too many lazy teachers, police, and firefighters?! Me so confused:
If we don’t fire firefighters our freedom will burn to the ground. And it’s not like private citizens can’t purchase privatized fire protection. It would be fairer AND cheaper. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.
And you have to agree that John Sununu has a point. If there are fewer kids in school, do we really need more teachers. I hope you’re listening kids:
Ok, well, there may be a record number of students, but that still doesn’t mean we need more teachers! As Mr. Sununu also pointed out, it’s not like there aren’t plenty of technological replacements for teachers. Isn’ that right Niel?
And when all these kids decide to head off to college, let’s not fall into that trap of “oh, no, now we have to find a way to pay for all these co-eds”. Nonesense. What good is it to have all these billionaire sugar-daddy’s if you can’t tap into their infinite founts of wisdom AND checkbooks. Just don’t expect any handouts you lil’ moochers:
That’s right, if we to ensure that “talent isn’t wasted”, what we need to get is get all of our talented betters (i.e. folks with lots of money) to start directly “investing” in the next generation. For a profit, of course. So not only will we be able to pay for all those kiddies’ college educations, but those bright, aspiring students will get all that wisdom and guidance passed down to them from their “investors”. Granted, some areas of study might suffer as as result of this wise guidance. But think of all the valuable “School of Life”-lessons that would be passed down!
Who says austerity can’t be expansionary. I feel my mind expanding already just thinking about this wiser AND cheaper world ahead of us.
The possibilities are endless. I can envision a ‘penny stock’ segment for this market, where those who can’t afford to invest in, say, a medical student, can still subsidize a young woman’s beautician course or a young man’s carpentry instruction and then own a piece of their earnings for years out. There is income to be squeezed all around us if you have the eyes to see!
@Dwight:
It looks like Louisiana might be showing us one of the future trends in the “squeezing profits in any way conceivable from education”-trend. I’m grimly fascinated to see what Bible-based math looks like. 1 + 1 = Liberals destroy global prosperity, apparently:
Here’s an additional cost savings approach: why bother having separate text books for different subjects when you could just have one text book used for every class in every grade. I’m pretty sure you could get it past the state boards of education:
Oh well, at least Louisiana’s legislators aren’t entirely clueless about the dangers of religion clouding educational curriculums. Concepts like blatant, overwhelming hypocrisy might still elude them, as well as the oxymoronic nature of fundamentalist religious “education”, but you can’t say the dangers of mixing religion and education are entirely lost on these folks.
Note the overwhelming support in the state legislature for Lousiana’s new education privatization scheme. Not enough votes? Eh, whatever:
The GOP isn’t shepherding us into facsism, they’re merely offering vaguely outlined “comprehensive systemic change”. And whether or not the US public embraces this bold new vision will be heavily dependent on the fate of the eurozone. And that will largely be a function of how the public inteprets and digests all the valuable lessons encapsulated in the collapse of the European welfare state. A vote for Romney is a vote for a radical response to the ever more evident lessons of the eurozone crisis that the welfare state is an unsustainable luxury during an era of necessary austerity. We neew a replacement of the New Deal social contract with a new New Deal that places favors risk over security, effort over comfort, and innovation over stability. Security, comfort, and stability are just not affordable in our hi-tech economy (curse you Science!). This Newer Deal that phases out the safety-net for upcoming generations and privatizes education is needed to save the children. Think of the children!
Anyways, that’s a meme getting pushed right now:
Krugman has a post from early 2011 that has some particularly relevant observations related to this meme:
Yep, the proposed new social contract that promises Freeeeedom! is also a system predicated on equal opportunity. It’s an ownership society. It’s so ownership‑y that you own all the risk and consequences of your lot in life. Bad lot? Too bad. Safety-nets are so 20th century. This is the safety of voucher-nomics/Romney-nomics. There isn’t a committment by society to provide to provide a basic service. There’s a committment to provide a fixed payment per student per year to a “service-provider” so we can balance a ledger and declare our austere nature. That’s the grand plan to save the future.
Oh wow, Look, the kids can’t add but at least we managed to cut state and local spending drastically
This is why we can’t have nice things.
And this.
Continuing destabilization of Obama by Germans and Romney?
“German finance minister publicly rebuffs US president”
http://wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/scha-j27.shtml
Way to, uh, raise the bar Florida. This just might be the craziest story coming out of Rick Scott’s administration we’ve seen so far:
And here I always thought Skynet or some other man-made aritifical intelligence would destroy humanity. It turns simple numbers stored on computers will do the job. No intelligence is required:
Sorry kids, the world is going to suck even more than usual for the next generation or so. We’re doing this for your own good. We may have created money, but now it now rules us and we have no choice. Sorry about that. We can’t simply print more and give it away. There are these little magic digits sitting in computers somewhere and they need to be balanced and we’re told that the only way to possibly balance them is to drastically cut spending on things like your education and future. Otherwise the world will explode or something. We hope you understand.
Austerity.
Romneynomics for the 100%: A preview in pictures. A preview in prose. A preview in preparations. And, last, but certainly not least, a preview in Paul.
It’s
mourningmorning in America and it’s looking like it’s going to be a bright shiny day.Wow: private prison companies using gangs like the Aryan Knights to keep the rest of the prisoners in control in order to achieve an ideological goal (of making more money no matter what the costs)...that kind of sounds a bit like terrorism. State-sanctioned privatized terrorism:
One wonders how this bold form of cost savings works when it’s applied outside of a prison setting. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Something to consider while the US lawmakers engage in a discussion over what to do about expiring Bush tax-cuts on the wealthy and how many cuts should be made in the entitlements: The US Commerce Department just reported record profits for US corporations in the third quarter. How unexpected.
And speaking of unexpected developments...this isn’t one of them.
It’s sort of beating a dead horse at this point to note that the GOP is intent on destroying the economy for ideological reasons, but when you’re dealing with a dead horse of the ‘zombie’ variety, you don’t really have a choice:
Like their human zombie counterparts, zombie horses have an insatiable appetite for brains. The craving are thought to be related to their lack of a functioning one and, on some level, they realize this and it hurts their zombie sensibilities. Poor dears. Zombies, you see, have existential crises too.
It looks like the GOP is finally realizing that a party “rebranding” as a kinder, gentler GOP might be in order. Apparently, it no longer sells to be the socioeconomic suicide bombers for austerity-obsessed billionaires:
Uh oh, the GOP’s insistence on deep spending cuts might tank the economy. Let’s see what type of new slogan the party might be pondering to counter this negative image:
Hmmm...so the new “kinder, gentler” GOP is going to demand on no tax likes for billionaires but they’d certainly be open to gutting defense spending or deep cuts in programs that help the poor. The Party of Peace and Poverty does kind of have a ring to it. Perhaps “The Party of Principled Flexibility” might resonate more. Yes, they’re still the party of, by, and for billionaires because, you know, a party’s got to have
principalsprinciples, but it’s not like they’re only into cutting programs for the poor. This might work, but they’re going to have to show a little more flexibility if they really want to win back wavering voters. Sometimes, successful rebrandings require a classic:That’s right, the GOP could just roll out one of its ideas of yesteryear: turn the country into a giant fire sale! Everyone likes a sale, right? Especially if they’ve seen their incomes stagnate for decades. But one thing the GOP definitely doesn’t want to do if it pursues the privatization path: don’t hold our national fire sale in secret, otherwise what’s the point? In other words, don’t do what Florida does. That’s generally good advice:
Actually, given that mass privatizations won’t really help average Americans avoid plunging further into personal debt, there is one instance where the GOP may want to follow the Florida example. Clearly, there are no easy answers. Good luck with your rebranding GOP!
Stupid? Evil? How about both?
That Paul Ryan seems like such a nice young man:
LOL, Paul Ryan was rolling out the details for his ‘new’ 10 year budget proposal this morning. He had a bit of a verbal accident, though. He accidentally told the truth:
Fans of Russian Roulette will love the special “DC” rules. It’s WAY more deadly, but its deadly for other people so it’s fun. Here’s how you play:
1. Replace the revolver with a howitzer.
2. Point the howitzer at a large mass of people. It doesn’t matter what their age it, just lots and lots of people. The more the better.
3. Now invite a crazed lunatic into the game. Make him an offer...he can either open fire on the crowd now OR he can come back later after you’ve replaced the howitzer with an even BIGGER gun. Nukes are acceptable, but it sort of ruins the game if you jump to them right away.
4. If the crazed lunatic opens fire, well, game’s over. If the crazed lunatic takes a pass then find a bigger gun and repeat.
5. The game ends when a bloody massacre occurs.
6. Optional rule: Instead of ending the game when the bloody massacre occurs, just wait for new people to wander into the playing field and play again
It’s so exciting! Look, we have this howitzer all set up and here comes a crazed lunatic...what’ll it be? “Fire” or “Bigger”?
Woohoo, “Bigger” it is!
Best. Game. Ever.
Ok, it may not be the BEST game ever. THAT title goes to the “Starve a poor family and blame it on their kids” game. But it’s still pretty sweet.
The forces of darkness will apparently never stop until
we allthe poor see the light. Well, at least a tunnel of light. Bye bye social safety-net. There be monsters afoot and they’re always hungry:It’s somewhat curious that the “medium-sized” increase in the debt-limit include the options of cuts in the SNAP food stamp program, block-grant Medicaid, or tinker with chained CPI. The Ryan plan cuts to SNAP recently passed by the GOP in the House under, for instance, only cut around $20 billion in food aid to poor over the next five years. Whereas Ryan plan to block grant medicaid would cut over $800 billion in aid to the poor over the next decade. That’s $4 billion vs $80 billion per year! Using GOP-logic, shouldn’t $20 billion in food stamp cuts to the poor only be a “small” on the menu? This is a very disappointing “menu”. We should expect better from our monsters.
@Pterrafractyl–
It is a safe bet that this would appeal to that little fascist “Fast Eddie Snowden,” who wants to eliminate Social Security, return to the gold standard and thinks high unemployment is just ducky.
Keep a weather eye on the so-called progressive sector as they rag on Obama, part of the destabilization effort I predicted and which is in full swing.
As always, they have completely missed that “Snowden’s Ride” is fascist. Peter Thiel/Palantir/Cato Institute, Nazi Ron Paul (capitalized by Thiel and an associate of KKK/American Nazi Party crony David Duke), Cato Institute-networked Glenn Greenwald, Nazi-linked Julian Assange (whose associate Joran Jermas is part of a milieu including David Duke, as is Carl Lundstrom, whose servers WikiLeaks uses).
Great stuff.
Yeah, the so-called progressive sector can’t be fooled.
Not more than a half-dozen times before lunch on Friday.
I noticed that the Egyptian army closed down some Al Jazeera facilities and arrested some of their personnel.
I’ve discussed Al Jazeera’s association with the Muslim Brotherhood before–it is profound.
Pacifica Radio features Al Jazeera as a fundamental part of their morning program.
Yeah, the Muslim Brotherhood is sure a great news source for so-called progressives.
Small wonder, then, that they wind up with their heads lodged securely between their buttocks.
Again, keep up your great work!
Best,
Dave
The GOP’s new social-contract: we’ll help the poor, but only when they’re visibly starving.
So will it be a zombie or vampire future Federal Reserve Chairman Milton Friedman in Rand Paul’s Libertarian Populist paradise?
It will be quite a coup for the far-right if the US has to spend to next couple of decades constantly oscillating between presidents and congresses that either want to appoint someone to run the Fed or end it. If Reagan’s Libertarian Revolution wasn’t pure enough to get the job done perhaps the Rand revolution will do.
The sooner you teach malnourished children that they have no value in society the sooner those children will spontaneously learn how to create value by pulling themselves up from their own bootstraps! It’s just the right thing to do:
Well here’s an uplifting sounding story: Kevin Cramer, North Dakota’s lone representative, recently had an interview with TheHill.com, where he took issue with the GOP’s negative messaging and suggested that the Tea Party rhetoric had hurt the party’s image by not being upbeat and compassionate enough on social issues and immigration:
Well that sounded pretty uplifting. Hopefully Rep. Cramer’s unmoderated views inspired by scripture include compassion for poor and hungry. Let’s see...:
That could have been a lot more uplifting.
More “Family” Values from the GOP:
I think I found him!
With more and more of the US asking themselves in wake of the Great Shutdown Default Debacle of 2013 how it could be that one of the two major parties collectively went insane, it’s important to keep in mind that the GOP’s strategy of creating a fiscal emergency in order to force dramatic cuts in social spending wasn’t just some strategy that the GOP pulled out of thin air. Nor have they they been behaving in a bubble that’s entirely detached from reality. That’s because this is pretty much the strategy that Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann has been advocating for years and continues to advocate:
Similarly, when the GOP is clamoring about the profound evils of deficits while simultaneously demanding no new taxes, they aren’t doing this in an international vaccuum.
So when we’re trying to figure out how it’s possible that so many in the GOP could suddenly take the position that not raising the debt ceiling wouldn’t be a problem because the US could still pay interest on its debts and would just have to dramatically and suddenly slash spending with no tax increases it’s important to recall Weidmann’s statement about desiring to see a future where “state bankruptcies and above all bank insolvencies must be possible, without the stability of the financial system being put in danger”. Normalizing the ability of the oligarchs to push a society into a debt-crisis trap — where the deconstruction of the social safety-net and labor standards can be demanded by the far-right in exchange for an agreement to extricate the nation from the trap — is a key goal of far-rightists on both sides of the pond. On the one hand we have the GOP saying “default? What default? Just slash spending” and on the other we have Bundesbank and its allies saying “Default? So what? Just slash spending and everything will be fine”. It’s the two sides of the same bathtub-murder-scene commemorative coin.
So long All Hallows’ Eve and hello All Saints’ Day! What a perfect day to penny-pinch on aid to the poor:
A look at what it takes to get the Tea Party’s endorsement:
In Senator Bright’s defense, he only wants to jail anyone enforcing Obamacare in South Carolina for a year. It’s not like the people caught enforcing Obamacare get immediately death-paneled. He’s not crazy or anything.
Continuing...
So under Senator Bright’s plans, the churches would get the privilege of caring for the mentally ill. That should be fun. But not as much fun as what Senator Bright has in mind: Civil War reenactments! Although it’s not so much a reenactment as it is a Civil War reimagined
Our strange political reality is getting even stranger. Now you know why John Boehner and Paul Ryan have been feeling like this in recent days...although not after tonight’s vote:
Today’s vote may not be good news for the long-term unemployed or federal workers. But for Paul Ryan and John Boehner it was a very good day.
It was actually a really good day for the Tea Party too but...well...
If you’re a poor American, run!!!!! The Tea Party is looking for you. They want to help:
So the states are going to have to figure out how “they are going to do more with less money” but “just as we cannot spend our way out of poverty, we cannot really cut our way out”? It’s not clear how exactly the Tea Party’s image problem is going to be helped by acknowledging that we can’t expect to cut our way out of poverty and then proposing a bunch of cuts to poor. It looks like the GOP has become so allergic to helping that even when it’s trying to help itself by helping others it just ends hurting everyone!
Inspired by events in Ukraine, this reads a little like a run-on sentence but makes some very good points:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/20/the-rise-of-fascism-in-the-west/
March 20, 2014
Ukraine as Stalking Horse
The Rise of Fascism in the West
by NORMAN POLLACK
Fascism dribbles off the tongue too easily, yet it is possible to wrap one’s arms around the concept and practice with, allowing for historical variations, some degree of precision. Hitler’s Germany may be the gold standard by which to measure all else, but even there correction can be made for both underlying structural features and ideological themes applied to other and different settings. By that I mean, e.g., functional equivalents of Nazi societal organization, if you will, foundations or perhaps sub-foundations of the social order and political culture. If we return to Franz Neumann’s Behemoth, the now-neglected classic on the subject and Robert A. Brady’s Spirit and Structure of German Fascism, also near-forgotten, focused on the ideology of business organization, we can say that the primal factor in fascism’s internal composition is capitalism, not your everyday Smithian variety happily ensconced in Econ. 101 textbooks, but the real thing at an advanced form of development: monopolization, greater cohesion through trade associations, neutralization of labor as a collective-bargaining social force, above all, an hierarchical class system with commanding decisions at the top then filtered down through gradations of rank, integrated with and complemented by the political-structural framework of business-government interpenetration.
This paradigm of centralized power embedded in the synthesis of corporatism and the State, the latter, itself the more powerful the better, in order to serve and protect the business system, its dominance over labor, its penetration of foreign markets, its further concentration through preventing internecine competition, is equally characteristic of 1930s Germany (already mostly evident under Weimar) and the US beginning in earnest still earlier but perhaps taking more protracted form. Diagrammatically, we are, circa 2014, more than superseding that German stage, our “cartels” disguised by other names, our rate of concentration the apogee of capitalist inner logic. From here it is readily apparent the appetitive and combative nature of capitalism, egged on or reinforced by the Statist dimension: America’s version of globalization to a tee.
This underpinning, not the concentration camp or gas chamber, establishes the bedrock on which the fascist edifice rests, makes them possible, embodied in militaristic aggression in Germany, but, for the US, and as Barrington Moore pointed out, in Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, for Japan as well, what is critical to fascism is not only business-government interpenetration (Masao Maruyama years ago termed this, for Japan, the “close-embrace” system), but also the regimentation of the people, glimpses of which appear in the NSA wholesale surveillance of the public, and a prepackaged ideology of permanent-war readiness buttressed by a saturated climate of counterterrorism.
I think you get the picture. America is not all Innocence and Milk-and-Honey, the hegemonic demiurge in full throttle under Obama, now poised for the much anticipated (and, I believe, welcomed) conflict with Russia, having carefully arranged the chess board, the rooks, IMF and NATO, the queen, all-purpose privatization, the pawns, “friends and allies” persuaded to do America’s bidding, finally, the king, not the innocuous piece, nor here, a single individual, but Obama’s collective national-security advisors, taking in CIA, NSA, Pentagon officials, even then, the tip of the iceberg of war-making, war-striving apparatus, Washington up to its neck from every quarter, bipartisan all the way, in sharpening the killer instinct. Kerry and Biden are the cheerleaders for imperialism and, increasingly, militarism, for they, and Obama, recognize the two are inseparable, to which they seem especially dedicated. Ukraine has found its soul mates.
More at link
What lies at the heart of a black hole? That’s one of those questions that might remain a mystery forever. The contents of black hole hearts, on the other hand, is much easier to understand: It’s mostly lies:
Remember folks, if non-US government entities buy US bonds, it’s one of the safest investments in the world. But if those bonds are held in, say, a government trust fund for the elderly and poor, the bonds are suddenly flimflam money that we should assume isn’t really there. Yes, according to Paul Ryan, the US’s full faith and credit has a Black Hole Heart Loophole. Where the money goes no one knows...
This is precious: How does Paul Ryan’s new GOP budget save $5 trillion by 2024? Well, in part, by cutting the Obamacare benefits but keeping the extra taxes:
Well, at least now we know how to get the GOP to agree to a tax-hike: you have to pretend the money is going to those in need. Pretend. That’s what makes it worth it to them. The additional tax cuts for the rich and ‘dynamic scoring’ scheme too presumably sweeten the deal too but that healthcare switcheroo, all the build up of hope only to have it snatched away...wow, that has to be priceless.
So is a Three Card Monte strategy one the US can use in the future? Promising tax hikes to help out some group in need only to hank away the benefits while keeping the taxes? Maybe, but that assumes even pretending to help those in need is still something the US does in the future.
OMFG.
Ah, now it makes sense.
What does a Subaru have in common with Paul Ryan’s plans to address poverty? It’s the same thing that can make a brown paper bag so much more than just a brown paper bag. And it’s the same thing Paul Ryan can’t stop talking about whenever the topic of poverty comes up (to the exclusion of any meaningful policy solutions): Love:
Well, ok, the Paper Bag of Love comparison wasn’t really fair to Subaru.
Here’s a little peak into the mind of Arizona’s state school superintendent:
“I have never been insensitive to issues around poverty and have fought for public policy that provides opportunities for jobs for all our citizens who want to work and support for those who are vulnerable.” Wow, that sure sounds like Mr. Huppenthal supports something like FDR’s policies that make the government the employer of last resort. But, as we also saw, Mr. Huppenthal is rather critical of FDR’s “disastrous economic policies” that “drug down the whole world and directly led to the rise of a no-name hack named Adolph Hitler who was going nowhere until Germany’s economy went into the tank.” Hmmm, that’s a little confusing. Maybe he’s just trying to have some fun.
Paul Ryan is still out there pushing his new “life coaches for the poor (instead of actual help)” anti-poverty plan and, shocker, his anti-poverty plans include a lot of anti-poverty lies:
Well, at least if the plan “life coaches” ends up being a giant scam the recipients of will have all learned an important lesson in success: lying and scamming works, just ask the guy that came up with the ‘life coach’ plan you’re all experiencing! He almost became vice president!
Old zombies can learn new tricks:
Ah, ok, according to Jennifer Rubin it’s just one or two people in the GOP “trying to whip up enthusiasm for the shutdown”. So nothing to worry about. It’s probably just a couple of back benchers:
Well, here we go again. Again.
Here’s a bit of good news: It turns out only four states are carrying through with the big food stamp cuts legislated into the 2014 farm bill. How? Well, before, the federal law allowed for states to give more assistance to families that also receive federal heating assistance, so some states would give individuals as little as $1 in heating assistance in order to qualify them for the higher food stamp benefits. So the GOP’s new food stamp bill upped that cutoff to $20 in heating assistance in order to qualify for the additional food stamps, in the hopes that this would force states to cut back on food stamps by making the heating assistance too expensive. But now 12 out of the 16 states that have this loophole are finding the additional money to pay people the higher minimum heating assistance anyways resulting in food stamp cuts in only Wisconsin, New Jersey, Michigan, and New Hampshire. As austerians everywhere must be asking themselves, where’s a Troika when you need one:
Well, that’s one way for the GOP to live down its “47%” taint of 2012:
wait for working poor to forget itJust up the ante:Come on, we all know why those lazy unemployed people ‘choose’ to stay unemployed. They just want all the awesome luxuries that come with unemployment in America. Like sleep:
Well, that’s one way for the GOP to live down its “47%” taint of 2012:
wait for working poor to forget about itJust up the ante:Come on, we all know why those lazy unemployed people ‘choose’ to stay unemployed. They just want all the awesome luxuries that come with unemployment in America. Like sleep:
While most zombie apocalypses involve an ever growing horde of zombies consuming society it’s worth keeping in mind that when it’s a zombie ideas apocalypse, a single zombie is all you need:
...*braaaiiiinnns*...*groan*...
Trickle-down economics: One of the many “controversial” ecnomic dreams (of billionaires) that never dies. Ever:
Well, it could be worse. The GOP could still be pushing for ‘expansionary austerity’ too. Of course, once the ‘dynamic scoring’-driven tax cuts fail to increase revenues, ‘expansionary austerity’ schemes are really just a matter of time...assuming they bother waiting...
Wisconsin Governor, and current GOP heartthrob, Scott Walker just gave a major boost to his presidential ambition: he worked a miracle. Specifically, Scott Walker managed to make Texas Governor Rick Perry sound like the adult in the room. Granted, this room in question happened to be the CPAC convention hall, so it’s a pretty low bar. But still, this is Rick Perry we’re talking about here. Sounding sane and somewhat wise. It’s clearly a miracle:
Yes, Scott Walker’s battle with evil unions makes him the perfect leader for ridding the world of evil-doers like ISIS. But don’t assume Walker was being boastful here. He wouldn’t do it himself. He has an entire army at his command! Meet Scott Walker’s Pentagon...it’s where he gets his marching orders:
Scott Walker, as we can see, has been honing his divide and conquer skills for years. Could he apply this same tactic to ISIS? Well, maybe. But keep in mind that dividing and conquering is what ISIS to climb to power in the first place, so it may not be the cakewalk Walker is expecting:
Well, it clearly isn’t going to be easy for Scott Walker to work any dividing and conquering miracles. ISIS is working from the same play book!
Kitten pics plus beheadings?! How on earth is Scott Walker going to counter that when all his divide and conquer plans involve union busting and crushing healthcare and education? That form of dividing and conquering might work in Wisconsin, but does Walker really have what it takes to divide and conquer ISIS when ISIS has clearly already mastered Walker’s tactic of choice? This doesn’t feel right...
Oh wait, did this analysis just equate Scott Walker to ISIS? Uh oh. As a somewhat wise man once said, oops. He’s not like ISIS at all. Well, ok, there are similarities.
Here’s a great example of what keeps Wisconsin governor Scott Walker either near the top of list for 2016 GOP presidential nomination: Scott knows what billionaires want. Intimately. And that means he knows that what billionaires want is someone that knows which asses need kicking and which asses need kissing. On top of that, he’s a fabulous kisser:
*smmmmmmoooooooch*
Well that probably went over well with the base. Although at this point doesn’t pretty much every GOP candidate basically support eliminating the income tax? Heck, even Jeb Bush recently refused to deny that he would consider abolishing the IRS and replacing it with a flat tax.
But that’s all part of what gives Scott Walker the 2016 edge: any candidate can pledge to do the billionaires’ bidding once they get elected. But Scott Walker, as governor, has already done their bidding. Over and over. And it’s exactly the kind of bidding that the GOP’s billionaires have just got to love. Scott knows how to please his clients, and while pleasing clients isn’t something unique to Scott Walker, it’s also not exactly a simple task to position yourself for a presidential run while simultaneously bending over backwards to satisfy the every whim of a client base that happens to be the heirs to this legacy:
Note that you can read more about Vance Muse and his “Christian American Association” on page 126 of The Nazis Go Underground.
Continuing...
That’s the proud tradition Scott Walker is helping to uphold: a tradition of cynical oligarchs manipulating racist imbeciles for political gain. And as we can see, Scott Walker is more than up to the task for carrying on the tradition.
At the same time, we can’t ignore the above warning:
Yep, Scott Walker may be a billionaire ass-kisser extraordinaire, but he’s going to have plenty of competition if he wants to get the top job in the White House.
How he goes about obtaining that job is going to be something to watch, but at this point it’s hard to dismiss the governor of Wisconsin and his national ambitions. If anyone knows how to bust a union, it’s Scott Walker, and let’s just say that, while union-busting may not be a transferable skill in the way that Walker describes it, what Scott Walker has gained from his union-busting is still very transferable.
He’s clearly ready.
Now that the US is seriously flirting with electing an aggressive and unhinged demagogue to the White House who promises to be all things to all people (except for the ever-growing list bad people who he will vanquish), something to keep in mind is that if Trump wins and we see the GOP in full control of Congress, we’re almost certain to see massive cuts to the kinds of public spending that a large number of Trump/GOP voters rely on to basically live. And the more the Trump/GOP budget policies gut the programs Trump’s supporters rely on, the more Trump is going to be compelled to pick a scapegoat (Mexicans, etc) in order to shore up the very base his policies are harming.
In other words, the bigger the inevitable Trump/GOP policy and budget debacle becomes and the more entitlements and helpful social programs get cut, the bigger a demagogue Trump needs to become in order to distract from (or compensate) his supporters who just voted Trump into office with the hopes of seeing their lives improve and instead end up watching Trump and the GOP carry out a liquidation of any government policies that actually help the rabble. That’s a pretty important dynamic to keep in mind because Trump is going to need a lot of distracting scapegoats:
“Ryan and the House Republicans claimed that their plan wouldn’t raise the deficit, but that’s not what the analysis finds. The Tax Policy Center found that it would cost the government $3.1 trillion over a decade, raising the federal debt by $6.6 trillion.”
A $6.6 trillion fiscal gap (the amount of additional debt after you factor in all of the Ryan plan’s social spending cuts) that can only realistically be filled with massive social spending cuts. So what kind of scapegoat is going to adequately distract from that? Invading Mexico? Nuclear war with Russia and China simultaneously? At a minimum, if Trump wins, Donald Trump Jr. going to be very busy retweeting neo-Nazi memes about Mexicans and Muslims over the next four years, not just because he wants to because he’ll have to. A successful Trump presidency — if success is defined as Trump’s ability to implement a classic GOP pro-oligarch agenda while keeping the rubes in line while the GOP slashes the programs they depend on — is going to depends on it.
Remember all those reports about how Walmart was holding employee food drives for its low-wage employees and how McDonalds would gives its employees directions on how to receive government services like food stamps? Well, it looks like the likely next Labor Secretary, fast-food CEO Andrew Puzder, is a big fan of that socioeconomic model. At least the “pay your employees so little they require welfare to live” part of the model. The actually welfare programs? Yeah, it turns out he’s against those:
“In an op-ed he wrote for The Hill, Puzder argued that safety net programs like food stamps discourage poor people from working and need to be reined in. Acknowledging that some employees in his own chains would earn wages low enough to qualify for public assistance, Puzder said some workers don’t want to earn more money because they would lose their benefits. “Consider that some of our crew members are declining promotions to shift leader positions because the increase in income would disqualify them for food, housing, medical or other government benefits,” he wrote.”
So is Mr. Puzder’s plan to instill low-wage employees with a hunger for better pay actual hunger? Well, not quite. As Puzder lays out in his op-ed in The Hill last year, what he would prefer to see is all those welfare programs he feels should be “reined in” instead rolled into an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit:
“The IRS recently estimated that nearly 28 million Americans received more than $66 billion in EITC payments in 2013, lifting an estimated 6.5 million people out of poverty, including 3.3 million children. While programs that provide food, housing and medical benefits are certainly important, the EITC is more effective in helping people rise out of poverty. These existing programs should be rolled into an expanded EITC.”
And right there is probably what we should expect from any sort of “welfare reform” from the GOP-controlled federal government: gut all the safety-net programs like like food stamps or Medicaid and replace them with an expanded EITC program.
Now, it’s important to keep in mind that the EITC has bipartisan support. Both Democrats and Republicans generally back the program. The main difference is that the Democrats view the EITC as a companion to traditional safety-net programs whereas Republicans view the EITC as a vehicle for dismantling existing welfare programs. And since the House Ways and Means Committee recently propose replacing it with a payroll-roll tax exemption, it’s not like we can take any sort of ‘EITC instead of welfare’ GOP proposals very seriously.
But here’s a big catch with Andrew Puzder’s proposed scheme: The EITC does nothing for the unemployed. Or keep people out of deep poverty (half the poverty line). Or get healthcare (where costs can vary wildly depending on your health issues). Or provide help on monthly basis (the EITC is an annual check). Or serve as an automatic economic stabilizer during a recession. In other words, the big catch is all the little catches:
“* Serve as an automatic stabilizer for the economy in recessions. Programs like unemployment insurance, SNAP, and Medicaid automatically expand during recessions when more people lose their jobs and need help. Since the EITC only goes to people who work, in contrast, it doesn’t help those who are out of work throughout the year. And, for people who still have earnings but whose earnings shrink during a downturn, the EITC rises for some, but falls for others. A recent study found that the EITC is only weakly counter-cyclical — that is, it expands only a small amount overall when unemployment rises.[1] For single-parent families, the largest group of EITC recipients, the study found “no evidence that the EITC stabilizes income” overall as unemployment rises. By contrast, other programs such as unemployment insurance and SNAP are far more responsive to increases in unemployment, according to the study.”
Yep, a shift to an EITC-only safety-net is basically replacing a safety-net with a voucher (like the GOP’s Medicare phase-out proposals). A voucher that doesn’t go to the unemployed and doesn’t expand during recessions. And if you have a major illness, you better hope your expanding EITC check will cover the healthcare bills once Medicaid is “rolled into” an expanding EITC.
And here’s the other catch: Puzder wants to replace low-wage employees with robots. Recall his fond feelings about robots:
Yep, the next Labor Secretary’s solution to the growing issue of advanced automation doesn’t involve expanding the safety-net. No, instead it’s a plan to force virtually all adults in need of assistance to compete with robots and each other in the labor market that increasingly doesn’t value their labor — presumably competing by getting paid less than a robot and also less than the other guy competing with the robot — in order to qualify for an “expanded EITC” that won’t even cover the existing safety-net.
And if you’re not currently in the ‘working poor’ category and are smugly assuming that all these schemes will never impact you because your job isn’t easily automated, keep in mind that flooding the labor market with people are basically forced to work for nearly free in order to get their EITC pittance probably isn’t going to do great things for people in those non-automatable occupations. Sure, you might have more experience and expertise at this point than the unemployed people looking for work, but, again, your desperate out of work neighbors will be forced to work for almost nothing. Or die in a ditch. And don’t forget Trump’s suggestion that we eliminate the federal minimum wage. In other words, you know that desperate super-cheap and exploitable foreign labor that America’s manufacturing workforce has been competing with for years along with the robots? Yeah, that desperate super-cheap and exploitable workforce is going to be your poor American friends and neighbors. More so.
Here’s a story that confirms some bad news we should have absolutely expected but at least contains a sliver of good news:
Bloomberg has a new report out about the shifting political calculus within the Republican Senate caucus regarding a last-minute COVID-stimulus package as the prospects of a President Trump loss grow. The bad news is it sounds like the Republicans have concluded that Trump is likely to lose in November and therefore they are making plans to shift into “pro-austerity” mode when Joe Biden becomes president. And that’s why the Republicans in the Senate have been so resistant to any significant COVID-stimulus despite the obvious political benefit such a bill would have for Trump and the rest of the party. Yep, the economic sabotage has already begun. It’s quite an October Surprise.
That’s obviously bad news, albeit predictably bad news. But let’s not overlook the implicit good news here: if the Republicans are assuming Joe Biden will be president next year that also means the Republicans are expecting Trump won’t be able to somehow steal the election.
This is also a good time to recall the recent reports that hedge fund giant Cerberus — run by GOP mega-donor Stephen A. Feinberg — has already begun employing similar kinds of financial chicanery involving structured debt securities that helped bring about the collapse of the US housing market in 2008. But this time its in commercial real estate debt. So when we’re learning about Republican plans to economically sabotage the US economy starting next year we should keep in mind that the sabotage can take place on Wall Street too.
So the bad news is that the Republicans are already shifting back into ‘disloyal opposition’ sabotage mode like they did following 2008 financial crisis. But the good news is that at least they’re planning on Trump actually leaving office. Although the worse news is that the prospect of the sitting president leaving office is considered good news in the first place, but here we are facing open GOP economic sabotage one more time:
“The short version: A Senate GOP strategist privately confided to Bloomberg that a key Republican goal right now is to lay the groundwork to revert hard to austerity, should Biden prevail, crippling the possibility of any serious stimulus efforts next year, even amid continued economic misery.”
The
BoyBrat Who Cried Austerity is warming up his voice. Again:And as Greg Sargent notes, it’s not like like the Republicans are preparing for economic sabotage next year should Biden win. Blocking the economic sabotage package in the Senate means the sabotage has already started. That’s how intent the Republicans are of doing as much economic damage to the country as possible should Trump lose:
So as we can see, the GOP isn’t wasting any time. They’ve already shifted into sabotage mode.
But it’s also worth keeping in mind that if the internal calculus is actually that Trump is going to lose but then foment some sort of civil war — something he’s repeatedly and openly signaling — that might also be seen by the Senate Republicans as a reason to not bother with a new stimulus bill. After all, the rest of the party appears ready to largely endorse and back a Trumpian call for a civil war and in that case maybe more economic angst is seen as desirable for motivating the country to tear itself apart. And that’s why we shouldn’t assume that the GOP’s economic sabotage plans — which appear to be based on the assumption that Trump loses the election — are necessarily assuming Trump actually leaves office. Losing the election and leaving office are no longer a given. Because the GOP’s sabotage hasn’t just been economic.
Here we go again: The Republican Party is already shifting away from supporting the record spending and record deficits we’ve come to expect from a Republican White House and back to sabotaging the economy in anticipation of a Biden presidency. That’s what’s become clear as we watch the congressional negotiations over the second COVID relief bill currently underway between the Democrat-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate.
As the following piece describes, the current big point of contention in the negotiations is over a provision added by Republican Senator Pat Toomey regarding a special Federal Reserve bond buy program that was implemented back in March. The Fed program made available $400 billion to provide loans to small and medium sized business as well as buying bonds from state and local governments. President Trump’s Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, was already planning on ending the program at the end of December. But Senator Toomey’s provision would block the Fed from restarting the program next year if necessary. ‘Tis the season for preemptive economic sabotage:
“Democrats came out swinging at a key obstacle: a provision by conservative Sen. Pat Toomey, R‑Pa., that would close down more than $400 billion in potential Federal Reserve lending powers established under a relief bill in March. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is shutting down the programs at the end of December, but Toomey’s language goes further, by barring the Fed from restarting the lending next year, and Democrats say the provision would tie Biden’s hands and put the economy at risk.”
Preemptive banning of a Fed program for small and mid-sized business. It’s not exactly subtle:
And note the earlier fight over the COVID relief bill: Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell got Democrats to submit to his demands of no aid for state and local governments. In exchange, McConnell dropped his demands for an COVID liability shield for employers and large institutions. It’s how ‘compromise’ works in contemporary DC: stuff that might actually help average people gets dropped in exchange for also dropping the some of the obscene giveaways to powerful interests:
So what’s Senator Toomey’s explanation for this provision? Well, for starters, he argues that he’s “just following the law,” a rather strange argument for a lawmaker to make during negotiations over whether or not an existing law/program should be extended. But Toomey also argues that the program is no longer needed because the financial markets are strong enough now that businesses no longer need the money. In other words, if businesses need help they can go beg the banks for it. So the GOP argument holding up these negotiations over an emergency economic relief bill is the argument that the economy is actually doing find and businesses don’t need more help because Wall Street is doing fine:
“Toomey, who helped write the provisions that created the lending facilities as part of the March relief package, said they were always supposed to expire this year, were meant as emergency lending programs only, and that they are no longer necessary. Financial markets are now strong enough that businesses don’t need loans from the Fed, and the money behind the lending program, more than $400 billion, can be repurposed, Toomey argued this week.”
Are you a small business desperately in need of a loan to get you through this pandemic? How about you go to bank and ask for the loan. A nice high interest loan from the bank with double-digit interest:
“CNBC has learned that some would-be borrowers have been told that there isn’t enough time to close their loans, leaving them short of vital funds amid a resurgent pandemic.”
Want one of these “Main Street” loans? Too bad, there’s not enough time. That’s the response would-be borrowers have been getting ever since Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin made his surprise announcement in late November that the program would be ended on December 31. A surprise decision he made just three weeks after the Fed and Treasury loosened the loan conditions so more businesses could access the program. And that just leaves commercial bank loans for those businesses. With double-digit interest in many cases:
We’ll see how this issue is finally resolved as the congressional negotiations are worked out. But with Republicans now fully back in austerity/economic sabotage made, the sad reality is that keeping this lending program will probably require dropping something else that helps small businesses. It’s the sad reality of policy-making in the age of Republican dominance: even the economic emergency assistance programs suffer from Republican austerity.