The Rs are getting ready to release their 2012 Federal Budget proposal tomorrow, and in advance of the Love, they are sending House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan, praised by Obama, to all the shows to dissemble and spin the cuts he his proposing to entitlements as the means to save them.
Mm. Sounds like a plan to me.
The Rs have been assaulting the Status Quo at the federal, state, and local government levels for decades. Their assault went into overdrive during the Bush years, and now it is in hyperdrive.
They have effectively overthrown the concept of Constitutional Self-Government as innovated by the Founders, substituting an Autocracy, the Autocrat being whomever can assert and exercise Power over the Government at any given time. That may be the President or the Vice President, though it need not be. It could be someone in Congress, or it could be someone outside the Government itself, one of the Sponsors, say, of Government.
Autocracies are not necessarily dictatorships. Nor are they necessarily totalitarian.
They operate on the principle of Rule From the Top Down, not From the Bottom Up. The Autocrat supposedly decides everything, but how -- and why -- decisions are reached is not a matter for caprice or even ideology. It's a matter of sustenance. Autocrats need first of all to maintain the Autocracy itself. To do that, subjects must buy in and stay invested in the maintenance of the Autocracy, which ultimately means they must see some value to themselves in their active or passive support of the Government. If they see no value to themselves, rebellion is bound to occur.
As the Principle of Autocracy spreads through the land, rebellion follows, not for some ideology, but for simple practical reasons: there is nothing -- whatever -- of value to most of the subjects of this spreading Autocracy. Instead, the Autocratic Principle is being applied by destroying as much as possible of the Status Quo and reducing or eliminating the value provided to most of the Autocrat's subjects.
Put another way, for the vast majority of people, the spread of Autocracy takes away current value and substitutes nothing for it. There is nothing in it for the masses, and in fact, the condition of the working classes is being worsened quite deliberately.
Well.
That sounds like a recipe for disaster for the Ruling Class.
If early reports are any indication, Paul Ryan's plan is to literally suck out what little pelf remains in the working and middle classes and leave the empty husk of what used to be behind once and for all.
This process is being marketed as "saving future generations", but it's absurd on its face. There is no "saving" involved. It is pure and total -- and very deliberate -- devastation of the many for the permanent benefit of the few.
It is a total victory for predatory economics; the Goal, shall we say, of relentless Rightist rule for decades.
Supposedly, nothing can stand in the way of this victory, certainly not marching in the streets, chanting and carrying signs. Certainly not giant puppets. Zombies might do it, though.
(on that note: Protests continue in Madison, WI. Zombie Rights, don'tchaknow.)
Yet the Ruling Class should know from past experience that taking away the rights of and destroying the economic viability of the vast majority of people anywhere at any time is a fool's game that ultimately destroys the rulers, more often sooner rather than later.
You would think they know that and wouldn't do it, but it's obvious that they don't know it. I suspect that is because they are simply... stupid.
When the Ruling Class is as stupid as ours is (think the Bourbons of the Ancien Régime), their heyday is doomed. They cannot survive in Power for much longer.
That's the good news. Getting them out of Power is the struggle we're engaged in now. I'm convinced it cannot be done through normal electoral politics. It really has to occur at the top, where the Ruling Class resides. Electoral politics will have its role, but it cannot be the originating effort to unseat these people and their rotten institutions.
That has to come through the Elites themselves.
Much as the Progressive Movement of yore -- as opposed to the one today -- became victorious by convincing the Gilded Ruling Class that its interests would be preserved and enhanced by establishing and supporting a rational Progressive authority, and by convincing the masses likewise. That did not happen through electoral politics. The consensus was formed among the Elites first, then among the People, well before Progressive electoral victories.
The Paul Ryan Budget Reform Measure may be the trigger that inspires the Elites to jettison their current political servants and cast about for something better. There will no doubt be uprisings and revolts among the proletariat as a short term consequence.
On the other hand, the so-called Left needs to get beyond preservation of the Status Quo and develop a comprehensive doctrine for A Better Future. That struggle has barely begun...
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