The Misapprehension About Occupy

Occupy Poster by Rich Black

Interesting, interesting.

I've been following some of the do's and festivities outside the conventions via that exciting new feature of something known as "the Intertubes" that someone has dubbed "the Livestreams," and it's been both surprising and satisfying (in some ways) that the "Occupy" presence is relatively minor. It's not absent; Occupy is the base of operations, encampment, and Protest Services in a sense, and the Occupy interest in shaming the banking sector is always appropriate and on display -- especially in a place like Charlotte which is nothing but a Banking Sector.

I'm surprised at the relatively low number of participants in the demonstrations, however. Most of the demonstrations and marches I've seen so far in both Tampa and Charlotte attract numbers in the low hundreds, some far fewer. There have been a few that attract a thousand or even two thousand. But it is nothing at all like the numbers of protesters we became used to at previous political conventions. This seems to be a deliberate strategy, by the way, by having a protest presence at (or rather, relatively near) the conventions, but not making a big deal of protesting at the conventions.

Whether that strategy was developed at/by Occupy Tampa or Charlotte or anywhere else, I can't say; the strategic discussions I'm aware of tend to either be about Big Picture or about minutiae, and the only events being discussed among the groups I'm still involved in were/are the Occupy National Gathering and the upcoming S17 Anniversary.

The conventions don't figure in those discussions at all.

After the really outrageous behavior of the police and authority in general at the 2008 conventions in Denver and Minneapolis/St. Paul, it's no wonder. There were thousands of protesters and there were also mass arrests, pre-crime arrests, raids on participants, police attacks on peaceful protesters, massive police presence, and a general atmosphere of repression. Much of it was sickening. It was emblematic of how sick our political system had become by then, but for those in the midst of the repression, it wasn't emblematic of anything but the fact that they were being beat down, gassed, pummeled, arrested, and locked in cages for days.

The relatively low number of participating protesters in Tampa and Charlotte means that the massive police presence and their fancy Po-Po Troopers get ups looks -- and is -- silly. Oops. This was manifest in Tampa where formations of Po-Po Troopers marched hither and thither for some reason that nobody could figure out, and became an object of mockery and derision that went far beyond the usual choruses of the "Imperial Storm Troopers March" one hears whenever the RoboCop contingent appears.

When Po-Po Troopers by the hundreds protected the Westboro Baptist Church marchers (all eight of them) from the dozen or so Dirty Fucking Hippies (and the many dozen more camera people) in Tampa, the point of all this martial display was suddenly lost, and so far as I know, the the protective services at the Tampa convention never again dressed as if they were Going Off To War, and there were very few hostile confrontations with police afterwards. The most effective demonstration I saw via the live stream in Tampa was the Silent March Against Police Brutality during which there was a silent standoff with police at a blocked intersection, a confrontation that was resolved when the police backed down.

What? They backed down?

That's sure what it looked like. First time in a long time I've seen that at a major demonstration.

Most of the participants in the demonstrations at the conventions -- at least the participants in the demonstrations that have been covered by Nate and Tim, the two live streamers I've been following -- have appeared to be anarchists or their supporters. I'm sure there are many others involved in protests I haven't seen or have only seen bits and pieces of. Code Pink is there, Veterans for Peace is there, Planned Parenthood is there, immigrant rights groups and many, many other organizations are represented in the streets. Anarchists are featured in part because they have been crucial participants in Occupy from the outset, and partly because they seem to be the ones who are the most actively and consistently demonstrating.

But there are not -- and never have been -- a lot of them.

What they lack in numbers they make up for in energy, determination and enthusiasm. And don't forget the endless argument and dispute over which route to take now.

But so far as I can tell, the Occupy presence is generally quite small, and it appears to form something of a logistics hub. In its own way, this is consistent with the evolution of Occupy since the violent police raids and repression last year. This caused the dispersal of the "Occupy" idea and Movement far and wide, to the point where it is now pervasive, essentially everywhere. The creativity and innovation that characterized some of the encampments has now become an inspiration for alternative development, demonstration and idea generation in numberless low-key activist camps, squats, hostels, farms, and urban settings. It's everywhere. And no one can be unaware of the effect the Occupy Movement has had on our perceptions of the economic peril we all live under thanks to the renegade banks and the government that serves them. Names and faces have been put to that peril. Powerlessness is no longer an option, nor even an excuse any more.

The Peace Movement, the Immigrant Rights Movement, the Environmental Movement and the Worker Rights/Union Movement have all benefited from the efforts of Occupy to highlight their importance to the future of the country and of mankind. Occupy has been at the center of their resurgence.

 But strangely there are still those who expect Occupy to form some kind of political bloc and to press their case (for what?) in the political arena, and they won't do it. The whole point of Occupy from the beginning has been to defy that system, to work outside it, and to develop alternatives to it.

The idea of Occupy becoming a political bloc, then, is absurd.

But those inside the political system cannot imagine Occupy not doing it, and so they are still puzzled at what Occupy "wants".

It's not about "wants" -- it's about doing.

How Can Progressives Take Back the Party They Were Purged From? Or Do They Even Want To?

Karen Bernal, Chair of the California Democratic Party Progressive Caucus, in limbo

I've gone on at some length about the false notion that Progressives have yet to organize and either take over or extinguish the Democratic Party.

There are Progressives. And then there are "progressives" -- also known as "faux-gressives" or Libertarians who you find all over the internet masquerading or pretending to be Teh Left and claiming to be "The Real Progressives." Well, no. They aren't.

Progressives have a long and occasionally noble history in this country, starting as an anti-Populist technocratic force in the Republican Party, and shifting over time into the Democratic fold as the Republican Party became more and more rigidly ideologically Rightist. Progressives have always been -- whether Republican or Democrat -- technologically advanced (progressive, get it?), socially moderately liberal, and economically conservative. Progressivism became the Standard Operating System for Governments in the United States and throughout the world during the heyday of the Progressive Movement, from about 1910 to the advent of Ronald Reagan's terms in the White House in 1981, when he institutionalized the dismantlement of the Progressive Operating System, substituting a kind of ad hoc Nouveau Aristocracy in its stead. It hasn't turned out well.

Progressivism is not an ideology. It's a systematic method of dealing with public interest issues and problems to come up with a viable solution. Somewhat like Science. In operation, Progressivism has been highly authoritarian, counter-Democratic, and it once was extraordinarily racist. But because it is a systematic method it is amenable to change.

And so today's remnant Progressivism (there are only remnants left) is quite a different animal, almost a different species, from its high-minded, often high-handed and flawed ancestors. Authoritarianism has been diminished, democracy has been enhanced, and racism has been almost entirely eliminated from today's Progressive system of thought and action. It is still a highly technocratic system, however, and Progressives still like to think of themselves as a Natural Elite. Nevertheless, genuine Progressives tend to be much more closely aligned with the Working Class and minorities, with Community, and with much more broad-based and positive economic policies than they are with the Corporate Interests who have captured government and seek to permanently institutionalize a New Aristocratic Model of society and everything. The Gods Who Walk Among Us® as I put it.

The "faux-gressive" Libertarians are quite different animals altogether, basically predatory, with very different needs and objectives than the genuine Progressives who still exist. In far too many cases, they are trying to defraud well-meaning and credulous liberals and Progressives into supporting a Libertarian political agenda that would lead to the extinction of genuine Progressives. But there is considerable push-back, even from the most credulous, and I tend not to be too concerned about "faux-gressive" advances. They aren't doing so well, and they are more and more easily exposed for the conmen -- and women -- they are.

In California today, as reported by David Swanson over at FDL, the expulsion of Real Progressives from the California Democratic Party -- where they have had a fairly welcoming home since at least 2005 -- looks to be only a matter of time.

The Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party did a Bad Bad Thing: they passed a resolution in honor of Barack Obama's 50th birthday calling for the exploration of a 2012 presidential primary challenge to him. Haw.

The bill of particulars reads almost like the list of grievances against King George in the Declaration of Independence, to wit:

RESOLUTION in SUPPORT of a POSSIBLE 2012 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY CHALLENGE:

• His unilateral closed-door budget offer to slash Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which endangers the New Deal and War on Poverty safety nets.
• His determination to escalate U.S. militarism through illegal secret CIA drone attacks and unauthorized wars.
• His willingness to extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and bail out big banks without ending the foreclosure crisis that displaces American working families.
• His insistence on pushing a health insurance bill which enriches private insurance companies while ignoring growing support for single-payer health care or robust public options.
• His continuance of President Bush’s assault on civil liberties with an extension of the repressive Patriot Act.
• His failure to restore due process, including the protection of whistleblowers and habeas corpus.
• His numerous failures to adhere to international law.
• The continuing practice of nationwide FBI raids of anti-war progressive protestors.
• His decision to increase the arrests and deportations of undocumented workers.
• His facilitation of the privatizing of the public sphere, which includes education and housing, among others.
• His disregard of his promises to the Labor movement.
• His failure to adequately protect the environment and adequately address climate change.

Oh. Dear. This is bound to get them in trouble with the Party Higher Ups, won't it? Sure enough.

Listen to the interview with Karen Bernal, Chair of the Progressive Caucus, for some indication of what kind of trouble they're in.

Basically, the caucus is suspended in limbo, neither expelled nor recertified. While "matters are considered."

We keep hearing and reading all this chatter on the internets about how the "progressives" must organize and work and slave and make a noise to get noticed in the Democratic Party, and they must get involved with the Party and elections and so on and so forth, and eventually, maybe, if they're organized enough and they work hard enough, they might be able to "take over the Party," as if none of this has already been done -- by Real Progressives, by people like Karen Bernal -- who have already been purged or are in the process of being purged from the self-same Democratic Party.

And we need to think about that a little bit.

With a thought process that is closely related to the need for realism (h/t pws in comments) regarding the actual results in Wisconsin's recalls, rather than the Happy Talkin' Happy Talk we get all the time from the Parties and Our Rulers.

No, Real Progressives are being defeated and expelled (actually, most of them already have been), and "faux-gressives" who think the field is now (or soon will be) wide open for their entrance into and subsequent poisoning of the Democratic Party are in for the shock of their lives.

What's happened is that with the stunning electoral successes Real Progressives actually managed to generate for Democrats, the highest levels of the Party Apparat decided they didn't need Progressives -- of any sort -- any more, and got rid of them, starting with Howard Dean and the 50 State Project, which had been the engine enabling such stunning electoral victories. The remnant Progressive Caucus in California helped provide an anomalous reversal of the Republican Wave election of 2010. Whereas Progressives essentially turned their backs on the Democrats everywhere else in the country (for many of the reasons cited in the resolution above), in California Progressives continued to work for Democratic candidates, and the result was that every single statewide office was won by a Democrat, and Democrats continued far and away in the majority in the statehouse and California congressional delegation. Rs got nowhere, but because of California's requirement that tax increases be approved by 2/3rds of the legislature (there is just shy of 2/3rds Democratic control in the Assembly and Senate), it was impossible to pass a budget that didn't include severe cuts to education and social programs (while of course protecting prison budgets, than which nothing is more important to the state powers that be).

It now appears that fixing this Democratic/Progressive anomaly in California was made a priority by the Power Players in California's Democratic Party -- no doubt under orders from DeeCee.

That's what happens when you mess with the Big Guys.

Karen knows that full well, and I wouldn't be surprised if the resolution to explore supporting a primary challenge to Barack Obama in 2012 was passed as a deliberate provocation.

The fall out could be quite a bit more than The Powers That Be anticipate. Karen is a tiger.

What's the Point of Lifting the Veil?

Lifting the Veil from S DN on Vimeo.

This is Metanoia's long-awaited documentary follow-up to their previous exposés about what's really what, and while I think it is an excellent piece of documentary filmmaking of the utter outrageousness of the economic situation we've been facing for years now and the complicity of the political system in keeping things this way, unless there is an action plan to really change things, knowing what's behind the curtain doesn't help in the least.

Knowing how Our Betters have been misbehaving and robbing the rest of us blind all these years without any plan or even intention to reclaim any of what's been stolen from us -- and is being stolen -- by the High and the Mighty Bandits gets us nowhere at all. It's just adding to the worry and the frustration and the anger that's already there without any productive outlet.

When lifting the veil is an end in itself, as it is more and more to the many Veil Lifter Entrepreneurs that proliferate in bad times and good, there's little point in it.

At some point, we don't need to know any more about how rotten Our Rulers and their Sponsors are.

At some point, action is more important than knowing what's behind the curtain.

Nevertheless, watch the film. Take your blood pressure medicine. And be on the lookout for strategic actions in your neighborhood.... ;-).

Funny

Well, for days now, the front page at dKos (where my UID -- under another screen name -- is 501, and it would have been lower except I wasn't able to access the site after Markos's Grand Transition to Scoop back in 2003, anyway....) has been absolutely dominated by... Republicans.

This happens over there from time to time, and the excuse is always that the Rs are "doing something." They're on teevee, so they have to be talked about. Criticized. Laughed at. Denounced. Whatever.

But it is always intriguing to me when supposed "lefty" sites become absolutely and completely obsessed with Republican officials and their candidates to the point where there is essentially no room at all (at least not among the Front Pagers) to bring up or discuss Democrats (unless they are being hounded and denounced by their own side, ie: Weiner) or positive and progressive policies and programs.

Nope. Gotta spend all that time on the Rs.

Message: Rs Own You.

True enough I guess...

However, today on the dKos Sidebar Rec List, Happy Rockefeller has a really good essay (I despise the term "diary") "The Failure of Liberalism," which I do recommend highly. The discussion that goes with it is also illuminating. It's not as harsh as Chris Hedges might be, but it is a reasonable and legitimate exploration of how American Liberals have retreated into preserving the status quo rather than leading the quest for Something Better.

One's Bliss

Isn't it funny that for many people, the concept of "bliss" is an empty green field where one is all alone, untroubled by any human or natural intrusion, often with visions of nearby alternate worlds one can easily escape to, at least in imagination if not in fact.

This is almost the Ur-Vision of "bliss" among Euro-Americans, and it underlies the constant impulse to spread "West" to new uncharted and supposedly uninhabited and unclaimed territory. And yet, the American Prairie -- which by all accounts was the realization of this vision of "bliss" -- literally terrified most of those Euro-Ams who encountered it in the early days.

It was what they thought they wanted, and it absolutely wasn't what they really wanted, not even on a bet.

Yet they kept heading out West, through thick and thin, no matter what, no matter how much they loathed their destinations, all to grab this piece of earthly Heaven -- before someone else did.

This Westering Urge -- toward some vision of Bliss -- was a constant driving force in Euro-American life from the beginning of European settlement in this vast and gorgeous land. The pretense that it was unoccupied and unclaimed was often made real by genocidal attacks on the Native Peoples and headlong slaughter of the animals that did occupy and claim it. This tactic proved highly successful, if somewhat morally suspect, in clearing the land for... "white"... settlement and future Progress and Prosperity. Only "whites" were thought to be capable of those things, and eventually it boiled down to a fine point: only Anglo-Saxon Whites, the pinnacle of Creation, were truly blessed with the wisdom and foresight that made Progress and Prosperity possible for anyone at all. The world was not just their oyster, it was their right and their bounden duty to claim and rule it in its entirety.

Bliss -- for a certain minority of a minority of a minority of Euro-Peoples.

Exterminate, liquidate, or confine the Natives, steal their stuff and claim their lands, call it Progress... and move on to the next conquest. Again and again, endlessly. For if this process ever came to an end the world might collapse in on itself, and that would be the End of Everything.

And as we know, the End of Everything is the opposite of Bliss. At least it is for those whose Bliss is found in the conquest and occupation -- alone -- of Other People's Places.

The wonder of it is that there is no one else -- at all -- in this Blissful World of the Individual Conqueror. An intruder in the scene above would simply ruin the Moment. Even a Beautiful Intruder. For the point of this kind of Bliss is to be absolutely alone -- King of All, King of None. In a world that never was and never will be.

Magicland.

If it hadn't been for the existence of all that Empty Land west of the Alleghenies and Appalachians (either already Empty or soon to be made Empty), I do believe Americans would have gone absolutely mad and exterminated one another well before the time of the Civil War in which so many "progressive and prosperous" Anglo-Saxons perished in the quest to end or preserve the peculiar institution of chattel slavery. Among other things.

We like to pretend that American History isn't what it is, but it is what it is, and still the Bliss of so many Americans, especially of "Anglo-Saxon" descent, is the vision above, an Empty and Green Paradise, for oneself alone.

We need a Better Vision.

Whatever Shall We Do About Civil Liberties?

The latest Civil Liberties OUTRAGE!!!!™ is the Memorial Day Weekend Incident at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC, in which a number of activists, including Medea Benjamin and Adam Kokesh were violently assaulted and arrested (literally, "put down") by DC Park Police for -- get this -- "dancing."

There are many videos of the incident, but Adam's posted version seems to be getting the widest currency:



What utter Police State® crap. This is not America!!! Except it is. We know it is. And we don't know what to do about it.

Civil Liberties are being extinguished in this country right along with the Republic itself, and while there may be some alarm from time to time at what is happening, most people seem to understand that it has been worse, far worse, in the past.

The Liberationism that came to fruition beginning in the 1960's was an anomaly. In fact, the history of the nation is one of constant oppression and repression -- when it hasn't involved genocide and conquest. Civil Liberties have historically been more theoretical than real, at least for vast swaths of the People, and even if we don't know the History, I think Americans know in their DNA that in many ways there is more Liberty now for more Americans than there has been at pretty much any time in the past.

It sure doesn't seem like it, though, when we witness scenes like the one in the video above. That kind of official violence against non-resisting or mildly-resisting citizens is far more common than we'd like to believe. Certainly the people involved, Medea Benjamin and Adam Kokesh among others, are well aware of just how routinely violent American Authorities can be and often are.

What is their Problem, for cripes-sake? Authority seems to be terrified that unless they treat the public with such contempt and violence they won't be in control and and won't be "respected". Certainly this kind of violence toward citizens (and much worse than this) is more and more routine, enabled, even encouraged by officials terrified that some how their safety and security will be compromised if the Police aren't brutal enough often enough.

Certainly any American of not-so-white a hue can testify that this sort of police behavior has been employed relentlessly against People of Color since before the Founding of the Republic and it is still going on, day in and day out, in many marginal -- and some not so marginal -- communities.

Nevertheless, to see this kind of Police State® behavior at the Memorial to the author of the Declaration of Independence, over something as trivial as flash-mob dancing, is shocking and more than a little absurd.

The natural response of any sentient being is "WTF!?"

Yeah, well. Note, however, the sheep-like response of the civilians in the Memorial when this aktion went down, not intervening, not even saying "Stop!" but simply watching the show -- and some recording it -- as if it were some kind of performance art or entertainment. And when they are told to leave, they do.

With nary a word. Not even a "Baaaaah." (At least in the airport security lines, I've occasionally heard the patrons delicately "Moo" as they are herded along.)

What do you do under the circumstances? Of course, what Adam and Medea and others are trying to do with "installations" like this is to raise the consciousness of a somnolent Public to the real brutality and threats to the simplest Civil Liberties the People are under from a Government and its Stormtroopers who are out of control.

But I look at this incident and know that the People have seen these sorts of aktions by the Polizei over and over again and their response is either a blank stare or even approval of the police action against unlawful citizen activity.

One wonders if there is any "consciousness" to raise among such dullards, but one shouldn't fall into the trap of blaming the victims for their own plight. It is too easy to say they are too stupid to live and write them and their fate off to their own fault.

What Medea and Adam are doing is actually what has to be done, persistently and relentlessly, to trigger those consciences that can be -- and will be -- triggered when the out of control Authority is confronted again and again with scenes of such simplicity and absence of threat.

It's a simple statement -- over and over again -- that this kind of Authoritarian bullshit is WRONG. You can't just say it, you have to show it. Over and over and over again.

And the message clicks.

Apparently this incident was triggered by a judge declaring that "dancing" at the Jefferson Memorial (or "public facilities") in DC was illegal. So, Civil Liberties Activists decided to challenge Authority on the matter and this is what happened. It wasn't exactly the Incident at the Edmund Pettis Pettus Bridge, but still.

The way to deal with these Civil Liberties breaches is to demonstrate the insanity of Authority, just as these people -- and so many others -- have done throughout our history.

Authority will be shamed and Authority will yield. Though it may seem to take forever. And ever. And ever.

------------------------------------
UPDATE: The Jefferson Memorial Dance Party will continue next Saturday at Noon. All you DC denizens, be there!

Police State USA: Adam Kokesh: 'Dance party next Saturday at Jefferson Memorial!' - May 29, 2011 Vidéo mirrorthis2010 sélectionnée dans Actualité

BTW, wat.tv where this is from is a ton of fun. Check it out sometime. Oh, those Yurpeens.

Whatever Shall We Do About the Medicare Problem?

"Oh dear, oh dear, whatever shall we do?"

Sounds just like Miss Katie Scarlett in "Gone With the Wind," doesn't it? "Rhett! Rhett! Where shall I go? What shall I do?"

"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!"

Yes. Well. The Medicare issue has dominated Beltway conversation since that nasty little scamp from Wisconsin, Paul Ryan, introduced his Bold And Courageous Republican Budget which eliminated Medicare (as we know it) and the House voted to approve it.

Well. Whatever shall we do now?

The House has voted to eliminate Medicare (as we know it.) Thus, Medicare (as we know it) must be eliminated. Eventually.

The public doesn't seem to be much gratified or amused by this change of affairs, but then, the South didn't much like their defeat either. Didn't like any of their defeats.

The public be damned. Especially the old, the halt, and the lame. They take up too much space and demand too many benefits anyway. Be done with them. To the precipice with them! They don't need Medicare, and even if they did, it costs too much. We can't afford it. Too bad if they can't pick up the short fall on their own. They should have saved for their Old Age in the first place! Not our problem if they didn't.

This harsh "reality" has become an article of faith among our Ruling Class, their sycophants, their retainers and their courtiers.

Like most articles of faith, it's based on mythologies, bullshit and lies. But countering it has proved impossible so far. The Ruling Class has adopted it as Unshakable Doctrine, and those who will be taken to the Precipice and thrown off for their failure to prepare properly for a future they could not foresee are voiceless in the matter.

Those who would oppose the Ruling Class Doctrine on this topic -- as on so many others -- start from Ruling Class premise. The premise is that it costs too damn much to provide medical care to the Old, the Halt, and the Lame, and the answer is to make them pay for their own damn medical care -- or to go without.

The "opposition" says, "Well, maybe it does cost too much, but we are a generous people, so we should maintain the status quo, don't you think, and tweak the costs downward bit by bitty bit, or at least not allow them to skyrocket out of control forever. Yes?"

Of course, the response of the Ruling Class, is, "No, you sorry excuse for a twit. If you agree that it costs too much for Government to pay for the medical expenses of the Old, Halt, and Lame -- as you just did -- the correct answer is not to 'tweak' any damn thing. The answer is plain as day: Make the Old, the Halt and the Lame pay their own damn medical costs; tough shit, losers, if they can't afford it."

The "opposition" wrings its hankie, not so much like Miss Scarlett but more like Miss Melly, and responds, "Oh, dear no!"

And around and around it goes.


What is the dénouement?

Of course, the Ruling Class gets its way and that nasty little bugger, Paul Ryan, is hailed the Hero by the Ruling Class for boldly going where no one dared go before and "telling it like it is" for the rest of us poor fools.

That's the cruel direction all this is going.

If we Demand Better, however, we can begin to move things in a different direction. It will not be easy, and it does mean actually sticking to it and not immediately yielding to the pressure and demands of the Ruling Class. Our Political Class is not used to that, so they will resist any calls Demanding Better, and they will typically ignore the People's outcry.

But shifting the parameters of the dialogue on Medicare -- and so much else in our lives -- must occur if we are ever regain our future.

First, recognize that these Cries of Doom for Medicare have been routine among the rabidly reactionary pretty much since the inauguration of the program all those long years ago. Not only is the Program Doomed, it costs too much.

Digby helpfully linked to the Health Beat Litany of Medicare Doom the other day, and it is worth reviewing:

You may have seen the headline: “DIRE FORECAST SPARKS NEW MEDICARE DEBATE TRUSTEES' REPORT USED AS FODDER FOR POLITICAL SALVOS BY BOTH SIDES,” but the date may come as a surprise: June 6, 1996.

At the time, the Chicago Tribune warned its readers: “Medicare trustees reported Wednesday that the program's financial outlook is getting worse, touching off a new round of debate over the future of the federal health insurance system for the elderly and disabled. According to the trustees, who give the program a fiscal checkup every year, the fund that pays Medicare hospital bills dipped into the red last year and will go broke in early 2001. That's a year earlier than they predicted in 1995.”

Sound familiar? How about these warnings:

Chicago Tribune July 2, 1969: “The Medicare hospital trust fund faces bankruptcy by 1976 and taxes must either be raised or benefits reduced the senate finance committee was told today.”

Washington Post, April 1, 1986: “The Medicare hospital insurance program faces bankruptcy by 1996, two years earlier than projected last year.”

New York Times, January 20, 1985: In the last few years, when it appeared that the Medicare trust fund would run out of money in 1987-89... But the need seemed less urgent after the Congressional Budget Office issued new estimates last September indicating that the Medicare trust fund would not go bankrupt until 1994.

(Hat tip to Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn who culled eighteen stories from the Tribune, the Washington Post and the New York Times over a period of four decades, each predicting that the Medicare Hospital Insurance Fund was teetering on the brink of disaster.)

But of course Medicare didn’t “run out of money” in 1994, and it won’t go belly-up now, in large part thanks to health care reform legislation. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Affordable Care Act (ACA) raises and saves over $950 billion. (Below, I spell out how the legislation generates those dollars). In the process, as the Medicare Trustees’ Report 2011 points out, the ACA reduces Medicare spending “by 25 percent”—without cutting health benefits, or shifting costs to seniors.

More changes will be needed, but Zorn is relatively optimistic. After citing the many times we have been told that Medicare is careening toward bankruptcy, he recalls the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Zorn acknowledges that “just because officials and politicians have been predicting Medicare's imminent bankruptcy for more than 40 years doesn't mean that one day they won't be right, but, more likely,” he suggests, “we will turn the knobs and twiddle the dials in order to keep the overwhelmingly popular program solvent, but not so solvent that, between five and 12 years from now, another set of politicians won't grimly inform us that it's going under in between five and 12 years.”

Exaggerating the Size of the Problem

Wait a minute: in the last week both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have warned that in 2024 the Medicare fund that pays hospital bills will be “exhausted.” I checked my dictionary—just to be sure—and it confirmed that when “exhausted” is used in a financial context, it means “to use up or consume completely; expend the whole of: He exhausted a fortune in stock-market speculation.”
If this is so, how can we possibly fix the problem by “twiddling a few dials”?

We couldn’t. But the truth is that the Times, the Wall Street Journal, and most of the mainstream media have been, well, exaggerating—telling a tale that the Tribune rightly calls “A shaggy wolf story that’s getting a little long in the tooth.”

So in other words, the Medicare Doom Scare is of a very early early date, as is the constant "costs too much" cry.

The irony is that Medicare is the most cost-efficient element of our overall healthcare picture. But then the little punks like Ryan and his devotees within the Beltway know that full well -- and that's what they hate about it.

There are not enough profits for the providers, you see. And rather than having Government -- ie: the People as a whole -- pick up the tab for profit shortfalls (as is the case with Obamacare for the non-elderly multitudes) the Ryan plan is to make the Old and the Halt and the Lame pay for it directly out of their pockets by forcing them to purchase unaffordable (and quite likely unavailable) private insurance coverage, and forcing them to pay any difference between the cost of private insurance and the "premium support" they receive in lieu of Medicare (which, BTW, is not nearly as generous to patients as it is made out to be).

Genius! Once they get that enacted, they then transform Obamacare the same way.

Everybody in the Palace is happy. Never mind if the rabble protests -- or can't pay. That, as we know, is their problem~! Suckers!

Medicare has lots of problems -- as anyone who's dealt with it knows. For patients, it's not -- at all -- comprehensive coverage for their medical needs. Medicare premiums are quite high compared to Social Security benefits from which they are deducted, given the fact that most recipients have been paying for it all their working lives through payroll deductions, and there seems to be a level of fraud in the program that would be mindboggling if it weren't for the fact that providers often feel they have to double bill or keep billing for services and equipment not received or vastly inflate their costs in order to "break even" given Medicare's legendary stinginess.

Still, it's better than nothing. And for the most part, it is far more efficient for everyone involved, and far less costly administratively, than any private health insurance.

So, punks like Ryan, just like his many predecessors listed above, set out to get rid of it. It's what they do.

What we all need and should be demanding is comprehensive health care access and coverage at an affordable cost. For everyone.

We get there by adapting Medicare to the needs of All the People.

In other words, the status quo isn't good enough. We Demand Better!

Discovery: It's Actually Kind of Hard to Prevent What's Already Taken Place

One of the more intriguing conceits of the Modern Progressive Movement ("We're Not Libertarians, So Stop Saying That!") is the consistency of effort aimed at preventing what has already occurred, whether it be economic catastrophe, global warming, cuts in Medicare and Medicaid or reductions in Social Security benefits, Imperial wars of aggression, the End of Civil Liberties -- or what have you.

After a while, it begins to feel like Modern Progressives are always fighting losing battles.

It's not just losing battles, though. It's more insidious than that. It's perfectly reactionary because it lets the Barbarians (as it were) set the agenda for everything. The Modern Progressive merely responds, and the response is almost always the same: preserve and/or extend the status quo.

Which is not...actually... "progressive". But that's another issue.

I was looking at some of the pictures of the tumult in Europe, particularly the police action against protestors in Barcelona. Of course, it reminded me of the Old Days when Americans used to do things like this, actually take risks -- physical risks at that -- to Make a Point about this or that issue of importance to the People.



They'd get their heads knocked in, they'd be gassed and bludgeoned and they'd be dragged off to "detention" for greater or shorter lengths of time while the Authorities "struggled" to restore or maintain "order." It was the way things were done. Not necessarily routinely -- because most sane people don't like to confront a more powerful Authority if they can avoid it -- but it happened often enough and was bothersome enough to The Powers That Be to make the point of popular displeasure with actions of the High and the Mighty.

These protests have been going on in Europe for a good long time now; they actually pre-date the Arab Spring, and I think they were in truth the direct inspiration for the protests in North Africa that brought down the corrupt regimes of Tunisia and Egypt. (No, it really wasn't because of WikiLeaks' Leaks. Really. It wasn't.) The Spanish protests have taken a leaf from the Egyptian ones -- ah, synergy! -- in that the protestors have been camping out in the squares of the major cities to make their presence known and their voices heard above the clattering din of their rulers who are scrambling to comply with the dictates of the various Euro-banksters who have determined that the living standards of your average European sod is way too high and must be reduced sharply in order to ensure the comfort and convenience (and continued financial lubrication) of the regimes and their sponsors.

So. The August Authorities assert themselves against the People, and we have scenes like the one above. Or this one:



But as I say, we used to have protests like this in this country fairly often but we don't have this sort of thing -- much -- any more.

It is said that Americans pretty much stopped protesting in this manner (except for the Anarchists and their Black Bloc associates, of course -- the Black Bloc being widely understood to be provocateurs) when it was realized that the High and the Mighty here pay no attention to tumult among the rabble, and besides -- even worse -- the media won't cover it.

I mean, after all, the whole point of having a Protest is to get on the TeeVee. Ask Medea Benjamin (who I happen to have enormous admiration for, so don't take this as a slam. She will put herself at risk to make whatever point she feels is necessary. And she'll often enough get on the TeeVee when she does it. Yay, Medea!)

It's not that no one in the United States will do these sorts of things. It's more a question of who does it, when, what they are protesting, and to what object. Americans can sometimes be persuaded to participate in very polite weekend protests, for example, that are arranged primarily for their convenience. Yet strangely, protest by convenience isn't very effective.

Of course earlier this year, enduring protests erupted in Wisconsin over the Governor's plan to take away collective bargaining rights from public employees and to restrict the ability of their unions to collect dues and function.



This was actually one of the most inspiring protest movements we've seen in this country in a generation, and it led to more and more protests around the Midwest and eventually all around the country. Solidarity!

And then it petered out. The energy behind it hasn't been entirely extinguished, but the message has been thoroughly muddled as the protests led to a) political reaction, ie: the recall elections in Wisconsin which may or may not be successful, but whether they are or not won't be known until later this summer; b) court action, ie: delay in implementation of some aspects of the Governor's plan until the courts have resolved the issue (with the prediction that the state supreme court will carry out the orders of its billionaire sponsors... sigh).

In other words, most of what the Governor of Wisconsin set out to do has been accomplished in spite of the protests, just as most of what the Governors set out to do in other states that have experienced these kinds of protests has been accomplished. The protests have been effective in raising awareness and consciousness among those who have been paying attention, but they have not been successful in preventing the actions that are being protested.

It's kind of hard to prevent what's already taken place, eh?

And in essence, that's how the Barbarians (as it were) consistently get their way. How they are able to make consistent progress on their plots and plans while "progressives" stand still or beat a retreat.

This has been the constant... error... of "progressive" action. It is not -- for the most part -- action at all. It is reaction to the outrages of Our Rulers. This dates back at least to the advent of the Bushevik Regime, when tens of thousands of protestors gathered in Washington to protest his inauguration (ignored by the media of course), when in fact the deed was already a done deal. The protest needed to occur previously, and it needed to put forward Something Better.

What happened instead was that those who were convinced that Bush Rule was the shiznits were assembling, often armed, all over the country, and they were DEMANDING their way or the highway. It was either Bush on the Throne or Teh Revolution. And by golly, they got their way.

"Progressives" retreated to the metaphorical shadows where they have been ever since, trying mightily from the shadows to revive something -- through the political process and the courts -- that really doesn't function anymore.

We have been witness to, and in some cases unwitting participants in, the extinguishing of the American Experiment in Constitutional Self-Government.

For all intents and purposes, the Republic is... over.

There is a piquant irony in that Obama has tried rather strenuously to restore the Constitutional Authority of the Congress (and to restrict some of the overreach of the activist courts), and it's not worked out well. The function of the Congress was so corrupted prior to Obama's advent on the Throne that his efforts to restore it to a more traditional -- and Constitutional -- role have led to some truly appalling results (which I won't get into here) that have had the effect of further alienating the People from their Government, especially the Congress and the Courts.

In other words, Representative Government no longer works.

It's a bad joke.

Under the circumstances, the People have the Power to essentially dismiss the Government and come up with something different (which may or may not require active Revolution). But the American People aren't doing that. Instead, they are largely passive, much as the Roman public was as the Republic was extinguished in all but name and the preservation of institutional formalities for centuries after the establishment of the Imperium.

So if we're actually going to make progress under these circumstances, we have to come to grips with the way things really are, and what is really necessary to change things for the Better.

Starting with, oh I don't know, demanding better.

Why not?

The status quo isn't good enough.