The Class That Stands Together

There may be a glimmering among the Rabble that not only is Trump no populist, he's a fairly accurate representation of his class. The class of billionaire oligarch/gangsters who set out to rule the world some decades ago and have nearly achieved ultimate victory.

It isn't talked about in class terms, not in the US at any rate, and that's too bad. These people rule us, they own the government, and they are bad news. They seek to steal everything they can from the masses, and provide just enough in return to keep the Rabble fighting over the scraps. Dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, yadda yadda.

You may note that for the most part the Overclass is silent about Trump -- or enthusiastically and actively supporting him. Almost none actively -- and openly -- oppose him and his rule. Instead, it's left to a shadowy "deep state" to hamstring and undermine him, neutering his worst impulses from time to time, but otherwise leave him be.

Why not? He provides endless entertainment that can be marketed to the Rabble, and as long as what he does or wants to do is confined to what the Overclass deems meet, what's to worry, right?

Trump was effectively neutered as President by the end of February. Apart from his twit-storms, he really hasn't been able to do anything on his own since. To say he's figurehead is being charitable. Government is delegated to his family and cronies and he can go golf. This is essentially how enterprises of the sort he's familiar with operate. The Jefe doesn't actually do much. He doesn't have to. He has people for that.

Interestingly, he's failed with the congress, he's been slapped down by the courts, the military seems to ignore him (and treats with his son-in-law instead, knowing where the "real power" behind the throne is), and the media makes mock of him day in and day out.

According to the polls, his popularity, never great, has collapsed. He is a king without a country.

However, and we should be clear about this, the Trump regime is being allowed to set precedent. A precedent that says that direct oligarchic rule is OK by The Powers That Be. The Rubes are too stupid to say otherwise.

In other words, what comes After Trump won't be much different. Style wise it may be less tawdry, but substance? Pretty much the same.

The US is now over the notion that someone who knows what they're doing should be in charge. As long as the class of the Rulers is Ruling Class, Overclass, Oligarch-gangster, it's OK. Whatever.

The Rabble is to be barred forever more from the levers of power. Even the professionals and experts are to be barred from the halls of the Mighty until they are vetted for loyalty first and foremost.

What will be will be.

I long ago pointed out that if the Revolution ever comes to the US, it will come from the Right. And so it is. We're in the midst of it.

Ultimately, Trump himself is not the issue. It is the class he represents, the class that's seized power and intends to rule directly for ... eternity?

The Left, such as it is, appears to have given up on the US some time ago. The Left has been almost entirely absent from politics in the US since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and even before that, it was weak and ineffective.

So Democrats have been cast as "The Left" -- but they're nothing of the sort. They are little more than the somewhat less brutal rightist party. For a time, Libertarians tried to claim the "Left" mantle, but it didn't work. Their key concept -- "I demand the liberty to impose my authority on you, without government interference" -- is hardly a Leftist notion.

If there can be no Revolution from the Left, the question will be how to survive the shitstorm brought to us by the Oligarch-gangster class. Combined with climate change and everything else, it should be clear by now the Rabble is in for a world of hurt, unrelenting and increasingly cruel.

What a whirled...

Banishing the Left -- So Called

An interesting phenomenon during these hectic Primary Wars (if that's what they are) is the ongoing attempt to banish the "left" as represented by Bernie's and some of Trump's policies which might be seen as meeting the needs the People.

Yes, some of Trump's policies (to the extent he is actually broaching policies) are considered leftist, even to the left of Hillary, approaching Bernie territory. Particularly when it comes to trade and employment and even now and then things like universal health care and so on.

Well, can't have that.

Bernie has been campaigning on what I would call "New" New Deal/"Greater" Great Society principles. They're practically antiques by now. Historic at any rate. They're not particularly leftist, or they are only considered to be "left" in the United States where rightist politics is so entrenched and NeoLibCon ideology is so triumphant anything that benefits people is seen as essentially communist, anti-American to the core, and deeply antithetical to the interests of the Ruling Class, Our Benevolent Overlords.

Hillary has been running on a theme of "No you can't!" from the get-go, and she seems to be doing well enough with it to capture not only the Democratic nomination but potentially the Presidency itself.

"No you can't!" It's gobsmacking. Is that what people really want? Or do they even hear it? Areha they even hearing her nay-saying? If they are, why do they accept it?

She's also running on a theme of "Go away you ingrates."

Yes well, that'll get her far.

On the other hand, Trump is running a similar sort of negative campaign focused on hate and fear of The Other. It's politically smart. You should never underestimate Americans' susceptibility to be duped by hate and fear. It's been a constant since the arrival of the first Europeans however long ago that was. So much of what's been wrong about the United States has been based in hate and fear of The Other. So much of what has been right about the US has been based in conquering hate and fear of The Other.

Stirring up passions of hate and fear has been a winning strategy for Trump in the Republican primaries, whereas "No you can't!" has paid off pretty well for Hillary on the Democratic side, though she's been sliding in the polls as Bernie's message of "Yes we can!" catches on. Trouble is there's no time left for him to catch up enough delegates for the Democratic nomination -- not that he ever could have got the nomination to begin with.

He couldn't. He absolutely couldn't. Our Rulers would not have allowed it. Under any circumstances. At all. Look what's happened in other countries where supposed Leftists have been elected; they've been kneecapped, removed by coup or other means, coopted, irrelevated, yadda yadda.

The point is that the dominant global political paradigm does not allow for the existence of effective and functioning leftist politicians, policies, parties, etc. The dominant paradigm posits Baroness Thatcher's principle: "There is no alternative."

Even as modest and mild a leftist as Bernie has been, he wouldn't be allowed anywhere near the levers of power, ever.

Meanwhile Trump is able to throw quasi-leftist bones out every now and again, bones on a string of course, a string he promptly reels back in, so he's allowed that.

That's truly as far left as the political class is allowed to go, however. Tease.

And effectively, the Left is banished from consideration, legitimacy, presence, or power.

Compare and Contrast -- Hugo vs Hugo

The outpouring of grief over the death of Hugo Chavez is matched by the contempt of a certain class of want-it-alls who rule us and seek to rule Venezuela once again.

But the contrast isn't just between grief and contempt. It's between celebration and lies, between accomplishment and fabrication, between admiration and insult.

This is the Class War limned in bright tropical colors, the global war between the haves-who-want-it-all and everyone else.

The day after Hugo's death, two sectors of what passes for 'lefty' media in the United States -- the Diane Rehm Show on NPR and Democracy Now! on Pacifica -- demonstrated just how deep those divisions run, even on the so-called Left.

Rehm had three panelists, one of whom was a stone liar rightist from Venezuela now on wingnut welfare at the Carnegie Institute. His lies were nonstop, pure propaganda, and they went essentially unchallenged by the other panelists, let alone the hostess (who tolerates no challenge to her perspective and authority on her show). The other panelists were Tom Gjelten of NPR and Geoff Thale of something called The Washington Office of Latin America. Gjelten presented the US government line on the matter of Chavez and Venezuela and Thale presented a somewhat softer version of the Government Line.

Rehm was at sea, vaguely drifting around, but knowing that Chavez was indubitably A Bad Man. Socialist dictator that he was. And all the rest of it.

Transcript

Listen

Interestingly, many of her callers, emailers and commenters seemed to be fed up with the, shall we say, anti-Chavez bias of the program and said so more or less politely. Diane feigned perplexity and badly mischaracterized the comments she was receiving apparently throughout the show. 

Read the commentary

I don't ordinarily listen to Rehm. I did because of the topic. I was disgusted and offended.

Later, Democracy Now! presented what I thought was a much fairer and more people centered, rather than government-institution centered, remembrance of Chavez, for good and ill. What was striking to me was that several of those speaking about Chavez and Venezuela had personal knowledge of him and Venezuela. Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez had interviewed him (albeit in New York) and Eva Golinger had been one of his friends and advisers in Caracas. I don't recall offhand, but it could be that other panelists had known him personally. At any rate, even when they didn't necessarily approve of some action or policy of Chavez and his government, even when they acknowledged that he and his government got some things wrong, they certainly saw him as a worthy figure with profound influence in Latin America and beyond.

Quite the contrast with the Diane Rehm Show.

Democracy Now! Video and transcript.

Now of course I should not consider Diane Rehm and NPR to be the "left"  -- and ordinarily I wouldn't do so. But in the United States, the mainstream media, like government, is divided between rightists and fascists. There is no "left" at all. Consequently, various outlets within the rightist-fascist mainstream are designated "left" -- NPR, PBS, MSNBC, the "Communist News Network," so as to have demons to thrash, even though all of the mainstream outlets are pretty much on the same page, and it is a page that's written by Ailes and Murdoch.

Meanwhile, Pacifica has ventured pretty far from its radical/revolutionary -- and yes, leftist -- roots, having been captured in a sense by Puritans and Propertarians. I won't go into the Take-Over sturm und drang here, but it was dramatic to say the least. While there is a leftist gloss to the place still, it shows (to me at least) far more signs of straightlaced libertarianism than Leftism in much of its programming, including the flagship Democracy Now!

The American media and what's fundamentally wrong with it, however, are topics for another day.

Let it just be noted in this instance that NPR and Diane Rehm performed the role of FOX "News" to in contrast to Democracy Now! doing a creditable version of an MSNBC "moderate" take.

That is all...

Railing Against the "Left" in America

At some point I will have to acknowledge the uselessness of continuing to beat the long dead horse of what passes for the "left" in American politics.

In point of fact, there is no real Left active in the American political system and there hasn't been one for many years. There are a few (very) fringe parties that take leftist, even revolutionary, positions on some issues, but they have no political influence at all -- some would say by the design and intention of the political system itself and by these fringe parties in cahoots with their own marginalization. They do seem to be oddly content outside the system, come to think of it.

In the mainstream of American politics, what's called the "left" functions as a slightly mitigating version of the ever-dominant American Right. I've pointed out that even St. Franklin Roosevelt was no "leftist," and the New Deal programs and policies that actually survived (like Social Security and Unemployment Insurance) are NOT leftist by any stretch of the imagination. They are basically survivalist policies of the Right intended to buy off the masses and keep the tumbrils and guillotines at bay for a while longer.

Now, however, since the Crash of 2008, the Right is going for complete control without the troublesome and burdensome necessity of carving out some benefit for the masses. They've been busying themselves with taking economic benefits as well as civil liberties away from the masses, selling off public assets at fire sale prices, destroying public education, reducing and/or eliminating pension benefits, making access to health care ever more difficult and expensive and setting up system after system of automatic revenue payments to corporate entities, many of which are now behaving like taxing authorities and private governments.

The so-called "left" in American politics and governance merely operates as if it were a helpful critic of Rightist policies. The "left" has no policies of its own except maintaining bits and pieces of the status quo and delaying and mitigating (somewhat) the more radical policies of the Right.

That's it. At one time, when there was something of an active Left in American politics, instead of reducing benefits and raising retirement ages, we would have been treated to arguments proposing to lower the retirement age and substantially increasing benefits. We would hear arguments to collectivize, nationalize industries and services and implement a broad-based public sector economy on democratic principles. Instead of ignoring Marx and other cogent critics of capitalism, we would have long ago explored and demonstrated alternatives to the kind of rampant crony capitalism we endure today -- a capitalist system that is depriving whole generations of a future.

If we had a real Left in our politics, the possibilities for the Future would be seen as unlimited.

But we don't have one. No, Occupy is not "the Left," not even close; it's not at root a political entity; it's more of a philosophical one. It may give rise to a political entity, but it hasn't yet. It has only given rise to ideas, opportunities, and demonstrations of alternatives to the current downward spiral.

The election will only have an effect on how fast and how harshly Rightist programs and policies -- most of which we are already familiar with -- will be implemented going forward. Neither major party is in any way interested in backing off from those Rightist programs and policies, any more than most of the governments around the world are going to suddenly jettison neoliberalism. It's not going to happen.

The only way to accomplish that end now is through efforts conducted outside the standard political system, and we've already seen that if those efforts show signs of succeeding, they will be violently shut down by the corpro-government.

If a genuine political Left is ever revived on the other hand, what might we see? What wonders might await?

A rational argument for not voting. [Note: a repost of the material at the link was disappeared at FDL because a moderator didn't want to "promote" the idea of not voting. It is obviously considered a dangerous concept that must be kept away from the masses.]

Sterling Newberry on the UK Riots and the irrelevancy of the left

Sterling has a lot to say about what's been going on in Britain and what it means for the rest of us. This is just a snippet:

The current left is irrelevant, precisely because its first gesture, is to join with the powerful, in condemning it. It shows that the leadership of the current left is, in fact, on the side of oppression, so long as their own place in that oppression is more reasonable. One can see this from larger issues, but this shows that it is a deeply rooted, deeply seated moral identification with power and the profits of pillaging the world and slapping down the poor. To tell the poor that they should wait for the wheels of law to turn is to insult their intelligence. Anyone with any intelligence knows that the law does not work: the police sell information to Rupert Murdoch, and beat people for filming the police beating people, and only an editor has faced the dock, none of the principals will. No one from the bank meltdown has gone to jail. Or ever will. Only people who are comfortable in their place, can say that it is a moral imperative to wait on a legal system which is manifestly corrupt beyond all redemption. Where the courts are criminals, there is no justice.

The riots are not, of course, some great sign of immediately coming hope. Riots and insurrection are common through history, and most come to an ignominious end. Even large rebellions, such as the insurrection against the British East India Company, or the Boxer Rebellion, are put to an end. The best most insurrections can hope for, is to tie their oppressing state in knots, forcing it to spend ever escalating amounts on unaffordable and unattainable security. Al-Qaeda's goal was to do this to the West, and it seems to have worked: the west now spends a trillion dollars a year on wars and security that it cannot afford, but will not stop.

The moral hollowness of the left, however, is my topic here, because it is the key and final failure. We should expect those who hold the gates of commerce to want to extract vast tolls from their control of them. We should expect princes born to wealth to suck the riches of the world into their playgrounds in Dubai. This is their nature. However, the corruption of the left is not of its nature, and it is proof that the present discourse, the present economy, the present society, is going to burn, in a much larger magnification of London burning. The problem is that the present left is a conservative force, which is dedicated to keeping their part of the profits of privilege. They are not the oppressed, but functionaries in the more global extraction of wealth, and they merely want a better deal from the very corporations that they have erected. Lower debit card fees and better protections against their insurance companies. No windmills that might hurt their property values.

In short, a moral void which, none the less, passes moral judgments.

Ouch. That'll leave a mark.

The Harman Resignation

Jane Harman to resign from Congress effective tomorrow(?). Going to run the Woodrow Wilson Institute in DC. Hm. Interesting.

Especially interesting to me is the momentousness of the news to the "lefty" blogosphere -- the story is everywhere -- and the fact that there is literally no support whatever among the blog proprietors for Harman's two-time primary challenger, Marcy Winograd -- a real live, dyed in the wool anti-war progressive. It's almost as if they hate her and would prefer just about anyone else, including a near clone of Jane Harman in Janice Hahn. It's amazing.

Not surprising, though.

It seems that actual progressive leftists really aren't welcome in the Insider's Club of A-Listers, Dem Consultants and Libertarians posing as "lefties" in the blogosphere.

I can see it now. They'll do almost anything to deny Winograd the election -- assuming she runs.

Fascinating.

On the Leadership of Teh Left

This is funny.

Over the past few months, Jane and Glenn have been maneuvering to take over the leadership of the so-called Left by becoming outspoken TeeVee and radio personalities as well as big important bloggers, former entertainment moguls (in Jane's case) and best selling authors (in Glenn's) -- who are characterized as "lefties" by the TeeVee (and radio) bookers.

Markos and Arianna must be annoyed with them. If they aren't, they should be.

Of course none of these people -- Markos, Arianna, Jane or Glenn -- are "leftists" in any rational world. They do not speak for the Left and never have, they have little or no understanding of what "Leftist" means, and in Markos's and Arianna's cases, they were Republicans who got religion when they found they could make money (lots of it if they wanted) as Lefties rather than the Reagan Republicans they used to be.

All of them are entrepreneurs running businesses, and their products, in addition to their own sweet selves, are their "communities." These communities are sometimes left-leaning, but they are generally left-leaning in the sense of being libertarians with something of a social conscious. That's about as far as they will go.

Since the anti-Kagan hysteria started in the lefty blogs, Glenn's profile in the media has grown substantially. Jane became a media fixture during the Health Care donnybrook, whereas Markos (who always looks and sounds like he's 14) is an old hand at speaking for the "left," and Arianna has been around since dirt was new and was opining and commentating on the air just as often years ago when she was still a Republican.

While Markos may be just as happy to turn over his "Lefty" mantle to somebody else, cause he's got other things to do, and Arianna will probably be on the air until Doomsday, Jane and Glenn are still fairly fresh faces and voices on the shows, and their hostility toward Obama and the Dems is quite the tonic for the bookers compared to the heavy-footed-ness of the Dem and White House spinners.

Gee, who'd a thunk it? Teh Left doesn't like Obama any more than Teh Right does. Hm. Wonders never cease.

The only problem is that Jane and Glenn (let alone Markos and Arianna) are NOT LEFTISTS.


To the extent they are ideological at all, they are libertarians, in Glenn's case, an extreme civil libertarian (a badge he wears proudly). Socialism, social democracy, social justice -- all characteristics of the Left in any rational world -- are all but irrelevant to them. They have very narrow, and frankly from all appearances, a very self-interested, political stance, and the panoply of Leftist interests and causes, political scut work and the rest of it, doesn't interest them.

Yet they are coming to be hailed as the Voices of the Left, and they are nothing of the kind.

However, they saw a vacant space, "unclaimed territory" as it were, and being clever and bold, they moved in. Why not?

There has been a vacuum in the leadership of the Left in this country for many years.

Democrats have never really been a Leftist party, and given the way our political and governmental systems work, they can't ever be. Power (and money) in the United States is very highly concentrated, becoming more so all the time, and both of the political parties serve power (and money) first and foremost. Neither is truly ideological, but each serves as a home-place for different kinds of people who are skilled at or like to wield power. The Republican Party tends to be the home-place for predators. The Democratic Party tends to be the home-place for managers and technocrats.

Social justice only enters the picture of either party to the extent it is seen to smooth the paths of predator-Republicans or technocrat-Democrats.

From a libertarian point of view, social justice is an oxymoron. It simply can't exist. "Justice" isn't "social." It's formal. Following the law -- as written -- is perforce Justice by definition. Anything else is fraud and cant.

But somehow libertarianism and particularly civil libertarianism became conflated with Teh Left in the minds of the TeeVee and radio bookers, and the Progressive mantle fell by default on up and coming libertarians.

Of course given the fact that Democrats aren't themselves Leftists, and they are largely inarticulate as hell, bumbling and stumbling and falling all over the furniture in public appearances where they have to speak, the default to Glenn and Jane (who are both usually very articulate) as spokespeople (and putative Leaders) for Teh Left might make sense if their critiques and public policy positions (I won't say ideology because I don't think either one has an ideology) weren't frequently indistinguishable from those of Republicans.

This has been painfully apparent in the hysteria over Elena Kagan's appointment to the Supreme Court. There are plenty of issues that could be raised about her appointment, but the real issue isn't her, it's the institutional rot that made her appointment "inevitable." Rather than deal with the rot and corruption that is at the root of the problem, nearly all the hysterical antagonism toward Kagan (from Teh Left) is focused on her "inadequacy" for the job, and this focus is identical to -- though far more furious than -- that of the Republicans.

And the hostility from Glenn, who is absolutely obsessed with Kagan, looks for all the world like any Republican smear-job of any Democratic nominee over the last half century. He's toned it down somewhat in the last few days after being called on his obsessiveness, conflations, and falsehoods, and how Republican it all seemed, but still. The issue is not her. It is the institutional rot and corruption from top to bottom that made her appointment inevitable.

For Jane's part, she's been pretty much declared "nuts," and only her fiercest loyalists (of which there are quite a few, to be sure) have been able to accept her joining up with the TeaBaggers and Grover Norquist. She has crossed a bridge too far for many liberals and progressives to follow so she is routinely denounced and struggled against. Glenn is getting very close to the same point. Markos and Arianna haven't gone there, not quite, but much of their Lefty cred, such as it is, leaves aside the economic aspects of anything that can rationally be called Leftism.

It would of course be better for actual Leftists to have a higher profile than they do, but their problem is that they're not "new."

I posted part of a manifesto on the Greek mess from the International Committee of the Fourth International, and for all its correct economic and political insight and fulminating demands, it comes across as something highly anachronistic. It is Real Leftism, though, from the source -- or one of them -- and it's almost a wonder that anyone can still think that way. Few Americans ever did.

So the libertarians get the Leftist mantle by default, because the Real Left is too alien and obscure? Or is it something else?

I guess we're just lucky the LaRouchians weren't selected by the media to be the mouthpieces for Teh Left.

Whew! That was close.