Wow, the Obama Administration is less than a year and a half old, and it’s already twiddling with the record. I was gobsmacked to see this section in a post by Felix Salmon today, on a new book by Jonathan Alter and a New York Magazine cover story by John Heilemann:
Both Alter and Heilemann trace the decision not to nationalize to a dinner at the White House in April 2009, attended by Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Alan Blinder, Ken Rogoff, and, at least according to Heilemann, Jeff Sachs as well. Krugman and Stiglitz were in favor of nationalization, but we open about the fact that it would be an expensive and fraught course of action; Obama, faced with an alternative, sensibly took it.
Huh? This is a complete and utter fabrication. And Felix gives Alter and Heilemann a free pass for deciding to take dictation from Team Obama rather than do basic reality-checking?
It was obvious LONG before April that the Administration had NO interest in nationalizing financial firms; Geithner made that clear as of his very first policy statement on the financial services industry as new Treasury Secretary. Merely searching my archives, I find:
“Geithner Plan Smackdown Wrap.” February 10, 2009:
As we, and increasingly others, have said, the Obama economic team is every bit as captive to Wall Street’s interests as the Bushies were. The differences increasingly look stylistic, not substantive…
Thus Geithner’s belief that government can’t manage assets is sheer projection of his own inability to deliver. The FDIC winds up banks all the time. During the S&L crisis, as William Black reminds us, FSLIC appointed receivership managers that later research determined did reduce losses. Sweden, Norway, and Chile all nationalized (and relatively quickly reprivatized) dud banks during their financial crises. This isn’t like trying to go the moon (which was a government initiative, lest we forget). There are plenty of models and lots of good proposals. What is lacking is will. History says that an aggressive, take-out-the-dead-banks program is the fastest and all-in cheapest way out of a financial crisis. But if you believe that something will not work, as Geithner does, it isn’t at all hard to produce that outcome.
The Administration’s full bore effort to talk up confidence in general and banks in particular as of March made it impossible.
“White House Says Banks Should Stay Private,” February 20, 2009:
Amid fears that Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. could be on the verge of being nationalized, the White House gave assurances that it prefers banks to remain out of the government’s hands.
“This administration continues to strongly believe that a privately held banking system is the correct way to go, ensuring that they are regulated sufficiently by this government,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday. “That’s been our belief for quite some time, and we continue to have that.”
We provided a longer-form analysis this year, in “The Empire Continues to Strike Back: Team Obama Propaganda Campaign Reaches Fever Pitch.” Some extracts:
The widespread, vocal opposition to the TARP was evidence that a once complacent populace had been roused. Reform, if proposed with energy and confidence, wasn’t a risk; not only was it badly needed, it was just what voters wanted.
But incoming president Obama failed to act. Whether he failed to see the opportunity, didn’t understand it, or was simply not interested is moot. Rather than bring vested banking interests to heel, the Obama administration instead chose to reconstitute, as much as possible, the very same industry whose reckless pursuit of profit had thrown the world economy off the cliff. There would be no Nixon goes to China moment from the architects of the policies that created the crisis, namely Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and Director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers….
Obama’s repudiation of his campaign promise of change, by turning his back on meaningful reform of the financial services industry, in turn locked his Administration into a course of action. The new administration would have no choice other that working fist in glove with the banksters, supporting and amplifying their own, well established, propaganda efforts.
Thus Obama’s incentives are to come up with “solutions” that paper over problems, avoid meaningful conflict with the industry, minimize complaints, and restore the old practice of using leverage and investment gains to cover up stagnation in worker incomes. Potemkin reforms dovetail with the financial service industry’s goal of forestalling any measures that would interfere with its looting. So the only problem with this picture was how to fool the now-impoverished public into thinking a program of Mussolini-style corporatism represented progress.
How did the Administration and financial services message control teams work together?
The first was the refusal to consider investigations of any kind. Obama is widely reported to have studied the early days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration for inspiration; it would be impossible for him to miss the dramatic steps FDR took, including supporting the continuation of a Senate Banking Committee investigation into the misdeeds of the Roaring Twenties, the Pecora Commission….
More compelling evidence of the Administration’s lack of interest in reining in the money-changers came via Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s first presentation on his reform plan, which was more accurately a plan to have a plan. It was widely criticized for its sketchiness, but most observers missed the true significance. Had the Obama transition team done any serious thinking about the financial crisis? Obviously not, because you don’t need to think too hard if the game plan is to go back to business as usual to the extent possible. Geither’s presentation came nearly three weeks after Obama was sworn in, and all its initiatives were Bush/Paulson wine in new bottles: a new go at the failed idea of having the government overpay for bad bank assets; “stress tests” to put more discipline around the process of handing out TARP funds to the needy; and a mortgage modification program which pretended to be able to square the circle of saving borrowers without taking on investors in mortgage securitizations.
Geithner’s not-much-of-a-plan exemplified the second tool in the Obama campaign to sell doing as little as possible to the financiers: the Theory of Positive Thinking….
Back to our current post. I also checked my assessment with Newsweek’s Washington DC based commentator Michael Hirsh, who confirms that the decisions not to nationalize banks had been taken long before April, and the dinner with Stiglitz, Krugman, et al was “pro forma and largely meaningless.” Hirsh, by the way, broke the story of that dinner.
Separately, it is also utterly implausible that Obama would place much weight on a decision of this magnitude on a single session with individuals outside his team. Large and at least adequately managed organizations (and the Obama crew prides itself on being buttoned down) aspire to have a deliberate, analytical approach to Big Decisions. And given how high profile this issue was, having a solid, defensible-sounding rationale would be even more important.
So why would Team Obama go to the lengths of telling a verifiably false account to at least two reporters? Perhaps events in due course will reveal why they are so eager to revise the timeline, but all I can fathom now is that for some reason the Administration is trying to make it appear that the decision not to nationalize (or to use our current Newspeak, resolve) the really sick banks was:
a. Made by Obama, as opposed a matter that either didn’t interest him or one in which he deferred to Summers, Geithner & Co.
b. One that a majority of famous economists endorsed.
I’m open to other theories as to why Team Obama is going to such extremes to change the record.
.
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I doubt that you need look much further for the answer than to your own theory.
This revision casts him in a better light, and the sooner one can rewrite history, the sooner it becomes the accepted version.
98% of the people in this country haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about, Yves. In that environment, this sort of thing is quite easy to get away with. This will look much better on his resume.
We are now within the event horizon of the mid-term election cycle. Much of the populace think ‘Obama hasn’t done the right thing about the banks.’ This is the roll-out to show that: a) he went with the advice of ‘the best minds,’ b) the advice was correct, and c) ‘it’s worked.’ This is what American politics has become, lies, stacked on misstatements, all balanced for maximum spin. Obama is a person without substance, and rapidly becoming one without integrity as well, if he ever had any.
I’m not going to fact-check on all this, but it is my distinct recollection that Obama signaled _during his transition team weeks_ before inauguration that there would be no nationalizations. I don’t recall who said what or exact quotes, but I recall this as being quite unequivocal. —But if that is the accurate time frame for the signals of him and his team, that’s a problem now given the scenario I outlined in the first paragraphy. You see, it’s necessary to show, now that his handling of the banks is very unpopular, that this WAS SOMEONE ELSE’S (GOOD) IDEA, i.e. that he’s not really responsible for it but should get the credit anyway. Yeah, _that’s_ Barack Obama’s First Law of Leadership: “I just work here.”
I’m not so sure his resume is going to look so good… at least not to future historians (assuming they’re still ‘allowed’)…
And neither will any of the biographies of recent leaders of both corporate/government parties who’ve been so co-operative in the gutting of good governance for short-term gain.
These parties have become instruments for the devolution of good citizenship and obstacles to the development of ‘the wisdom of crowds’…
This depends on a population of substantially independent thinkers who understand their vital roles and have capability to organize and present them without being forcibly channeled into one of two very flawed channels of opinion.
This is something these institutionalized parties and certainly the financial ‘Establishment’ very much do NOT want to see come about.
Capability ENABLES Responsibility!
BUILD THE NECESSARY TOOLS!
Take the minimal technically simple but necessary steps to begin scaling a workable system of representation.
(Apt images for the current problem are the buildings both parties occupy in D.C.
Un-imaginative edifices serving as homages to embedded power, stagnation and cronyism.)
Both parties corrupt and avoid meaningful debate by the use of whatever slogans, buzzwords or candy-coated distortion of history will best appeal to our lizard brains.
These two institutions are so removed from the reality of daily life for most people its really astounding to me that people still look to them for answers or leadership.
More people ARE waking up… but there’s no more time.
Are we content with this status-quo?
Has the future already been stolen?
alex black,
“98% of the people in this country haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about”
True, but the other 2% of disproportionate influence. My guess is that the Obama administration is trying to sell them so that they can (hopefully) placate the other 98%. Public discontent over the bailouts remains palpable.
People miss the history of this kind of thing. Hoover’s RFC was probably a success. However, he was never forgiven (by the public) for bailing out big corporation while millions of individuals were suffering from the Depression. Nor should he have been.
Obama is weighed down by a similar dynamic. Of course, it is his own fault. However, that doesn’t mean he isn’t trying to spin his away the ghost of Herbert Hoover.
Re: 98% of the people in this country haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about, Yves.
Absolutely true. And they shouldn’t. And nobody should expect them to understand. Societies have always been organized to extract work (wealth) from the peasants. The trick in life is to be smart enough to get yourself – or at least your kids – in on a scam. In America, it’s still possible to participate in scams but it’s up to parents to educate their kids about reality instead of fantasy. America’s nobility are simply those running scams or participating in scams.
You can participate or bitch about it; but society MUST be a scam – so why fight what is the social-ecosystem of humans. Maturity is nothing but the awareness that the scam is being run. The peasants want to be screwed. They demand it. So, stop complaining and start screwing.
Good work campaigning for Obama 2 years ago. Now you have what you wanted.
Serfs are campaigning for the lesser evil. Free people don’t vote at all.
I didn’t campaign for him, please take your false accusations elsewhere.
Endless insult and derision. I’m a fan Yves and you’re own faulty memory on the question of the ‘better’ choice does not serve you well.
No, you didn’t campaign for him. As I recall you donated a small amount of money to his campaign and sniped endlessly at Palin, who was not running for president.
Obama has 13 million email addresses and the founder of Facebook managing his communications and outreach. Whether you choose to admit it or run from the fact: you played your part in making this charlatan president.
I’ll happily retract and apologize should you present any statement indicating electing Obama to be a bad idea. You’re one of the honest ones. I chalk this up to selective memory.
Please correct me, I’d love to be wrong about this.
I supported obama and don’t regret it. It’s a counterfactual and thus unprovable, but my belief is that the alternative would have been much worse. The Bush administration sowed very deep seeds of destruction. Getting fake conservatives out of office is a big step forward. I don’t agree with Obama’s handling of the financial crisis, but can you imagine a McCain/Palin team at work over the past year? I shudder.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t a “beauty contest between the uglies” the term Yves used?
And a great choice it is.
We’ve got McCain/Palin who give you a swift kick to the ribs after they get through raping you.
And then we’ve got Obama who gives you a kiss after he rapes you.
Thanks for the reply. I disagree. McCain would have gone full nuclear and fought Republicans much harder for the middle. The sense I get is that Dem voters really are waiting for the cavalry to show up. The cavalry isn’t. In 2008 I was willing to concede that Obama probably would do a better job on the economy. Not today.
Nobody in their right mind is suggesting Dems have made any effort to purge the clowns hired around the same time as Mike Brown. I don’t recall the battle of the uglies remark, but I’ll take your word for it.
anonymous,
To compare what did happen to what might have happened if we had elected McCain/Palin is pitting reality against fantasy. In this unequal contest, fantasy will win every time.
“Amen” from me, Davy…
McCain. Gramm. Palin. And Joe the Plumber. Working together? The sum of the angles of that rectangle is too monstrous to contemplate!
I am no fan of Obama. Far from it. However, I really don’t think we would have better economic policy with McCain in office. The current Republican party is correct to criticize Obama’s failings. However, they are notably devoid of bright alternative ideas (more tax cuts?) that might actually matter.
However, there is more to an administration than economic policy. On foreign policy, I sleep (somewhat) better at night with Obama in office. McCain struck me as dangerous. Thad Cochran of Mississippi was correct when he said
“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine,” Cochran said about McCain by phone. “He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”
Given current problems with Iran and North Korea, we don’t need someone like that in the White House.
Thanks for the reply. Again, I disagree and I live in the region. It doesn’t really matter because McCain didn’t win and the person who did isn’t doing much of anything to advance US policies anywhere, except those that benefit the corporate class.
Yves’ observations are spot-on. Politicians provide revisionist histories routinely. And I’m less confident today than I was yesterday in the efficacy of the WH spin machine.
The fact, IMHO, is that until the US sorts out its energy policy and goes nuclear, we’re going to see a continuation of a number of fictions: ‘clean coal’, etc. Japanese corporations want to sell Japanese high-tech, including rail and nuclear to US states. That would be happening under McCain. The auto-bailout? Why wasn’t an Asian firm invited in to partner struggling US firms?
Capitalism works. I’ve long felt the best solution to the North Korean problem would be to send in Disney and let the Mouse do the talking. I realize that a substantial number of reasons will see this as a frivolous or meaningless suggestion. I’m deadly serious.
Contra WH spin, there’s a poverty of imagination in this administration and real reluctance to employ proven technologies and practices. Simple aggressive regulatory enforcement and slightly more aggressive policies would have prevented BP. We’re seeing cowardice on every front. The lies I can live with. The incompetence and cowardice is costing us all big.
“Support” means I encouraged people to vote for him or offered an endorsement prior to the election. I did say loud and clear I thought Palin was a disastrous, ludicrous choice, but that is NOT the same as flag waving for Obama (lest we forget, there ARE third party candidates).
Oy. Love you blog. Sometimes I wonder if reading the comments is as depressing to you as it is to some of your readers. Reminds me of Ann Richards who when asked if she would host a radio call in show declined as this would entail talking to the sort of people who call in to radio shows. All too often this is true of blogs. Course the comments are a useful barometer of what people are thinking. Of course there is selectivity bias but often blog comments give insight into how the nation has drifted to its present state….
Just to think S. Palin could be in-charge, opportunity is so fleeting.
Please many were confabulated, heck after 8 years of GWBS what did you expect…
Skippy…two bitters and a sweet to keep them docile.
Obama is bad in many ways, but God forbid McCain had won the election. We might have gotten in a shooting war with Russia over Georgia.
liberal,
“Obama is bad in many ways, but God forbid McCain had won the election. We might have gotten in a shooting war with Russia over Georgia.”
I doubt it. However, more broadly you are correct. See my other post.
I see this as Obama taking us to 1984. “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”. The Obamites will say anything to make Him look good. I believe this administration will make its predecessor look good. Imagine, by 2012 people will lament Jimmy Carter’s “third term”.
Jimmy Carter’s third term? I don’t get the point you’re trying to make here, apart from the curiousity about what you would label as Carter’s second term.
Would that Obama had taken his inaugural-day political capital and used it to resume Carter’s energy policy, instead of squandering it and continuing the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush obeisance to the extractive industries.
I can’t get the NYT site to download at the moment or I’d get the link, but just a few days ago on his blog even Krugman (gently) said Geithner was lying about how K had allegedly said it would cost “trillions”.
I guess the purpose of this lie offensive is to claim that there was no alternative to embracing the Bush Bailout and turning it into the Obama/Bush Bailout which wouldn’t have been far more expensive. That’s doubly a lie, of course, since nothing could be more expensive than embarking upon the permanent Bailout (but their version continues with the lie, TARP = Bailout), while in the long run it would’ve been far less expensive and painful for the people (as opposed to for the criminals) to let the rotten criminal system go down, while government did whatever it had to do to bolster Main Street. We still need a New Deal level jobs program, for example, even though we know this kleptocracy would sooner machine gun the unemployed than than use public money to create jobs for them instead of handing it over to rich banksters as private loot.
As for Obama’s own pathology, he’s clearly a corporatist by ideology. A corporatist ideologue believes the purpose of civilization itself is to best package public property to privatize it at the greatest profit to private corporations, and to best organize human labor so that it serves as the most profitable resource mine for these corporations. That’s why his policy preference in each and every case (it looks knee-jerk) is to route any and every process through a corporate toll-booth. Thus even his scam “jobs bill” has to go via the route of tax credits for employers, not direct public job creation, which would of course be vastly less expensive and more effective.
But if you made this last point to him, he’d sincerely not understand what you’re talking about. If the main purpose of something isn’t more rents for private interests, then he doesn’t see it as having any purpose at all.
He’s also a status quo elitist and bully by personality. He believes in the Rand lie about capitalist supermen. His heroes really are the likes of Blankfein and Dimon, and he really believes they’re America’s best human type. Meanwhile he may deplore the uncouth aspects of the Republicans, but he still respects them as rivals and peers.
His bullying hatred comes through in his disdain for the diminishing ranks of actual progressives. Them he’s willing to “fight”, meaning to kick down upon. He’s happy to send out his thug Rahm to yell and swear at them. That’s both because they’re weak, and as a bully Obama sneers at perceived weakness, but also because they actually wanted to change the status quo, which in O’s eyes is tantamount to metaphysical rebellion.
(In Obama’s defense, the “progressives”, to the extent they still cling to their delusions about him and the Democratic party, really do deserve all the scorn and contempt heaped upon them. Their position is untenable, but out of cowardice they refuse to accept that.)
Here’s that link:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/things-i-didnt-say/
attempter,
anti_fascist_freedom_fighter, in the last comment on the “Schama: Are the Guillotines Being Sharpened?” thread, asserted that “America went through a Coup d’etat directly follwoing 9/11/2001.”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/05/schama-are-the-guillotines-being-sharpened.html#comments
While I believe anti_fascist_freedom_fighter is definitely onto something, I believe what really happened is similar to what happened in the Communist takeover of Russia, as explained here by Jonathan Schell:
The event was not so much a coup d’etat as a coup par l’etat—-or a coup de societe—-for it consisted not in the violent seizure of the state by military forces but in the destruction of society by the state once it had been taken over by the Bolshevik Party.
–Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World
Schell also goes on to develop his theory of the “mass minority.” The Bolsheviks, the French Revolutionaries and the Nazis never had the support of a “mass majority,” as the leaders of the American Revolution or English Revolution of 1689 did. Quite the contrary, the Bolsheviks enjoyed something like 25% popular support, but this was concentrated in locales that had disproportionate political influence—-Petersburg and Moscow. Because the Bolsheviks lacked the support of a mass majority (as also did the French revolutionaries and the Nazis), after they seized power in a nonviolent way, they immediately had to resort to violence in order to keep power (notice the strong influence of Arendt on Schell’s thinking here), and thus the “red terror” (a repeat of the deparage into the Reign of Terror, and later to be repeated in the Nazi “iron heel”).
Schell also observes that key to the success of the Bolsheviks was the defection of the Czar’s army to the Bolsheviks, vis-à-vis Trotsky’s brilliant maneuvering.
Schell analyzes Hitler’s rise to power and it followed the same trajectory. Hitler rose to power not with the support of a “mass majority,” but a “mass minority.”
Could we be going through something similar in the US today? Here I believe are the similarities:
1) The coup de societe that took place following 9/11 had the support of a “mass minority.”
2) This “mass minority,” which I would qualify as a loose-knit coalition of Tea Partiers, Ayn Rand cultists, LANies (the Libertarian-Austrian-Neoliberal constellation), militarists/neocons, and social conservatives, is concentrated in states with small populations, giving this “mass minority” disproportionate influence. (There are of course fierce ideological battles between these various sects, as there was amongst the Bolsheviks, but at the end of the day they are all part of the same mass movement.)
3) The private/corporate security forces and military are loyal to the coup, not to the people.
4) The insufferable amount of kabuki and afactual dogma. Obama, despite all his posturing as a champion of the people, and his denouncement by the mass minority as same, really marches in lockstep with the mass minority. (Obama clearly has taken a page out of the playbook of the plutocrats south of the border., as Mexican oligarchs are absolute masters at kabuki. “The perfect dictatorship,” the Peruvian poet Mario Vargas Llosa put it—-a dictatorship with all the bells and whistles of democracy. Here in Mexico everybody is on the plutocrats’ payroll—-the putative political opposition, the protesters, the labor unions, you name it.
P.S. The other day you mentioned in passing that the downwardly mobile tend to opt for fascism, whereas the upwardly mobile opt for liberalism. I would be interested in hearing more about this theory.
I pointed out how in Western countries where the issue was what we can broadly call a rising bourgeoisie acheiving predominance over the productive economy but lacking political power and feeling stifled by feudal economic structures, their typical response was to blast away feudalism “from below”, as they were upwardly mobile economically already and wanted to rise to political power as well. The results were what we call revolutions in the proper sense.
But where that process fizzles out, the so-called “capitalist” economy calcifies into corporatism as all the previously dynamic sectors reach maturity and must either accept profits falling to the marginal minimum (as they naturally would), or else transform themselves into entrenched rent-seeking oligopolies and corrupt the polity into kleptocracy. (Not to mention the little matter of Peak Oil.)
At that point we have a process of neo-feudalization, which means that the masses who were previously lifted out of serfdom by economic progress must just as inexorably be pushed back down into neo-serfdom.
I suppose in theory they could respond the same way the original revolutionary class did, with a forcible dissolution of feudal power (though post-Peak Oil especially it could no longer be a “bourgeois” revolution but something different; for the sake of this note I’m leaving socialism out of it, just to isolate the socioeconomic parallel between the original rising merchant/professional classes and the current middle class now being liquidated).
But in practice where we saw a dry run for this, in economically and socially disrupted interwar Europe, where the existing middle classes were facing liquidation as well (in that context temporary rather than the terminal liquidation underway today), their characteristic response was not to side with those already poor against their common robber enemy, but to cling tribally to the vestiges of their disintegrating way of life. Losing middle class economic status, they let themselves be diverted into redefining “middle class” as a cultural category, identifying it with vapors like nationalism and militarism, which in turn facilitated the propaganda campaign by which they were led to scapegoat foreigners, communists, unions, other races, etc. (today we’d add “liberals”, environmentalists, the “cultural elite” etc.) and to turn their fear into aggression against these weaker groups. In their confusion and resentment and rage they tried to preserve their crumbling position through force organized by a combination of gangsters from their own ranks and elites above. Ergo fascism.
It’s clear which of these processes seems to be playing out in America so far. So the task of a true freedom activist is to figure out how to bring that theoretical alternative to reality, and then try to do it.
Attempter,
You are I believe as pessimistic as Reinhold Niebuhr was in 1932 when he published Moral Man & Immoral Society:
[T]he middle class, even when the independent retailer becomes a chain store clerk through the force of capital concentration, does not react to the situation in proletarian terms. The white collar worker may not own any property and may therefore logically belong to the proletariat, but the dictum of Boudin and others that salaried workers “are in reality just as much a part of the proletariat as the merest day laborer” fails to take important psychological factors into consideration. If we may regard Germany, where all the social and political forces of modern civilization have reached their most advanced form, as a criterion, none of the disinherited middle classes express themselves politically in proletarian terms. On the contrary they turn to fascism, which combines enough radicalism, to give the poorer middle classes some hope of better things to come, with the political strategy of anti-Marxism and nationalism, by which it gains the support of the economic overlords, who are afraid of the rising tide of labor. That the middle classes can be drawn into a party in which the wealthiest and the poorest ostensibly make common cause, is the measure of their political intelligence. Whatever may be the logic of their position in economic terms, they would rather express their resentments in a nationalistic spirit, and in minimum demands for the elimination of financial abuses, than in thoroughgoing economic changes. They will never be reduced to proletarian terms politically (even though they are reduced to those terms economically) until they have lost their cultural as well as their economic inheritance. Unlike the proletarian, they do not stand outside, but thoroughly inside, the national culture.
When it came to the United States, however, Niebuhr was proved wrong. The middle class did make common cause with the working class (as well as a significant chunk of the upper class) and instead of fascism, we got the New Deal.
The question is: Why did similar circumstances in Germany and the United States produce different outcomes?
As you state, “the task of a true freedom activist is to figure out how to bring that theoretical alternative to reality, and then try to do it.” If the question could be answered as to why the New Deal was achieved in the United States and fascism in Germany, then perhaps that would go some distance in advancing the freedom activists’ goal.
Why did similar situations in Germany and the U.S. produce different outcomes? Read Count Carlo Sforza’s writings and dark warnings about Germany just after the Treaty of Versailles.
(1) National character — yes, Virginia, there is such a thing, despite what your PC teachers tell you. Germany has a militaristic tradition going back pre-Arminius.
(2) Add to #1 utter national humiliation from Versailles, which rather blindsided the Germans with its harshness.
Allow to simmer for 10 years.
“Whatever may be the logic of their position in economic terms, they would rather express their resentments in a nationalistic spirit, and in minimum demands for the elimination of financial abuses, than in thoroughgoing economic changes…”
“…when it came to the United States, however, Niebuhr was proved wrong. The middle class did make common cause with the working class (as well as a significant chunk of the upper class) and instead of fascism, we got the New Deal.”
We rented the New Deal, and we lost it in the 30-year class-war, Reagan’s coup, did we not? Niebuhr’s history was only deferred then; velvet fascism is creeping up on us, despite our advanced culture and intelligence.
What name shall we givith to the debt singularity’s we call Billionaires, and the gravity political they consume far beyond all the other celestial bodies they call neighbour.
Skippy…I like bender…they bend every thing, their way.
There you go again, DS—flashing light bulbs in dark places. It’s startling.
Anti_fascist may be on to something, but your insights (thru Schell) solve puzzling precedents of revisionist history (of which I was ignorant) and clarify our own state of disunion today. The ‘mass-minority’ phenomenon of tea parties comes to mind unbidden.
Our multi-front war on terror reveals the same disconnect from reality. This clash of civilizations (“Christo-fascists V. “Islamo-fascists”) seemingly fell on us from the vacuum of space on 911 or from the book of Revelation. (It has nothing whatsoever to do with a million dead in illegal oil wars (escalating) or our partnership in Israel’s 60-year occupation; no, not at all.)
Chris Hedges observes similar dynamics in his book, “American Fascists: the Christian Right and the War on America” (on dominionist ‘Christians’), as does Kevin Phillips in his, “American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century.” Phillips’ mouthful title says a lot. (See there’s the connection to finance.)
Thank you, Yves, for great posts and commentary.
Well, except it’s not a “mass minority” any more, now that the ObamaCult has gone over to the other side.
After all, they backed their man to get them there. And don’t think for a second a lot of them aren’t mighty relieved about it, too.
Some “liberal hawks,” for one. Chronic portfolio watchers for another. Tough to say if either category can manage to develop any moral scruples.
I don’t know who amongst the broader population would go along with these people, but apparently someone does.
“Because the Bolsheviks lacked the support of a mass majority (as also did the French revolutionaries and the Nazis), after they seized power in a nonviolent way, they immediately had to resort to violence in order to keep power …, and thus the “red terror”…”.
Hmmm. What about the effect of foreign-based attempts to undo the revolutions in both Russia and France? Would the Revolutionary Tribunal in France and the Red Terror in Russia have occurred without the Duke of Brunswick and Admiral Kolchak (not to mention the numerous foreign military contingents which invaded Russia), and the foreign forces behind them? I find it is very common for people to conveniently forget the impact of foreign aggression in these revolutions in their rush to condemn the French republicans and the Russian Bolsheviks. I’m surprised you’ve fallen into the same trap.
I like your numbered points, however. I have from time to time posed the rhetorical question in blog comments “If there were to be a military coup in the US, would anybody notice?”
Gordon,
Your comment to me is emblematic of the disease that is eating away at the heart of American liberalism.
The entire Enlightenment/Age of Reason is predicated upon the belief that there is such a thing as objective truth, that this truth is worth pursuing, but that this truth is nevertheless to be taken with a large dose of skepticism.
However, somewhere along the way the New Left abandoned this pursuit of truth, fomenting a situation where it’s just our lies vs. their lies. This created a value-gap you could barrel a truck through, and the right of course did so.
Schell points out that the history of the Russian Revolution has been subject to a great deal of historical revision, both by the detractors and by the defenders of the Bolsheviks. Your comment falls squarely within the latter camp.
As Schell goes on to point out, the day after the October 1917 overturn, the Bolsheviks carried out a wave of arrests and closed down all the opposition newspapers. The new rulers immediately made known their intention to monopolize power. It was on this occasion that Trotsky made an infamous threat to the non-Bolshevik socialist parties, who asked the Bolsheviks to share power with them. He said:
And now we are told: renounce your victory, make concessions, compromise. With whom? I ask: with whom ought we to compromise? With those wretched groups who have left us or who are making this proposal?… To those who have left and to those who tell us to do this we must say: you are miserable bankrupts, your role is played out; go where you ought to be: into the dustbin of history!
Schell concludes:
In short, the Bolsheviks did not use violence to win power, they used it, instantly and lavishly, to keep power. Their insistence that they had needed violence to overthrow the Provisional Government provided cover of a sort for their unproved use of violence against their former revolutionary comrades who belonged to other parties. The repressive measures of the first days of Bolshevik rule were only the beginning of a wave of repression that almost immediately outdid czarist repression by an order of magnitude.
Your claims regarding the French Revolution are equally lacking in factual reality, but I just don’t have the energy this late at night to deconstruct them.
That is a violent attack on me quite out of proportion to my previous comment. You imply that I’m telling lies. I think you should retract that implication immediately.
As far as the substance of your reply goes, it goes nowhere. The French and the Russians were conducting revolutions, not holding elections. The Russian revolution in November (new style) 1917 was not bloody. Some counter-revolutionaries were arrested, but most of them were soon released. Counter-revolutionary propaganda was suppressed, so far as I can recall without violence. There was some fighting in Moscow, but mostly against trainees in a military training school. There was certainly some skirmishing around Petrograd where counter-revolutionary troops briefly engaged troops supporting the Bolsheviks and some Red Guards, but it petered out quickly (though it looked very serious at the time) and the counter-revolutionary troops surrendered. There was some spontaneous mob violence and drunkenness in quite a few locations, I seem to recall reading, but not at Bolshevik instigation. Trotsky’s speech on the morning of the revolution is not infamous and was not threatening. Maybe you know the context in which it was made. Your quote from Schell is very misleading. Violence grew in proportion to foreign-supported efforts to reverse the revolution – that was the whole point of my previous comment.
Let’s continue without personal rancour, if that’s possible.
gordon,
The effort to save some notionally “pure” essence of Communism from its results in the real world still goes on despondently, in America—-because America, unlike Russia or Poland or Hungary or Czechoslovakia, has never had a Communist government, or anything resembling one, so that the millenarian hopes and fantasies of Communism never had a chance to be tested. Thus the American New Left radicals have always been able to disport themselves in the ideal promises of Communism, without having to live with the wretchedness of their fulfillment.
Your claims are every bit as preposterous as the claims that the fall of Communism in Russia, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and the Baltic had far less to do with the Russians, Germans, Czechs, Hungarian, Poles and Balts themselves than with the actions of Ronald Reagan in the White House.
And if you think mine is a “violent attack,” what do you think the response of Havel, Michnik or Konrad would be to your ahistorical nonsense?
So be it…
Downsouth, you have made no attempt to respond to the substance of my comment, and you are now just spluttering abuse. Just another reactionary old Cold Warrior hiding behind some rags of liberal-sounding platitudes stolen from an on-line library, eh?
Who can say what one is these days…conservative on some progressive on others….but I certainly regret my vote for Obama but I would have also regretted a vote for McCAin….what’s a person to do today until a third, fourth, etc parties emerge….we need more than two….Should I refrain from voting at all???
If you still want to vote at the federal level (there may still be real differences and worthwhile candidates at the local level; I’d say those will be the critical elections going forward, since relocalization is our only chance), there’s always None of the Above, as a statement of rejection of the rigged pseudo-election and the system as such.
VERY good point. In every election there are other Parties offering candidates. But, 98% of the people (the same 98% from above) actually believe that ONLY the Republicrats can solve their problems. Humans naturally worship authority and the Republicrats are the Authority Party.
The US gets the government it deserves.
Oh, save us (Mommy|Daddy) Party and protect your children from (all risk|the fornicating-harlots).
I always vote for third-party candidates. In California, if at least one of a party’s candidates receives at least 2% (?) of the votes, that party will be on the ballot in the next election. I think it also allows allows that party’s candidates to have their statements included in the voter info pamphlets that the government mails to the voters before an election. If Prop 15 passes, it will also give them $$$. It may also benefit them in other ways. If voters refuse to support third parties, how will any third-party become viable in the USA? How will they be able to compete with the two major parties given the huge disparities in wealth and media access?
It perplexes me when voters complain that they have no good choices yet they continue to support a two-party system by refusing to vote for any third-party candidate because s/he can’t win. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ditto when they say things like “I’m voting for X because s/he’s the lesser of two evils.” Well if an evil is the very best a party can come up with, why are you supporting them? You’re still supporting an evil. Further, given the resources of the two major parties, supporting them via votes, donations (time or money), etc. is not going to change things for the better. They already have all the money and influence that they need to get the “best” candidates from their POV.
If you don’t genuinely like either of the D or R candidates, vote for a third-party candidate (even if you don’t like her/him) because that will encourage third parties and make it more likely that they will become strong enough to challenge the two major parties (or otherwise influence their agendas). I vote for the party that I most want to support. When third parties get stronger, they will attract stronger candidates. (Although IMO the third party candidates were already better than the presidential candidates in the last few elections.)
It seems that Obama has studied FDR intently, but not to imitate hime. Quite the opposite, he may have looked for ways how the bankers – his finaciers – can get away with it this time.
In short, he was looking for what not to do.
Why read Salmon?
He’s voice of Goldman Sachs.
Who pays attention to Salmon?
He speaks for Larry Sumers and GS.
Just like the days of the ol’ Soviet Union: Why read Pravda?
Because knowing which lies are important at the moment may help to gain understanding of what transpires in the shadows, and behind the scenes.
To see behind the scenes, one must fist recognize what IS merely “scenery”: placed to conceal, or to distract, or to enhance an illusion.
The ‘Party Line” is always self-serving and decietful:but it IS adapted in response to something.
And whatever that “something” may be, the Party at least thinks it serious enough to publicly respond, or pre-empt.
Odd that US politics in 2010 ought to remind of Soviet politics of the sixties and seventies.
Perhaps there has been some emigration?
Strikes me that it has a lot to do with the ego and lack of knowledge of the reporters. They simply do not have the background or perhaps the willingness to confront their “sources” and say that the story they are being fed appears contrary to reality.
Of course, I am getting this 3rd hand (I havn’t read the book, nor Salmon’s blog). Perhaps they would defend themselves that they are just stenographers. But the problem with these books is that the “reporters” are not well versed in finance, and too much of what they write has that air of fan obsessed “I am talking to someone important!”
There is also this irritating, albeit vastly underreported problem of money. I’m talking about the money a “journalist” can make by writing a book about the innards of the actual/popular powers that be.
How much dinero are we talking about here?
Weeeeeell! For writing a book charitably described as:
the authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann pocketed an advance of 5 million dollars for a new book that will depict the 2012 presidential election from the (raaaalph!) “insider” (read: Barrack Obama) point of view.
In other words, the Administration knows they’ve got two “journalists” that will be their bitches (Yes! I’m aware that this is quite an insult to the bitches) until the end of the 2012 elections. And it is the publisher that’ll pay for that servitude. Ain’t that nice?
Moreover, as WaPo’s Howard Kurtz noted:
The consequences of this incestuous state of affairs are rather obvious:
[Who could’ve known?]
Given the above, can anyone be surprised by these rather clumsy attempts at revisionism? Not really: it is part of the program.
Excellent insight. The first rule of any investigation is “follow the money”. The second rule is “see the first rule”.
I’ve long said that bribery (euphemistically called campaign contributions) is the biggest problem in American politics, but I never considered how book money affects “journalism”.
Yves,
Great post on the attempt to rewrite history. One suggestion: please refrain from using the term ‘nationalization’ instead of the more accurate term ‘receivership’. The widespread use of the term nationalization is newspeak. When Reagan, who very few accused of being a socialist, was in office and the S&L’s were being wound down the more accurate term receivership was the one commonly used. Do Republicans put insolvent banks into receivership while Democrats nationalize them?
I think you make a good point on the use of “nationalization.” Krugman himself uses it in ways that confuse readers–he had a big kerfuffle with NYT colleague Sorkin that turned on the exact meaning of the word. While Krugman thinks that modifiers like “temporary” or referencing “some banks” narrows the meaning of “nationalization,” most readers interpret the concept to be “national” in scope and as permanent as government sees fit.
As you point out, alex, “receivership” would be a clearer and less threatening term to describe a process where some insolvent banks are restructured while operating under some degree of temporary government control.
Yves,
As I was reading your commentary above it struck me that changing just a few words would reveal the truth about another crisis that is occurring as we speak:
Obama’s repudiation of his campaign promise of change, by turning his back on meaningful reform of the oil and gas industry, in turn locked his Administration into a course of action. The new administration would have no choice other that working fist in glove with the oil and gas industry, supporting and amplifying their own, well established, propaganda efforts.
Thus Obama’s incentives are to come up with “solutions” that paper over problems, avoid meaningful conflict with the industry, minimize complaints, and restore the old practice of drill baby drill and using an eviscerated MMS to cover up environmental problems. Potemkin reforms dovetail with the oil and gas industry’s goal of forestalling any measures that would interfere with its looting. So the only problem with this picture was how to fool the now-impoverished public into thinking a program of Mussolini-style corporatism represented progress.
How did the Administration and oil and gas industry message control teams work together?
The first was the refusal to consider investigations of any kind.
“the refusal to consider investigations of any kind” is now far too conspicuous to ignore. The cover-ups are as infuriating as the original crimes: we can’t remedy a manifest disease if don’t know what we don’t know. As a consequence, disregard for law and accountability is sure to trickle down to the general public.
Nice work, Yves. If you help even a few thousand people see truth being stuffed down the memory hole in real time, you help the two percent stay sane long enough to correct the situation. I hope.
As for what Obama is, I suppose I would prefer to coin a new moniker. Something like “progressive elitist” might work. The main thing for him is that really smart people (like him) control all the levers in society, by common consent if possible, by harsher means if necessary.
His loyalty does not extend beyond this circle of private and public citizens because (at least in theory) they have the greater good in mind and will make things better for the rest of us. This is something new in American politics. I like to think of it as fascism with a smiley face. There is a backlash brewing, even amongst Obama’s erstwhile allies. The next two years should be very interesting and important in the life of the Republic.
“And Felix gives Alter and Heilemann a free pass for deciding to take dictation from Team Obama rather than do basic reality-checking?”
duhhh – Felix (the cat) Salmon is employed by Thomson Reuters.
In case you didn’t know Thomson Reuters is part of the MSM. Thomson Reuters are the ones who pulled the less than flattering story on Steve Cohen’s SAC after Steve had a conversation with their CEO, Tom Glocer.
Personally I would rather watch CNBS than read anything from Felix. At least with CNBS you know what your dealing with.
http://weblogs.jomc.unc.edu/talkingbiznews/?p=12478
Does anybody seriously expect real journalism out of Jonathan Alter, who wrote this about JFK, Jr. after his death?
“He was more than our ‘Prince Charming,’ as the New York tabs called him. We etched the past and the future on his fine face.”
Alter has been a reliable left wing hack (often as the counterpoint to equally stupid right wing hacks) on the cable TV political talk show circuit for years.
And now he’s a mouthpiece for the Obama administration? I’m shocked, truly shocked.
Look…
the U.S. elite, which has become a collection of predators, worse than parasites,
deserves, and will likely meet, the same fate as the Russian or French royalty/aristocracy, the clergy of the Catholic Church in Mexico, etc.
Obama and Salmon are members of this ill-fated group.
Touché, Yves!
… and on a personal note:
will you marry me?
Yes and No.
Obama has a certain decision-making style. He wants to hear all sides. He probably see this as fundamental to a deliberative process and good politics.
That doesn’t mean that decisions on fundamentals are really open to debate. Gathering other points of view, even after a decision, or the “outlines of a decision, is made is good for many things:
a) a reality check: have my advisors fully briefed me on all angles;
b) uncovering what you may have missed;
c) opposition research; and
d) co-opting some of that opposition by 1) including them in a process, and 2) the possibility of minor concessions that may them look like they have influence.
By the date of the dinner Obama may not have formally presented or communicated a decision but there was little doubt about whether banks would be nationalized.
When you see past the Kabuki, you naturally get annoyed at the stagehands.
Opps! This comment was meant as a reply to Davy (just below).
understood.
heh…
Not sure if this really qualifies as complete revisionism. Do you doubt that the dinner took place? it may be the case that team Obama had already developed a powerful mindset against nationalization, but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t open to listening to Krugman et al.
(Note: moving this comment to where it was supposed to be)
—–
Yes and No.
Obama has a certain decision-making style. He wants to hear all sides. He probably see this as fundamental to a deliberative process and good politics.
That doesn’t mean that decisions on fundamentals are really open to debate. Gathering other points of view, even after a decision, or the “outlines of a decision, is made is good for many things:
a) a reality check: have my advisors fully briefed me on all angles;
b) uncovering what you may have missed;
c) opposition research; and
d) co-opting some of that opposition by 1) including them in a process, and 2) the possibility of minor concessions that may them look like they have influence.
By the date of the dinner Obama may not have formally presented or communicated a decision but there was little doubt about whether banks would be nationalized.
When you see past the Kabuki, you naturally get annoyed at the stagehands.
Davy, just to be clear: the “stagehands” I’m referring to are the subject of Yves post.
That would be a plausible theory, except the decision not to put major insolvent financial firms into receivership had been made WELL before the April dinner. The Administration had already launched a series of initiatives which were inconsistent with the possibility of receivership, starting with the Orwellianly-misnamed “stress tests”. Administration officials even said the purpose of the stress tests was to “restore confidence” in the banks (and recall, if they did come up short, they either had to raise equity or get another equity infusion from the government. Receivership was NEVER on the list of outcomes). They were announced in February and started in March, well before the dinner,
I believe they also had suspended mark to market before the dinner also. This was consistent with a decision not to nationalize/”pre-privatize” the banks. And was necessary to ensure that the banks would pass the stress tests.
“Why Obama wants to change the record”…
Obama and his team are as corrupt as Bush and his team…
two sides of the “L’etat c’est moi”…”Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” coin.
The days remaining for the U.S. elite are numbered, and that number is not too large
They may start WW3 as a diversion, or they may revert to full-fledged domestic martial law
for now they are buying time as the house of cards collapses on their heads.
Obama is aware of how it ended for people like Mussolini and Ceausescu….they are not too different from Bush and Obama if you look closely…role models.
Now tell me “It can’t happen here.” whereas in fact history says it always does.
The lucky ones like James II are permitted to escape in a rowboat when the end comes.
pros,
While I certainly understand the reasons for your viewpoint, and your anger, I nevertheless cannot condone the means you advocate.
And as I made clear in my comment to attempter above, I believe your reading of history to be mistaken.
I too believe the revolution is coming, but my hope is that it will be nonviolent:
Violence solves no social problems; it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Through the vistas of time a voice still cries to every potential Peter, “Put up your sword!” The shores of history are white with the bleached bones of nations and communities that failed to follow this command. If the American Negro and other victims of oppression succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle for justice, unborn generations will live in a desolate night of bitterness, and their chief legacy will be an endless reign of chaos.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” Christian Century, 6 February 1957
Hello Downsouth:
My heroes are Gandhi, MLK< Jr., Mandela (whom I met after his release and before apartheid ended)…I am a pacifist.
Amoral, ruthless, bloodthirsty; much more violent than the Afrikaners or the British in India
also very clever and accustomed to success….
the U.S. elite will not, unfortunately, surrender power peacefully-
It is not my wish, just an observation.
all the best.
(disregard earlier bad edit)
I’ve often wondered why Jesus ordered his disciples to go armed into the garden of Gethsemane that fateful night–to bring two swords and then rebuke Peter for slicing the ear of the soldier. An object lesson: “do you see violence solves nothing?” And then he was relentlessy tortured and crucified; an uninspiring paradox.
Hello Downsouth:
My heroes are Gandhi, MLK< Jr., Mandela (whom I met after his release and before apartheid ended)
they are amoral, ruthless, bloodthirsty; much more violent than the Afrikaners or the British in India
also very clever and accustomed to success.
The U.S. elite will not, unfortunately, surrender power peacefully-
It is not my wish, just an observation.
all the best.
pros,
If you are right, and the U.S. elite draws a line in the sand and “will not…surrender power peacefully,” then I think we can expect something like the “red terror” or “iron heel” to be conducted against the American people.
The trick, however, is to get the U.S. elite to surrender power, or at least some power, peacefully.
If the U.S. elite believes it’s guillotine time if they give up power, they will of course fight to the death to keep it.
On the other hand, if there is some hope for redemption, then maybe they can be convinced to relinquish power peacefully.
The good-cop/bad-cop routine has been put forward as being the most efficacious. This theory holds that what made MLK so successful was the existence of the black militants. TPTB chose MLK over Malcom X.
The 18th-century British parliamentarian perhaps summed up this strategy best:
The talk of not acting from fear is mere parliamentary cant. From what motive but fear, I should like to know, have all the improvements in our constitution proceeded? If I say, Give this people what they ask because it is just, do you think I should get ten people to listen to me? The only way to make the mass of mankind see the beauty of justice is by showing them in pretty plain terms the consequence of injustice.
Hannah Arendt, however, points out the some of the flaws in this theory:
No doubt, “violence pays,” but the trouble is that it pays indiscriminately, for “soul courses” and instruction in Swahili as well as for real reforms. And since the tactics of violence and disruption make sense only for short-term goals, it is even more likely, as was recently the case in the United States, that the established power will yield to nonsensical and obviously damaging demands—-such as admitting students without the necessary qualifications and instructing them in non-existent subjects—-if only such “reforms” can be made with comparative ease, than that violence will be effective with respect to the relatively long-term objective of structural change.
–Hannah Arendt, Crises of the Republic
Jonathan Schell argues that the great leaps forward in popular governance have been made when the elite have surrendered some of their power peacefully, such as was the case with the American Revolution (the colonial elite settling for less power than the British monarchy) and the English Revolution of 1689 (William of Orange settling for less than the absolute anarchy that James II demanded).
Could not the same be said of what FDR achieved? Or what MLK achieved?
MLK, Jr. was assassinated, as was Malcolm X.
Mandela was not a pacifist.
He was a founding member of Umkhonto we Sizwe which conducted violent guerrilla operations in South Africa starting in 1961;
Mandela posted Umkhonto we Sizwe on top of the ANC Shell House HQ to defend against the IFP attack in March, 1994-the last effort by the elite to sabotage the election of Mandela.
ANC, under Mandela’s orders, shot and killed 10-15 of the mob which was trying to burn down Shell House, with Afrikaner police and military nowhere in sight.
If the U.S. elite believes it’s guillotine time if they give up power, they will of course fight to the death to keep it.
I’d say there’s precisely zero chance the kleptocracy will voluntarily surrender any power. One way or another, only force of circumstances will liquidate that power.
I must say, DS, while I usually respect statements of principle regarding non-violence, yours in this thread have taken a bizarre turn. Up above you’re whitewashing foreign invasion and domestic reaction as major determinants in the French and Russian civil wars, especially the French.
As for the Bolsheviks, while they were to some extent intrinsically despotic, they also faced the immediate goal of suppressing domestic counter-revolution, first from the right-leaning “liberal” Kadets, the equivalent of today’s establishment Democratic party, and then from the Whites. So to claim that in the absence of treason and invasion they would have been just as violent is simply a vain hypothetical you’re falsely alleging as true.
BTW, the real revolution in 1917 is what commenced in February. At that point and for some months following the Bolsheviks had little public support in Petrograd. It was only when the the Kadets and renegade SRs like Kerensky made it clear that they saw their mission, Obama-style, to be to quash the change process and uphold all the feudal structures (except for the monarchy and nobility in themselves) as much as possible and continue the war, that the Bolsheviks started gaining mass support. So until the October coup the Bolsheviks weren’t usurping anything but entering the void left by the abdication and betrayal of the alleged “revolutionary” leadership, and the coup itself would never have been possible without this betrayal.
And in this comment you seem to be completely reversing reality and saying reactionary violence is a function of the criminals’ fear of “the guillotine”, which is a flat out lie on the part of anyone who does say that. Do the years 1848 or 1871 ring a bell? Anyone who’s looking for examples of the absolute savagery of reaction in the face of quite modest and relatively non-violent self-assertions on the part of the workers will find them there.
I’m not sure who you’re arguing with in the first place, but the idea that bottom-up political assertion on the part of the people ever set the pace for how much revolutionary violence ensued is simply false. While we can’t prove there would never have been a reign of terror in France if not for the invasion of monarchist armies and the king’s treason, we do know as an historical fact that that was the proximate cause for it.
Your whitewashing of reaction here is, as I said, bizarre. You’d be forced to agree with anyone who claims the permanent war is simply a rational response to an actual existential threat from terrorism, which is of course nonsense.
Whether or not the kleptocracy moves to a fascist level of violence will be a function of their organizational/economic ability to do so, and of how much resolve they have. But their contempt for the people is already absolute, and certainly nothing “from below” can appease them, the way you seem to be saying.
attempter,
It is not my comments that have “taken a bizarre turn“ in this thread, but those of gordon and yourself.
When I wrote the comment above about how the middle class did make common cause with the working class (as well as a significant chunk of the upper class) in the US to bring about the New Deal, I wondered what your reaction would be. It is, after all, counterfactual to your belief system. But I didn’t have to wait long for a response. “I’d say there’s precisely zero chance the kleptocracy will voluntarily surrender any power,” you proclaim. “One way or another, only force of circumstances will liquidate that power.”
This is pure Leninist dogma—-that revolution has to be an armed insurrection. And the fact that the Bolsheviks rewrote the history of the Russian Revolution to conform to this dogma seems to be entirely lost upon you. The ugly truth that confronts the professional revolutionaries of the New Left is that the greatest strides towards equality, justice and fairness for mankind have occurred when the elites have made common cause with the hoi polloi. Kevin Phillips said it most eloquently:
A point to underscore: serious US arousal against abuses of wealth and power has always transcended class lines—-class warfare is both a rare bird and dubious term—-and many of the notable triumphs have been led by persons with sophisticated and affluent backgrounds: Jefferson of Monticello and the Roosevelts of Oyster Bay and Hyde Park. Indeed, George Washington of Mount Vernon led the earlier opposition to concentrated wealth and hauteur three thousand miles away in London that created the United States.
–Kevin Phillips, Wealth & Democracy
But beyond bizarre are the unbelievable “logical” contortions you put yourself through in order to defend tyranny, as evidenced in this statement:
As for the Bolsheviks, while they were to some extent intrinsically despotic, they also faced the immediate goal of suppressing domestic counter-revolution, first from the right-leaning “liberal” Kadets, the equivalent of today’s establishment Democratic party, and then from the Whites. So to claim that in the absence of treason and invasion they would have been just as violent is simply a vain hypothetical you’re falsely alleging as true.
Suppressing domestic counter-revolution? Treason? Since when is democracy counter-revolution? Since when is democracy treason?
In the first and only nationwide election that came after the October 1917 overturn, the Social Revolutionary Party, a rival revolutionary party with a large rural constituency, won 42 percent of the national vote. The Bolsheviks won only 25 percent, and the rest was split between other parties. But when the elected Constituent Assembly met in January of 1918, it was promptly dispersed by Bolshevik troops.
The “bizarre” thing is that you do not mount a defense of socialism, but of tyranny, of dictatorship. For the Social Revolutionary Party was also a socialist party.
Somewhere along the line the fact that Lenin and Trotsky were not very nice people, that they were cut from the same cloth as Adolf Hitler, gets lost. Lenin and Trotsky get conflated with socialism, an economic system that must be defended against capitalism at all costs.
And it also gets lost that the real battle is not between socialism and capitalism, but between democracy and tyranny, between human and political rights, and the absence of those rights.
As Hannah Arendt put it in Crises of the Republic, “The chief distinction today is not between socialist and capitalist countries, but between countries that respect these rights, as , for instance, Sweden on one side, the United States on the other, and those that do not, as, for instance, Franco’s Spain on one side, Soviet Russia on the other.”
I have no idea what “belief system” you’re even referring to. I didn’t advocate a single thing in this thread. I just referred to the data of history, the trends. That you could mention an example from a modern democracy when it was still largely democratic, I didn’t really consider very germane. More of an outlier.
I didn’t say a word about violence, nor have I ever advocated a Bolshevik-style coup, which all sane people know is impossible so long as the system is intact.
One way or another, only force of circumstances will liquidate that power.
By which of course I mean some combination of it collapsing of its own weight and spontaneous revolt from below. Probably far more of the former. As I’ve said here a hundred times.
As for your absurd conflation of Kerensky with the will of democracy (and therefore your implicit born-againism as a believer in the “democracy” represented by Obama/Bush and today’s system), if he and the Kadets were carrying out the will of the February Revolution, why did the Bolsheviks steadily gain electoral support? Why did the SRs split in half over who still supported Kerensky and who considered him a treacherous rogue?
Yes, I stand by the word “treason”. Kerensky was a traitor to democracy just like Obama is.
The reason I didn’t discuss socialism in this whole thread, as I already told you, is because in this whole thread and in the Schama one, as I thought was obvious (though evidently not, given your bizarre imputation of some “belief system” to me here, what belief I can’t imagine), I’m simply commenting on the present moment as a “revolutionary situation”, not as any particular advocate.
But since you insist, here’s my advocacy:
1. As I’ve said many times, I don’t think “coups” or the popular conception of “revolutions” are possible against an intact modern system.
2. The system is unsustainable (both inherently and because of Peak Oil) and will collapse of its own weight, possibly aided by mass protest, but I’m not betting on that.
3. The elites will use whatever violence is possible to try to prop themselves up as long as possible.
4. I advocate a general relocalization offensive which would necessarily be decentralized, though I advocate some level of coordination among relocalization groups. (So much for your absurd accusation that I’m some kind of Leninist.)
5. The level of coordination should include the capacity for larger-scale advocacy or protest or resistance, non-violent or otherwise. If you’re looking for historical analogues beyond the American colonies themselves, try the Spanish communes of the 30s. I have the highest admiration for the fighters of the Spanish Civil War, so if you want to smear them too, go for it.
I didn’t talk about any of that in these threads because that’s not what I was talking about. How ridiculous – you’re like a book reviewer who complains that a book was about something different from what he wanted it to be about.
And again, none of your misconceptions about me explain your propensity in this thread to engage in malign whitewashing of allegedly innocent reactionaries down through history, or the elites today.
I really have no idea what you’re talking about.
Downsouth, you seem to think that democratic institutions could or would have developed in Russia, in France and in England without revolutions. I have heard this line on a number of occasions. It is counterfactual, and relies more on faith and on a conservative revulsion against revolution than on anything else. The facts of history are as they are; democratic institutions in all those countries arose as a result of revolutions. This was also the case in the US and in South/Central America. No revolution, no democracy.
Um, so the “propaganda technique” is to have journalists believe something they would not believe if they fact checked?
And the fact checking you propose is for those journalists your archives for your opinions (since out of the 3 examples cited only 1 includes an administration figure)?
And even though you cite Gibbs saying, as he did over and over that the administration wasn’t considering nationalization, you fault the administration rather than the journalists themselves for the inaccuracy?
Kind of like blaming Ken Salazar for not cleaning up the oil spill BP caused, isn’t it?
just saying…
Goebbels found “The Big Lie” to be very effective, as was (among numerous other illustrations) the Bush Administration’s to convince the public that Al Quaeda was in bed with Saddam Hussein. You deny that simple propaganda techniques work when their is compelling evidence to the contrary. And yes, journalists are expected to meet basic standards of factual accuracy, and that is one of the reasons. You appear to be denying that concept.
As for the referral to my blog, in case you hadn’t noticed, the entries in question all reference verifiable events and supply links to provide support. You imply that this blog is sheer fabrication.
Finally, it is a straw man argument to say that I was instructing the journalists in question to use my blog as a cross check. That is not in the post, nor could it be inferred from what I wrote. It was clearly meant to deride their efforts to do any independent verification of what they were fed by Administration sources.
All I’m saying is that regardless of what Geithner says the administration was on record as having one position: it wasn’t going to nationalize banks; you yourself quoted Gibbs saying exactly that.
It’s the journalist’s responsibility to reconcile Geithner’s statement so call the journalists a shill if you like but that’s different from the administration using journalists to push a consistent lie which was the Bush administration’s favorite tactic.
Regarding the content of your blog I regard it as editorial, so your citations are most likely consistent with your positions. Opposing views would most likely be left off the page.
Hey Yves,
In regards to the “empire strikes back” article, this quote:
“Obama is widely reported to have studied the early days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration for inspiration; it would be impossible for him to miss the dramatic steps FDR took, including supporting the continuation of a Senate Banking Committee investigation into the misdeeds of the Roaring Twenties, the Pecora Commission”
And Bernanke is said to be a student of the depression. I think we are looking at it wrong. What these guys study the depression for is to say “things were done wrong” then. They study the depression to make sure that we don’t have what happened after the depression have happen again; a healthy middle class, strong gov’t regulations/protections, a more progressive tax system. These guys wanted the depression to result in a massive shift to a feudal state. So now that they have the opportunity with another Depression, they are fixing the system to turn us into a feudal state.
That is a pessimistic view, and I would add, very perceptive.
Me to
I’m open to ideas on why it is that every person over 50 in this country suffers from some mysterious disease that causes them to dream up the most ludicrous conspiracy theories. Is it caused by hormones? A lifetime of priviledge? Or are you just bored?
Who gives a chit? There’s a gaping hole spewing oil into the gulf and you’re worried about a time line of when someone decided not to do something? Lame, lame entry.
Yes, because it’s not like those who can not remember history will be forced to repeat it. Why should any of care about how Bush gutted the MMS and made it a creature of the oil companies, how Obama and Ken Salazar have been big proponents of offshore drilling, and how they studiously avoided reconstituting the MMS into an effective regulatory. Much better to understand nothing, throw up our hands and wail there is oil spilling in the Gulf, like no one could have foreseen this.
Sorry for the typos, cat sitting on mouse syndrome.
Ah, yes, “no one could have foreseen this”; “mistakes were made”; “I discovered an inexpicable fatal flaw in my world view—greed is not self-regulating after all” and “who knew Afghanistan was known as ‘the graveyard of empires’, or that the whore of Babylon would fall.” This is a confederacy of dunces, the blind poking the blind?
BTW, I just knew you were an animal lover! Hey, where’s the antidote du jour?
If it has not been said by someone else, revisionism is just another word for lying. When you look at the vast distance between this Administration’s rhetoric and its actions, the question is less about where it is lying and more about where it isn’t.
As for the MSM and the White House press corps in particular they are notorious for not factchecking. They are known for regurgitating talking points uncritically in exchange for access. There is nothing new in this. It has been going on for years.
The debate about nationalization is ludicrous. The banks have de facto been nationalized. At least, the debt part. It belongs to us all. It’s just the profits part we don’t have.
Why would Obama wish to portray his decision to not intervene in the big banks as one made following a high-level economic confab instead of behind closed doors with his closest advisors? The answer is simple. Most Americans hate the bailout. They blame Obama. Making it appear to have been a thoroughly thought-out process would hopefully generate a “well, he tried his best” response – making Obama appear to be not corrupt but incompetent. Bush proved that incompetence trumps corruption – Obama is merely taking a play from Bush’s book. God help us all.
“I’m open to other theories as to why Team Obama is going to such extremes to change the record.”
Why is anyone surprised by this? This is standard operating procedure for image management for the purposes of building or maintaining power. It has been for thousands of years… humans have always told “tall tales” and attempted to manipulate public opinion when campaigning for the support and/or admiration of others. The only real different is in today’s world we have all the wonders of technology to aid in the fabrication of reality in order to cater to those in power.
Team Obama learned how to do this while on the campaign trail for president… probably earlier. One need look no further than Axelrod, propagandist and astro-turf magician extraordinaire (from his advertising background). Anyone who made some small effort to research who Obama really was (rather than what the MSM or his campaign was spinning) readily discovered that Obama was always going to be a more attractively packaged Bush III.
Sadly all those who voted for him have to fall back on is that McCain would have been worse, or fear-and-loathing of Palin (the emotional hysteria here was/is quite incredible and worthy of prowrestling fandom)… when you have NO real positives for your candidate is to find others to trash. And so the Dems trash Palin and the tea-partiers in order to deflect from and excuse their own party’s leaders misdeeds, lies and corruption. All very pathetic. No wonder so many folks are leaving both parties.
Oops, this was not a reply… should have been a stand alone comment.
Null hypothesis for testing: Obama needs to shore up his teabag-level laissez faire cred to get ready for a bank that’s too far gone to take the prior approach and prop it up and put sunglasses on it. Another disorderly bank failure’s on the way and right-wing resistance means he can’t raid the public purse to camouflage insolvency again. Evidence in support would be renewed propaganda about impending financial apocalypse as credit market stress increase.
According to New York magazine, Krugman’s responsible for not nationalizing the banks…
———————–
Obama Is From Mars, Wall Street Is From Venus
by…John Heilemann
http://nymag.com/news/politics/66188/index3.html
After countless rehearsals of the options, Obama wanted to hear a broader range of voices. So in April, a dinner was set up at the White House with the president and a clutch of big-name economists: Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, Alan Blinder, Kenneth Rogoff. “That turned out to be a defining moment in the debate,” Geithner told me. “Partly because they were all disagreeing with each other, and partly because they knew what they were against but not exactly what they were for and what it entailed—except Krugman. He was the only one willing to say, ‘Look, there’s a good case for nationalizing, but if you do, you have to understand two things: One, it’s incredibly expensive, it’ll cost trillions; and two, you have to guarantee everything.’ ” Once again, Obama cast his lot with Geithner.
—————————-
Please read the post again. I linked to that article and the post shreds it.
I’m still surprised that people believe that Pres. Obama is corrupt or even somehow evil. As I read him, he’s just a little guy from an unprivileged background who is black and was nominated over Hilary because he had a nice speaking style and had a good track record as a fundraiser and maybe he would have better success in getting the black vote out. During the primaries, the mortgage bubble started to look bad but everybody expected the Federal Reserve to step in an fix it – it was a funny financial thing and the technocrats would make it go away.
It was only close to the election that this tiresome and unexpected problem actually had to be addressed by the candidates, much to their irritation. It wasn’t on the policy programme for the Democrats, who basically just wanted and expected a re-run of Clinton. Of course they didn’t think seriously about it. It wasn’t supposed to happen.
So now Pres. Obama, who was never selected to handle this sort of thing, is stuck with it. And he’s just a little guy who wanted to climb the greasy pole, and has done so very successfully, and that’s a good thing, right? He wants to succeed, to fit in, to be accepted at the top as an unprivileged black guy who made good. He’s the least likely person to initiate and manage major reform or to confront big issues. But that doesn’t mean he’s corrupt or evil, just hopelessly the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Hey, I worked hard to get Obama elected, as did my family…
am I guilty of the murders he now sanctions…?
Is this just a nightmare?…
that Obama turned out to be the errand boy for Wall Street plutocrats and corporate marauders?
…that Obama simply takes orders from the military who have effected a silent coup?
I’ve just read Randall Wray’s neat future history post on the US Revolution of 2017.
http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2010/05/great-depression-and-revolution-of-2017.html
Recommended. Heaps of fun.
“While some economists have dismissed Greenspan’s public statements as the rants of “a senile old man” others have noted that the statements have become remarkably cogent in contrast to the testimonies he used to provide as Chairman.”
Well, oddly enough, when his book came out Charlie Rose asked him what was the greatest danger facing the US, and really tried to get him to admit it was the sorry state of the stupid, uneducated American public.
I totally expected him to take the bait (doesn’t everyone?) but Greenie, of all people, firmly stuck to his guns that the greatest danger was rising income inequality.
Wow do these comments get way off topic really quick! I thought this article was about revisionist history and how they are being given a pass by our media “reporters” (more like transcribers to me). I was also very surprised that Felix Salmon didn’t pick up on that little revision by the administration. So now that Yves and others have picked up on that, shouldn’t we be giving Alter and Heilemann grief over their lack of quality “reporting”?