Capitalism at Work

The recent circus with Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX is a great illustration of how capitalism flourishes in this country and around the world. After the collapse, we were treated to a fawning piece in the New York Times and a friendly TV interview. As with Enron and Elizabeth Holmes, I am sure SBF was treated as another young genius on CNBC and elsewhere. He seems to have also been a hero of politicians across the political spectrum. I will leave it to the pundits to tell us what lessons are to be learned. The lessons learned in the past are never heeded anyway. But there are some observaions to be made.

• When laws are written to the satisfaction of the capitalists--indeed many times the laws themselves are actually written by the capitalists themselves--there won't be much accountability. The crash of 2007-08 was caused by capitalists and their bankers, but no one of significance was even charged with a crime. Even with a Democratic president, the Recovery was done to the benefit of those who caused the mess in the first place. And that was not by accident...it was exactly the intent.

• The business press is totally unprepared to cover this kind of stuff. As long as they are getting their information from the SBF's of the world and just serve as mouthpieces, we are never going to get accurate reporting on these scams until after the fact. If something is too good to be true, it seems like at least someone in the business press would be reporting with a degree of skepticism.

• Politicians also need to be serving their constituents instead of the donor class on which they depend. When they talk about regulation "stifling innovation" they are really simply doing the bidding of their captilalist cronies. "Innovation" to capitalists is just a euphemism for "illegal and/or unethical shit".

• It ought to finally be clear that the assumption should always be that the crypto is nothing but a fraud and Ponzi scheme. The burden of proof is on the crypto world to prove otherwise. Guilty until proven innocent.

Capitalism relies on the complicity of many players to flourish. And those players provide that support time after time.

Teaching Lies

I just saw Glenn Younkin's social study proposal for Virginia. I don't know how young parents feel about all this crap today, but I must say that if I was early in my career and had kids, I would be very reluctant to take a job in a place like Virginia, Florida, Texas, or some other states. I wouldn't want my kids being taught outright lies in school. 

I say this as a person who went to elementary and high school in the 1950s and '60s, and was taught lies and half truths about American history. Schools were kind of getting to where they were teaching more accurate history, but now the Christian Nationalists want to go back to the same lies that I was taught sixty years ago.

Not good.

Worse Than Trump? Yup

For people and media who treat the GOP "pivoting" from Trump (or trying to) as an objectively good thing, I think it is crazy and delusional. You actually think that DeSantis would be better? I think it's better than 50-50 that he'd be worse. Same for Cruz, Hawley, Youngkin. (I even have my doubts about someone like Nikki Hayley.)

I think we have to start treating this as something way beyond Trump. It's the Party. It started with Reagan--maybe sooner--and was maybe perfected by Trump, but the Party is what it is.

If I go back go back to, say, Ronald Reagan, and recall what I imagined at that time the GOP would look like in the future, the current reality is unbelievably worse than any worst case scenario I imagined at the time. It is beyond incredible. And that descent didn't start in 2017. Why would I believe that the Repubs won't be even worse ten years from now? I fully expect that--like 1981--it will be worse that the worst thing I can envision today.

New York Times at Its Worst

I am not going to cancel my subscription to the NY Times. (I tried that once and came back because WaPo is even worse.) The science section, book reviews, and other places are just too good. But, having said that, I have to also say that most of the political reporting is awful. And stop with the horrible headlines.

The Times actually seems to think that any pushback for their both-sideism and love affair with Trump somehow proves that they are exactly right. There's a word for this: hubris.

Here's the actual subheadline in a Peter Baker article today:

"For the sitting president, even a triumphant ceremony to sign major domestic legislation can hardly break through the nonstop attention on his predecessor."

 The article is as bad as the headline. Baker actually wrote an article about a major piece of legislation in which the article gave nonstop attention to Biden's predecessor. They create the nonstop attention for Trump and then report the same nonstop attention that they created, as if they discovered it.

Someone save us please.

A Few Bullets

 

• I am prepared to give Biden some pretty good marks on the domestic front (Congress too). If this latest bill becomes law it is pretty good, even with the glaring holes that the Dems shamefully put in place.

• Having said that, I give his administration a D in foreign policy. The Afghan withdrawal was a positive, amd probably Ukraine. But the Middle East policy is basically unchanged from Trump, and he seems fairly committed to forever war and American Exceptionalist foreign policy.

• Blaming cancel culture (which is not a thing) on a bunch of people on Twitter who have exactly zero power brings to mind Rick Santelli blaming a few poor people with subprime mortgages for bringing the world economy to it knees -n '07-'08. The difference is that Santelli is a right wing flake, whereas today's kancel kulture kops include a lot of "liberals". Follow the money.

• The idea that the American "free press" has failed us is--in my mind--no longer in doubt. And it's all about money. Big media is run by capitalists and we know the top priority of capitalists. So sad.

About Elections

My first election was 1972. I watched millions of "centrist" and conservative Dems put Nixon in office for a second term. I watched the same thing happen again in 1980 and 1984. And to a somewhat lesser extent in 2000 and 2004.

At the state level I watched centrist Dems endorse Larry Hogan in Maryland. Biden carried Maine but a lot of folks who voted for him also voted for Susan Collins and I am guessing they weren't lefties.

Now I watch as moderates lecture and shame voters about their "duty". Not buyin' it.

Quote of the Day (6/29/22)

"Christianity became the religion of empires the moment emperors realized that they could sin all they wanted all their lives and still have their sins washed away on their deathbeds."

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Birth of a Dream Weaver (2016)

More Pessimistic Stuff

 

• With the single exception of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden's foreign policy sucks. The U.S. continues to bend the knee to Israel and Saudi Arabia. This is much worse than I expected, but utterly disappointing.

• The endless and relentless advertising for sports betting on almost every single televised sporting event is disgusting. The fact that the on-air commentators are also plugging the "sports books" while the games are in progress makes it all the more disgusting. They'll do anything for money.

• Originalism: another word for "cherry picking history".

• Stop the bullshit about Roberts being some sort of moderate. He was groomed for exactly this.

Doesn't Matter

In this good piece in the NY Times, it once again becomes clear that Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli bullet. The problem is that even when things are reported truthfully, it doesn't matter.

Many media watchdogs like Jay Rosen and Dan Froomkin have been rightfully calling out the media for years for the faulty way they often frames things, hiding behind both-sideism and faux objectivity. These things helped give us Trump and, in early days, gave quasi-legitimacy to the Big Lie.

But the pessismistic side of me believes that in the end it doesn't matter. It's easy to see that Trump side of it. But it's been clearly demonstrated that both Saudi Arabia and Israel are somewhere between ho-hum and downright complicit in the murder of journalists, but the Foreign Policy Blob under Biden is no different than under Trump. Nothing in our foreign policy will change vis-a-vis these two countries, no matter what they do. Indeed, if anything, any criticism of Israel will be called anti-Semitism even more than before.

So, I hope that Rosen, Froomkin, and others keep up the good fight. But I fear that it doesn't matter.

Since I Haven't Posted in a While

Since I haven't posted in a while:

• Why did I leave the WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) in two words? Ron Johnson. He represents everything the WELS has become.

• Most of what I learned in school about American history was a lie. The lies were so extensive that it's taken me 74 years to find out most of them, and I am still discovering more almost every day. I am embarrassed for myself that I allowed these lies to remain in my head for so long,

• I think all of the bad customer service experiences I have had in my life--and there have been scores of them--have involved private companies. There have probably been some involving some sort of government entity but I really can't think of one right now.

• If you don't like seeing homeless people, maybe you ought to support more housing.

Defund?

Defund the police? Here's my take. According to the Dem centrists, they've gotten backlash because of "defund the police". By the way, there is no place anywhere in the US that I am aware of that has defunded the police.  I live in Chicago. The police budget has gone up under Lori Lightfoot, go figure.

So, if there is backlash for something that never happened, why not have it actually happen so that we at least get something out of the backlash that's gonna happen anyway.

Pretty simple.

Sunday Pessimism

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• Christianity in this country is dead. Now there is only (White) Christian Nationalism. Believe me, that is not the same thing as Christianity. Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS): I am speaking to you, too. You have sold your soul.

• In a conversation with war criminal John Yoo at a recent right-wing conference, Clarence Thomas said that conservatives would never demonstrate simply because they don't get their way. His wife helped instigate an attempted coup because the election didn't go her way. Irony is officially dead.

• It seems that the photo of pallets of "baby formula" supposedly at the border that Hannity displayed on his show turned out to be powdered milk.

• There have always been hundreds of things to worry about in politics, culture, and society. In my lifetime I have watched in amazement as Republican presidents have been elected and reelected. But the last six or seven years have been uncannily bad. I can't think of a single thing that I was worried about in, say, 2015 that hasn't turned out to be worse than expected. Hardly a thing has happened where you'd say, "Well, I guess I was worried for nothing." With that in mind, imagine the worst-case scenario if the Repubs win the Congress and/or presidency. Whatever that scenario is that you have in your mind, it's going to be way worse.

Four Unrelated Opinions

 

• I am honestly totally cool with efforts by police and others to solve the increase in crime that seems to be happening. I am totally not cool with such efforts if they are unconstitutional, which, unfortunately, is usually the recommended remedy.

• On the minus side, I wish Biden would have done something substantial with student loans (he still might). But a big plus is that Biden really is probably the most pro-union and pro-worker president we've had in a long long time.

• I hope Tim Ryan wins the Senate seat in Ohio. But if he wins, it will be framed as proof that moderation (or whatever) is the way to go. If he loses, it will somehow be blamed on the evil Left.

• I think I agree with Osita Nwanevu (a recent thread on Twitter) that the Dems and the left need to recalibrate. We have lost. Some is our own doing and some not. But the recalibration is admitting to that fact and reconsidering how to move forward. Even if the Dems retain power now or regain it in the future, the Supreme Court is ready and willing to undo anything worthwhile that happens. If not them, then the Senate rules will stall most things (for which the Dems largely bear responsibility). I have no solution nor recommendation, but we can start by admitting and internalizing that fact.

Free Speech Nonsense

I guess I have a simple mind, because I like to keep things simple.

• Person A expresses an opinion (protected free speech).

• 100 other Persons think what Person A said is idiotic and tell Person A the same (100 more instances of protected free speech).

• According to The New York Times Editorial Board. Person A's protected free speech is valid and acceptable. The protected free speech of the other 100 Persons is invalid and dangerous.

• Go figure.

 

• The standard MSM narrative asks whether the Dems have gone too far left. Not as many queries about whether the batshit crazy Repubs who go to white supremacist rallies and want to check the genitals of school kids have maybe gone over the edge of the rightwing cliff. Normalization is complete.

• I have a relative who is a QAnon zombie and Trump supporter, and who was in Washington on January 6th. This person also has a lot of social media vitriol and advice for Joe Biden, most recently concerning Ukraine. (It's odd, though, how Trump's bromance with Putin is never mentioned.) I don't interact with this person, but if I did, it would only be to say that I discount the opinions of traitors. In the same category as Hawley and Cruz.

Politics, Crime

• It sure seems to me that what I'm hearing from the corporate Dems is that the only way to get past the obstruction of the Manchins and Sinemas (and there are others, believe me) in order to pass good stuff like Build Back Better, is to elect more Democrats to the Senate. And the only way to do that is to make sure we don't run those awful progressives. Instead, we need to run more centrist folks--presumably like Manchin and Sinema. Rinse, repeat. Stop blaming the voters and start getting shit done.

• Too often political issues are reduced to faux-binary choices. Either totally open borders or lock 'em in cages, as if there aren't other possibilities that are more decent and humane. The current crime panic is another case in point. The Ted Cruzes (and now too many Dems) tell us that our choice is between raging crime rates on the one hand, and letting cops shoot an unarmed person once in a while and reinstituting stop-and-frisk. Believe it or not, progressives are not in favor of crime. But this progressive is not in favor of, and will not support, unconstitutional solutions (some of which have dubious effectiveness anyway).

A Couple Ditties

 

• Lots of book banning going on. If all these kids from conservative (there's a more appropriate adjective that I am choosing not to use here) families need such big safe spaces, we could excuse them when these books are discussed and give them participation trophies. Everyone could be happy.

• It surely seems like the Biden administration is more and more making policy decisions based on minimizing some sort of anticipated "backlash" rather than just doing the right thing. Guess what? If you do the right thing, you're going to get batshit crazy backlash. And if you do the half-right thing, you're also going to get batshit crazy backlash. Just do the right thing. That's what I like about Bernie. No equivocation. 

Tack to the Center---Bleh

The Democratic Party is not run by progressives, and it never has been. But one wouldn't know that from most of the political reporting, and that's not just true of today. It's always been that way. The party likes having them around because (1) they are reliable votes and (2) they have someone to blame when things go bad. "Tacking to the center" has never worked but it is usually the strategy of the party.

In the Obama administration, the "moderates" (aka, the corporate Dems), convinced him to tack to the center on both immigration and Obamacare, saying they had tough reelections. Well, he did as they asked. What did we get? Sub-optimal policy, and they all lost anyway.

In the past few days, we've gotten another round of "what should Biden do to save his presidency" from a bunch of centrists. What's their prognosis? To do what Biden's pretty much already doing!

The party is run by corporate interest and K Street. Kyrsten Sinema is a K Street candidate, picked by them and Chuck Schumer. So are most of the rest of the Senate. The question someone asked on Twitter the other day was whether we think the future of the party should be centered around K Street or working people. So far the party has chosen the former and then blamed the latter when they lose elections.

2021 Reading List

Books I read in 2021:

Alice McDermott, Someone

Porochista Khakpour, Brown Album

Chana Porter, The Seep

Nelson DeMille, The Cuban Affair

Louise Erdrich, Future Home of the Living God

Tim Finch, Peace Talks

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, The Discomfort of Evening

Lara Vapnyar, Divide Me by Zero

E. J. Koh, The Magical Language of Others

Ellen Cooney, One Night Two Souls Went Walking

Isabel Allende, City of the Beasts

Da Chen, Colors of the Mountain

Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason, The Rule of Four

Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits

Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers

Edward Hirsch, How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry

Olga Tokarczuk, Flights (trans. Jennifer Croft)

Andrew Krivak, The Bear

Charles Johnson, Middle Passage

Clint Smith, How the Word is Passed

Mariana Enriquez, Things We Lost in the Fire (trans. Megan McDowell)

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

Dominic Smith, The Electric Hotel

Yu Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station (trans. Morgan Giles)

Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations

Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room

Andrew Sean Greer, Less

Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions

Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule

Rebecca Makkai, The Great Believers

Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba

Ali Smith, Autumn

Ali Smith, Winter