Leftrants

But no contractor has ever been prosecuted, suspended or fined for trafficking abuses on U.S. military contracts. When pressed for a reason, McCahon responded, ‘If you look at most of the defense contractors, the large entities, they tend to be staffed and headed by former generals. They still have friends in the Pentagon.’

Now, let’s suppose a financial oligarchy has seized control of the country, and, since it can’t control its own appetites, is running it into the ground. Then it would make sense for it to have some sort of back-up plan for when the whole financial house of cards falls apart. Ideally, this plan would effectively put down any chance of revolt of the downtrodden masses, and allow the oligarchy to maintain security and hold onto its wealth. Peacetime is fine for as long as it can placate the populace with bread and circuses, but when a financial calamity causes the economy to crater and bread and circuses turn scarce, a handy fallback is war.

The devolution of the political system through the infusion of corporate money, the rewriting of laws and regulations to remove checks on corporate power, the seizure of the press, especially the electronic press, by a handful of corporations to silence dissent, and the rise of the wholesale security and surveillance state have led to “the death of the party system” and the emergence of what Ali called “an extreme center.” Working people are being ruthlessly sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit—a scenario dramatically on display in Greece. And there is no mechanism or institution left within the structures of the capitalist system to halt or mitigate the reconfiguration of the global economy into merciless neofeudalism, a world of masters and serfs.

But the problem with exceptionalism is that it can turn unintentionally comic with the drop of a hat. You’re made to believe you’re at the center of an envious universe, but then the world changes just enough and suddenly you’re a punchline clinging to a lot of incoherent emotions.

Recall that John F. Kennedy made speeches calling for a Civil Rights Bill and for Medicare and other reforms… and most political observers at the time deemed his odds of getting them through Congress as close to nil. Little better than Obama’s chance of getting an infrastructure bill, to repair the nation’s bridges, past a 100% obstructionist and idea-free GOP Congress — yes that little. Johnson, in contrast, used the national trauma over Kennedy’s death - leveraging it with his own notorious arm-twisting skills - to get approval of every single legislative item that JFK wanted.

It’s important to understand that Washington is ruled by true extremists, once known inside the Beltway as “the crazies.” This has been true since before 9/11. A few are outright fascists. Asserting US dominance is their undisguised game, and, as the events in Ukraine demonstrate, they are prepared to risk a nuclear war with Russia. These people should be the common enemy of all sane human beings.

Durbin and Feinstein, two senior Senate Democrats, invited Netanyahu to a closed-door meeting with Democratic senators in a letter on Monday, warning that making U.S.-Israeli relations a partisan political issue could have ‘lasting repercussions.’

Perhaps most disturbing, that “end” doesn’t even pretend to be an aim of thwarting terrorist plots or even listening in on terrorist communications. Rather, what was once regarded as means of achieving these aims—collecting intelligence—has become the end in and of itself.

I believe that there will be ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don’t think it will be based on the color of the skin…

…I remain amazed by all the people who still think that Bush II’s decision to invade Iraq is a puzzle that requires some triple-bank-shot explanation. Political gains and securing an oil supply and financial self-interest may have had a marginal effect in some cases, but really the simplest explanation is by far the most plausible: we invaded Iraq because the persons most responsible for foreign policy in the Bush administration had long favored much more use of military force in general and the invasion of Iraq in particular. Getting most of the same gang back together is a really horrible idea.

We’re in a state of perpetual war and have no intention of escaping it. Certainly we have no intention of critiquing our own actions or — don’t be silly — questioning the effectiveness of war, occupation or high-tech terror (think: “shock and awe”) as a means to create a stable, secure world. The interests of war have dug in for the long haul, fortified by the cynicism of the media they own. The voices of reason cry from the margins. When a trickle of sanity finds its way into the mainstream, it’s mocked until it goes away.

Privatization of war is making it far easier for America’s imperial state to wage endless war throughout the world.

In American discourse the phrase “free market capitalism” has evolved to mean something very specific:  a market for goods and services entirely free of any government involvement or regulation.  But this is a perversion of what the term originally meant.  The “free market” as originally conceived, meant a market in which all suppliers and consumers of goods and services were able to compete with each other in pursuit of their own self-interest, free of coercion from any single or small group of economic actors (which includes the government, but which also includes any extraordinarily powerful private actors as well).   As originally conceived, in order for a “free market” to exist at least three factors have to be present:  (i) there must be a sufficient number of suppliers competing with each other to sell products/services, and no single supplier or small group of suppliers can be large enough to set prices on its own; (ii) there must be a sufficient number of consumers competing with each other to purchase products/services, and no single consumer or small group of consumers can be large enough to set prices on its own; and (iii) there must be transparency of information, such that all consumers and suppliers in any particular market can bargain rationally, and no particular economic actor can use superior information to obtain an advantage over another when bargaining. Only if all three factors are present are market participants truly free to make rational decisions in pursuit of their own self-interests.  But – very often – one or more of these factors is missing.  When that happens, and in direct furtherance of free market principles, the government needs to step in and correct the system so that the benefits of free market capitalism can flow once again to society.   In fact, this is the entire point of our antitrust, labor protection, and consumer protection laws.  We have laws to prohibit (or, in the case of utility companies, regulate) monopolies because monopolies give too much power to a single economic supplier and that distorts the market until it no longer is “free” – it is enslaved to the monopolist.  We have laws establishing minimum wages, overtime pay, standard workweeks, and union protection because otherwise employers have too much economic power to “consume” labor, and can very often essentially force people to work for slave wages.  And we have anti-fraud regulations and truth-in-advertising laws so that the sellers of goods and services, who naturally have an information advantage over buyers, can’t take advantage of their superior knowledge in order to cheat their customers. All of these are examples of government interference in the market, and all of them are examples of the government interfering in order to promote free market capitalism.  Contrary to the way “free market capitalism” is casually understood in this country, the fact is that without necessary government interference and regulation there would be no free market. This seems to be recognized throughout most of the developed world except, curiously, here in America.