Attacking on Seriousness Itself

"Our world” is neither sane or insane, good or evil. It just is.

Whether we like it or not, sanity and goodness are human concepts subject to constant redefinition and reorientation based on OUR related proximity, interdependence, and mutual obligations. Those mutual obligations transcend individual conscious apprehension, but not in a mystical way. Those mutual obligations stem from collective and institutional choices.

Some people, whether they admit it or not, are almost all about “the self”.

Others are more grounded in their immediate or extended family.

Then there are more abstract identifications or “sources of commonality” such as tribe, race, religion, nation, species, or common sentience (the ability to feel pain or exchange affection for examples). But given our proclivities for carelessness, self-destruction, and mutual predation, those commonalities can only be protected by the creation, shaping, and reshaping of laws and institutions.  Institutions are the imperfect human creations that can allow us to transcend pettiness, parochialism, opportunism, and savage forms of atavism.

That is what the trimpers are attacking whether they realize it or not. They are attacking the institutions of self-government and constitutional democracy. 

One of the fundamental ideas to arise out of The Enlightenment is that human freedom and decency is always imperiled by concentrated power unchecked by countervailing interests.  Starting in the 1600s, wealthy Europeans who were not of royal or noble descent worked hard to limit the power of government (kings and parliaments). These efforts grew out of efforts to constrain lawless robber barons and to end internecine slaughters fueled in part by misguided religious fervor. Yes, they did this to protect human freedom and decency. But also to protect their own private wealth. No human or human institution is entirely pure in their motivations or make-up.

The language used then and now about freedom and protection from tyranny are all focused on the power of the state, but tend to ignore the power of concentrated wealth outside of direct government control.

Corporate (ultimately “private” in today’s legal system) wealth now exerts undue influence over laws, institutions, and governments — and the results are the current ongoing circus cesspools of which trimp is just one vile symptom.

There definitely should be power centers outside of state control (no matter how “democratic” the government), but those power centers still need to be held accountable to other interests (workers, consumers, families, communities, the environment etc. etc). It may sound vague and unworkable but such structures of control and accountability are slowly evolving although their development may not be sufficient given the potential for major political, economic, and environmental crises that we can neither satisfactorily ignore nor contend with right now.  

All this is under attack from the trimpers.

The trimpers now have at their disposal one the the major established political parties in the US, still the most powerful polity and empire ever to have existed

The trimpers and the GOP have access to certain religious and mass entertainment sentiments that have been rudely cultivated over recent centuries coincident with the development of state capitalism. Other sentiments they have access to are racism, jingoism, and economic insecurity.  And, of course, they are able to exploit a source of resentment and frustration that all of share which all stem from the stubborn fact that no individual or institution is purely good or sane. Additionally, trimpers and the GOP have access to many institutionalized (habitual and class-based) techniques for exploiting these sentiments for the benefit of a tiny elite which has grown increasingly powerful and immune from political checks and balances.

It is this unchecked and unaccountable power of a tiny and irresponsible elite that animates trimpism and the current configuration of the GOP

It is this unchecked and unaccountable power of a tiny and irresponsible elite that animates the current attack on seriousness, the rule of law, and the institutions of self-government as a liberal constitutional democracy.

Seriousness and sanity are not guaranteed to us.  

They are for us to cultivate and to protect.

We may or may not be up to the challenge.

A recent popular film is entitled "The Joker." It purports to give a human dimension to a comic book super-villain famous for sowing chaos and destruction for the sole purpose of inflicting dismay on anyone who might imagine themselves to be "pure" or heart or, worse, "innocent".  I haven't seen that movie.

A movie which I have seen is Beatriz at Dinner. In this film, a jocular billionaire played involved in shady politics and callous depredations against the environment turns to the title character and earnestly says something to the effect of :

"We're all going to die. Everything is going to be destroyed.  Why take it too seriously?  Why not enjoy yourself to the extent that you can?"

Why take government seriously?  Why take evidence seriously?  Why take laws seriously?  Why take seriousness seriously?

We are inherently neither sane nor insane, good nor evil.  We are not inherently serious nor are we by nature totally scattered and unaccountable.  What we feel to be sanity, goodness, and seriousness all require difficult, frustrating, and collective effort. There are understandable reasons why this effort can seem too overwhelming, too demanding, and too ill-fated. There are also those who idiotically profit (very short term and self destructively) from our loss of faith in laws, institutions, sanity, and seriousness. trimp is only one of those types of people.

We have choices to make, and we will get the institutions we collectively deserve. 




Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass.  He is currently working on his second novel I Wanna Be Evil.

Some Day Maybe We'll GET REAL about Healthcare

Some day (maybe) we'll get real.

Then we'll realize what has always been obvious: the BEST way to reduce healthcare costs is to TOTALLY eliminate the profit motive from the system.

That means ALL reputable (and certified) doctors in the US would work for state-certified community-based health care centers and nonprofit hospitals.

Drug development is ALREADY primarily directed by the federal government swishing finances through elite nonprofit research institutions (MIT etc). Drug marketing and distribution could also be handled by regulated nonprofits.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

“Socialized medicine” need not be run by “da Fedrul Gubmint”. It can be a widely distributed, multilevel system VERY accessible to oversight, checks and balances, and COMPETITION!!!

It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a generation to cultivate a vineyard or a forest. It will take a long time to get this right, and Medicare for All is not necessarily a false step any more than ObamaCare is (was?)

It would take a LOT LESS time if we would only stop deceiving ourselves with nonsensical neoliberal capitalist malarkey!

Yes, democrats are (for now) having the wrong type of debate. But this is the world we live in.

Right now we're allowing our healthcare delivery system to be overseen by an internationalized, profit ravenous, corporatized insurance industry. That's not unlike permitting a coven of vampires to run our emergency blood supply.

That's not to attribute malevolence to for-profit corporations any more than I would attribute malevolence to a pack of wolves dismembering a bleating Bambi, a scorpion stunning and then devouring a slug, or a silent owl swooping down to rip away from its cozy nest a screeching baby bunny rabbit.

We just have to get our minds and the incentives right.


Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass.  He is currently working on his second novel I Wanna Be Evil.

Fantastically Dangerous Course!

Yes, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are taking big risks.

It’s always dangerous taking on the rich and the powerful to support the ordinary, the struggling, the trodden upon, and the bewildered. One reason it’s so risky is that the people, whom true heroes fight to protect and to uplift, may be easily turned against them when they aren’t simply persuaded to stop their ears and walk away.

Yes, they are taking a big chance.

And so are we if we support them.

There is NO solid evidence that any true democracy has EVER worked, or that the majority of any population has what it takes to manage our own self-government in ways that don’t catastrophically lead to even more predation by the few upon the many.

Right now we have a “leader” with a genius for whipping our worst instincts toward predation, domination, and self-destruction. Elizabeth and Bernie believe we can do better - and THAT is a very risky course to take.

They are called dreamers. Fantasists!

But WHAT nightmares of emptiness do their detractors “believe” in?



Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass.  He is currently working on his second novel I Wanna Be Evil.

DEMOCRACY is the ENEMY

Democracy has ALWAYS been the enemy and EVER will be to the tiny oligarchies which have held sway in every civilization so far.

Democracy is even radically toxic to itself. Thus the treacherous, long, and uncertain STRUGGLE of democracy to control ITSELF through arduous processes of building internal checks & balances while ever scrambling to belatedly forge counterweights against emerging new forms of concentrated wealth.

In the Post WWII attack against social democracy and liberal institutions, the “neoliberal” enemies of democracy pretended market forces would inevitably make democracy superfluous by some combination of meeting all our needs AND by making all organized resistance totally futile. But the oligarchic enemies of democracies do not put their trust in contrived or abstract historical forces. They use their vast resources to employ “the best & the brightest” to rig every game for their own narrow idiotic benefit. This goes back to well before Plato, but for recent examples, serious democrats would do well to peruse two well written and well researched popular articles in The Atlantic and The Institute for New Economic Thinking.

“Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent’s Stealth Takeover of America” is by Lynn Parramore. Her article in Inteconomics.org is a review of historian Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains”. It describes the work and influence of James McGill Buchanan, a lynchpin and major architect of the right-wing libertarian “brain trust” most associated today with the “gravy rich” Koch brothers but also thickly supported by “Shell Oil, Exxon, Ford, IBM, Chase Manhattan Bank, and General Motors”. According to Parramore, Buchanan:

“was incensed at what he saw as a move toward socialism and deeply suspicious of any form of state action that channels resources to the public. Why should the increasingly powerful federal government be able to force the wealthy to pay for goods and programs that served ordinary citizens and the poor?”

Sound familiar?

Buchanan was instrumental in developing the theory of “public choice” as another weapon against democratic efforts to use the power of government as a check against wealthy corporations and individuals. His books, including “The Limits of Liberty” and “Property as a Guarantor of Liberty” elaborated on his view of a society where a tiny band of Galtish “makers” are besieged by insatiable legions of “takers”, “parasites” and “predators”.

What can these heroes do - except use every tool they possess (including the Republican Party) to engage in:

“Suppressing voting, changing legislative processes so that a normal majority could no longer prevail, sowing public distrust of government institutions— all these were tactics toward the goal. But the Holy Grail was the Constitution: alter it and you could increase and secure the power of the wealthy in a way that no politician could ever challenge.”?

Make no mistake this is the revolutionary agenda that Shell Oil, Exxon, Ford, IBM, Chase Manhattan Bank, General Motors and other corporations CAN be forced to disavow, but which they will pursue to its deadly limit if permitted. Make no mistake, the attack on democracy is serious, concerted, dangerous, and extremely effective. Popular faith in democracy and its liberal forms is declining all across the western world.

Corporations were a medieval European institutional development designed to conduct monumental projects (like cathedrals) which required immense resources and multiple generations to complete. They were also employed to codify and protect the rights of free citizens to govern themselves in towns and cities with some insulation from the power of feudal lords and monarchs. Later they were used by sovereigns to bestow monopolistic privileges and other protections for risky capital intensive commercial endeavors. These included building local toll bridges, canals, and highways but also massive imperialistic enterprises involving varying combinations of commerce and conquest. Think of the British and Dutch East India Tea Companies, but also remember how many of the original 13 American English colonies were organized under corporate charters. If you live on the East Coast, it’s quite likely you’re sitting in territory once claimed by the Virginia or Massachusetts Bay Companies.

Adam Winkler in 'Corporations Are People' Is Built on an Incredible 19th-Century Lie details how, in the years following the Civil War, a small number of sharpies were able to subvert the 14th amendment, written to protect the rights of newly emancipated blacks, and transform it into a legal tool still being used to attack democracy and the Constitution itself.

Advocates for democracy need to focus their attention on how the corporate form has been subverted to become a potent weapon for idiocy and oligarchy. Corporations need to be held accountable via multiple legal and institutional mechanisms to workers, consumers, and levels of community (from local to international). Concentrations of wealth and power need to be justified by their service to the public good as defined in multiple contending forums. And WE need to raise ourselves to arduous challenges which extend far beyond harnessing and domesticating these power centers. WE need to cultivate in ourselves the abilities to keep all manner of institutions functioning in ways that do not ever again give unlicensed power to an irresponsible few. That means education for the knowledge and habits of mind required for democracy to govern itself as well as for multitudes of other more specialized skills.

The price of liberty, as one slaveholding founding father was right to point out, is “eternal vigilance”. But the rich and powerful have the time and money to not only wait for us to become cloudy and drowsy, but they also have the resources to lull us into self-deceptive versions of “moderation” or to incite us into self-defeating spasms of “extremism”. They can always hire more interchangeable “brains”. They can afford to wait and make mistakes.








Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass for which he is seeking an agent . . .)

The Demonization of the US

It is infinitely true that we should never countenance efforts to minimize ghastly crimes against Gypsies, Jews, Communists, and others demonized as deviant by fascist Nazis in Germany and in their occupied European realms. This is why some people threaten to turn the debate about what is happening to migrants and their children on the southern US border in 2019 into a kerfuffle about the term “Concentration Camps”. They are right in that The Holocaust deserves a special place in our sense of history. Somehow, we must keep its memory alive to give its victims some measure of honor and dignity which they were unjustly denied in the circumstances of how they were murdered, tortured, exploited, and confined.

Most importantly we should preserve the history of Nazi crimes against humanity to work towards the day when such atrocities are not likely to happen again.

Anywhere.

Even the US.

“Never”, unfortunately, can be part of a very self-deceiving and self-defeating formulation about history and human nature. We must be ever so careful about what sense of history we have and are supporting in the public mind. In 2019 should we compare our concentration camps for border crossing migrants with the work camps and death camps run by Nazis during WWII and feel GOOD about ourselves?

Another comparison, perhaps more apt, is between those in Germany who were not active Nazis (and who maybe had uneasy qualms about Hitler) but who said, “Well what else can we do? I wish there were a better way to deal with the problems certain people are causing US who, after all, only want to be left in peace. And anyway, the Russians have their own brutal ways of . . .”

It is strangely provocative to say that Nazis and Fascists are people too. But it is imperative to never forget this essential truth. It’s absolutely crucial to remember this NOT to normalize or excuse torture, neglect, and the demonizing ill-treatment of helpless people, BUT to keep in mind how EASY it is to ignore it, passively support it, and even endorse it without ever getting OUR hands dirty.

The ones whose hands are dirty are, just remember, “only following orders”. And are administrators of our concentration camps to blame if we don’t provide them with enough blankets and diapers ?.... What can they DO?? What can ANYBODY do? Oh well . . . Anyway, the Iranians and Chinese are out to get us.)

There is a common connotation to the word “demonize” which involves depicting certain (often helpless) people in dehumanizing ways. But if you want to create real live actual human demons, just abuse, neglect, and despise them while they are helpless children. A few of them will survive into adolescence and adulthood in ways that will make us feel additionally afraid, superior, and even more crimped in our understanding of human nature.

Meanwhile, the world is watching the US and judging us.

And the vast condescension of history will have its savage say.




Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass for which he is seeking an agent . . .)

Stinkers

Here's a dumbfounding problem with faithless American voters! It seems we're disgusted and exhausted with how our government wields power abroad, and David Brooks of the New York Times is very disappointed in us.

Yes, Iraq and Vietnam were “disasters.” But David Brook's Panglossian remonstrations ignore the monumental scope and multiple dimensions of these moral and material outrages as well as the deadly blowback that STILL devastates US far more than just the searing physical and psychic wounds of several generations of veterans. Is the problem that simply too many of us remember how both of these conflicts were a series of soulless atrocities sold to US with an endlessly repetitive litany of cynical LIES?

But Brooks does worse than blithely ignore the truly horrific dimensions of Vietnam and Iraq when he prattles about America’s “well-meaning” deployment of power into the world. What does he say about our interventions in Italy, Greece, and Iran? What about Honduras, Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua? What about the Philippines and Indonesia? Where in any of those places did the US intervene to build democracy and support human rights?

Our leaders are blind, fools, and worse.

But are WE waking up?

Can we smell the coffee? Or is it whiffs of burning blood and cordite that we twist away from?

In the meantime refugees and their children flee from the charnel houses we’ve created in Central America and trudge a winding grinding treck through Mexico only to be coldly greeted by our very special form of tortured hospitality.

Hooray for US!

Stinkers...

Would we be more morally reprehensible if most of us were actually profiting from the chaos and despair with which we scourge the world? We sure do gobble up the cheap gadgets, clothes, and furnishing assembled for us in suicide factories armed with guards and barbed wire. And immigrants with and without correct paperwork labor cheaply in sun-scorched fields and sweltering kitchens to keep us fed. Need a new roof cheap or a rapid paint job on your second house? Those quick clean workers don't speak much English yet, do they?

Right now the mainstream media is reporting the following.

• The US is the worst developed country in the world in which to GIVE BIRTH.

• The LIFE EXPECTANCY of US residents is still declining.

• The US HEALTHCARE system is deplorable when compared to other developed nations.

• Our EDUCATION systems are far from stellar.

• The state of our PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE is somewhere between subpar and a shambles.

But voters don't thrill to the idea of MORE overseas adventures?

Something sure stinks.

Is it fake news?

Or could it be US?





Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass for which he is seeking an agent . . .)

The GOP IS an Apocalypse (and so are we)

“My mentor William F. Buckley vowed to stand athwart history yelling “Stop!” Today’s Republicans don’t even seem to see the train that is running them over.” 

— David Brooks

Simply because "Today's Republicans" are not as diverse and contentious as Democrats, doesn't mean they are a monolith.  Aging rural "whites" and fundamentalist "Christians" are distinct groups no matter how much they overlap. Hair-on-fire working stiffs and dead-eyed plutocrats share nothing save a sick propensity to latch onto conspiracy theories.  Such groups and their historical counterparts have a long and dismal track record in the US and other developed nations engaged in shallow experimentation with liberal democracy. 

David Brooks glosses over the revanchist and racist brutality lurking just below the bovine stupidity of the populist base of our current reactionary coalition to try to assure us it is doomed by demographics.  No doubt Mr. Brooks is as sincere as he is earnest, but no matter how appealing his claim and how winning his sentiments, there are good reasons to challenge his optimism. 

Yes,  most young people of all backgrounds are rightly revolted by the false nationalism, racist cruelty, and misogynist "morality" that now galvanizes the G.O.P.  But such types of understandable dissatisfaction are not inevitable spurs toward positive reforms.  History proves such impulses are easily co-opted.  They are also likely to fester into swamp species of profound alienation which, in turn, can generate extremely frightening and unpredictable conditions.  Such forms of anomie are, even now, a potent driver of what passes for "today's 'conservatism'".

Nothing is more seductively "conservative" than the idea that invisible forces such as "markets" or "demographics" will solve all our problems if left to themselves. The arch of history is indeed long and determined by many forces our minds lazily lump together as "markets" or "demographics".  But many, if not most, of what are labeled as "markets" and "demographics" are susceptible to nudges.  These "nudges" come in many forms and from many sources including the wealthy, the powerful, the lucky, the damned, and the popular.  When these nudges are implemented in a relatively open and above board way, they are called "politics".  

Politics, no matter how democratic and/or technocratic, do not always lead to good results or well-advised interventions into economies and cultures, but politics has always been practiced by the few and reacted to by the many.  Right now, the US is being convulsed by the myriad reactions of the many to decades of indefensible politics by the few who may have believed our institutions could survive levels of wealth inequality which had previously lead to Great Depressions, totalitarian forms of government, and World Wars. 

Brooks makes the claim that people don’t get more conservative as they age. But the process of socialization and adaptation continues and the pressures to conform do tend to mount with seniority. While childhood trauma is the most impactful and long-lasting, every year of existence offers more opportunities to be traumatized. Much of the trimp reaction was ignited by the trauma of people losing jobs, businesses, homes, and savings in the Great Recession.  The conditions that lead to the last major recession have not been reformed away - and other forms of crisis are looming - or are in the process of being manufactured.

The corporately financed right wing has the resources, the time, and the implacable predilection to generate more crises and skillfully use them to tap into more trauma induced atavism. The fact that reactionary groups are more and more obviously an entrenched minority will only inflame their determination to scuttle democracy and hope. 

Call it fascism, populist authoritarianism, or corporate pragmatism, the forces arrayed against prospects for democracy cannot be underestimated.

Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass for which he is seeking an agent . . .)

Buying Our Way Out of trimpulism with A GREEN NEW DEAL!

It's true that someone like Howard Schultz (of "El Americano Grande with Foam" fame) has less than a snowball in hell's chance of winning the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. 

Can that really mean the only alternative for "some people" is trimp?

Aside from the fact that trimp's main motivation for seeking four more years will be to postpone jail time, . . . the answer (for some people) obviously is . . . YES!

For "some" people would actually rather have a racist, lying, emolument sucking bully with an infant's emotional bearing (and a serpent's deadly cunning) keep his shaky stubby finger on the nuclear button. 

They'd rather have that than the just alternative.

And JUST what is the "Just" alternative?

For "most people, the just alternative is actually ANYBODY, who along with noted socialist Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt, believes that food, shelter, rewarding work, dignified leisure, healthcare, and a good education are RIGHTS, not "privileges.

But "certain people" think that's all just "fairy dust".

It turns out, the kids who huddled in the back row during Civics class, slapping each other's dicks, whipping spitballs, and competing to stab the most pencils into the ceiling tiles are not the only hardcore component of the "Ever trimpers". We should never forget about the pious legions of god fearing, church going upstanders who care enough about the personhood of the unborn to line raucously behind a hate spewing oaf who thinks a free press is the enemy of "his" people. But I'm talking about the DAVOS elite, represented by Howard Schultz, Michael Bloomberg, and the best scribblers and think tanks their dirty money can buy.

They know the value of money, and they don't wanna pay taxes!

Apparently, they love the old party system we've had for such a long time now. After all, it's resulted in gridlock and stagnation for everyone except them, a tiny (0.1%) idiot elite. They love it so much they are willing to reconfigure the party labels if that will maintain the status quo which has raped them so many luxurious benefits.

Howard Schultz, after all, is a life long corporate Democrat who is willing to run as an independent in order to succor the exhausted majority of low information, disaffected, sometime voters who (he thinks) just want more of the 90s (with sprinkles).

The crafty elite (with their crafty scribblers and think tanks) think they can ride out this populist wave. They know that neither anger nor idealism can keep people mobilized for very long.

This is why the Green New Deal is so important.

Idealism can shrivel into bitter resigned cynicism - or twee escapist fantasism. Anger can metastasize into soul consuming self-hatred, - or it can explode like a sugar-dusted raisin under a broiling sun. It can also be enlisted into simplistic spasms of controlled fury orchestrated by some competent magus still lurking somewhere in the shadowy part of public life. (So far we've been lucky that the manchild in the White House remains unmanageable by anyone - except maybe Vladimir Putin.)

People need to be invested in justice so that they stay mobilized for decades and generations.

It has been done before.

Here in America.

It was the "old" New Deal.

(Original flavor... )

Revamping our energy and transportation industries will create all kinds of jobs that people will fight to protect the way people always rally to defend Social Security no matter how dazed they are by the bullshit sleaze machines.

FDR just cackles in his grave every time the Republicans try again - and fail . . .

The same goes for single payer healthcare and lifelong education.

The original New Deal is the living model. (Even though it now seems to be on life support, the Republicans will never eliminate Social Security, the basics of the 40 hour week, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid, the last spasm of the New Deal generation of politicians).

Maybe we can save the planet and build new structures of justice and democracy that ratchet us a few nachos closer to a working liberal democracy where everyone's rights are respected - and protected.

Maybe it will be seen (someday) as both patriotic and humanitarian to PAY TAXES!

What's the alternative to that?

​




Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass for which he is seeking an agent . . .)

What Can We BELIEVE about Venezuela?

It all seems embarrassingly too simple. 

The US government, in association with local elites, is staging yet another coup d'etat in a resource-rich country. Our president* and his national security chief are on public record crowing about "oil". The current administration has even hired Elliot Abrams (a long term operative with criminally bloody associations with rape, torture, and murder in Latin America) to take on a steering role in toppling the Maduro government. 

It's just too obvious!

The New York Time publishes a broadside by the presumptive "interim president" whom the US and its allies have rushed to recognize. And they include an illuminating illustrative photograph! The presumptive president stands (the caption says while attending Mass) tall like a Norman Rockwell avatar of rock ribbed New England democracy.

Maybe this time is different!?

They wouldn't try to propagandize us!  Would they?  Can our consent be manufactured just like that?

Maybe THIS time the US government is simply trying to do the right thing?

There is a galvanizing part of the human mind that craves simplicity: good v. evil, right v. wrong, the New England Patriots v. everybody else . . . (There's also an urgent part of our psyche that craves escapism, fantasy, and whimsy. Sometimes it's just "all too much" to try to sort fact from fiction. This is especially difficult when we're trying to figure out who to "root for" from our captain's chairs as we munch nachos and slurp down beers. And remember that nerdy history teacher? Remember the pranks we played and the names we called? Those were the good old days what with PJ, Bernie Bart, and Squi - and those keggers almost every weekend . . . Oh what barfing!)

The mass media including the hipper segments of the entertainment complex from The New York Times to John Oliver all agree. Maduro is a dictator who has driven his country to the brink of starvation through corruption, mismanagement, and repression. They are the ones "in the know".

Only a few voices like Noam Chomsky (is he STILL alive?) Alan Nairn, and Eva Gollinger remind us in their tireless tiresome way that nothing is truly simple. 

Eva Gollinger is a Venezuelan journalist who practices immigration law in New York. She was a confidante of Hugo Chavez and knows Nicolas Maduro. She is also familiar with the culture and history of Venezuela and has a clear-eyed, unsparing view of the situation. No doubt she should not be considered the final authority, but does the final authority come from the US mainstream corporate media?  Does it come from the US government with its checkered history and which now allows itself to be guided and represented by Elliot Abrams?

What should we believe?

Well, let's have Eva Gollinger remind us about Elliot Abrams.

He’s notoriously known for his work facilitating the arming of the Contras in Nicaragua during the “dirty wars” in the 1980’s as well as arming other death squads and right-wing paramilitary forces throughout really the region of Central America in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador that caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people. Mass slaughter, mass grave sites, torture – this is something that Elliot Abrams has justified as part of a Cold War battle. He’s adamantly anticommunist and is still caught up in that mindset and was actually convicted of, I believe it was two counts of lying, perjury, to Congress specifically about his role and the U.S. government’s role in the illegal arming of these paramilitary forces that directly assassinated thousands of innocent people in Central America in the 1980s.

This is history that we all should know. If we did, so many things here in the US and in the rest of the world might be different.

Here's more:

He actually played a key role overseeing the 2002 coup d’etat against Hugo Chavez who was president of Venezuela. It was a coup backed by the United States, not as overtly as what we are experiencing now with this current regime change operation. But the naming of Elliot Abrams has conjured up a really dark history of the United States intervening in Latin America through violence, through death, through political assassinations that resulted in the instability and chaos and insecurity and levels of violence in Central America that have carried through to today precisely to this immigration crisis that’s affecting the United States today. We can trace that directly back to Elliott Abrams and the role that he played in destabilizing the region.

By the way, Elliot Abrams doesn't always deny these allegations. Instead, he implies that the alternative to his atrocities was something worse. Socialism!

In case there are any doubts, I am not a neutral observer here. Whatever the faults of Nicholas Maduro and his Bolivarian government, I am against Elliot Abrams and what he stands for. And if Elliot Abrams is against socialism, then I'm inclined to give Socialists the benefit of quite a few doubts.

Venezuela has a long and complicated history with the US - and with democracy at home. It has had bloody dictators who, with the support of US security services, tortured and killed thousands of "socialists" and "communists" in the 1950s. It has had reformist presidents who went as far as to nationalize the oil industry in their country which by most measures has the world's largest proven oil reserves.

But let's let Attorney Eva Gollinger offer some additional explanation.

However, by the 1990s, the oil company owned by Venezuela, the state-owned company Pedevesa, was functioning practically like a private corporation benefiting the elite in power as well as the high-level oil industry executives. 

But at the same time, the foreign companies that were heavily invested in Venezuela’s oil industry, primarily U.S. based ones like Exxon, Chevron, and others, were not subject to the rules and laws that were in place in Venezuela throughout those years. For example, they weren’t paying royalties, they weren’t paying taxes. There were lots of commissions that were given to state officials. There was corruption and also in general, Venezuela wasn’t profiting as much as it should have been from those relationships. So when Chavez was elected in 1998, Pedevesa was on the verge of being privatized. That’s what was going on, and poverty had grown to nearly 80 percent in the country. So one of his main goals was to sort of take control again over the oil industry. It wasn’t to nationalize it because it was already nationalized, just to ensure it wouldn’t be privatized.

Seems like when Hugo Chavez took power he worked to make sure more of the benefits of Venezuela's oil riches flowed to the people.  Oil wealth financed access to healthcare and education which the capitalist system had never gotten around to providing. 

For his efforts, the US overthrew him in a 2002 coup. But the people of Venezuela demanded and supported Chavez's return to power. (Am I oversimplifying? Almost certainly. Google is your friend! Don't you believe THAT? Hint: Chavez was also involved in some other military coups . . . )

Hugo Chavez cavorted with Fidel Castro and sent oil to help poor people in New England. 

And Hugo Chavez was a socialist!

Hugo Chavez was certainly no saint. Neither was Nelson Mandela. And of course neither were the majority of associates and key supporters who helped run their regimes . . . er, governments. Luckily in the US we always have the best and the brightest serving in our high offices and in every president's cabinet! (Just to keep it fair we should try NOT to think about our current president* and his comrades . . . er, associates.)

Then Hugo Chavez died without establishing good institutional roles at the top or designating and grooming a successor.

Here is Eva Gollinger again:

[Maduro] is someone who has risen through the ranks of Chavismo, who began, even though he came from a humble background as a bus driver, very much connected with those deep workers rights and the union rights roots, grassroots movements. He was very connected in that sense to communities, which is the fundamental support system of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. And then he became a deputy and a legislator in the National Assembly, president of the National Assembly – the roll currently of Juan Guaido – and subsequently foreign minister for six years. So he was one of the more experienced and likable members and he was the one that Chavez eventually selected to be his successor. He wasn’t as charismatic or likable and certainly wasn’t as prepared. He always saw himself as more of one of Chavez’s soldiers rather than a leader himself of the country. He didn’t aspire to be president and wasn’t prepared. 

[Maduro] is heavily influenced by circle of advisors around him, amongst them his wife, who is a very powerful figure in the government party and who also has links to a lot of corruption and illicit activity networks throughout the country, including white-collar crime but also extortion and things that are highly problematic, especially for the first lady of the country. At the same time, there are also a lot of other advisors around him that influences his decision-making. Initially, there were some that were more experienced but that’s been weeded out as his paranoia has grown because of the increasing threats around him. And the key sort of ring around him has been tightened and been reduced in terms of people who have direct access an influence over his decision-making.

So Maduro is not the Venezuelan Abraham Lincoln. This is true even if we remember that when Washington DC was hemmed in on three sides by Confederate forces, Honest Abe instituted martial law in Maryland, suspended Habeas Corpus, and arrested private citizens. But that was history, - and this is now when Venezuela is hemmed in by Brazil to the south and Columbia to the west. Columbia is stocked with US special forces, and the US has military bases on Caribbean islands to the north.

Things are bad in Venezuela now. The collapse of oil prices forced the Maduro government to cut back on healthcare and education spending. This has weakened Maduro's support among the poor. 

US sanctions are also major contributors to the hardships of the Venezuelan people who are used to rioting in the streets but who are now fleeing across the Columbian border. Though (apparently) nobody is starving, there are food shortages. The economy is in tumult and there are hoarding and black marketeering by both private citizens and large distributors. The country is rife with conspiracy theories.

According to Eva Gollinger:

The healthcare system has deteriorated dramatically in the country, and that’s why we’re seeing millions of Venezuelans leaving the country and migrating, mainly out of the economic crisis and a need for opportunity.

What can we believe?

Before the [1973] coup in Chile that brought [the bloody dictator Augusto] Pinochet to power, Henry Kissinger famously said the US was going to “make the economy scream.” -- Bryan Bowman

Whether it's the United States, Great Britain, France, Nicaragua or Venezuela, Democracy is not a straight and narrow road. It's a steep, stony path filled with treachery, misdirection, and sometimes with bloody work. Democracy has, in some places, restrained itself with the self-controls of modern liberalism (limited government, rule of law, and countervailing powers). So far liberalism has been what has guaranteed liberal rights (free expression etc), but Democracy is really about people power. And people power demands additional rights including the rights to food, shelter, rewarding work, dignified leisure, healthcare, and education. Democracy has a long way to go. Some people call it "Socialism".

Whatever happens in Venezuela during the next weeks and months, north of the Mexican border it's all soon bound to swirl down the memory hole the way beer's flushed away during station breaks in the Stuperbowl.

But some of us might try to remember. Might try to understand.

Oh and, Elliot Abrams. I was torn between voting for Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. But now thinking about you and if Bernie runs, I'm bound to vote for him. Because he calls himself a socialist!



Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass for which he is seeking an agent . . .)

The Idiot Elite and Mass Misery

When people are optimistic and doing well, they are more generous and more open to the abstract ideas of liberalism (rule of law, limited government, and countervailing powers). When people are pessimistic and feel like they are falling behind, they are more “conservative” and more tolerant of hate, threats of violence, disruptions, and authoritarianism.

Governmental power in the United States is divided and checked by constitutional limitations, the checks & balances of Federalism, and other forms of institutional separation of powers. Private power in the United States is highly concentrated in very few hands and is increasingly irresponsible and dangerous. The idiot elite (0.1%) have a vested interest in keeping the majority of us miserable, insecure, and bitterly divided. They depend on keeping us ignorant and pessimistic about government, and when they can, they stock government offices with incompetents and grifters so as to demonstrably discredit the idea that governments can serve the people.

The private power of the very rich needs to be countered and reduced by the forces of government and other institutions including labor unions. Otherwise, the idiot elite (0.1%) will destroy our planet’s ability to support organized human life.

It's that bad.

Luckily, it is not required that the 99% unite in some shared belief system.  It is only required that all of us (to the best of our ability) do our best to understand the complexities and urgencies of our times.  This means recognizing the vested interests of those who set themselves against the needs and the human rights of the majority.



Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass for which he is seeking an agent . . .)

Not ALL Capitalists are Idiots

Socialism is nothing but economic democracy. Economic democracy is just what we need to allow human societies and individuals to develop and express capacities stunted by a system where a tiny (0.1%) idiot elite monopolizes the vast majority of capital resources.

In order to function sustainably, Democracy (“Socialism”) must be subject to the institutional constraints of liberalism (rule of law, checks and balances, divided and countervailing powers). It must develop, support, and strengthen these institutions of self-regulation by investing them with intergenerational popular support.

 Freedom is self-control

The forces of greed and selfishness (idiocy) will never be totally vanquished. But neither will they be allowed to prevail. The forces of greed and idiocy can never guarantee the rights humanity will not be denied. These rights have been articulated by many throughout the millennia but were spelled out in stark, honest American terminology by Franklin Roosevelt in his 1944 State of the Union Address. These rights include food, shelter, the opportunity for productive work, dignity and freedom in leisure, healthcare, and a good education.

Anti-socialist, anti-democratic capitalist (0.1%) elites are forced to fight tooth and nail to deny these basic rights to humanity. They have nothing to offer us but lies, savage punishment, and threats of punishing savagery.

But, just as all workers are not saints and seers, not all capitalists are idiots. As they take the lead in globalization and automation, they are helping to lay the framework that will allow them to be replaced even as we work together to free everyone from unnecessary forms of drudgery and domination.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TazBIiAJtb0&feature=youtu.be&t=24

We Have The Picture

They had a holy cause.

The kids were there to protect the most vulnerable population they could imagine. They were there to protect the unborn, to affirm unborn humans’ rights to personhood. They wore caps expressing fealty to the temporal ambitions of a roguish man some believe to be anointed by divine authority to advance their holy cause. They had been sent, with chaperones, by their school and their diocese. They were waiting for a bus to take them home.


They had a hoody cause.

The kids were there to assert their own personhood: their right to be noticed but not shot down in the streets. They did it their own raucous way without chaperones or sponsorship, relying on their wit, their cool, their ability to puncture the presumption and the composure of any who would insult them - or ignore them. They could assert themselves, name themselves, take care of themselves. Their way.


Kids.

Not totally dependent, but not fully developed in terms of education, experience, or myelination.

Adolescent boys.

How do they ever learn if not given some freedom to make mistakes?

But apparently unsupervised adolescent boys engaging in disturbing displays (exchanging taunts, testing nerve, asserting dominance) are often unsettling to others including dogs, small children, girls, other adolescent boys, and most adults.


They had a human cause.

They were there because this was once their land. Citizenship was imposed on them in 1924; full voting rights had not been recognized for some of them until 1957. They were representing those struggling against isolation and despair, fighting to forge an identity that afforded hope and dignity in the land of their conquerors. One of them, a veteran of one of his savage conqueror’s many savage wars, noticed the two boyish tribes in their incipient fracas.

People prattle about understanding. But nobody understands.

The old man stepped in. He stepped in with his own best version of sternness, and of gentleness. He wanted to distract them. He wanted to charm them. He wanted them to understand.


A picture was taken.

A picture was taken, the smirking features of one boy eerily reminiscent of the smirking features of older boys in another photo taken years ago as they menaced other young men protesting silently by trying to order coffee at a lunch counter. Woolworths.

A picture was taken while our government is shut down and a struggle for power is escalating in ways that threaten to careen out of control.

A picture was taken of a smirk.

Many saw the smirk as a chilling symbol of the menace from those ever willing to suspend law, order, and every respect for human decency in their determination to sustain traditional forms of injustice and domination.

But others saw something different.


They had video.

They had a video which they thought should discredit those who fight for personhood and human dignity. “Ah Ha!” they crowed. “See, you have no cause! You have no rights! You are fools! What a bunch of noise you make over nothing! Pictures, you know, can be deceiving!”

Anything can be deceiving. Everything can be deceiving.

We have a president* who has built a career on deception, and who has called forth a dangerous political following based on deception. But not only on deception. We have a president* who has built up himself and his followers based on hatreds, fears, bullying, disparagement, and the nullification of others. The smirking boy proudly wore the obscene president’s* cap.


We have the picture.

The picture doesn’t really tell the whole story. What single picture could?

The picture doesn’t really tell the whole story of how churches and congregations (some very old, some exquisitely venerable) have cast their lot with their new Cyrus. (Their new Cyrus is a colossal buffoon of unmeasured criminality, treachery, and menace.)

The picture doesn’t really tell the whole story of how entire churches with all their ancient and preternatural symbolism have invested their authority in a president* who symbolizes the power of the state to tear infants from their mothers’ breast and build triumphal walls to exclude the despised.

The picture doesn’t really tell the whole story of how legions of churches marching behind a colossal Cyrus could threaten the rights, personhood, and dignity of every soul walking wearily through this broken world.

But some people want personhood for the unborn. Others want their wall.

They have their churches. They have their Cyrus.


We have the picture.




Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass for which he is seeking an agent . . .)
​

To Hate Socialism is to Hate Democracy and Human Rights

The unreasoning fear and hatred of socialism are more than simply the hatred and fear of democracy. Such unreasoning hostility is nothing other than the fear and hatred of basic human rights.

These rights include access to decent housing, medical care, and support in times of dependency, childhood, sickness, accident, unemployment and old age. These rights also include access to a good education. All this is too often damned as “socialism”. But perhaps such condemnation has finally lost its bite?

ALL of these rights and more were actually included in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1944 State of the Union Speech delivered in the throes of World War II while NAZI Germany still raged, undefeated. All these rights were fought for by the Democratic Party in the 1930s, 40s 50s, and 60s. And during that time period (when America was Great?) the Democratic Party made progress in institutionalizing these rights with no little support from many right thinking and far-seeing Republicans.

The Democratic Party’s subsequent retreat from these commitments was partially a response to the burgeoning prosperity of the 1960s when regulations were intact, the highest marginal income tax rates were much higher, and deficits were insignificant by today’s standards. The Democratic Party's retreat from these fundemental commitments was also partially a response to the growing power of concentrated wealth which was fortified by each successive tax reduction and the gradual elimination of market regulations designed to maintain a level playing field for competition and innovation.

Since the 1970s Republicans have been selling us tax cuts for the rich, falsely claiming they would not increase debt and deficits. But this was always a ruse to make the promise of America seem an impossible dream for all but a tiny few. There is a clear historical pattern demonstrating that as soon as Republicans drive up debt and deficits, they renew their screeches to cut back on protections for workers, the poor, women, consumers, old people, communities and the environment. (It’s their planetary destruction policy based on destroying jobs, hope, and our faith in each other.)

For too long establishment Democrats have been complicit or helpless in the face of the Republican passion for tax cuts craftily designed to appeal to those who feel most crushed by a system which then becomes even more crushing and ever more unfair with every tax cut that disproportionately benefits the very wealthy who can then find nothing productive to do with their accumulated wealth but “invest” it in frippery and casino capitalist speculations that only help to destroy the foundations of our economy and our society.

But the Democratic establishment may well be changing. “Becoming more ‘EXTREME’ and more Socialist!” cry the corporate pundits.

• The right to a decent income.
• The right to decent healthcare
• The RIGHT to a good education
• The RIGHT to all these things and more without the sense that any of them are “handouts” dangled before us in ways that diminish our freedom, pride, and dignity.

This is Socialism?

If this is Socialism, a new generation of Democrats may be preparing to make the most of it.

Populism is, in part, a generalized revulsion against so-called “experts” and “leaders” who have failed to regulate the system in ways that seem fair, honest, and effective. Populism is a commonly held frustration - and even disgust - with “the establishment.” The current US surge of populism includes Tea Party trimpulists but also Bernie style Democratic Socialists. What is frequently overlooked about both of these populist “wings” is that each is actually dominated by upscale and relatively well educated “whites”.

Of course, these upscale well educated “Socialist” Democrats (who are as willing to embrace the “S” word as they are the “L” word) are much younger than their authoritarian counterparts. They are more likely to be female, and they also include large cohorts of Asians and Hispanics. They are also new voters who, as they age, are somewhat likely to maintain higher levels of participation in electoral politics including voting for (and contributing funds to) candidates in off-year and primary elections. And knowing that doing so might help nudge the United States closer towards European style “Socialism” will only encourage them to maintain such commitments. Out of concern for their own future, the future of their children, and the future of the planet, these new Democratic voters harbor a certain amount of skepticism toward "establishment" Democrats who quail at the idea of being "too extreme."

Voters who do not participate in primary and off-year elections consign the fate of laws and regulations to a crusty, out of touch, minority. Citizens sell their future, their democratic rights, and the future of their children to a privileged elite when they do not support their candidates and causes with small donations of time, attention.

Citizens who do not participate in off-year and primary elections are sullenly surrendering their right and the rights of their sons, their daughters, their nieces, and their nephews. They are signing away the future of today’s generation of students.

And what are these rights?

Here they are in the words of FDR in a State of the Union speech delivered in January of 1944.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

• The right of every family to a decent home;

• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

• The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

Notice the reference to “monopolies at home and abroad”. Remember that FDR advocated a top marginal income tax rate of 90% to help prevent the accumulation of wealth that crushes opportunity and hope for the vast majority.  Today we know that in order to protect human rights and democracy, powerful corporations will have to be reoriented so that their obligations to society represented by workers, consumers, and communities cannot be disparaged, ignored, or subsumed into more selfish and irresponsible ends. 

This will not be easy, but the complexities involved should not daunt us. Systems can be designed to protect the rights of property and individuals in ways that encourage even more vitality and innovation than the bitter and destructive state capitalism we suffer today.

FDR know how to design systems to stay protected against the insidious influences of concentrated wealth and the potential for general slackness. Note how the “pay it forward” aspect of the Social Security system has, so far, been able to fend off the attacks of casino capitalists and purveyors of financial snake oil.

• The right to basic income and amenities
• The right to healthcare
• The right to an education

All these rights are now being claimed by a new generation of populists, progressives, and Democrats inc. But will we have the will and persistence to not only “claim” these rights but “institute” them such so that they may withstand the wily attacks of corporate wealth and the deadening complacence of future generations who may forget our current and future struggles?

Here are more words from that same wartime State of the Union address:

This Nation in the past two years has become an active partner in the world's greatest war against human slavery.
We have joined with like-minded people in order to defend ourselves in a world that has been gravely threatened with gangster rule.
But I do not think that any of us Americans can be content with mere survival. Sacrifices that we and our allies are making impose upon us all a sacred obligation to see to it that out of this war we and our children will gain something better than mere survival.
We are united in determination that this war shall not be followed by another interim which leads to new disaster- that we shall not repeat the tragic errors of ostrich isolationism—that we shall not repeat the excesses of the wild twenties when this Nation went for a joy ride on a roller coaster which ended in a tragic crash.

Today the greatest threat of “gangster rule” is not emanating from the destructive terrorism of those who delude themselves about an Islamic caliphate. We are also in little danger of being enslaved by Russians or the Chinese. The gravest dangers to our institutions of freedom and security are coming from the irresponsible greed and complacency of those who are illegitimately positioned to have an inordinate influence in the design of a globalized economy and the automation of our production processes. FDR knew these types very well and did not hesitate to call them out as “economic royalists” and “malefactors of great wealth.”

They, in turn, called FDR a “Socialist”!

Let the greatest of American presidents speak out for himself:

There are people who burrow through our Nation like unseeing moles, and attempt to spread the suspicion that if other Nations are encouraged to raise their standards of living, our own American standard of living must of necessity be depressed.
The fact is the very contrary. It has been shown time and again that if the standard of living of any country goes up, so does its purchasing power- and that such a rise encourages a better standard of living in neighboring countries with whom it trades. That is just plain common sense.

* * *

However, while the majority goes on about its great work without complaint, a noisy minority maintains an uproar of demands for special favors for special groups. There are pests who swarm through the lobbies of the Congress and the cocktail bars of Washington, representing these special groups as opposed to the basic interests of the Nation as a whole.

There are always those who will demand “special favors for special groups”. And then there are rights that belong to all people though we have not yet had the will or the resources to institute these rights in a sustainable way.

These basic rights include

• The right to food
• The right to shelter
• The right to dignified freedom and recreation
• The right to healthcare
• The right to an education

The post-Watergate generation of Congressional Democrats which included Joe Biden slacked off in their commitment to instituting those rights. For some of them, it was only a strategic retreat. For others, there may still be time for them to redeem themselves as honorable fighters for the cause of universal human rights. But we must depend on a new generation to learn from old mistakes.

One thing we can all agree upon is that to institute necessary rights for all humanity the right way, it must be done within the context of the greater system of liberal democracy where even the will of the people is subsumed under the rule of law as we seek to counter, balance, divide, and control illegitimate forms of concentrated wealth and power.

Good old American Socialism. Let’s do it right this time!

Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass)