Kamala Harris is a COP!

This is one part of a series which has also highlighted Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden

Kamala Harris is a cop!

Kamala Harris is a cop who has sent zero bankers to jail.

Kamala Harris, an Asian Indian African American, is the “female Obama”.

Are such descriptions of career prosecutor and first-term Senator Ms. Harris more damning or reassuring?

Perhaps the answer depends on your stance toward establishment liberalism, and whether you suspect any such thing might be moving somehow closer to democratic socialism.

Kamala Harris takes the heat for Joe Biden and other corporate Dems!

So far Ms. Harris, whose website is remarkably light on policy, is forgivably reliant on her biography and demographic affiliations in her early efforts to build name recognition and to differentiate herself from announced and potential rivals in her party’s primary race. Given her MLK Day announcement it would be (cruelly?) ironic if her candidacy became emblematic of the type of liberalism decried by Dr. King:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.  

 Martin Luther King (Letter from a Birmingham Jail)

On a rhetorical level at least, the upcoming (ongoing?) Democratic Presidential Primaries will be (are!) a plebiscite on establishment liberalism. This will, no doubt, be the case whatever the fate of the candidacy of Ms. Harris.

I mean the term “establishment” here it’s broadest possible sense so that the term includes corporate democratic lobbyists and officeholders as well as Democratic Socialists (New Dealers) like Bernie and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. This is because, like it or not, all Mayors, Attorneys General, Governors, Senators, and Congresscritters are part of the “establishment” almost as much as are all major bankers, corporate executives, and those who own enough stock in major corporations to get their calls answered.

But if the “establishment” means “what is”, it can also be used to incorporate the responsibly held belief systems of those who do not hold office or wield power. The term “establishment” can, in this sense, be applied to almost anyone who might hesitate before supporting a bullying, lying, chiseling, cheating, money laundering, racist stooge of the Madison Avenue Kremlin to “shake things up” by becoming the actual President of the United States of Atomic America. In this sense, the term “establishment” includes all of us who have ever anguished when forced to select some balance point between “justice” and “order”.

Ms. Harris is right to reject being boxed in by ideologically contrived “false choices” such as any notion our only options are the abysmal wastelands created by stark unregulated Capitalism vs the hellholes of Stalinist dictatorships. But whether we own up to it or not, we are all inescapably confronted with frequent decisions where we must weigh idealism v pragmatism or order v justice - and in the immediate clutch of circumstance it avails us little to recognize such choices have been fabricated for us as much by deceptive ideological interests as by the harshness of historical circumstances. Of course we, who do not control significant swathes of resources or who do not hold offices of trust, can indulge ourselves in opinionated fantasies about our clear-eyed realism or in vague whimsies involving Dumbledore’s Hogwarts politics.

Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it.

Pericles of Athens.

In my course I have known and, according to my measure, have co-operated with great men; and I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the persons who took the lead in the business. 

Edmund Burke

Whatever happens regarding the current abomination of a presidential* administration, we will all be called upon to make grave choices regarding whatever is to replace it. With looming threats of climate change, nuclear war, rising inequality, and crumbling legitimacy of institutions, we can only try to fortify our understanding and judgment for the choices sure to follow.


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

How "The West" was Bull Sh*tted

The west? The West? The WEST?

With the US government rudderless and Great Britain surrendering its preeminent position in international finance, there was bound to a resurgence of farcical hand wringing about "The West".  Today its Bret Stephens in the New York Times worrying is "a moment of civilizational self-negation."

Western Civilization? The West?

The most charitable interpretation of these code words is that they telegraph allegiance to "liberal democracy" where even the will of the people can be checked (especially when that "will" is more willful than well-considered).

When circumstances justifiably prompt us to fret about the fate of liberal democracy, it’s too bad so few of us can resist injecting easy nonsense or deceptive toxins such as “free markets” into our discourse. “Free market” is another overused code word overladen with many more dubious associations than legitimate links to either “liberal democracy” or “Western Civilization".

To be sure markets "free" of government protected monoplies were an essential component of early liberalism which later became associated with its much ruder and older cousin "democracy". But it should be a matter of common knowledge that there is no such thing as as a "free market" because markets have virtually always been totally established, guaranteed, and maintained by all manner of sovereign laws and regulations - as well as by crucial social norms (which both mold and are, in turn, guided by rule of law).

It should be a matter of common knowledge that protections afforded by government to certain markets are only ONE important component of the project to advance “universal liberty and opportunity”; a project which is best labeled “liberal democracy”.

But “free market” is also a code word which is very useful for discrediting necessary protections for workers, consumers, communities, and the environment. This may be why the term is so often mindlessly and ritualistically invoked by so called “conservatives who really ought to know better. These same “conservatives”, too genteel for the dirty “street work” of social media politics, rely on the lumpen legions of “freedom celebratin’” anti-socialist true “Muricans to shout down polite protests against their lazy prevarications. “Don’t blame me,” they shrug. “Blame populism.” But by populism, they really mean “democracy” divorced from its essential protector: “liberalism”.

If someone really cares about “liberal democracy” and how it is threatened by authoritarian populism, why would they then bleat about illusory “free markets” unless their agenda is to continue denying American citizens access to decent healthcare and education? And why muddy thing more by murmuring mundane inanities about “Western Civilization”?

Western Civilization? The West?

Who the hell are they talking to?

Certainly not to non Europeans who understandably associate the term with crusading and colonizing marauders, slavers, strafers, napalm bombers, and spooky CIA inspired torturers, murderers, and rapists. 

Non Europeans also probably associate “The West” with Hollywood, Coca Cola, the Beatles, and Hip Hop . . . with “free markets” probably only a tiny italicized footnote to a footnote of some forgotten item near the bottom of a very long list. 

Of course the abstract obscurity of “protected and well regulated markets” and the mendacious awkwardness of the term “free market” is one reason why there is an ideological imperative to incessantly and brutally impregnate our tired minds with this limp lie.

We, who actually live in The West here and now, need to be talking about "the rule of law", "separation of powers", "checks and balances", "accountability", and "countervailing powers". That’s the liberal democracy which our forebears have painstakingly built into “our” institutions which are now being shaken and rattled by unprecedented concentrations of wealth and power (mostly in the hands of “Westerners” by the way) as well as by processes of automation, global economic integration, climate change, and migrations. All of these processes, by the way, are rife with opportunities for private "profit" by some paragons of "Western Civilization" who happen to be blessed with certain measures of boldness and fortuitious connections.

In this sense, the depredations of stumpy digit trimp, our ever more temporary president* may well be part of a larger process conducive to world wide liberal democracy. The US’s near monopolization of “superpower” has, overall, been a lamentable example of wasted opportunities and opportunistic malfeasance. Brexit is another example of a self inflicted injury that may well strengthen international financial markets extending well beyond Berlin.

People who wanted trimp or wanted Brexit wanted to "shake things up".

There's a WHOLE LOTTA shakin' going on . . .

But the US (never mind Western freaking civilization) does represent immense power with all its potential for good. Our failures on this score are certainly the result of the failures or our leaders who are only partially represented by elected officials. And our failures are certainly the result of the failures of those who, without democratic accountability, control vast accumulations of toxically managed wealth. 

But our failures are mainly the result of our own collective failures (as US citizens) to take our responsibilities seriously so that we are equipped to engage with facts and arguments in a more organized way.

Can we ever stop conflating democracy with "free market" capitalism, and look (with help from people such as Senator Professor Elizabeth Warren) at how markets can be structured to play a more equitable role in promoting prosperity and efficacy in our society? And isn’t it possible to decouple the concept of "market" from "profit" if “profit” means an inordinate flow of benefits and power to a tiny irresponsible few? And, while we're at it, can we ever stop conflating "America" with "whiteness", "white supremacy", and military triumphalism"?

"Only from our cold dead hands!" say the gun-totin' "protectors" of "Western Civilization"

When discussing "the rule of law", "separation of powers", "checks and balances", "accountability", and "countervailing powers", it’s not totally wrong headed to consider our current challenges as having a "civilizational" level of vital significance. And yes, Classical Atherns, the Roman Republic, the French Revolution, and the American Constitution are products of "Western Civilation", but they are not "our" only legacies - nor do they belong exclusively to "us". If we want to claim (or reclaim) some justifiable association with “liberal democracy” we'd better start taking the idea seriously on its own merits and not cripple it with racist and oligarchic insinuations.

But we can't do this as long as we continue to awkwardly (or intentionally) muddle ourselves. We don't know the ultimate limits to our cognitive (or any other human) capacities, but we know we can do better. Whatever those limits are, they are inextriccabley linked with the limits of our capacity to maintain and build upon liberal democratic institutions. That's why we need a commitment to worthwhile, life long, educational opportunities for all - with schooling in classrooms only one aspect of this. 

Every tired educator knows how challenging this is. How can they help younger minds or those with minds molded by variant experiences to organize and dissect terms and arguments with mutually verifiable facts and well reasonable counter arguments when these capacities are effectively despised and neglected by too many main streams in our culture?

A liberal democracy needs a liberal education as much or more than it needs markets protected and governed by accountable laws and institutions. And a liberal democracy needs every citizen to cultivate and nuture their own built in bullshit detector along with some means to provide effective countermeasures to the confusions and distractions of those who profit from purveying such waste material.

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

Unce Joe Biden and the Sad Establishment Blues

There's a whole lotta shaking goin' on!

Perhaps enough by now to gratify those calculating "souls" who lauded trimp as "the lesser of two evils" in 2016, perhaps on the undisputed basis that the donald had no credible connection to chains of pizza eating child molesters. Those same types are surely pleased as pinch with the government shutdown threatening to become an endless grind spinning off enough essential workers, skilled or otherwise, to render the dismantled capacities of everyday governmental functioning unrestorable in the foreseeable bleakness. 

Most of those plodding sloggers are Dems anyway, ain't they?

In the meantime, previously mild-mannered reporters are sparking the temerity to ask a sitting president* of the United States of Murica whether he is now or had never been a paid agent of the Russian Kremlin oligarchic mattress sniffing conspiracy. 

Dasvidanya Azul! (That means you, trimp!)

This all came about because something happened in the 1930s when the Federal Gubmint in its infinitesimal wisdom decided it was time to start treating (white) workingmen like persons instead of shooting them down in the streets as was the bloody custom between 1870 and 1937.  All THAT nonsense got outta hand when, by the early 1970s, unskilled assembly line workers could pull in today's equivalent of $50 per hour and afford to take vacations and maybe send their kids to college. But then when neoliberal Dems and Reaganites had been dismantling the New Deal for several decades, the children and grandcritters of those workers started getting sullen, putting the blame on brown-skinned immigrants and the libtards who run the deep state from their Social Security Administration offices, the Library of Congress, the Center for Disease Control, and the Consumer Protection Agency.

Clearly, our established systems for getting things done had been failing the majority of us for quite some time and something had to be done about it. 

So chaos.

And now the New York Times is pleading with Joe Biden to toss his cap into the frayed body politic.

Well, actually the call comes from columnist David Leonhardt who quite reasonably wants to encourage our only responsible nationwide party to have a wide-ranging field of diverse viewpoints and skillsets. Biden, for all his charm and hard earned "gravitas" (the guy is a mensch who has weathered unspeakable loss and tragedy), may be too closely tied to Wall Street and corporate America for him to serve as a truly credible agent of change or systemic preservations. My personal opinion is that Biden's best option in the upcoming presidential primary is for him to be the “lead laughing attack dog”. He has the rhetorical chops to eviscerate trimp and any trimpulist who debates him with derisive aplomb and to then abruptly pivot into a soulful solemn jeremiad about a “president”* who can credibly be accused of being a Russian agent while teachers have to go on strike to get enough notebooks and pencils for their overloaded classrooms.

Is Biden really too corporate? Fairness (and in his case, decency) requires an open mind.

And corporations for all their tyrannical sins are bound to be an integral part of our economy and society for generations as they have been for well over a century now. Hopefully, they will play a responsible role in a 21st century Green New Deal which will overall our transportation and utility infrastructures as well as retrofit all our public and private buildings for energy efficiency and structural sustainability. Hopefully, corporate America will see how it will profit from a universal healthcare system untethered from employment. Hopefully, they will offer wholehearted support to a life long educational system which emphases democratic responsibility and critical thinking as much as it does in developing "their" workforce.

Hopefully.

Can Uncle Joe help them see the light and lead the way for corporations to be committed institutional protectors of citizens and not immortal greed soaked people monsters with soulless limited liability?

Can he?

We will be fooled again. Of that, there is no doubt. But we need to be as serious and as generous as we are shy of being repeatedly chumped and plucked like the pigeons we are.

Tell us it's so, Uncle Joe

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

Why Not Warren?

Morons and troublemakers wanna claim Warren has no appeal to middle America, but she was raised and formed in Oklahoma.

Idiots and lazybrains bleat Warren is too "extreme", but all she wants to do is make our complex systems work for ordinary people.

We need a Green New Deal (renewing our energy and transportation infrastructures to offer sustainable jobs, redistribute income, and combat climate change).

We need a commitment to Universal Healthcare and lifelong education to offer citizens some basic security while also bolstering the habits of mind required for a functioning democracy

We need predistribution of wealth to make sure the markets are level playing grounds. And we need Corporate Accountability to reverse the dangers to democracy (as well as to human freedom and dignity) caused by irresponsible concentrated wealth.

If someone else can credibly claim they will do their best to advance these goals, I'll consider voting for him or her. Bernie is still in the running. But Warren, being younger and female, has more potential (I think) to mobilize the most active elements of the Democratic Party base while also bringing in younger and minority voters who are so turned off by ClintonObamaBiden politics as usual.

It's time for politicians and leaders who have taken their stand a decent distance away from the snares of Wall Street and our oligarchic overlords (the ones who destroy jobs, misinvest our wealth, and wreak our economy while supporting the most dangerous forms of anti-democratic extremism).