This panel met to describe Climate Change and it's relation with unfettered corporate Capitalism. The panelists included Naomi Klein of the Nation, Chris Hedges of Truthdig, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Kshama Sawant of Socialist Alternative.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Book Review: Arguing with Straw Men Part 1
Book Review of Glenn Beck's Arguing with Idiots
Reading the title of this blog post will give you the gist of what I believe this book is. Nonetheless, I will provide specific examples and rebut them. Now, as a former Glenn Beck robot, I decided to take out this book from the library to see if, looking back on it, whether he actually had a relevant argument or whether he was just a loud blowhard.
The Table of Contents
- In Defense of Capitalism
- The Second Amendment
- Education
- America's Energy Future
- Unions
- Illegal Immigration
- The Nanny State
- Owning a Home
- Economics 101
- U.S. Presidents
- Universal Health Care
- The U.S. Constitution
Pages 1-2 is a short non-introduction to Capitalism. Page 3 says: "The truth is that capitalism is neither good nor evil, it just is.... capitalism can... foster an environment where those with the will to succeed have a better chance of achieving their dreams."
A statement, with no basis in reality. There is no opportunity for almost half of Americans. Keynesian economist Joseph Stiglitz echoes this sentiment "US inequality is at its highest point for nearly a century. Those at the top – no matter how you slice it – are enjoying a larger share of the national pie; the number below the poverty level is growing. The gap between those with the median income and those at the top is growing, too. The US used to think of itself as a middle-class country – but this is no longer true."
So Glenn Beck's assertion is patently false.
Glenn Beck goes onto claim that "true capitalism" has never existed, that under true capitalism, the government wouldn't have bailed out the banks. A common Libertarian talking point. (pp. 4-5)
Pages 8-14 is Glenn Beck's hit-list of "evil capitalists" blaming them, and ultimately the government, for supporting these corporations. However, Beck misses a crucial reality. Which is that, since the beginning of the United States these corporations have been given government help. In other words, according to Beck, "true capitalism" hasn't existed in the history of the United States. An inevitable conclusion from Libertarian ideology.
The Libertarian Von Mises Institute admits that "The American economy has always included a mix of market and political entrepreneurs — self-made men and women as well as political connivers and manipulators. And sometimes, people who have achieved success as market entrepreneurs in one period of their lives later become political entrepreneurs." Although the rest of the article goes on to explain how it isn't Genuine True Infallible Free Market Capitalism, it admits that American state capitalism has always had government intervention in the economy.
Glenn Beck's ideology... is just that. An ideology.
Pages 15-17, 20-24 are about how government bureaucracy is "Socialism." This is utter nonsense to anyone who knows the basic definition of Socialism.
American Socialist Daniel DeLeon said that Socialism is "that social system under which the necessaries of production are owned, controlled and administered by the people, for the people, and under which, accordingly, the cause of political and economic despotism having been abolished, class rule is at end. That is socialism, nothing short of that."
"political and economic despotism having been abolished" means that the government is abolished. In other words, the lack of a government bureaucracy would be Socialism. Glenn Beck's not attacking Socialism or "crony Socialism" but just the government.
Pages 24-27 is an attack on Leninist style Socialism in countries like Estonia. Missing the fact that there are anti-authortarian Leftists who opposed the Leninist program. Such figures like George Orwell, Rosa Luxemburg, Anton Pannekoek and so on. Therefore, Glenn Beck's criticism of Socialism is completely irrelevant to how actual Socialists have understood Socialism.
Ironically, on page 28-29 Beck calls Socialism "a theory" not something which has actually existed. Neglecting to mention historical examples like the Israel Kibbutz, Anarcho-Syndicalist Spain and European Social Democracy. Yet, at the same time, advocating a utopian capitalism without the existence of government.
The chapter did not "defend" Capitalism, neither did it "attack" Socialism. It just wasted time and paper. Beck posits utopian Capitalism as opposed to utopian Socialism. Something which doesn't explain away the realities of today's economy.
Considered "Fair Use" under "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research" according to US copyright law.
More to come...
Friday, September 19, 2014
A quick thought on the "Evil Eye" of the American Empire
Recently, as reported by Mediaite, CNN anchor Erin Burnett describes the US intelligence and military capabilities as those of an "evil eye". Of course, this is blatantly obvious to someone who knows anything about the world apart from the corporate media spin.
Take for example, Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was a dictator (or at least, he was, according to the United States posthumously) who murdered hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites and Kurds in his own country. He utilized chemical weapons supplied to him by the United States government to carry out this atrocity. When the United States no longer had any use for Saddam, since he invaded their oil interests in Kuwait, they decided to paint him as "enemy #1" and to terminate all opposition to their full-spectrum dominance. George H.W. Bush famously declared, when pressed on his terroristic foreign policy "I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are."
This maxim holds true today. Despite the US toppling of their own former ally, and subsequent instillation of a puppet regime loyal to their imperial interests, they still insist today on continuing to bomb and murder civilians and poor third-worlders in order to protect their oil interests. The evil eye of the American Empire cannot be stopped. ISIS does not have thousands of nuclear bombs, ISIS does not have a trained military industrial slaughter machine, ISIS does not have naval and air support, and ISIS does not have the international community at their whim. No matter how bad ISIS is, which they are indeed brutal like the Khmer Rouge in the olden days, US cruise missiles and cluster bombs will only make children's heads blow up by B52 bombers, instead of being hacked off by ISIS savages.
Savagery doesn't have a color, a race, a creed, a religion, a sexual identity. Savagery is savagery. Dropping carpet bombs on entire populations is no different than rounding up thousands and shooting them with holes until they resemble slaughtered cattle.
It's time to stop war. War kills more than a thousand 9/11s. It destroys homes, lives and it destroys souls. Creating war creates enemies, domestic and international poverty, exploitation and a deep hatred and yearning for vengeance. Humanity cannot progress unless war itself is annihilated and power is wrested from the elites who promote it. "I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war." said Einstein. Indeed, it is only through militant refusal to participate in systematic mass murder that it will end. The Nazis were only doing their jobs, what's our excuse?
As Socialist leader Eugene Debs once said: "The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose—especially their lives. They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. And here let me emphasize the fact—and it cannot be repeated too often—that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace."
In order to destroy war, we must confront Empire. We must confront, in Chris Hedges' lexicon "the corporate state", the government given over to corporate interests which make them wage wars for profit and economic assimilation. I end with the words of Arundhati Roy, detailing how to remain steadfast against encroaching imperial power.
"...the people of the world do not need to choose between a Malevolent Mickey Mouse and the Mad Mullahs. Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." (Arundhati Roy, World Social Forum w/ Transcript c.f., An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire, 2003 pp. 85-86)
Update: Bill Maher had his own take on this issue watch it here.
Take for example, Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was a dictator (or at least, he was, according to the United States posthumously) who murdered hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites and Kurds in his own country. He utilized chemical weapons supplied to him by the United States government to carry out this atrocity. When the United States no longer had any use for Saddam, since he invaded their oil interests in Kuwait, they decided to paint him as "enemy #1" and to terminate all opposition to their full-spectrum dominance. George H.W. Bush famously declared, when pressed on his terroristic foreign policy "I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are."
This maxim holds true today. Despite the US toppling of their own former ally, and subsequent instillation of a puppet regime loyal to their imperial interests, they still insist today on continuing to bomb and murder civilians and poor third-worlders in order to protect their oil interests. The evil eye of the American Empire cannot be stopped. ISIS does not have thousands of nuclear bombs, ISIS does not have a trained military industrial slaughter machine, ISIS does not have naval and air support, and ISIS does not have the international community at their whim. No matter how bad ISIS is, which they are indeed brutal like the Khmer Rouge in the olden days, US cruise missiles and cluster bombs will only make children's heads blow up by B52 bombers, instead of being hacked off by ISIS savages.
Savagery doesn't have a color, a race, a creed, a religion, a sexual identity. Savagery is savagery. Dropping carpet bombs on entire populations is no different than rounding up thousands and shooting them with holes until they resemble slaughtered cattle.
It's time to stop war. War kills more than a thousand 9/11s. It destroys homes, lives and it destroys souls. Creating war creates enemies, domestic and international poverty, exploitation and a deep hatred and yearning for vengeance. Humanity cannot progress unless war itself is annihilated and power is wrested from the elites who promote it. "I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war." said Einstein. Indeed, it is only through militant refusal to participate in systematic mass murder that it will end. The Nazis were only doing their jobs, what's our excuse?
As Socialist leader Eugene Debs once said: "The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose—especially their lives. They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. And here let me emphasize the fact—and it cannot be repeated too often—that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace."
In order to destroy war, we must confront Empire. We must confront, in Chris Hedges' lexicon "the corporate state", the government given over to corporate interests which make them wage wars for profit and economic assimilation. I end with the words of Arundhati Roy, detailing how to remain steadfast against encroaching imperial power.
"...the people of the world do not need to choose between a Malevolent Mickey Mouse and the Mad Mullahs. Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." (Arundhati Roy, World Social Forum w/ Transcript c.f., An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire, 2003 pp. 85-86)
Update: Bill Maher had his own take on this issue watch it here.
New research explodes the "liberal bias" myth
Recent reports at Mediaite and Media Matters show that the so-called "liberal" press is in the bag for GOP lawmakers, and is under-reporting certain Left-wing issues that matter to many on the Left.
In the Media Matters study, the majority of media coverage toward the issue of big money in Politics was done by PBS news, and not by the major corporate media outlets.
In the Media Matters study, the majority of media coverage toward the issue of big money in Politics was done by PBS news, and not by the major corporate media outlets.
Image courtesy: Mediamatters
It further stands that on the major corporate networks, GOP guests are interviewed far more often on average, than Democratic candidates. Mediaite gives the New York Times credit for this report.
I will add that, despite my intense dislike of the Democratic Party, I nonetheless think it's important to report on the Rightward shift of American politics that is happening more often and with more frequency in the United States.
Welcome!
This is my first blog post on this blog. I'm just testing it out. :) I've created blogs prior to this, but I never updated any of them. Maybe I'll go somewhere with this one.
A little bit about me, I was once a firebrand Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity loving Conservative. That is, when I first began thinking about Politics. When the 2012 election came around, and the Arab Spring began to occur, I shifted more to the Peter Schiff, and Ron Paul Libertarians.
Today, I am a Socialist. Perhaps, even farther Left than Karl Marx (a joke perhaps, but it might actually be accurate.) I've come to the conclusion that Laissez Faire Capitalism has never actually existed. I've also come to believe in extreme non-violence, pacifism, antiwar, anti-Imperialism and so on. My first large influence on my political thinking was Robert Spencer.
Recently, I've come around to the views of people like Cornel West, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky and Bernie Sanders. When I read the Communist Manifesto I literally was overwhelmed with what I saw as great wisdom in print.
Recently, I've come around to the views of people like Cornel West, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky and Bernie Sanders. When I read the Communist Manifesto I literally was overwhelmed with what I saw as great wisdom in print.
I plan on reviewing books, posting significant news, and maybe certain personal pieces here.
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