A Congress of Aristocrats

Like many Progressives, I'm often puzzled by the failure of Congress to do what seems clearly in the best interest of the American People. What seems to benefit the greatest number of Americans seems never to be given more than cursory attention in Congress, if any at all. How can anyone in Congress, for instance, place more importance on any other issue than the employment crisis? It's resolution is critical to every American not just those who are unemployed. Even those who have jobs know they can lose them easily in an economy teetering on the brink of collapse. Why did Congress focus its attention on debt and the deficit when so many Americans are so close to economic devastation?

Then the answer was revealed. In Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% Joseph E. Stiglitz writes:

Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office.

How can we expect our representatives in Congress to care about the interests of the American People when their good fortune and large fortunes shape their perspective? For the most part, they're so affluent they never will have to worry about making the next payment on a used car or finding the money to buy groceries or pay the doctor. That's a big problem.

Socialize the Internet

According to recent reports, the United States Postal Service is on its way to losing $3 billion in the third quarter of 2011. The loss is being attributed primarily to declining First Class Mail revenue.

Observers say the internet is making First Class mail obsolete. Email and online payments have replaced letters and mailed checks and that diminishes First Class Mail revenue. That makes sense but knowing it doesn't really solve the problem. Until everyone in America has access to reliable high speed internet service, we will need the Post Office. Someone will have to deliver the letters and payments those without broadband will have to send.

It would be nice if we could find a way to make sure every American has access to broadband. Unfortunately, with right wing zealots and ideological extremists in control of so much of the political process, we're unlikely ever to have universal access to reliable high speed internet services. Right wing legislators are little more than stooges for the plutocracy. The plutocracy owns America's internet service providers and they're never going to allow the ISP's revenue to be threatened by the one thing that can solve our communication problem, publicly owned broadband.

Every year we read of a law being rammed through a state legislature somewhere to prohibit a town or county from starting its own broadband service. Most recently it happened in North Carolina. As soon as the ISPs claimed their revenue would be threatened by public internet, the stooges in the NC legislature leapt to the feet, saluted and said they would pass a law to prohibit the protection of the public interest in favor of protecting the profits of the plutocracy. And they did. House Bill 129 prohibits public internet in favor of private profiteering.

So what's the solution? One good way to fill the public's broadband need and to solve the Post Office's revenue problem would be to socialize internet service under the control of the Post Office. No private firm would be allowed to offer broadband. It would become a public utility. That would replace declining First Class Mail revenue with nomial broadband access fees. An added benefit would be ensuring fair prices for every American rather than letting the cyber-pirate ISPs rob them. It would be a win-win.

Tea for Terrorists

Someday the American People will look back on these past few weeks of debt ceiling turmoil as the time when the inadequacy of the American way of government was exposed. The T(errorist) Party faction of the Republican Party has illustrated the fundamental fallacy of our process; not everyone can be trusted to act with the best interests of the American People at heart.

The T Party are legislative terrorists. Like suicide bombers, they are willing to destroy innocent victims to reach their political goals. This is not what our Founders intended. They believed our elected representatives should be honorable persons concerned with the welfare of the whole country, not just the satisifaction of idelological extremists and political zealots. The T Party can never meet their expectations and their mere existance is stark evidence of the failure of American politics to serve the American People.

The Reagan Cult

The campaign for the Republican nomination for President is heating up. Hardly a day goes by without some bizarre statement by one of the dozen or so contenders and each of them is more bizarre than the last. While each has his or her own special obsession, one thing seems to unite them all, they all venerate Ronald Reagan. Put any two of them on the same stage and before a minute goes by, each will claim to be more worthy of the Reagan mantel than the other.

It's a curious thing, this sanctification of Reagan. Somehow a second-rate actor and TV pitchman parlayed his screen presence into the greatest role in the world. For eight years he played President of the United States. Unfortunately, it wasn't in the movies. It was in the real world where fantasy has real consequences.

To non-believers, this Reaganmania is incomprehensible. His record as President wasn't much better than his record as an actor; average, at best. Other than a few one-liners, he left America little of value. Take a look at how it really was in this Aljazeera piece: Reagan mythology is leading US off a cliff and then try to reconcile the real Reagan with the totem carried by Regan cultists. Where's the reason for the reverence?

All Obama Ever Wanted?

Glen Greenwald's column at Salon this morning, Obama pushing for cuts to Social Security, Medicare sums up what a lot of us feared about President Obama.

As Greenwald noted, many of Obama's strongest supporters always have said Obama's frequent capitulation to Republican demands were due to his personal failings. Obama is "weak and inept," they said. Sadly, that's the best thing we can say about Obama.

Greenwald explored a number of recent offerings by Paul Krugman and Frank Rich and came to the conclusion Obama isn't "weak and inept,"or, at least that he's not just weak and inept, but that he actually believes the things he's doing are the right things to do. For some reason, despite the overwhelming weight of evidence and expert advice, Obama has drunk the snake-oil and has come to accept Republican policy ideas such as spending cuts and tax forbearance as solutions to the problems of the American economy.

Why?

No one knows for sure but it's easy to speculate. Maybe Obama is focused on his reelection and believes the money-lenders and independents are the only ones who matter. Giving-up Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in return for trivial tax revenue allows him to say he opposed his own party and moved toward the Republicans. That would make those who matter happy and they, along with those of Obama's shrinking progressive base who haven't given-up on him, might be enough

Or maybe it's something a little more sinister. Obama is the first black to be elected President. He got his name into the record books and as long as he doesn't do anything embarrassingly outrageous, he'll be able to reap the benefits of being a former President for the next 30 or so years. That's not bad for a guy who certainly must have experienced American racism, a guy born into a world which promised much and delivered little. He played a rigged game and came-out the big winner.

Maybe that's all he ever wanted.

Paul Krugman Should Be Economic Czar of the USA

Paul Krugman should be the Economic Czar of the USA. His unparalleled understanding of the economy and his ability to explain it are critical to laymen when the information cloud includes so much distortion and misrepresentation shrouding the facts and good faith analysis.

In his latest offering as a New York Times Op-Ed columnist, Corporate Cash Con, he lays out the cause of our continuing economic difficulties the way a wise and celebrated doctor might prescribe treatment for a minor ailment. The symptoms lead him to an easy diagnosis and then to a clear course of treatment.

Our economic troubles, he tells us, are related to our bad habit of believing in trickle-down economics, the idea that money put into the economy at the top will "trickle-down" to those at the bottom. Its been tried before and it failed. It failed so badly, in fact, a better name for it might be drivel-down economics. It's the kind of sophistry medicine show charlatans like Eric Cantor offer to the suckers who need something to cure what they don't understand.

In this latest round, we're being told by drivel-downers that tax free repatriation of foreign profits earned by US corporations will be the basis of a recovery. The huge hoard of cash being held overseas would be brought home and used by American capitalists to invest in the American economy.

Krugman joins others in the exposure of the scheme by reminding us it already has failed us. In 2004, we allowed US corporations to repatriate profits but they didn't use them for job creation. They "used that money to pay dividends, pay down debt, buy up other companies, buy back their own stock -- pretty much everything except increasing investment and creating jobs." We have no reason to believe corporations wouldn't do pretty much the same thing in 2011 as they did in 2004.

The Krugmans goes on to point-out a fundamental truth of economics, economic actors do more of what best serves their interests. A second tax giveaway will give these "companies an incentive to move even more jobs overseas, since they now know that there’s a good chance that they’ll be able to bring overseas profits home nearly tax-free under future amnesties."

The question then arises, does anyone really believe corporations need more money? Krugman reminds us corporations already are swimming in cash. They're hoarding $1.9T because they have no reason to invest it. The lack of consumer demand would make any investment a waste. Consumer don't have the money to buy anything but they would if government created jobs and gave stressed home-owners mortgage relief.

Government created jobs and mortgage relief only part of what we need but they're good enough ideas to make Paul Krugman a candidate for Economic Czar of the USA.

Bring Back the United States Post Office

On Thursday, Darrell Issa (R-CA,) chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, introduced the POSTAL REFORM ACT which would "implement sweeping, structural reforms of the United States Postal Service (USPS). The legislation represents the most fundamental reform of the postal service that has been proposed since USPS was first created from the old Post Office Department."

Of course, anything Issa does is suspect. Like all Republicans, he’s a sociopath and must be presumed to be acting for the plutocracy and against the interests of the American People. However, this actually could be a good opportunity to serve the country.

Here's how:

First, socialize USPS. Communication is extremely important to a democracy. That’s why the Founders declared an "enumerated power" of Congress to establish post offices and post roads and protected the right of speech and the press with the First Amendment. Clearly, communication is too important to trust to private firms. It's long past time to reestablish the United States Post Office the Founders intended.

Second, outlaw package delivery services like UPS, FedEx and DHL and let USPS handle the traffic. The USPS already serves every address they serve so this is a huge opportunity for savings which can be used to support USPS.

Third, reconceptualize USPS as the federal department of communication. It would not only continue in its traditional role but also would assume a new role as the national internet service provider. This would involve outlawing all private ISPs and providing service under the control of the new Post Office.