We Can Stop Taking "The Atlantic" Seriously

The latest issue of "The Atlantic" contains an article by Jonathan Rauch tiled "How American Politics Went Insane." It is a strange article, not particularly clear, and based on dubious conclusions, notably how Rauch equates Bernie Sanders with Donald Trump. Rauch's point seems to be that American politics is suffering from too much democracy, and that we should go back to time when political bosses and "fixers" made things run more smoothly. If Rauch were as erudite as he thinks he is, he should know that political bossism actually produced a corrupt and unresponsive political system that made a mockery of democracy.

The reality is that American democracy has become a mere façade. The GOP continues to rule Congress without challenge. The Democrats have ceased to exist as a political party and have become a "franchise" of the Clinton clan. That is how the Clintons were able to quash the Bernie Sanders campaign. The cynical strategy of HRC is to win just by being the "lesser evil." The problem isn't too much democracy, but that the voters will be presented with a "choice" that isn't really a choice.

Britain Chooses the Ocean

There's a saying attributed to Charles De Gaulle "If the British ever have to choose between Europe and the Ocean they will always choose the Ocean." I haven't been able to verify if De Gaulle actually said, but regardless I think it explains why they majority of British voters choose to leave the European Union. Personally I hate the term "Brexit" because it sounds like corporate media Newspeak. But I think the vote to leave the EU is biggest news this year, even bigger that who wins the US presidential election, because it will decide the future of Europe and much of the world as well. It's too soon to tell what the consequences will be, but it's clear that the supposedly "inevitable" move toward European integration is in trouble.

Many progressive minded people, on both sides of the Atlantic, seem to lament the vote. It's important to distinguish between the "idea" of European unity and the reality that the EU has become an undemocratic, bureaucratic monster. It may not be totalitarian like the Soviet Union, but it has become the despotism of German Chancellor and her loathsome Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble. If the British people decide that they don't want to be bossed around by Merkel and Schauble, who can blame them?

Omar Mateen--An American Not a Muslim

The recent shooting in Orlando Florida by Omar Mateen has brought out the usual shrieks from the Islamophobes. It happened just a few days after the killing of singer Christina Grimme by a lunatic who then committed suicide. What's the connection? That this country has an epidemic of maniacal killers with ready access to guns and ammunition. The Lone Shooter has become an "American Type," almost the symbol of this deranged country. It has become a tradition dating back to Lee Harvey Oswald and Charles Whitman, the original campus shooter (UT Austin 8/1/1966). These incidents have become so common that it only becomes "national" when the victim is a celebrity or the body count goes into double digits.

Much like the original "Night of the Living Dead," we are experiencing an epidemic of mass murder, committed not by zombies but by maniacs with access to guns and ammunition. The US will be the first major polity in history that will succumb not to outside invasion or meaningful political struggle, but to uncontrolled random violence with no intelligible motive.

The End of the Modern World

Those of us who remember back to the 1960's remember how people used to talk about "the modern world." Sometimes it was also called "modernity,' it was supposed to be a kind of "upward curve" of increasing prosperity and progress. The science fiction of the time, such as "2001: A Space Oddity" foretold a future where humanity would soon be travelling to the far reaches of the universe.

The ensuing half century have turned out to be more of a downward curve. Economic conditions are declining all over the world. Even in the First World standards of living are falling. This is causing growing levels of social and political breakdown. Increasing violence is making democracy unviable, leaving the only alternatives of anarchy or dictatorship. The whole idea of modernity is collapsing, and people all over the world are giving up on the future. We may scoff at those Islamists who are trying to return to a mythical caliphate. But in Europe and the US, the growth of racism and xenophobia indicates a desire to return to an imagined past. Modernism, with its glowing promises, has been discredited.

!#*% The Draft!

I'm showing my age but those of us who are old enough to remember what happed when this country had The Draft(conscription.) It seemed like a dead issue but the growing use of women in combat in the US armed forces has led to calls for women to register with the selective service. We've had the current system of registration without induction since 1980 when Jimmy Carter was trying to send a foreign policy signal. Some people think that if Carter had been re-elected in 1980 he would have proposed bringing back the Draft. It would have been a tough sell, less than a decade after the end of the old Draft, with its inequalities.

The Pentagon brass doesn't want the draft. It seems that they believe that most future wars will be of the "brushfire" variety, to which conscript armies aren't suited. During the past decade, there were people who had enlisted in the National Guard to finance their education, and then found themselves being "inducted" against their will. Multiply that by a million and that will give you an idea of what the Draft would be like.

The best thing would be to simply end registration and stop all this nonsense before any more people are killed or injured.

The Ivy League Pollyanna

With the conventional wisdom now declaring that Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for President, and the attendant calls for Bernie Sanders to "stop dividing the Democratic Party and bow out. Of course, the Democrats as a party have performed so badly in recent years that it's hard to see how Sanders is making matters worse. The problem for the Dems is that they have abandoned their constituents and the ascent of HRC is the worst sing of that. The HRC campaign thinks that many "nice, decent Republicans" will vote for her instead of Donald Trump. If the Dem. leadership knew anything, they would realize that there are no nice decent Republicans, and that furthermore, however much certain Repubs may dislike or even detest Trump, they'll probably vote for him out of spite anyway. Because that's they kind of people they are.

But let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that HRC really does become President. That would mean that in America, the political spectrum no longer runs from Liberal to Conservative but from Conservative to Fascist. That means that instead of a Democracy, we are living under a closed political system where the corporate power rules absolutely.

Heads We Lose, Tails We Lose

Since it really seems that the next President is either going to be HRC or Trump, it's like having to choose a slow death from rectal cancer or dying in a flaming car wreck. Trump as President would be a disaster not only for the USA but for the entire planet. HRC on the other hand, is Pro-Corporate warmonger, a "moderate" GOPer in disguise. There are many who say that HRC might still win by drawing support from moderates (whoever they are) and even disaffected GOPers. But HRC would merely be the status quo.

The real problem is that change is no longer possible in American politics. Political systems fall when they lose the ability to change to solve problems. If we have reached such a state, then it's only a matter of time before the USA itself is history.

Why I Hate Conservatives

The title of this post might seem a bit blunt, but I was actually raised as a Conservative. I was raised a Roman Catholic in Texas, and that is a high risk group for Conservatism. The reasons why I turned against Conservatism are varied and complex. One important turning point came during the 80's the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. Reagan, the most effective commercial spokesman of all time, managed to tell the most absurd lies while maintaining a straight face. Whenever somebody called him out, Reagan would just smile vacuously and pretend he hadn't heard.

Conservatives, not just the GOP, discovered they could get away with lying they have come to use it as a deliberate tactic. Notice the recent campaign against Planned Parenthood. Even though these is no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of Planned Parenthood, the Conservative noise machine continues to make up falsehood and allegations. The Conservative Movement have become "Mayberry Machiavellis" and not only in terms of foreign policy. The worst liars are the ones who believe their own lies.

Trump Is Not a Man of Peace

Donald Trump, in his scattered way has been making statements about how the invasion of Iraq was a "mistake" and suggesting that the US military should withdraw from Korea (first proposed by Jimmy Carter back in 1977). This has brought down the ire of the unrepentant neo-conservatives, especially at the Washington Post. Some people have even started referring to Trump as an "isolationist" or even a "pacifist." He is neither. Statements like the aforementioned need to be weighed against his bombastic calls for "American greatness." Putting an unstable maniac like Trump in charge of 4,760 nuclear weapons is a worst case scenario come true. Trump is not only a threat to American democracy, he is a threat to the existence to life on this planet.

Democrats Still Clueless

The so-called leaders of the Democratic Party are so determined to make sure that Hillary Rodham Clinton wins that they have done everything except stuff ballot boxes. The "Top Dems" are convinced that HRC is electable simply because she leads Trump in several polls. These people seem not to realize that polls can change. HRC seems to think that she's the most "competent candidate," the same stance that failed for Dukakis in 88 and Kerry in 2004. Trump is playing off of the cult of the CEO. There is no cult of the middle manager that HRC can appeal to. The Presidency isn't about "management" but leadership.

Come election time if the mass of GOP voters decide they hate HRC more than they dislike Trump, then she's going to lose no matter what the polls say.

Curtains for Jeb

Jeb Bush has dropped out of the race, without winning a single state. While it's good to see the end of the Bush dynasty, the GOP base has gone insane for Donald Trump. It's not getting better for the GOPers but worse. Unless a lucky meteorite should land on Trump. Of course.

The Bigot Demographic

Those who support Donald Trump are part of the reactionary tradition within American life: the Prohibitionists, the Ku Kluxers, those who would define themselves in narrow racial terms. Trump's career is hardly reassuring; he seems to have no ideas or principles, and his only strong beliefs are racial bigotry. His followers see what they want to see; the worship wealth, because he is a "winner" and a "hard ass" who can get away with obnoxious behavior.

Trump appeals to a generation that has been rendered mentally passive by television and the corporate media. Without getting bogged down in "essentialist" arguments about what constitutes totalitarianism, there is a recurrent pattern that we can see in many nations. When a faction declares itself to be the "real people" and becomes preoccupied with taking power even if by force, then we are all in danger. It's not even a question of ideology but methodology. It doesn't matte whether the faction is Left or Right, religious or secular, or even if it claims to be acting in the name of "freedom." People like that are a danger to democracy.

HRC Plays the Misogyny Card

I used to support the candidacy of Hilary Rodham Clinton, until she started making foreign policy statements that made he sound like Marco Rubio. It also doesn't help that she promises to "get along" with the Congressional GOP. Her husband "worked with" Congressional GOPers hell he virtually gave away the store, and for all that they still tried to impeach him. It's obvious that HRC's progressive credentials are rather dubious and she's said nothing to make us think otherwise. So now her campaign is accusing her critics of "misogyny." If you don't support her you must be some kind male chauvinist "get in the kitchen" type of cretin. That may be accurate of her critics on the GOP side. They hate her for the wrong reasons perhaps. But HRC herself hasn't really given us any reason to vote for her. The real imperative is to choose the best person for the job, regardless of gender.

A Threat to Us All

Ammon Bundy and his gang of idiots have ended their siege of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge and are under arrest. One of the gang was killed, but then damned fools are seldom missed. The Bundyites it turns out have almost no support amongst the people of the area. It seems that most people are glad to be rid of them. The point is that while the Bundyites and others claim to be against "the guvment" they are actually against everybody else. They are a threat to all of us. Once again, we must remember that stupidity isn't harmless. Stupid people can do a great deal of harm when they set their minds to it.

The Evil of Uber

It is now apparent that the technological "revolutions" of the internet and the cell phone are actually harming the majority of people while the benefit the wealthy few.
The most egregious is Uber which claims to be a "ride sharing" app but it really undercuts the earnings of licensed taxi drivers. Uber executives have been accused of harassing critics and using threats of lawsuits to silence opponents. Many European countries like France and Germany have banned Uber. In fact Uber is part of a larger trend of forcing people to work longer and harder for less pay and benefits. Consumers are at the same time lured in with promises of lower costs but they get worse service.
So who wins? The predator entrepreneurs.