Alan Greenspan and capitalism

So Alan Greenspan was “shocked” by the failure of his ideology! How about that folks??? He was shocked that people all acting in their own interested resulted in an economic disaster. The great stalwart of modern capitalist ideology was surprised by this??!! Of course if he had paid attention to even the simplest games theorists like John Nash or Garret Hardin, then he would have known what was coming. The game theory called ‘the tragedy of the commons’ tells you all you need to know. Capitalism, if it is to work at all, must not let the self interest of individuals go unchecked but there must be mechanisms to protect us from the excesses that lead from people’s self interest. It is not very complicated and the fact that Alan Greenspan who was chairman of the Fed for all those years didn’t understand this shows that either he was irretrievably stupid or that capitalism is a hopelessly blind ideology. Well I think in this case it both factors came into play. Now, I am a socialist and an idealist and I can live with the idea of a mixed economy for now, perhaps that is all that the human psyche is prepared for at this moment in history. But it is finally time for people to wake up and understand that certain elements of society simply don’t function if left to the self-interest of individuals or corporations, period! Time to wake up from the dream Stephen Harper and see what so many of us have know for ages, capitalism is on its way out.

A message to Capitalist...

A message from the socialists to the capitalists......WE TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Harper is a Fascist.

Well, I have written quite a number of these blog entries in the lead up to the federal election, and I am not sure that there is much left to say. Things look bad and I fear the worst. I feel like decent citizens must have felt in 1933 in the Weimar Republic as the Fascists were threatening to take control. …Yea, that’s right, I have just made and implicit comparison between this Conservative government and the Fascist parties of Europe in the 1930s. It may sound provocative but I believe that the correlation is clear and demonstrable. Let’s see, shall we…. One of the over-riding characterizes of European fascism (as defined in this case by Mussolini) was a profound cooperation between big-business (particularly finance capital) and the government. Well, this coloration is clear. Another similarity is that Fascist parties were secretive and centralized, often with one man or small group of men exercising complete control of the organization and precluding others from speaking. Sound familiar? The Conservatives have, like the Fascists did, consistently undermine democratic processes and institutions. In this case we just have to think of the Conservatives saying on a number of occasions that they would ignore bills legally passed by the House of Commons, as well as recall the hand-book they wrote and distributed to their committee chairs instructing them how to thwart committee business that they didn’t like and even close committees down. Another important similarity between the Conservatives and fascists is their efforts to foster fear of crime and social disorder as a way of gaining support. The Conservatives have done this, by the way, while crime rates have consistently gone down. This brings us to another important fascist tendency; the maintenance of some frightening foreign group, “the other,” to which we can direct our attentions to create the fear that our culture is somehow in danger. Stephen Harper, following Bush’s lead, has done this quite effectively. Another fascist method of control shared by the Conservatives is the effort to marginalize the opposition by suggesting that they are treasonous or unpatriotic. Remember how Stephen Harper consistently suggested that the Liberals were pro-Taliban just because they wanted to talk about the mission in Afghanistan? Then there is, of course, the fascist effort to continually increase military spending, an effort which is in some sense tied to every one of the above points. And let’s not forget the fascist tendency to attack and victimize vulnerable groups, and their association of Homosexuality with the moral degeneration of society. Fascism also usually included some basic level of racism. Just yesterday a Conservative candidate in Calgary was caught making racist comments. And all of this is done against the backdrop of a pseudo-populism that attempts to create the illusion that their efforts are based in a grass-roots ground-swell of support.

Now, of course, things are different today than they were in the 1930s. Today overt militarism and racism are socially unacceptable so they have to be kept under wraps and hidden. Just as the Conservative’s racism is hidden in their recent immigration bill. What I am pointing to is what political scientist Bertram Gross referred to as ‘Friendly Fascism’ in his 1980 book by that name. But make no mistake, there is a direct correlation between Harper’s government and fascism. And while other parties in Canada my be guilty of one or two of these tendencies, only the Conservative party has display all of them in a systematic manner. And the scariest similarity between now and Germany in the 1930s in particular is that the opposition is weak and divided making disaster almost inevitable.

Harper is a Fascist.

Well, I have written quite a number of these blog entries in the lead up to the federal election, and I am not sure that there is much left to say. Things look bad and I fear the worst. I feel like decent citizens must have felt in 1933 in the Weimar Republic as the Fascists were threatening to take control. …Yea, that’s right, I have just made and implicit comparison between this Conservative government and the Fascist parties of Europe in the 1930s. It may sound provocative but I believe that the correlation is clear and demonstrable. Let’s see, shall we…. One of the over-riding characterizes of European fascism (as defined in this case by Mussolini) was a profound cooperation between big-business (particularly finance capital) and the government. Well, this coloration is clear. Another similarity is that Fascist parties were secretive and centralized, often with one man or small group of men exercising complete control of the organization and precluding others from speaking. Sound familiar? The Conservatives have, like the Fascists did, consistently undermine democratic processes and institutions. In this case we just have to think of the Conservatives saying on a number of occasions that they would ignore bills legally passed by the House of Commons, as well as recall the hand-book they wrote and distributed to their committee chairs instructing them how to thwart committee business that they didn’t like and even close committees down. Another important similarity between the Conservatives and fascists is their efforts to foster fear of crime and social disorder as a way of gaining support. The Conservatives have done this, by the way, while crime rates have consistently gone down. This brings us to another important fascist tendency; the maintenance of some frightening foreign group, “the other,” to which we can direct our attentions to create the fear that our culture is somehow in danger. Stephen Harper, following Bush’s lead, has done this quite effectively. Another fascist method of control shared by the Conservatives is the effort to marginalize the opposition by suggesting that they are treasonous or unpatriotic. Remember how Stephen Harper consistently suggested that the Liberals were pro-Taliban just because they wanted to talk about the mission in Afghanistan? Then there is, of course, the fascist effort to continually increase military spending, an effort which is in some sense tied to every one of the above points. And let’s not forget the fascist tendency to attack and victimize vulnerable groups, and their association of Homosexuality with the moral degeneration of society. Fascism also usually included some basic level of racism. Just yesterday a Conservative candidate in Calgary was caught making racist comments. And all of this is done against the backdrop of a pseudo-populism that attempts to create the illusion that their efforts are based in a grass-roots ground-swell of support.

Now, of course, things are different today than they were in the 1930s. Today overt militarism and racism are socially unacceptable so they have to be kept under wraps and hidden. Just as the Conservative’s racism is hidden in their recent immigration bill. What I am pointing to is what political scientist Bertram Gross referred to as ‘Friendly Fascism’ in his 1980 book by that name. But make no mistake, there is a direct correlation between Harper’s government and fascism. And while other parties in Canada my be guilty of one or two of these tendencies, only the Conservative party has display all of them in a systematic manner. And the scariest similarity between now and Germany in the 1930s in particular is that the opposition is weak and divided making disaster almost inevitable.

The distruction of beauty.

I was driving along the Rideau river today and looking at the beauty of the changing foliage as it notifies us of the gradual shift in the season. I was elated by the warmth of the sun and the easy feeling that autumn is always so willing to offer up. I saw a Crane rise slowly out of the water against the soft blue background of the sky and disappear across the river to some unknown destination. I thought of the sweet innocence of my daughter’s face this morning as she jumped on the school and the smile that tickled her lips as she looked back at me over her shoulder. I considered the remarkable poetry of Coleridge that I have read lately and the depth of feeling that is available to us through the historical voice of our greatest poetic voices.

Then, from the corner of my cheerful eye, I caught sight of a Conservative election sign and I was overcome by a wave of nausea as I was brought back to the ground from my lofty heights. And I was forced to recall the terrible events of the last few weeks, and indeed over the last two and a half years as the Conservatives have slowly chipped away at the potential beauty of life. I thought about how almost every controversy or gaff in which the conservatives have been involved has demonstrated their fundamental meanness and dark and twisted way in which they look at society and the world. Think of it; while other parties have lost candidates to foolish mistakes like smoking to much marijuana, the Conservatives have been constantly caught making mean-spirited, cruel, and malicious comments about their opponents or some vulnerable group in society. The real tragedy of human life is not that events occur that cause human pain and hardship. Rather, the tragedy is that it has become acceptable, nay, even fashionable, to not only ignore these hardships but to cruelly persecute those who have suffered from misfortune. It is regrettable that the mean-spirited ideology of the Conservative party is being enshrined in our very system.

Despite the efforts of the great poets, despite the odes of Horace and the sonnets of Shakespeare, despite the most sensitive humanity of so many lovers and artists, caretakers of the human spirit, even with all these efforts, still the ruthless goons of pettiness and meanness can twist the fortitude of our endeavors into the basest coarseness of commerce and utility until there is nothing left of the beauty of life’s potential.

Charisma and leadership

We are all asking ourselves – ‘Must we watch Canadian democracy be destroyed because Mr. Dion has no Charisma?’ Because this is what it all comes down to. If the leader of the Liberal Party was a charismatic speaker with style who imbued people with a sense of confidence and hope, the Conservatives would have no change and would be lagging badly in this election. But then maybe it does come down to leadership, because a good leader is able to take advantage of his opposition’s inadequacies, And the record of the Conservative Government is so terrible that if the opposition had any kind of leadership, everyone in the country would be talking about their awful scandals and their fundamental attacks on democracy. But no one is talking about those things because the Liberals seem to have no chutzpah. I am not a big fan of Jack Layton but at least he is running some kind of campaign and trying to remind people just how terrible Stephen Harper has been. But then maybe the Liberals don’t really want to win. After all, if Harper just got another minority, then six or seven months from now Harper will have proven just how hopeless he is in taking care of the economy and will have destroyed any chance he had of securing a majority.

But then if we Canadians are looking down the barrel at another Conservative government just because the liberal leader has no charisma, we are surely luckier than the American public who are facing another Republican president simply because the Democratic candidate is an African American. Because make no mistake, if a Democratic candidate had come along with the style, charisma, and background of Obama – and he were white: he would now be so far ahead of McCain that the election would have already been decided.

Market disasters and government bailouts

Why is it that over the past one hundred plus years, every time so-called conservatives and the right-wing deregulate markets and let ‘capitalism’ move unfettered, they bring us to the brink of total economic collapse? It happens over and over again. In the past century some of the major meltdowns have been 1907, 1929, 1987, and now 2008. And here is the kicker: every time this happens, the free-market gurus called in the government to bail them out and save them from ruin! This is the government that they never tire of telling us is inefficient and totally useless. Well, if it is so useless why does the market need it so often to come to the rescue? There are, of course, a few simple answers to this question. First of all, ‘free’ markets are a myth like the Yeti or his north-American cousin the Sasquatch. Almost no one has really believed in ‘free’ markets for well over a hundred years. What conservatives and the right-wing really believe in are selectively controlled and regulated markets designed to maintain the profitability of banks and large corporations. If we really had a ‘free’ market the system would collapse before you could say ‘junk-bonds,’ leading to mass-starvation and chaos. The reason that the Right pretends to believe in ‘free’ markets is because it creates a smokescreen for the so-called conservative agenda in which the rich get richer and average people get the shaft. And the poor saps who buy this imaginary ideology keep voting for the right-wing which works against the interest of the vast majority of people. But of course the right-wing, market gurus are happy to use the tax money of this majority to bail the ‘market’ out of disaster.

The fact is that markets, even well regulated ones, simply don’t work very well, particularly in areas of society concerned with ‘social’ interests like education or health-care. When markets are allowed to even partially function in these areas of society they only serve to highlight the discrepancy between rich and poor. When are the people going to wake up to the lies that the right-wing has been peddling all this time about inefficient and useless governments and the divine perfection of the market? But I suspect that not enough people will realize the sham and if the government is able to bail out the system again this time, twenty or so years from now we will be right back where we started with the useless and inefficient government once again saving the infallible market!

Make no mistake, Stephen Harper’s entire ideology is giant confidence trick perpetrated with smoke, mirrors, and misdirection. It is time for us to stand up and admit that markets need more regulations not less, and market forces need to be kept out or more parts of our society to avoid social inequality and disaster.