Fun With Wikipedia: Is America Under Bush a Fascist State?

I don't quite think we're there yet, but we're pretty close. Wikipedia's basic definition is an authoritarian political ideology that's generally tied to a mass movement that considers the individual subordinate to the state's interests. It creates unity based on ethnic, cultural, racial, or religious ideas.

They then provide a checklist:

1. Patriotism. Check.
2. Nationalism. Check.
3. Statism Pseudo-check. In speech he's very anti-statism. Historically America believes in anti-statism. In action he feels he needs policies (he usually says the tools) to fight terrorism that would allow for mass surveillance of individuals and companies. He also asks corporations, for example network carriers, to assist his administration in spying on individuals in the United States to combat terrorism. I guess you can argue it's compartmentalized, but the surveillance is (what is known of it) is so far reaching you gotta kind of say it reaches beyond what is really needed given the scope of the terrorist threat (what we know of it).
   
4. Militarism: The "belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests" [Source: Apple Dictionary, Version 1.0.2]. It has also been defined as "aggressiveness that involves the threat of using military force" Online die.net dictionary, as well as "Glorification of the ideals of a professional military class" and "Predominance of the armed forces in the administration or policy of the state" American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.Check.
5. "Totalitarianism state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior. Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, personality cults, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, single-party states, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics." Not a complete check, but frighteningly close to getting there. There is increased mass surveillance. Criticism of the party for some time was deemed unpatriotic and aiding terrorists. There was and is lots of propoganda (using drugs aids terrorists and kills troops yada yada). There is a sort of secret police via the secret spy program. Mass media was so pro-government and anti-terror they relayed whatever the administration wanted them to for a few years after 9/11, so there was and still is a state-controlled media. Personal freedoms have been restricted. Bush isn't trying to prop himself up and hasn't used force or the threat of terror to keep power beyond 2008, and there's no personality cult surrounding him. But, he's made long lasting base agreements with Iraq and domestic budgets that keeps his successor tied up in certain ways. So it kind of was a temporary totalitarian regime, which isn't totalitarian at all if there's an end date on it. So no check.
   
6. Anti-Communism. This historically defines America even post cold war. Check.
7. Corporatism. or corporativism (Italian: corporativismo) refers to a political or economic system in which power is given to civic assemblies that represent economic, industrial, agrarian, social, cultural, and professional groups. These civic assemblies are known as corporations (not necessarily the business model known as a 'corporation', though such businesses are not excluded from the definition either)."At a popular level in recent years "corporatism" has been used to mean the promotion of the interests of private corporations in government over the interests of the public". Corporations have tons of influence on politics due to lobbyists and political donations. Check.
8. Populism. Not a check. Not sure it should necessarily be on the list. I think fascists more co-opt populist values while not delivering on those promises, which isn't really populism at all. The term is so misused and ambiguous that it's kind of useless.
   
9. Collectivism "any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human interdependence". Not a check. We're historically individualists and it's constantly re-enforced of that.
10. Autocracy check Bush has been consolidating power and legitimizing it through the need to combat terrorism for a while now. He gets a blank check to do anything in Iraq and does what he needs to secretly to find and eliminate terrorist threats. I guess this gets only a half check, because the judiciary has kind of hampered him with Guantanamo and the torture stuff has kinda killed his legitimacy.
    
11. Opposition to political and economic liberalism. Kind of a Check again. I do think Bush is anti political liberalism as I understand it. Although he uses the phrase "rule of law" a lot when discussing getting Iraq back on track and uses the phrase "We are a nation of laws" to state part of what America stands for, his policies seem to be anti-individual in the sense that Bush's economic and social philosophy is whatever benefits business benefits the individual instead of the other way around. Hence priority and benefits are given to corporations and businesses first as a political liberal would focus on what is good for individuals first. That's how I see Bush as anti-political liberalism anyways.Bush is pro Fiscal Conservatism in his speeches, but he is a fiscal conservative in name only. He cut taxes and went for a Reaganomics type of effect, only to mess up by approving massive spending increases by a republican congress to increase our national debt. Also, he unexpectedly (or maybe not) had the need to massively spend for that war he started. That whole tab is on us, while he moans about earmarks added on to bills. Earmarks should be reduced, but compared to the overt spending already done, earmarks are like a barnacle attached to a whale. The spending that ought to be done is on infrastructure investment here. We need to be spending on public schools instead of the public spending tax dollars so we can in turn pay to go to the school we helped fund. We wonder why our kids are dumb and wild. Well, you voted for the person that promised reduced property taxes...go figure. That whole system should be fixed. Local property taxes should be pooled by state and redistributed school district by school district by population. That way the same amount of money is spent on every kid. No more "ghetto" schools where all the kids of poor people have to go and they learn nothing because they aren't funded enough. No rich kid schools. Truly equal schools...at least by state...haven't worked that one out and I think giving it to the corrupt Department of Education would do more harm than good. Wow so off topic.

Anyways, America under Bush isn't a fascist regime but it's still pretty bad right now as far as lacking effective leadership. Nothing got accomplished but trouble and debt in these eight years. He's more of a bungler than evil. The point of leading a country is to transcend challenges (like terrorists). Instead we got a coward pretending to be a cowboy saying all the right things but not doing right by (Katrina victims, war veterans, middle and lower class families) anyone except a few war profiteers and corporate entities.

Mission Accomplished. Go home and build your stupid library to try to redefine your failed presidency you pseudo fascist.

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Here We Go

I made this new blog because sometimes I'd be ready to blog about sports and stuff I'd read or watched on CNN or MSNBC just pissed me off enough about Bush, how depressing the world is in terms of people dying and having no food or housing yet we're chasing a small band of people around with billions of dollars in money that I'd rant a bit and post it although that isn't the point of my blog at all. Then I started posting then feeling remorseful and pulling it off. Then I would just save some as drafts. I attempted a political blog but felt my views were so extreme and the posts so useless (shouting into a black hole) and that it got me so agitated to post political things I quickly deleted the entire blog.

But I still have some of my old posts saved as drafts within the dodgers blog so I've reposted them in ass-backwards order and added my latest rant about the irony of how we choose to deal with Cuba and how we choose to deal with China.

So, Craig, welcome to my blog of political rants.

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6.21.07 If You Like to Read Nobodies Ranting About Politics, Read On...

If you don't do politics don't read on. You've been warned.

This is how bored I am with the Dodgers recently. Not bored enough to post on other blogs but too bored to turn the recent dodger losses and injuries into my own stuff. So I give you this, something that has been gurgling inside me that has nothing to do with baseball and will probably piss you off if you read it but please forgive me.

I have had this gnawing feeling. Not quite nauseous but an unsettled feeling in my stomach. It would come over me while watching or reading CNN sometimes or whenever I saw the current president or any of the hopeful presidential candidates. It was a feeling with some confused internal thoughts that were not totally coherent. Finally the internal conversation became coherent and I can pinpoint why hearing about the government and wishing there could be genuine change makes me nauseous. It's because it's so futile. There can be no genuine change with the way the political system is set up.

Sure, candidates come in different flavors as they do say they stand differently than other candidates on certain "hot button" issues that when you look at them do not affect most americans.

The death penalty

Is only used about 10 times a year whoop de doo! This doesn't affect anyone you know. If it does happen to affect you, you know that it took 10 years or so for the legal system to repeatedly keep reaffirming that they've got the right person that did something unspeakable to another human being for no good reason. Getting rid of the death penalty does not meaningfully change America as we know it. 2-19-08 Update: I think I should have added that I don't like the death penalty and hoped it was abolished. I also should have pointed out that a lot of people are in jail wrongfully and some are executed wrongfully based on the rules of the current system. I think my point was that politicians grandstanding about how they want more executions sucks for the American people, politically speaking. Killing more people isn't going to help America much.

Abortion.

Highly explosive issue. Has been for years. Position on this issue is a de facto litmus test for being the Republican nominee. This issue affects people that mostly want to legislate to stop their neighbor from doing something they would never do themselves and think is wrong . Most OBGYN's won't do abortions even if they do not find it morally repugnant because of the social stigma and fear of some extremist murdering them (doesn't happen often, but non-violent harassment happens a bit more). There are not a lot of doctors doing abortions. There are not a lot of abortions occuring considering the population. Last count was 843k in 2003 by the CDC. America has about 300 million people. About 1/2 are women. I'm going to make EVERY woman in America of childbearing age for the purpose of this argument. So that makes 1 out of about 150 women (really less than that) having had an abortion that year. That's less than 1%. That is still less than 1% too many, don't get me wrong, but the statistics don't strike me as American Women using abortion as a form of birth control. But why should an issue that affects so few people be one of the biggest issues in the american debate? Is it just an issue to distract people from wondering why they are not doing better than they were 8 years ago? I don't know. Update 2-19-08: It's funny to note how much less abortion seems to be an issue regarding whom we choose to run for President since we have so many other problems that trump it now. The candidates don't really talk about it a lot. Funny how quickly priorities can change when everyone starts losing their homes and lots of people get laid off.

Gay marriage.

Another hot issue that distracts from the fact that rich people are getting richer and poor people are getting poorer at an increasing rate. Thankfully this is becoming a non-issue by the fact that many insurance companies are coming on board and recognizing "domestic partners" and the new institution in a few states of civil unions. When is the last time a homosexual affected a straight person's life in a negative, meaningful way? Right now america is saving money on them by not recognizing the relationships legally. Gays and Lesbians and Transgender people would only be getting what everyone else should be getting in their rat race to the american dream. Big focus on such a small minority. Update 2-19-08: Again, this issue has been subverted to one line lip service. "I believe in the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman." Nobody cares right now. Which is both good and bad. Bad for gays not getting the rights they deserve, but good in that no candidate is out openly demonizing them as much as they used to. State Governors (like Romney haha) have done the most in fixing this problem in a few states.

Illegal Immigrants.

Another hot one right now. Who knows how many there are. Yep, they've probably depressed wages. But, if corporations weren't so darn cheap to bear the cost of moving certain factories to mexico we might not have so many people illegally here. So, the corporations would have depressed wages a different way anyways. It is very easy to tell if someone has the right to work here, yet so many people are getting by with a social security number that has been issued either a way long time ago or within the last 10 years or so, yet they are a happily working adult at a meat packing plant. I used to process credit card applications for a major retailer, and many people with hispanic names would have their social security numbers come back with a warning that it was too new or came back to someone who was dead or it would come back to another person currently alive and well with a different name. The policy was to let it go as long as the credit file created by the hispanic person with the other person's social security number was good. I confess I do not like the idea of people coming over here illegally whatever the reason is for coming and feeling morally justified in arguing that they are citizens because they say so and want a better life. But illegal immigrants are only a symptom of the real problem. It's not their fault and I don't personally blame them. If they were a real problem the government would have made sure people would go home. If it really affected the bottom line they would be able to find these people through public documents, find where they live, eject them from and seize whatever property they own, and send them back to Mexico with nothing but the clothes on their back. It's really simple. It is still done in the war on drugs. Government auctions off tons of cars seized from drug dealers. It's not much of a deterrent for very rich drug cartels, but it sure would be a big deterrent for Joe Blow illegal alien who's purpose in coming to america was a better life. Money gets taken away if you are caught kinda kills the incentive to come here. Update 2-19-08: This issue is still pretty hot. Everyone is kind of saying it's a problem but none of the candidates are too clear on how they'll solve it. I still think the government should adopt a policy of seize and everyone who's undocumented who chooses to stay after being told to go home. Any type of recognition just encourages the problem to get bigger. I'm not scared that these people are terrorists.

National Security

This is the most meaningful because we want a clear position of war or anti-war from candidates and because it affects the american collective conscience. I don't think we're scared of somebody flying an airplane into our home or place of business, a car bomb, or suicide bomber, but we're anxious that another radical person will poke a stick at our nation in an as of today, unthought of way and a few hundred or a few thousand people will die. I don't think anyone feels it will be them personally, though. Just that it's not good to be attacked, which is totally logical if one is to feel safe in one's own country. Update 2-19-08: Anti-war seems to still be winning as an idea as far as Iraq despite the progress made by putting more troops there. I think the idea that the benefits of security by keeping all these guys there is outweighed by the expenditure of the money we're pouring in there in light of the current economic situation. People voted for this when we voted for Congress, and will vote for it again now in the Presidential election. There aren't enough people that want to keep pouring money over there when they're losing their homes and jobs at home to elect McCain.

Why is that? Because the U.S. government while constantly re-iterating how terrorists are still a direct threat to Joe Blow american citizen, the war on terrorism comes with no sacrifice. Bush have a rich father or uncle or something because he just told us all to snitch on our neighbors (later stopped apparently because we snitch a little too much) and shop. Are they trying to sugarcoat a bitter pill? How much am I Joe Blow american paying for this war Before I go out to the mall? Is the check being deferred to my grandchildren? It sure seems economically rosy for the most expensive war in history after ...oh, I've forgotten how many years it's been since I did nothing for the war effort. Is that on purpose? The 21'st century has gotten very Orwellian. Just what is this war on terror? It certainly is different than any other war I've read of in books. Where is most of the dying occuring?

Update 2-19-08: I think the majority of people think that Iraqi instability doesn't directly hurt them, but the economic consequences of continuing to spend money over there does. Therefore decreasing money spent over there helps them more than continuing to fight there.

Well let's look around. Where is the violence? It's mostly in Iraq. Why there? I guess that's where opinions differ. Some are of the opinion that Al-Qaeda is continuing its war on the U.S. and by our presence in Iraq that we're 'Keeping the war over there on their court.' This opinion is sometimes used by politicians to justify a continued combat presence in Iraq. I guess that's a variation on better them than us. Others say there is violence in Iraq because americans are there as an occupying force and Muslims tend to rise against any infidels that are occupying 'Islamic Territory'. I think both are true.

Why is there no violence in the U.S.? Al-Qaeda still has money. They still have military forces. They want to still hurt america(ns). Our borders are wide open! I'm not sure. Thing is though, there probably aren't many Al-Qaeda left. Most of the rank and file I'm going to assert do not exist anymore. One tends to distance and disavow links to an organization when being in it means the american government will hunt you down like a trophy animal and do God knows what to you in God knows what country for God knows how long. What's left are in hiding. The war is keeping them in hiding. The guys that blow up troops aren't Al-Qaeda. They are pissed off Iraqi's so pissed off at America the government occupying their country in opposition to islamic law that they plant bombs on the roadside shipped in from Iran or they blow themselves up in marketplaces at the bidding of other islamic extremist groups because they have nothing else to live for, have lost everything meaningful to them, and need someone to blame. Normally, these people are much like you and me. But if you kill most of their immediate relatives, destroy their home, and they don't know when they will be able to work again I think we can begin to see the desperation that could lead to but not justify such acts that happen against our troops. Another problem is a lot of Iraqis are just pissed at other Iraqis. That is why creating a police state in Iraq until the elected government can take over has not and will not work. The police state (american soldiers) are the problem. Now I am definitely not saying I think our troops suck or I don't support them (what a new codeword for patriotism that's become), or I think they are bad people. They aren't. What they are when placed in a destroyed urban environment is a catalyst for more violence where a healthy amount of violence already exists. They are human fuses for violence over there in a country where life has become very cheap and people have already lost most of what they had to live for.

Update 2-19-08: The situation has changed for the better. Iraqis aren't so pissed off because America is paying them to give up Al-Queda now. Iraqis are pissed at Al-Queda because they see Al-Qeuda as the reason there are tanks in their neighborhood searching for Al-Queda guys. What's left of Al-Queda is back to killing Iraqis paid by America now. I still think most Iraqis and all of Al-Queda will be pissed until our military presence is gone.

Anyways the word I was searching for to characterize that icky feeling I had about what the american political system has become has existed for a while. I, stupid, ignorant guy that I am had to come up with it myself. I could have assuaged the feeling a bit had I just tried to attach a word to it or played around on Wikipedia.

Anyways the word I came up with is Corporatocracy. Blogger doesn't even recognize it as a word for its spellcheck program yet. But I know it's a real word. I feel the word deep in my gut.

Corporations don't care as long as they get paid. Their beginning and end is wealth. They do not care for my interests, or your interests, or any interests but their own. They pretend to in commercials on TV, the internet and newspapers to make you think they do, but they lie.

This isn't a diatribe against corporations so much as a diatribe of the influence imaginary persons with lots and lots of money and very limited interests have over government. Corporations don't breathe. They only care about the air if they are profiting off it. Corporations do not drink. They need only ensure the water won't make you ill or kill very soon after you drink it. Corporations do not eat. They again need only ensure that most of their food will not immediately put you in a hospital or kill you. If that happens they voluntarily recall it shut up and wait for the news to go away. You might see an ad spot though, just in case that will make you think they do care about you. The motivations of Corporations don't allow them to envision the world the way most would wish it would become. It sees the world as a commodity. Some limited. Some renewable (like us). Some choose to kill their employees or customers for that little bit more profit on the balance sheet. Can't imprison a corporation. It has no body. Cannot execute it for murder either, there's a law against judicially bankrupting a company through punitive damages. You can only fine it.

If your Congressman or Senator don't vote right on issues you hold dear, vote them out. That's the argument you usually hear. Umm, yeah. I could do that but unfortunately the very few rich people on the boards of corporations with tons of cash have paid every single candidate. Nobody represents the people anymore as things are set up today. If a corporation pays every candidate in some way shape or form the corporation always wins and can never lose influence. No corporation should be able to give ANY DONATION to any political candidate.

Let the public control the candidates. Not the corporations. Let the public pay for their freaking billboards and air time. At least we will still then have a modicum of control in the process. I want my tax dollars to go there. That makes sense to me. Then whoever wins the presidency might do what he feels is best for the country or the average american working person and not Exxon-Mobil or Microsoft.

Right now all the government does is to encourage the average working american person to incur debt to live or maintain a lifestyle without the proper means to ever be able to be unencumbered while requiring increased production from workers without an appropriate and reciprocal raise in pay or standard of living from workers. We are all working harder, and producing more for a master that pays us the same or less for it. That's not fair. That's what we should be trying to figure out when we talk about presidential candidates. Who cares about Joe Blow living on Main St. USA?

Now go back up and look at the bolded issues. Do any of them affect your ability to get or hold a job and make a living to achieve the american dream? Do you routinely find yourself in competition with foreign workers at your workplace? That is the only one that kinda can be argued. It seems logically connected but it's not and here's why (even though I already stated it): You were already in competition with foreign labor before they were in your face at your job sites. So is almost everyone else.

This is what happens when a society adopts an economic system based on one of the seven deadly sins. Greed is not good. Greed is bad. Greed is why our economic system is out of our hands. Greed is why you are only a statistic to the corporations that lend you money to buy an education, cars, and houses. And a statistic to the other corporation that employs you, insures you and your family, doles out corporately rationed out medical assistance to you. You don't own anything. Everything you have owns you. And by that the government rules you.

update 2-19-08: The political discourse has gotten more real. The imaginary issues have fallen away because the economy has tanked. Americans are feeling squeezed. Politicians have kind of reacted to that. That's good in my opinion. Things still aren't great, but the candidates seem to have started to be more direct about the problems facing America and Americans. When things get better, we'll probably be talking about stupid stuff like gay marriage and the death penalty again. Right now we have more important things to argue about.

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Old post from 11.2.07 Why Running America Like A Corp is a Bad Idea

The older I get the more disenchanted I feel about the American political system. Especially since in recent years the political donation rules get more and more lax, allowing more and more corporate and other lobbyist money to go into candidates war chests. As long as a particular interest or corporate entity donates enough money and hedges its bets with enough viable candidates, they can secure at least partially, action that helps or at least protects whatever interest ($ source of some kind)they have no matter who gets voted into office.

I am already off track while hardly starting to write about my subject, mainly because in my mind there is just so much of a mess with things wrong with America that it's hard to know where to begin. Anyways, I think the notion of the President's office being a sort of CEO of America started in the three party election that included long infomercials from Ross Perot and all his charts (that may itself have started a new presentation revolution with Micro$oft's help). His notion of the presidency was that America was a big business and should be operated to be profitable. I'm seeing this notion reappear in the '08 election in some of the talk from candidates Romney and to a lesser extent Guliani ('these other guys haven't ever run anything'). In general, it is kind of a Republican idea associated with fiscal responsibility and an idea that concludes that the more government agencies you can cut, and in general, the more government spending you can cut or reduce, the better you are managing America as our country's spending is inherently wasteful and the bureaucracy begets more bureaucracy and therefore government waste.

My first question which I'll make not attempt to answer in regards to this notion is profitable for whom? I'm certainly not getting some return from the profitable operation of the American corporate unit.

My first reaction and argument against this notion of the president as CEO is that America is not a business. America and its people are not a means to the end of annually increasing profits. America is about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Last time I checked the fortunes of the government's bottom line didn't coincide with my life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness.

That said, government should be run responsibly as any household should (but usually doesn't) by staying within their means, consuming only as much as they can reasonably afford to pay in a reasonable amount of time (not a $100 credit card payment into infinity). Right now the government as a household is the stereotypical family where the couple both works, they make 120-180k a year together, but have borrowed against all the equity in their house, have $25,000 or more in unsecured debt and are just barely making the minimum payments, drive a leased car, and have ridiculous cell phone bills/plans. The commercial showing the guy with the 'American Dream'--a McMansion type house with a picket fence, a few dogs, and a luxury car who states at the end that he affords all of what he has because he is up to his eyeballs in debt. That is America right now, but add to that some kind of uncovered health care crisis right now because of the war. Why is our government so greedy to rack up all this debt at the expense of the lifestyles of future American generations?

The answer is because America is already being run like a corporation. Corporations only focus on profit. Capitalism focuses primarily on profit, and that pursuing profit solves everything in a marketplace. The problem is that sometimes profits mean injury or death to some citizens. For instance if the medicine that cures a certain disease is so expensive to make that there is no profit in making it because too few people have that disease, people will die essentially to save money. The government shouldn't be about more money at the expense of human health and life, should it?

America does have controls on capitalism and for the example above, the government does have a program in which it subsidizes the costs to drug companies to produce very costly to make drugs that would otherwise not be made to get them in the marketplace. However, this line of thinking of the President as CEO and running America as a big corporation leads its proponents to want to shave away or eliminate government programs that protect citizens as unnecessary because 'the market will figure it out'. Capitalism as the holy grail of economic systems is very misguided to me and will lead to humanities self-destruction, all because we're greedy.

America currently has one of the highest standards of living and has been up there for some time. The dark side of this is that we have one of the highest rich to poor ratios of developed nations. This is the bad side of capitalism at work...corruption. We are the new Rome. Our wealth is very unevenly distributed and it's getting worse. Why should our government run in such a way that seems to result in growing wealth inequality? Who would want to perpetuate this kind of deal? Why would the rules be tailored to continue to enrich a very small percentage of individuals that control a very large percentage of the nation's wealth while most other people are scraping by? It is because of the true unspoken values of America. This is the America that pays entertainers large sums of money while paying the teachers of our children hardly enough to get by. This doesn't seem to jive with how America represents itself as the country where anyone can attain the American dream and be and/or do whatever one wishes if you educate yourself and work hard. How talented and smart you are or how important you are to society has little correlation to how much your paycheck is. America right now is more like a big sweepstakes, many will enter, few will win. You might think you will eventually win because you are a good person and work really hard, but that isn't the way America really works. You think that because you've been programed that that's the way things work through t.v. and political rhetoric and school. You've also been inundated with commercials programming you to aspire to a certain lifestyle, certain goods and luxuries, certain personal services. This is where America has gone all wrong. We've gone from admiring hard, honest work to admiring things and wealth, no matter how much of your future income you've whored off to acquire it or how much suffering was used to subsidize your being able to acquire it. Those are the people that have fallen into the trap with confusing wealth with displays of wealth.

We have all these things we purchase with our paychecks that are abnormally inexpensive due to the virtual enslavement of third world laborers. By buying these products and paying so little to these people who have no rights, no workplace safety, and no freedom in the case of China we virtually become their slavemasters. We have such a high standard of living because another government is willing to let their people remain at such a low standard of living to make their products cheap. In turn, we stupid capitalists cannot flock to these seemingly great deals fast enough, shooting ourselves in the foot by letting the means of production run over there to this seemingly great deal--22 cent an hour labor. But there's no free lunch and eventually the Chinese will be ready to let their currency rise, call back their loans, and raise the standard of living of their people on our backs, demand more for their goods that we are now reliant upon since we no longer make anything here, and all hell will break loose in the United States economically. The Chinese might have beat us at our own game. Our game being the greed that exemplifies the capitalist economic system. Eventually there will be some equilibrium and industries that are gone here will come back when things become economically feasible because Chinese stuff is now so expensive, but it will suck for a few years while that adjustment is made. Adjustment mostly meaning the average family not being able to afford much of anything at all because of massive inflation and the value of the dollar gets beat into the ground. The Chinese will then virtually own the average American for a little while. This is why unchecked capitalism and running the country like a corporation is bad, it does not look out for the long term interests of itself or the people. Without people, what's the purpose of wealth. That isn't in a corporation's equation.

However, the government is spending its money on something to offset this possibility. Despite the whole big government is bad idea and cutting government spending is good, the government still spends a lot of money on weapons that hang around, get old and get replaced with new weapons. Somehow spending insane amounts of money on weapons and guns presumably to protect America and Americans can be seen as a good idea. I don't know how the 'big government is bad' people see no conflict in being proponents of high military spending reconcile that. If you think government and government spending is bad, it shouldn't matter what form that bueracracy or spending takes be it a missile or some bureaucrat that is in charge of making sure the missile was made correctly.

It really does seem that we have taken a trip back in time when Reagan seemed to go to welcome instability in little countries just to sell more weapons to them (most ironically, Iraq). Who's selling weapons again to Iraq? Who makes money making and selling weapons? Why do we sell weapons at all to other nations if the purpose of spending money to make weapons is to keep American citizens safe? I don't know but I'm glad I'm not that much responsible in profiting off war and human suffering. I profit enough off death and the suffering of others just by being an American and living the average American lifestyle.

America's people are citizens with rights and duties spelled out in the Constitution. The government was created to help people in their pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The government is supposed to protect us from enemies foreign and domestic. Why is it then that the government has cut every program that was set up to ensure citizen/consumer safety through product testing yet arming other countries that may turn against us like Iraq? Why does my country go to war with my tax dollars with a country that couldn't have hit us even if they had nuclear weapons to fire off at us (they could barely hit Israel with their best conventional missiles and in the second war turned out they didn't have nukes)? I don't want that kind of government. I want a government that is my advocate and not my antagonist. For and By the people, remember? Why is it that the CPSC is viewed and often portrayed as an example of unnecessary big government or the other rhetorical, badly connoted word, bureaucracy? Maybe we didn't need it so much when more things were made by Americans, but with globalization there are no guarantees anymore and nobodies checking what we're getting anymore. I feel pretty beat down and discouraged about government. The American government is now no more than a tool to externalize as much cost as possible to American citizens through eliminating regulations to create more profit for corporate interests.

If there is another questionable election result and the '08 President Elect keeps ignoring reality and tells us to just be good little consumers I think I will seriously look into leaving the United States for good. Any good president (one who's not bought) would address:

1. Wealth inequality in this country. It's already ridiculous and getting worse.
   
2. Public financing reform of federal and state elections need to be instituted so our government representatives aren't corrupt cheats unduly influenced by corporate interests.
3. Fixing "Globalization". Rules on corporations going abroad only having to abide by the rules of that country instead of the USA demanding that if they are incorporated in the U.S. they must abide by some human rights floors as far as working conditions and a minimum wage of at least $X no matter what country they're operating in so that U.S. corporations are no longer de facto slaveowners. Yes, this is what globalization really amounts to. This one is really important to me because why should we not care about people everywhere else who work, yet do not have a decent standard of living or are going hungry while we sit in America wasting resources. I think it's morally evil to leech off other human beings labor without regard for their health and human rights. We have so much collectively as Americans, we could subsidize a minimum living standard for the entire world in cooperation with other nations if we cared about each other. Maybe in the future we'll care a little more for people far away. Helping them helps us spiritually and helps humanity. How many potential geniuses or innovators that happened to be born into poverty in the third world did the world let starve to death? Who knows what return humanity could have been gotten by a little rice in someone's belly?
   
4. Fixing the tax code so that people and businesses are taxed relative to their ability to pay and that invested income is taxed at a higher rate than that of labor. Make it fair. Make it simple. Make it unavoidable. Stop giving tax incentives out to companies that don't need it.
   
5. Re-adding government safeguards for consumers (which need to be reasonable funding) rather than telling us to be good little consumers. Capitalism with too few rules leads to the problems we see with the safety of the products we consume. Garbage rules, garbage out.
   
6. Serious action and consideration on possible solutions to pollution and its effects on the environment and alternative energy. I don't expect that there necessarily be an answer, but I expect the government spend a reasonable amount of money to research solutions to the problems. There should also be funded research on the effects of all the new chemicals that humans have been exposed to and the cumulative effects of this exposure on the health of young human beings, women, adults, and the elderly.
7. Stop war. Stop aggression. Stop exploitation. Start true Cooperation.
8. Update 2-19-08 Dang I have to add another one. Start spending money on infrastructure. We're off fighting people with billions of dollars and we don't want to spend money on roads and stuff. It's like the fall of Rome for crying out loud. This would put people to work and benefit people. Unfortunately it won't get done unless it's a highway that leads to a new Wal-Mart or something.
   

It probably won't happen. It will be sad. If the next president earnestly approaches one of these issues there will at least be some hope. Hopefully at least most of 7 is taken care of. Seems easiest to choose to stop fighting in Iraq since most people believe it's a mistake to be there and in general they don't want us there.

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Bush's Comments on Cuba Make Me Think

Bush was all over the totalitarian regime over in Cuba that can't get cars from this century let alone weapons that could hurt us. I'm all for decrying totalitarian dictators, really I am. What I wonder is why China is immune from this type of criticism. They hold sham elections, don't they? They have great restrictions on the press and personal freedoms, right? The state legislates how many kids you can have, right? Religion is pretty much outlawed there, right?

It took me a minute, even though it should be the answer to every question regarding why America does what it does in foreign diplomacy matters.

Money.

Cuba is pretty much worthless from a market standpoint. Yeah you can make a little money off cigars, but there aren't that many Cubans over there to roll enough of them to meet the demand. China on the other hand, is the biggest market in the world. It's been protected for thousands of years by a big wall and a tradition of not trusting foreigners (with good reason). Corporate interests have been wanting in for a long time. Some are in a bit already. Their penetration into the market place is still partially dictated by a somewhat planned economy. A mishmash of free market and planned economies. But you don't here anyone complaining that they should be able to do what they want. They're so greedy, they will jump through whatever hoops possible, even if that means giving up some political protesters to the police for trying to get something more of what we have over here, there (no, not Starbucks and The Gap, but the ability to freely practice religion, freedom to politically protest without fear of being jailed).

So Cuba, since the country and people aren't worth much to American interests, remains an old political punching bag to remind people when we were once in an ideological struggle against some communist dudes that wouldn't let us privately buy up property there to sell foreign people our stuff.

China on the other hand, is a country we're trying to meaningfully engage and coax them out of their not-so-good ways. They aren't evil, just a little misguided and a little gentle nudging without harsh rhetoric about staged elections and totalitarian states might go a long way into persuading them into letting us buy more of their land privately to sell their vast amount of people our stuff.

The dichotomy makes all the rah-rah stuff about American values and the value of spreading freedom seem hollow when America strategically differs their approach to countries that have a different ideology based on how much more can they fill American pockets.

I thought Bush's foreign policy was supposed to spread democracy. Perhaps China's communists are more polite than Cuba's communists. I don't know. I haven't heard any guys from China saying, 'Hey, thanks for setting up that Wal-Mart and KFC, we've thought about it and we're gonna open up every market and hold some elections next week! Oh and what the hell, let them have church!' It isn't happening. It seems it's causing China to crack down even more, and using American corporate interests there to help them, I'm guessing with a 'You help us or you'll be asked to leave.'

The example above is used more to underscore that helping China isn't nudging it towards democracy, but enabling China access to more resources to enable it to become more authoritarian, and I don't want to get into the part of how they own our debt and the trade imbalance. We are so predictable they've used America's lust for a dollar against itself, then they'll use it against us.

Anyways, the part of me only concerned with my personal safety prefers the poor, communist China. They are having enough trouble feeding their own people to come halfway across the world to force communism on me.

Foreign Policy

We don't care about the Chinese people. America cares about it's ability to access the Chinese market. Our ability to allow us to sell stuff to Chinese people for a profit. If America's interest in China were about the freedom of Chinese people, here's how the diplomacy would go:

Us: Hi, Chairman of the People's Republic of China, we think a western style democracy would benefit the welfare of your people.

China: Well, we're not western and we have no history with democracy, so how does this help us?

Us: All the cool countries are doing it, Chairman. Caucuses and fundraising are the shit!

China: No, thanks. That sounds like a lot of work when all I have to do is orchestrate an election and not have to travel around and stuff.

Us: O.K., I understand that's hard, but think of your people. Look, I'm so sure Democracy and capitalism would benefit your country and it's people's standard of living I'm willing to trade you X billion dollars of capital investment that you keep and use to build roads, schools, you know, stuff for the people that you commies are always talking about and in return you allow people to write whatever they want in media and ease off that 'religion is hooey' stuff you keep making them watch and hear on their t.v.'s and radios. Sound like a deal? If you like that we can trade more investment for a removal of the ban on religion in a few years or so if the free press thing seems to be working out, o.k.?

But this isn't what we do. What America does is trade capital investment in China for access to their markets in the form of the ability to do business there. We aren't doing any favors for the Chinese people, we just want to generate more profits by selling them Lattes and Big Macs. There is lip service given to saying we urged them to give their people more personal freedoms, but nothing ever comes of it and we're spoon fed garbage about how us selling things there may eventually lead to freedom. Umm...how unless you barter for it?

(I should condense that section, but screw it.)


Our "values" versus what we actually do on the world stage show what a brazen hypocrite our country is. I think the guy that calls us out on it most is Hugo Chavez. Bush can't call him a communist (because he isn't), or a dictator (because his elections are certified), so he calls him a demagogue. I'm going to call irony on this one because it clearly isn't just a coincidence.

America is watching out for #1, us. It seems what our leader says about spreading democracy is really a euphemism for getting what we want, which is money, by force from little countries that conflict with our interests and don't want to cut a lopsided deal in favor of our corporations, or by subtle coercion from bigger countries who's policies conflict with our economic objectives.

If we really stand for freedom and democracy shouldn't we put our money where our mouth is? I'm not for spreading democracy at all really. If people are upset enough with their government they eventually rise up against it. And I'm not advocating this approach to China or any other nation. The press here should compare what the administration does to what it says, analyze the results of the administration's policies, compare that across all the countries the U.S. engages and conclude whether their actions match their stated goals. It's not that hard, journalists. Stop feeding us the government's line.

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