Responding to my e-mail asking for opinions as to whether I should bolt the Republican Party in response to Bush socialism, Phil Orenstein writes:
"McCain has stated that he would cut off the golden parachute of the crooks who allowed their investment banks to suffer the massive failures they did, and hold the regulatory agency the SEC accountable to do its job by first firing its top exec. If the investors in the bank's stocks suffered loss, then the crooks at the top shouldn't walk away scott free. McCain, I believe has the integrity to lead, and hold the people around him accountable. A leader can give the people confidence in the soundness of the economy, to forestall a potential run on the banks or general panic, for example. While printing money is the fed's drug of choice, to stop cold turkey at this point, would cause massive suffering. We must be gradually weaned off 100 years of progressivism and socialism, and be given a solid understanding of free market principles and individual liberty while were at it, and I believe McCain/Palin understand this and are up for the job. That means we also have to start with our schools, which are not doing the job."
Unfortunately, I have not heard a plan from John McCain about how to end monetary expansion, revise current Fed policies, change the pattern of unending support for America's financial institutions that goes back to the Great Depression and has transferred immense amounts of wealth from America's producers to inept Wall Street financiers. Phil's point would be more believable if the Republicans express a strategy. But none is forthcoming.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Idiosyncracies of American Democracy
Democracy does not work so rationally as we would wish. The public knows the word "economy" and believes that there are difficulties with it. It is unlikely that many of those who believe that there are difficulties with the economy can identify the diffculties accurately. For example, real wages have been declining since the early 1970s, but the public has not generally been concerned about this trend, which ought to be of serious concern to anyone who works. However, now that the mass media has been telling people that house prices, which have increased dramatically during the same period, are too low, the public feels that there is a crisis.
When I was in college in 1974 I worked as a door man in an apartment building in Manhattan on 54th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. It was down the street from Gucci's on 5th and across the street from the back entrance of the Museum of Modern Art. At that time I earned about $200 per week and a one bedroom apartment in that building was selling for $55,000. If you multiply $200 per week times 52 weeks and divide the result into $55,000 you get 5.3 times.
A one bedroom apartment in that same building now probably sells for over $1 million. However, wages for building workers have probably gone up about three or four fold. If you're generous to today's door men and you divide $1 million by $45,000 you get 22.2 times, and that is probably an understatement because the apartment may be selling for more than $1 million and the doorman may be making less than $45,000.
Despite apartment prices' having gone up at four times the rate of wages, the public is willing to believe that a reduction in housing prices constitutes a "crisis" and some kind of "unruliness in the markets" that requires massive government intervention.
Let real estate prices fall. Then, perhaps, I can afford a new apartment in Manhattan and move back to civilization!
Even odder than public unawareness that the average person earns less than his parents did is the belief that Barack Obama is somehow best qualified to alleviate the non-existent housing "crisis".
Andy Martin has forwarded a press release that indicates that:
"A new Washington Post poll now shows Barack Obama opening up a decisive lead based on the amazing belief that Obama is more competent to manage the economy."
The Washington Post article states that:
"Just 9 percent of those surveyed rated the economy as good or excellent, the first time that number has been in single digits since the days just before the 1992 election. Just 14 percent said the country is heading in the right direction, equaling the record low on that question in polls dating back to 1973.
"More voters trust Obama to deal with the economy, and he currently has a big edge as the candidate who is more in tune with the economic problems Americans now face. He also has a double-digit advantage on handling the current problems on Wall Street, and as a result, there has been a rise in his overall support."
This is especially odd because it is Obama who has received the lion's share of backing from Wall Street and from the pro-Wall Street media, for instance the New York Times and the media conglomerates that depend on Wall Street for financing. Given that the current "sub-prime crisis" is of Wall Street's making and Wall Street has primarily contributed to Senator Obama, current public opinion can best be described as idiosyncratic.
Part of the idiosyncratic public opinion is likely due to the media's slanted coverage of Obama and McCain. Jim Crum writes in an e-mail:
"I’ve said for months now that the main stream media need to be wearing...knee pads when dealing with Mr. Obama. It really has gotten that bad, and I doubt that there is any sin, now matter how grievous, that would escape their filters and be reported. Meanwhile, there is a near complete blackout on anything or McCain/Palin accomplishes. (Yes I have reservations about McCain & Palin, but given the alternative, there is no substantive choice)."
In an e-mailed press release Andy Martin states that McCain should break with the Bush administration and:
"speak clearly and simply and directly: he must announce in no uncertain terms his total opposition to the Wall Street bailout.
"First, over the past year I have repeatedly pointed out that the current financial crisis is a "manufactured" crisis. The urgency was created by maladroit steps to rein in sub-prime mortgages when they posed no threat to the overall economy. One bad step led to another. We have rather clumsily managed to topple our own financial dominoes. The mess is Wall Street's fault, not George Bush's responsibility."
In several e-mails about the media's reaction to the Obama's campaign lies about Senator McCain's supposed blocking of stem cell research Bob Robbins points out:
"That our media finds it all so amusing tells us just how much they value the truth as well."
The Progressives believed that a well informed democracy would be possible and that the public could fairly assert its own interests given an abundance of good information. Today's public is widely misled by the Progressives' descendants, the mass media, and is incapable of assessing even the most elementary facts about the political economy.
I have an increasing share of my assets either in hard commodities or outside the United States in foreign currency CDs. I do not believe that this country is headed for a healthy future, and it will be worse if Barack Obama, Wall Street's and the New York Times's boy wonder, is elected.
When I was in college in 1974 I worked as a door man in an apartment building in Manhattan on 54th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. It was down the street from Gucci's on 5th and across the street from the back entrance of the Museum of Modern Art. At that time I earned about $200 per week and a one bedroom apartment in that building was selling for $55,000. If you multiply $200 per week times 52 weeks and divide the result into $55,000 you get 5.3 times.
A one bedroom apartment in that same building now probably sells for over $1 million. However, wages for building workers have probably gone up about three or four fold. If you're generous to today's door men and you divide $1 million by $45,000 you get 22.2 times, and that is probably an understatement because the apartment may be selling for more than $1 million and the doorman may be making less than $45,000.
Despite apartment prices' having gone up at four times the rate of wages, the public is willing to believe that a reduction in housing prices constitutes a "crisis" and some kind of "unruliness in the markets" that requires massive government intervention.
Let real estate prices fall. Then, perhaps, I can afford a new apartment in Manhattan and move back to civilization!
Even odder than public unawareness that the average person earns less than his parents did is the belief that Barack Obama is somehow best qualified to alleviate the non-existent housing "crisis".
Andy Martin has forwarded a press release that indicates that:
"A new Washington Post poll now shows Barack Obama opening up a decisive lead based on the amazing belief that Obama is more competent to manage the economy."
The Washington Post article states that:
"Just 9 percent of those surveyed rated the economy as good or excellent, the first time that number has been in single digits since the days just before the 1992 election. Just 14 percent said the country is heading in the right direction, equaling the record low on that question in polls dating back to 1973.
"More voters trust Obama to deal with the economy, and he currently has a big edge as the candidate who is more in tune with the economic problems Americans now face. He also has a double-digit advantage on handling the current problems on Wall Street, and as a result, there has been a rise in his overall support."
This is especially odd because it is Obama who has received the lion's share of backing from Wall Street and from the pro-Wall Street media, for instance the New York Times and the media conglomerates that depend on Wall Street for financing. Given that the current "sub-prime crisis" is of Wall Street's making and Wall Street has primarily contributed to Senator Obama, current public opinion can best be described as idiosyncratic.
Part of the idiosyncratic public opinion is likely due to the media's slanted coverage of Obama and McCain. Jim Crum writes in an e-mail:
"I’ve said for months now that the main stream media need to be wearing...knee pads when dealing with Mr. Obama. It really has gotten that bad, and I doubt that there is any sin, now matter how grievous, that would escape their filters and be reported. Meanwhile, there is a near complete blackout on anything or McCain/Palin accomplishes. (Yes I have reservations about McCain & Palin, but given the alternative, there is no substantive choice)."
In an e-mailed press release Andy Martin states that McCain should break with the Bush administration and:
"speak clearly and simply and directly: he must announce in no uncertain terms his total opposition to the Wall Street bailout.
"First, over the past year I have repeatedly pointed out that the current financial crisis is a "manufactured" crisis. The urgency was created by maladroit steps to rein in sub-prime mortgages when they posed no threat to the overall economy. One bad step led to another. We have rather clumsily managed to topple our own financial dominoes. The mess is Wall Street's fault, not George Bush's responsibility."
In several e-mails about the media's reaction to the Obama's campaign lies about Senator McCain's supposed blocking of stem cell research Bob Robbins points out:
"That our media finds it all so amusing tells us just how much they value the truth as well."
The Progressives believed that a well informed democracy would be possible and that the public could fairly assert its own interests given an abundance of good information. Today's public is widely misled by the Progressives' descendants, the mass media, and is incapable of assessing even the most elementary facts about the political economy.
I have an increasing share of my assets either in hard commodities or outside the United States in foreign currency CDs. I do not believe that this country is headed for a healthy future, and it will be worse if Barack Obama, Wall Street's and the New York Times's boy wonder, is elected.
Walter E. Weyl on Social Justice
A few years ago there was a public discussion about the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education's (NCATE's) requirement that education schools provide "social justice" training. Several students have been expelled from education and social work schools because they lack "social justice dispositions". NCATE eliminated its social justice disposition requirement in response to pressure from Steve Balch and the National Association of Scholars, but many education schools still require that students demonstrate "social justice dispositions". However, such a requirement is illegal if it involves ideological indoctrination. Last fall, as I was reading Herbert Croly's Progressive Democracy, I realized that the concept of "social justice disposition" is directly taken from the ideology of the Progressives, to include Croly and likely John Dewey. Walter Weyl in his Progressive classic New Democracy writes about social rights in his chapter entitled "The New Social Spirit". Note that the concept of "social rights" is fundamental to Weyl's ideology and he links it directly to socialism and opposes it to individualism. "Progressive education" has a long history and is intimately linked to John Dewey's philosophy. Dewey, like all thinkers of the early twentieth century, was well aware of Weyl's and Croly's work (pp.161-5):
"The inner soul of our new democracy is not the unalienable rights, negatively and individualistically interpreted, but those same rights, 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' extended and given a social interpretation.
"It is this social interpretation of rights which characterizes the democracy coming into being, and makes it different in kind from the so-called individualistic democracy of Jefferson and Jackson. It is this social concept which is the common feature of many widely divergent democratic policies...
"To-day, no democracy is possible in America except a socialized democracy, which conceives of society as a whole and not as a more or less adventitious assemblage of myriads of individuals. The old individualistic system pictured the individual freely bargaining with the state...The individualist point of view halts social development at every point...'Government should rest upon the consent of the governed' is a great political truth, if by the 'governed' is meant the whole people or an effective majority of the people; but if each individual governed retains the right at all times to withhold his consent, government and social union itself become impossible...
"...the engine of taxation, like all other social engines, will be used to accomplish great social ends, among which will be the more equal distribution of wealth and income...The government of the nation, in the hands of the people will establish its unquestioned sovereignty over the industry of the nation..."
"In the future we shall enormously increase the extent of regulation. Not only can we pursue an active social policy by means of the regulation of industry, but we can also so direct and restrain and guide the strong economic impulses of society as to make the product of industry not only larger, but more widely and more fairly distributed."
In the chapter "The Social Problem of the Democracy" Weyl adds:
"Our future education must exalt social obligations above mere competitive egoisms....It must be an education which will aid society in the conservation of the life and the health of the citizen and in their progressive development."
"The inner soul of our new democracy is not the unalienable rights, negatively and individualistically interpreted, but those same rights, 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' extended and given a social interpretation.
"It is this social interpretation of rights which characterizes the democracy coming into being, and makes it different in kind from the so-called individualistic democracy of Jefferson and Jackson. It is this social concept which is the common feature of many widely divergent democratic policies...
"To-day, no democracy is possible in America except a socialized democracy, which conceives of society as a whole and not as a more or less adventitious assemblage of myriads of individuals. The old individualistic system pictured the individual freely bargaining with the state...The individualist point of view halts social development at every point...'Government should rest upon the consent of the governed' is a great political truth, if by the 'governed' is meant the whole people or an effective majority of the people; but if each individual governed retains the right at all times to withhold his consent, government and social union itself become impossible...
"...the engine of taxation, like all other social engines, will be used to accomplish great social ends, among which will be the more equal distribution of wealth and income...The government of the nation, in the hands of the people will establish its unquestioned sovereignty over the industry of the nation..."
"In the future we shall enormously increase the extent of regulation. Not only can we pursue an active social policy by means of the regulation of industry, but we can also so direct and restrain and guide the strong economic impulses of society as to make the product of industry not only larger, but more widely and more fairly distributed."
In the chapter "The Social Problem of the Democracy" Weyl adds:
"Our future education must exalt social obligations above mere competitive egoisms....It must be an education which will aid society in the conservation of the life and the health of the citizen and in their progressive development."
Phil Orenstein on Fahad Hashmi
Phil Orenstein's trenchant article "No Terrorist Left Behind" appears in the current issue of Frontpagemag. Orenstein traces the pro-terrorist atmosphere among leftists in universities. Orenstein writes that:
"According to the indictment filed in Manhattan federal court, he (Fahad Hashmi) was charged with providing and conspiring to send money, material support and military gear including night-vision goggles to associated al Qaeda fighters in South Waziristan, Pakistan to use against United States forces in Afghanistan. The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 50 years. Due to a violent outburst attacking arresting officers at Heathrow Airport, and shouting that he hoped they would be killed, bail was denied at a hearing and he was placed under secure lockdown."
Yet, oddly, over 500 academics have signed a petition protesting Hashmi's arrest and treatment. These same academics include a swathe of those who supported Ward Churchill's statement that the 9/11 victims were "Little Eichmanns" and many spread nonsensical lies such as the claim that the United States and George Bush perpetrated the 9/11 disaster.
Orenstein notes that:
"According to the NYPD intelligence report (2007), Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, Hashmi became radicalized while he was a student... Those who knew him described him as a quiet, bright, and caring young man who was passionate about Islam but not overzealous. However, Hashmi as well as many young Muslims in New York City struggling with their identity, often fall victim to extremist Islamic ideologies."
As well, university 9/11-deniers have attacked the distinguished Professor Sharad Karkhanis when he attempted to bring this and similar abuses to light. Professor Karkhanis has been subjected to a frivolous, $2 million law suit. The named plaintiff, Susan O'Malley, has publicly stated her case against Karkhanis is "silly", yet she has forced him to incur legal fees to defend himself against the Professional Staff Congress, the CUNY faculty union's, surreptitious suppression of free speech.
Phil Orenstein does a public service by bringing these often secretive academic abuses to full public view.
"According to the indictment filed in Manhattan federal court, he (Fahad Hashmi) was charged with providing and conspiring to send money, material support and military gear including night-vision goggles to associated al Qaeda fighters in South Waziristan, Pakistan to use against United States forces in Afghanistan. The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 50 years. Due to a violent outburst attacking arresting officers at Heathrow Airport, and shouting that he hoped they would be killed, bail was denied at a hearing and he was placed under secure lockdown."
Yet, oddly, over 500 academics have signed a petition protesting Hashmi's arrest and treatment. These same academics include a swathe of those who supported Ward Churchill's statement that the 9/11 victims were "Little Eichmanns" and many spread nonsensical lies such as the claim that the United States and George Bush perpetrated the 9/11 disaster.
Orenstein notes that:
"According to the NYPD intelligence report (2007), Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, Hashmi became radicalized while he was a student... Those who knew him described him as a quiet, bright, and caring young man who was passionate about Islam but not overzealous. However, Hashmi as well as many young Muslims in New York City struggling with their identity, often fall victim to extremist Islamic ideologies."
As well, university 9/11-deniers have attacked the distinguished Professor Sharad Karkhanis when he attempted to bring this and similar abuses to light. Professor Karkhanis has been subjected to a frivolous, $2 million law suit. The named plaintiff, Susan O'Malley, has publicly stated her case against Karkhanis is "silly", yet she has forced him to incur legal fees to defend himself against the Professional Staff Congress, the CUNY faculty union's, surreptitious suppression of free speech.
Phil Orenstein does a public service by bringing these often secretive academic abuses to full public view.
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