WHAT'S LEFT?

Plutocrats Gone Wild

Despite years of endless verbal blows from conservative forces, the word 'liberal' (and the belief system that it embodies)continues to exist. It's a matter of being part of an automatic comparative that media loves: big and small, black and white, good and bad, love and hate, liberal and conservative . While other words can be used to describe the opposites of all of these expressions…it's that instant reaction that makes the difference.

The more often conservative ideas and activities remain afloat :kill the new healthcare plan before it takes effect; the noise of the TeaParty and Paul Ryan; or the plans to destroy the policies that help people - kill union collective bargaining rights, privatize Medicare; the decisions of the Supreme Court that permit unlimited corporate gifts to political parties and the use of State funds to assist schools choosing students on the basis of religion - the more often the word liberal appears in the media as opposition to these conservative moves. After all the bad-mouthing, the squirming of liberal politicians to avoid the label, the suggestion that it's poison and needs to be replaced - 'liberal' in the name and all it stands for, remains operative, valid and choice.

Why haven't liberals done their best to fight back against the demonizing that first appeared in the 1950's - "pinko-commies"; in the 1970's - "bleeding hearts"; in the Reagan years as "big government spenders" and in George W's - 'traitors'?

There are a number of answers but the best is that liberals come in a number of belief systems and thought processes and that with all these cooks concentrating on a variety of views about the same subjects, there is little time or interest in fighting back.

Arguments can be made that because politics is about self interest, conservatives fit most comfortably in that area while liberals work constantly to convince the nation that enlightened self-interest begins with mutual interest: a tougher, more complex argument to sell.

And of course there is the reality that in their pluralistic approach to problems liberals exist in two main 'flavors': those who are pragmatists work for an idea and then accept what they get - a Bill Clinton and certainly a Barack Obama are prime examples; and liberals who are idealists work for an idea and keep fighting when they don't get what they want.

No matter the differences, liberalism means freedom, justice and an equal opportunity to succeed no matter background or personal circumstances. That 'opportunity' is about ceaselessly working for and maintaining a level playing field.

The breadth and success of liberalism is impressive.

Going back to the 1700's there's the brilliant economist of capitalism, Adam Smith, whose "The Wealth of Nations" in 1776 is long considered the bible of conservatism but who in 1759 wrote "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", pioneering liberal ideas of social and moral interdependence.

Abraham Lincoln may have been the first liberal Republican as he worked for major government spending on infrastructure and in appeals to a consideration of a complete nation, actually used the phrase "the better angels of our nature".

There's the 20th Century British philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, whose concepts about the existence of a pluralistic society in which all values are valid, concluded that liberalism is above all equals because it is the most tolerant of all belief systems.

Teddy Roosevelt and the progressives cleaned up crooked government as it expanded government regulation, busted the trusts established by Big Business on behalf of the public interest, and greatly supported progressive approaches to the Great Depression.

But it was in the years between Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society that liberalism became the force that made America the richest most powerful nation in history.

It is in those years that the Liberal Party of New York State was at its most influential. Then its concentration went beyond elections to presenting an annual, legal-size 75 page policy document to the New York State Legislature detailing what the Liberal Party proposed in a whole host of areas. Those documents would eventually become the heart of America's national agenda, even as it made New York the Empire State.

These days when liberal programs are under severe attack- this time in the guise of debt reduction - it helps to review what liberals gave America in those years between FDR and LBJ.

Let's start with politics - does anyone believe that a conservative America would have permitted a Barack Obama, a Hillary Clinton or even a Sarah Palin from ever making a genuine run for our highest offices?

Civil Rights? Women's rights? Gay Rights? Liberals fought and still fight for all of them. The Civil Rights Act and the G.I. Bill of Rights are perhaps the greatest laws enacted in the 20th Century. As gender rights and marriage equality might become the greatest laws enacted in the first part of the 21st Century. All liberal-driven.

Social Security and unemployment insurance.

Fair Practice Federal Labor laws to give workers the opportunity to unionize

Fair Housing laws to protect against discriminatory practices

Academic freedom

Medicare and Medicaid

Head Start. Legal Aid. Food stamps

School lunch programs… Student loans

The Environmental Protection Act

OSHA to protect the workplace. Safer food, clothing and toys

All are about liberal philosophies based on providing a level playing field of opportunity - turning policies into programs which when successful become systems and then, unless adjusted constantly, become institutions. Because nothing lasts forever without some change, it is that last, seemingly unavoidable step - the one that that turns systems into institutions - which is the critical weakness that must be addressed. Because unless there are constant adjustments and changes with the times, systems that worked become 'institutionalized' and what was right and working, goes wrong.

We've often quoted the Swedish economist-philosopher Thorsten Veblen who identified the fatal weakness inherent in every institution that turns what has been success into failure: When systems become institutionalized those who work in them become more concerned about their own welfare than the welfare of those they are supposed to serve.

Welcome to that America in the 21st Century

Too many systems avoided the alterations which would have kept them productive, became institutionalized and turned on us, undoing level playing fields of opportunity.

If you think about our financial, education and healthcare systems and - most damaging of all - our political system - you'll get the point. It becomes impossible not to see that the bankers, Wall Street powerhouses and hedge fund operators, medical providers and pharmaceutical companies, teachers, principals and Superintendents, and most obviously - politicians and office-holders at every level - are more concerned about themselves than they are about us!!

Admittedly, this is a significant generalization. In no way are we suggesting that all of these professionals (and 'politics' has become a 'profession') are essentially thinking about themselves first and foremost, if not completely.

But it is fair to say that when we look at the failing performances of these institutions - and there are plenty of situations to show how far down we are heading - we find that a majority of them are following the Veblen theory. Just don't try to get them to admit it.

What we're left with is a powerful 'business as usual' mentality in all these fields which is just the excuse needed to fuel the desire to end the New Deal-Great Society social compact, step-by-step and program-by-program, and with a far greater fury than ever before. Throw in a little racial discrimination about our President and you've got one big vicious package with the venomous strike of a cobra.

Studying the political agenda of the Republican Party moving now inexorably to the 2012 Presidential election, it is easy to see where they are going and how they are going to get there.

In order to finally dismantle the liberal foundations of the New Deal and Great Society, (Reagan and his acolyte George W. Bush kept trying) the first step now is to once and for all, liberate Big Business and the rich from the 'inconveniences' of governmental oversight, regulation and corporate and personal taxes.

A corporate CEO once said that the business of America is business. Business is about money and money is what drives us. The only remaining operative "ism" left in the world is capitalism which is all about markets and marketing, profits and power. And for the plutocrats who run them, the best way to arrive at the profits and riches they want is to remove all regulation from business and allow the so-called 'free market' to run free.

And so little by little through the Reagan and Bush II administrations, with a little help from Clinton, we've deregulated big business and in so doing, have become a country that is now a debtor nation, on the brink of bankruptcy with millions of jobs gone, millions of homes in foreclosure and for the first time in history an endangered status in the world. For many European and Asian countries, America is now nothing more than the world's leading consumer.

There's no reason to belabor the latest version of political right-wing activity going back to the Birch Society, to the economic games played by Reaganomics and then the Bush deficits. What we see today is more of the same - the Tea Party and Paul Ryanomics remind us that no matter the cause - communists behind every bush or the present-day Great Recession-driven debt, there's always a convenient excuse to try to get rid of the American liberalism which made this country great.

The latest version of that attempt is the effort to destroy unions, privatize Medicare, bankrupt Medicaid, cut corporate taxes, set new bank regulations and then allow the banks to enforce them, cut 20% ($127 billion) over the next ten years from the Food Stamp program, cut Pell education grants from 9.4 million students receiving them now and drop one million of them from the program, remove 100,000 children from Head Start and slash job-training programs across the country, preserve and expand the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy - and all of this and more based on the excuse that we've got to pull America out of debt - a debt brought on by the policies and attitudes of the very people who now want to "save" us from ourselves.

It sounds Orwellian-- and it is.

The effort to destroy unions by limiting or ending their bargaining rights to negotiate new contracts and benefits for their workers is already new law in States like Wisconsin, Ohio, Arizona, Indiana, Maine and Florida. In Florida they have even attacked the child labor laws - ending the rules for daily maximum employment for teenagers which protected them from exploitation since the 1930's.

None of these actions have anything to do with developing new job opportunities for the 14 million Americans out of work but that has nothing to do with it. What might eventually happen is that blue collar families who liked the sounds being made by the Tea Party - will feel very differently the next time they go out to vote. Only time will tell.

President Obama has identified these activities as having nothing to do with reducing the deficit and everything to do with ending the social compact.

Boiling it all down to its simplest form, we have returned to an era of unregulated big business run amok with the only difference between the late 19th century and the early 20th century being that Big Business is now Global…and we have big businesses so powerful that they are too big to fail.

But here's something to keep in mind: So much of the cost of everything that costs too much is easily accepted by all of us as the cost of doing business.

We complain about the cost of Medicare and healthcare in general. And yet the rules and regulations of the healthcare system allow a form of cheating that we accept as normal. Look at the charges being made to Medicare and supplemental insurance companies by doctors just charging what is permitted under the law. Is it any wonder that your doctor may be pestering you to come into the office for an annual checkup when all he's going to do is take your blood pressure, some blood tests, listen to your chest and so forth, as he always does. The difference is that for an annual checkup he can collect $450 dollars. Or doctors regularly seeking a series of tests that may or may not be necessary - 'hiding behind' the excuse that he is practicing defensive medicine because of all those lawsuits for medical malpractice.

It is 'business as usual' when doctors act - and charge - this way. While it is not the actual fraud practiced by some who accept Medicaid payments - there was an acknowledged $450 million in direct fraud in Medicaid when Eliot Spitzer became Governor of New York. He put those figures together while he was the Attorney-General and never did a thing about them in the few months he was allowed to stay on as Governor. That's a lot of money produced by actual scams - but nowhere near the money generated by 'business as usual' in the medical services industry.

The 'business as usual' practices of Big Pharma would take up pages of commentary - but here's just one:

They've made a business deal with the generic manufacturers so that they can maintain their monopolistic pricing of new drugs for years beyond the law which permits a generic manufacture of a specific drug. Profits remain as high as they can be and it's legal.

Teachers are increasingly under fire in an unprecedented way. First there are cuts in local taxes which will not make money available for the present teaching staff. And there are now constant calls to end their union's influence in public education.

Teachers are openly stunned and concerned about these attitudes..completely in the dark about the cause. Yet the results of American education are shameful, disgraceful almost to the point of fraud - and keep getting worse. At the same time, the most successful of the charter schools are taking important local money from the rest of the public school system because their test results are better than the public school next door or even in the same building. Understand we are not saying the education is better - just the test results.

And all the while, the National Council on Teacher Education (NCATE), the national organization which accredits schools of education, in a report which we examined and you can find elsewhere on this website, said that teacher education was totally inadequate to meet the needs of our children...and NOBODY has reported on that - you'll only find the details here on this website…and on NCATE's website. (Numerous contact with the New York Times education reporters has proved fruitless…no coverage)

Is it any wonder that parents who feel something is wrong when they see the international education statistics which see America's former high ratings dropping like a stone, graduation rates worse than ever, tests, tests, tests and their children still cannot add and subtract without a calculator - are quite ready to see teacher unions attacked and stripped of their role? But has anything changed? It's business as usual in the schools.

Back in the day, the financial services industry was charged with insider trading and some of those criminals went to jail. Today their crime is 'make-believe' mortgages with real estate agents and brokers, bankers and investment firms in collusion selling so-called secure derivatives no one understands in an obvious scam- all going untouched. It's the game and they wonder why everybody is so upset …after all Bernie Madoff went to jail. He was the crook not them. Why is everybody angry at them; blaming them for the banks being on the edge of total failure, millions out of work, millions of homes in foreclosure? They really resent our anger and the President's words expressing that blame. Banks too big to fail; Hedge funds gambling in the commodities market with oil and driving up the price of gasoline as never before - while government seems to pay no attention - even as it bails out the bankers, saves their jobs and insures their big paychecks and bigger bonuses.

Three major systems have all become 'institutions' and are all in disrepair, because - and here's the punchline - as long as politicians want to be elected and reelected, none of the necessary and reasonable corrections to these systems will be made.

And that answer and only that answer keeps us from the systemic changes we could make, from the across-the-board taxes we could raise to meet the financial and debt crisis, from the negotiations we can make with public service unions to adjust the ever-increasing benefit costs which apply so much pressure to the day to day cost of running this country...increases, by the way, that the very politicians who are complaining about voted for and approved.

But then again the Godfather of the conservatives, Ronnie Reagan, raised taxes seven of the eight years he was President. And only his self-appointed acolyte George W. Bush gave us annual deficits unlike any in history because he never vetoed a spending bill in eight years and cut $450 billion in revenue by reducing taxes on the wealthy.

Failed answers produced failed results - but the very people who failed now stand at the head of the line complaining most bitterly and loudly about the President and the other party.

Two things to remember for now: no matter what his promise or how you feel about him, this President like all first term Presidents, wants that second term - no matter what he has to do or say to get it. And every single member of or candidate for the House and Senate up for election or reelection wants to win.

It's just a matter of business as usual.

The three major systems we've been talking about here - financial, educational and healthcare - are totally involved with government regulations, laws and financing. There is no possible way to implement the changes necessary to 'de-institutionalize them without first dealing with the forces that govern them.

Because today's politician sees elective office as a lifetime job in which election and reelection comes before any other endeavor and responsibility, the system has become an institution deeply needing change

If we say that our most important political office is The Presidency and accept the fact that the office is 'term-limited' to two four year terms, we are able to recognize that term limits are necessary (it's the Presidency) and work.

And if we can get that far, we can understand that in a real sense, any President really serves for four just years, even if elected for two terms. The first two years of the first term are about setting and following an agenda based on the reasons for a successful election.

Because of our political system as it runs today, the next two years are about running for a second term. Should he be reelected, the first two years of that second term are again about an agenda and the last two years are 'lame duck' and essentially irrelevant as America begins to be bombarded by another Presidential election effort.

Leaving that idea for a moment, let's look at why our political system has become institutionalized and what has to happen to change the system to break the ":code" of institutions.

Money. It is all about money for election and reelection. In our system today, money buys politicians by financing election campaigns. The more money offered, the greater the influence. Don't even imagine anything purer than that.

So how do you get that money out of the system in order to change the system? Well there have been all kinds of laws written by Congress to stem the flow - McCain-Feingold was the latest just a few years ago. That didn't work. Recently the Supreme Court decision which now permits an unlimited flow of corporate and organizational money into campaigns put an end to future attempts to stem the flow - at least for now.

In our view - the key to changing this 'corrupted' institutionalized system is to limit our President, each of our Senators and each of our Representatives to one term of office -without any opportunity of reelection until he or she waits out the next term and is permitted to run again.

This approach will do two things: kill the need for money, money, money at every turn - and alter the full-time job mentality which sees an office holder wanting to remain in office for a 'lifetime' no matter what has to be done to make that happen.

So, we propose one Presidential term and one Senatorial term of six years, and one term for the House of four years. Remembering that half of each of the present terms is spent fundraising - every two years for a Senator, every other year of a two year term for a Representative - and you might consider that this proposal for change would actually permit these people to work much more for us than for themselves.

Each 'winner' could run for the same office again after waiting 'out' a full term of the next office-holder. Someone committed to wanting to serve would consider such a system but would no longer be involved in the lifetime job mentality.

This change would require a constitutional amendment. Why would a Congress with a 'lifetime job' attitude propose and support a national vote on such an amendment? That is a reasonable question.

The answer is simple: It won't - unless there is a national movement, a national effort and commitment to making such a constitutional vote necessary and possible.

This movement must become a bottom-up, national grassroots effort-or what we have now will continue to take us DOWN the road - not a direction we want.

Should this national movement become a major part of the liberal agenda - of the Liberal Party's agenda?

We think so.

Martin I. Hassner
Executive Director
Website Managing Editor

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