Sunday, November 26, 2023

A few proposed antidotes to political despair

There's a deep political despair acutely felt by those who fear another run in 2024 by our former president, and observe the depressing performance by Democrats in general as they battle, or appear to battle, the seeming opposition of the “other party,” while I hold a tight grip on a minority, “alternate reality” view of US politics. I express this view at every opportunity.

The “two realities” in question are mine and that of the “conventional wisdom” supported by the corporate media. Only one of them can be real. The latter’s “reality” (shared by the 6 international media conglomerates which control 90% of what US media “consumers” see, hear, and read, and who have a stake in the outcome) is that in the United States, “we have a 2-party system,” for good or for ill—and that the chances of a candidate from outside that system gaining and holding office is vanishingly slim—therefore, supporting such a candidate is, at best, a waste of time, and surely votes for such candidates will steal votes from the “lesser of two evils” and will effectively be voting for the greater evil (whichever “major party candidate” you deem that to be).


The reality I deem to be the real one? In a nutshell, the two “major parties” don’t deserve that name; we have no actual politics here, only political theater, on a stage owned and operated by kleptocrats who use that stage to provide voters with the illusion of choice. Detailed facts behind this belief may be found at represent.us.


Is our only sane alternative, given our constricted “real choices, to “vote Blue, no matter who?” These folks, of course, face virulent opposition from the “Republicans” (whose party has now been effectively hijacked by Trump and his fans). How did this happen? What’s now the “Trump Party” has gained strength by numerous means; tactics sponsored by the kleptocrats, familiar to students of fascism, who divide and conquer by promoting fear and hate, scapegoating victims, and accusing them of the crimes which they themselves commit. 


Most of the parents of the MAGA crowd were better off than they are now, and are being led to blame an amorphous establishment, labeled “leftist elites,” leaders of “the New World Order,” or just “the libs” (or less polite terms). Regardless of who they are led to blame, they are justified in believing that they’re being treated unfairly by their own government. The Biden administration has been a disappointment to progressives of all stripes, but the MAGA counterparts of those disappointed progressives are suffering real trauma, along with us all, as we continue to lose our jobs, houses, savings, and sometimes lives. While all the details of these disappointments are too numerous to include here, remember how Trump supporters were labeled by HRC in 2016: as “Deplorables.” She’s the one who privately urged her numerous allies in the press to “elevate” DJT to the front-runner with free publicity, having decided that he would be the easiest Republican to beat. Shockingly, “her party” has embraced this tactic in recent state and local contests. 


How much better off, for working people? As the graph shown here depicts, between 1979 and 2021, productivity rose by 164.6% while income rose by only 117.3%. According to a RAND Corporation study (quoted in TIME), “had the more equitable income distributions of the three decades following World War II (1945 through 1974) merely held steady, the aggregate annual income of Americans earning below the 90th percentile would have been $2.5 trillion higher in the year 2018 alone. That is an amount equal to nearly 12 percent of GDP—enough to more than double median income—enough to pay every single working American in the bottom nine deciles an additional $1,144 a month. Every month. Every single year.” This upward redistribution of income has cost American workers over $50 trillion in the past several decades, and it took place regardless of whether red or blue “parties” held sway in Washington.


My core message has either not been heard or is being disregarded as nonsense, namely that the ones dealing with a faux reality are those who view the “2-party system” as real, and our shared living nightmare of a kleptocrat-sponsored political theater is just a fever dream. Reality or nightmare? Shall we vote for Judy, because we simply MUST defeat Punch? C’mon, does that make any sense, or is it...malarkey? As Paul Simon wrote (in his lyrics to “Mrs. Robinson”), “Goin’ to the candidates’ debate…laugh about it, shout about it, when you’ve got to choose…any way you look at it, you lose.


So, what ARE my “two antidotes for political despair?”

In chronological order, they are the work of Steve Grumbine’s two organizations, presented at Real Progressives and at Real Progress in Action; the former is a tax-exempt group, and the latter is free to advocate for candidates and actions (but not tax-exempt). Together, they provide support for what they see as the best path away from kleptocrat control of the global economy and our “politics”—educating the general public about our REAL economy, explaining how it actually works, and dispelling the myths and misleading rhetoric which enables the ever-increasing wealth disparity here and worldwide. It’s known as Modern Monetary Theory (or “MMT”), which adherents describe as a lens through which to view our real economy. These websites contain a wealth of information and resources, with links to videos in multiple venues, podcasts (with transcripts), live events, books (now including a book club), and more, all searchable. 


Learning MMT has meant, for me, a paradigm shift from a world constrained by scarce resources as if by a law of nature, and not by a cruel policy choice—to a paradigm where public resources are not constrained by money, but only by actual physical and human resources. In short, our current system, a sovereign government with a fiat currency, enables us to get the things we want and need, constrained only by our political will. It’s the system with which we transformed our economy almost overnight to win WWII. At the war’s end, enabled by the new post-war political and economic environment, our middle class grew to be bigger than any in history, which led to panic by the upper class—which was as afraid of our new prosperity as were the crowned heads of Europe after the American revolution. They got together and invented the “Reagan Revolution,” and we’re all now living the results of their success. 


The second antidote is primarily political, rather than economic. Steve Grumbine, with all his amazing work developing his own revolution using his pair of websites as his main tool, confesses that he doesn’t yet have a firm pathway mapped out to transform a better-educated electorate into one that can break through the kleptocrats’ control matrix. Mass action in the streets may work in France, but not so much here.


I like the strategy of the late Buckminster Fuller: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Why not run without a party? That’s what George Washington did, a man who was convinced that political parties were a bad idea.


As I mentioned above, there's a website ("represent.us") with a collection of electoral reforms that could make our existing political reality obsolete. Here are a few of the changes they advocate.


The “Ranked Choice Voting” system is now a legal reality for many state and local offices. It eliminates the fear of voting for a “spoiler.” Every candidate on such a ballot gets a vote, numbered in order of preference. If a voter’s first preference does not win, their second-ranked choice instantly becomes that voter’s #1. Candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated until there is only one (hence the other name for RCV, "instant-runoff voting"). No voter need ever again fear that their least favorite choice will win because they voted for their favorite. Primary elections would be obsolete—voters, not party insiders, narrow the field. Election choices would not be limited by the fear of “avoiding the lesser evil,” forcing a vote against the one you fear more, instead of for the one you prefer.


Ranked Choice Voting has been adopted in many locales, but the duopoly parties fear the competition. In California, an RCV law surprisingly passed the legislature, but Gov. Newsom vetoed it. 


In 2016, registered as a Democrat, I worked to elect Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. After he “lost” to Clinton, I discovered that the DNC had used a basket of dirty tricks to steal the nomination from him. Bernie supporters, much later, sued the DNC for justice. The judge threw out the case, agreeing with the position of the DNC’s lawyer: as a private corporation (and not part of our government, except by custom), no court, and no voter, could tell the DNC which candidate to choose, or that they could not violate their own rules (or make new ones—see "DNC to Court:..."). Therefore, I hold that no one aware of this decision can assert that “Democrats” are a “political party” as we know it. And “Republicans?” 


Eisenhower said, “A political party must be dedicated to the advancement of a moral cause, otherwise it is just a conspiracy to seize power.” (See this Snopes fact check.) There’s strong evidence that Trump (who seems to have gained and held a degree of control over “his party” equivalent to that of a Mafia don) has done just what Ike warned might happen someday, by making plans to declare victory in the 2020 election (and perhaps the 2016 election as well) before a single vote was cast. According to The Hill (see Pompeo on election results), Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, in a press conference on 11/10,20, was asked if the State Department was prepared to engage with Biden’s transition team.


“There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” Pompeo replied. Pompeo appeared to smirk after delivering the line about a “second Trump administration,” though it was unclear from his remarks themselves whether he was joking. The State Department did not immediately respond to an inquiry about his comments…The Secretary of State’s remark quickly drew widespread attention and could signal to U.S. allies and enemies alike how to handle results in their own elections.”


With these established facts in evidence, do you still think we have a real “2-party system,” or NO parties at all—just an image projected on a wall of an elephant and a donkey, depicting two parties? Would it be more believable if it were a holographic video, sponsored by a consortium of global corporations, as seen on TV? Which is more real, the shared belief or the truth?


This hologram was created by kleptocrats at tremendous cost, and we've been paying the bill for it since the "Reagan Revolution." (For an in-depth review of that "revolution," see this excellent article from The Hartmann Report, at https://hartmannreport.com/p/why-the-reagan-revolution-scheme. Why not choose an actual human being for office instead, free of any "party" control, one who pledges to represent us, instead of being a proxy for a Military-Industrial-Congressional complex bent on owning and controlling our pale blue ball, scouring the life out of it until it’s a burnt-out cinder, while they make a new home for themselves on some other unfortunate planet? It’s impossible to choose between “two parties” which exist only in a fantasy world governed by kleptocrats. Let's reject the impossible, take Bucky Fuller's path, and create a new reality, one that makes the current, phony one obsolete.


Here's my view of what We the People need in order to get what we're supposed to have (representative government): 1) A national law establishing Ranked Choice Voting, to remove the fear of choosing a "spoiler candidate;" 2) every voter gets to choose and rank any candidate meeting the constitutional qualifications for office; 3) Each qualifying candidate gets a comprehensive listing on isidewith.com; 4) voters could find the candidate closest to their views and preferences without even needing to know their name (by consulting https://www.isidewith.com/elections/). 5) Political parties and lobbyists would be banned. 6) The Electoral College and the Senate would be abolished, while the House would be enlarged so that each representative would be elected by a nearly equal number of voters. 7) Party functionaries would be replaced by caucuses and committees organized by task. 8) All campaigns would be publicly funded, ending the current money-controlled system. 9) Term limits would apply to all three branches of the federal government. 10) The Citizens United decision would be nullified by law, ending corporate citizenship. 11) Private prisons would be outlawed, as would slave labor by prisoners. Then, we would arguably achieve all the goals sought by represent.us. 

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

The Party's Over (an open letter to Marianne Williamson and you)

Who's Marianne? My new favorite 2024 presidential candidate. If you are as amazed and disgusted as I am that our nation may be faced with a choice between two duopoly candidates seemingly chosen by that duopoly to be the worst possible choices, so as to increase the share of eligible voters who choose not to vote (now between 37 and 50%) to an even higher number—at a time when maximum participation of that electorate has never been more crucial for the survival of humanity—you should check out her website and view her social media presence. In short, she's a candidate that over 90% of that electorate might choose as their president if they just look, listen, and read.

Here's the message I composed for her and sent to her campaign, where I now volunteer, and Realprogressives.org, where I also volunteer. (Revised Nov. 6, 2023.)

The DNC has announced that there will be no primary debates between Democratic presidential candidates in 2024, and (barring acts of God) Biden will be the nominee. Faced with challenges to that foregone conclusion by Marianne and others, they will ignore them the same way they ignored the challenge to Hillary's candidacy by Bernie Sanders: if sued by non-Biden-supporters, the DNC will doubtless get the court to throw out the case, again, with the same argument—that the "Democratic Party" is a private corporation and not only is the DNC outside the jurisdiction of any court, but it denies any obligation to follow its own rules (since they can be changed at will) or to honor the wishes of the voters in its primaries.

 

I am certain that Marianne has a zero chance of becoming the nominee of that "party" in 2024, or any other year. Her campaign is one of revolutionary change, whereas the "Democratic Party" is an antidemocratic institution, owned and operated by the same kleptocrats who ultimately own the equally-bogus "Republican Party."


I see only one rational alternative: Marianne must gain ballot access as an independent candidate (without any party affiliation). We need "power to the people," not "power to the party."


I'm reminded of the cartoon meme of Bernie using a torch to set fire to a straw donkey with the caption "Bern it down." Doubtless, lifelong "party" loyalists were offended. How dare he? (Of course, the real Bernie, after assuring his supporters that they should follow their consciences, quickly honored his "party" pledge and backed the "party" nominee.)


What might make "party" loyalists abandon their straw-stuffed icon in favor of a real revolutionary who credibly pledges to uphold their interests and oppose the interests of the corporate mega-donors who are pledged to burn down our republic, and obliterate our democracy? "Party" is in quotes above to remind the reader that to leave out the quotes grants the kleptocrats their need to frame the word as if it still means what it's assumed to mean, and not a euphemism for the loose-knit cabal of corporate con men who currently own and operate the "two parties" to provide the electorate with the illusion of choice. One set of owners, one corporate duopoly; heads they win, tails we lose. Of course, they always seem to be locked in an eternal battle with each other, but only over issues which do not challenge their continuing control. (What part of "illusion" is unclear?)


In the words of president Eisenhower, “If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.” (Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1956.)

To be sure, the "two parties" have different approaches to ignoring the electorate's wishes; for the "Democrats," a corporate-compliant candidate is chosen by the DNC without reference to primary results (see the first paragraph above). The "Republicans" focus more on choosing their voters through gerrymandering and suppression (theft) of the votes of likely non-Republican voters. If these tactics fail, they simply declare victory by declaring that the "other side" MUST have cheated somehow, without evidence acceptable by even Republican-appointed judges—or concoct illegal schemes like replacing legitimate Electoral College delegates with shills who were not even on a ballot. (See gregpalast.com.)

Like Ike's warning to us of the profound danger to our democratic republic by the "Military-Industrial Complex," his  warning about parties-in-name-only has also come true. More recently, George Carlin warned us to beware of another term in the kleptocrat newspeak arsenal: "The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out." If Patrick Henry were here, he might counsel us that "Now is the time for all good men to burn down their party and elect representatives of the people, not straw-stuffed effigies of kleptocrats."


Consider the fact that the largest sector of eligible voters in the United States (ranging from 37-50%) is the sector which does not vote at all. The largest percentages of actual voters by party (where those percentages are available) identify themselves as "Democrats," 38.78%; "Republicans," 29.42%; Independents/No Preference, 28.5%, and "Other," 3.25%.

 

Currently, this sector is ignored by the "political class" as irrelevant. Perhaps non-voters, rather than being indifferent to voting, are just painfully aware that their "representatives" don't care whether they're alive or dead, as evidenced by websites like represent.us.


Marianne, don't trust your ballot access to kleptocrats disguised as a party machine, who'd prefer you were dead because they can't control you. Keep appealing directly to your fellow Americans, instead. God is not dead, but "both parties" ARE. Americans want and expect their representatives to represent THEM, not lobbyists for corporate oligarchs (ie the "duopoly"). So-called party politics in America is dead, because the "2-party system" is a walking, talking zombie, performing political theater. The zombie will retain its grip on our political system until the electorate sees it for what it is. When that happens, the party's over, replaced by true representatives of the people, advancing causes that are right and that are moral. Who will that be? The people will decide—that is, the people who vote.

 Will you be among them, or will you be among the over 80% of the electorate who won't even be able to pretend they're represented in government?


 


 

Thursday, June 1, 2023

Thom Hartmann's essay on the "Two Santas" strategy

I submitted this comment to Thom Hartmann (at https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-debt-ceiling-is-just-two-santas/comments). Please read it before you read my comment below. It's an excellent analysis, but the core issue has not been addressed: the "national debt" itself is being treated as if it were the same as debt by state or local governments, or household debt, or corporate debt. It is (as Monty Python would say) "completely different." ONLY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN ISSUE OUR CURRENCY. Congress (contrary to the "common sense, bipartisan" consensus) neither has nor hasn't any money to "spend." It creates new funds at will, with every appropriation, under our current fiat system. It does not have to tax or borrow before it "spends;" it can always create all it needs, by fiat. Every Congressional appropriation, rather than causing a deficit, is deleted from the national spreadsheet and added to the accounts of the recipients of those appropriations for a net-zero balance. It does not cause inflation with this process. Inflation can only become a hazard when the created money is spent, in excess of productive capacity. Federal taxes never "pay for" anything, they are deleted on receipt to shrink the money supply to control inflation and for other purposes. Until these facts become common knowledge (and are accepted as "common sense") to the general public (and progressives like Thom Hartmann), the kleptocrats who invented the "two Santas" and "debt ceiling" scams will continue to use them to get the 99% to consent to deadly "austerity" budgets in the name of "fiscal responsibility" (which magically never applies to military budgets). For a sharper view of how our modern money system actually works, as opposed to the confusion and myths promoted by almost everyone in politics and the mass media, see realprogressives.org.

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Why McCarthy's "Debt Ceiling" is worse than wrong

Here's food for thought: what motivates Congressmen (mostly on the right) to insist on cutting items in the budget that would help people directly, like promoting environmental protection, expanding Social Security and Medicare benefits, raising the minimum wage to livable levels, providing a federal job guarantee, fighting homelessness, and more? They'd get my vote. The reasons they always give: "We can't afford it. Inflation would spike." (Usually untrue.) The real reason: "We must vote as our corporate sponsors' demand, or we'll lose election funding and may lose our jobs."

Here's the "worse than wrong" part, the reason their corporate sponsors demand that their minions push for austerity budgets that will cut funding for social-benefit programs like the ones above. It's not to be "fiscally responsible," because those same sponsors are fine with military budgets in excess of what the military asks for, which are now as untouchable as Social Security and Medicare benefits used to be. Our military spends more on war preparations and materiel (er, "defense") than the next ten countries combined, and in the war category, as Dick Cheney scolded his colleagues, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."


To hold that "deficit spending is fiscally irresponsible" in the human needs and infrastructure sectors, while simultaneously holding that such spending is not only responsible but critically necessary for an already-bloated war budget is intellectually dishonest. It's also morally bankrupt, as such a budget kills more people than war does when people are foreclosed from getting what they need to survive in the social sector–in jobs, housing, debt relief, education, and health care.


Why, you might ask, do the billionaire corporate owners of Congress wish to cause suffering among the non-rich while lavishing ever more riches on our war machine? By doing so, they enrich themselves twice: once from their war investments and once more by raising unemployment, homelessness,  and bankruptcy which all depress wages, increasing their profits. It's not cruelty, they tell themselves, it's just the American way of business. (More intellectual dishonesty, worthy of a Mafia Don.)

 

Meanwhile, as a pundit recently wrote, "As renewables start to overtake fossil fuels in the United States, the GOP is fighting to reverse that progress: House Republicans are sticking to their proposal to only agree to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts that include most of the clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats’ signature legislative achievement this term."


The "debt ceiling" is not so much a "law" as a procedural rule. It's often been ignored when it's stood in the way of right-wing-favored budget items (like anything military or profitable for the war industry), and it's a peculiar institution currently in use by only one other nation, Denmark. Yet, asked by a reporter if it should be abolished, Biden responded "No, that would be irresponsible." Really? the US and Denmark are the only "responsible" nations? Sounds very "Republican," does it not? Remember the seldom-mentioned reassurance Biden gave to a private group of rich campaign contributors that if he were elected, "nothing will fundamentally change." A promise made, a promise kept.


Our current Speaker of the House (Kevin McCarthy), in a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcjMxEc4Qnk) explains what our path forward must be, as if he were guiding his teenage son in "responsible economics," thusly (text of paragraphs 1 to 4 below were taken verbatim from the closed-captions of the YouTube link above): 


(1) “If you gave your child a credit card, and they kept hitting the limit, you wouldn’t just raise the credit limit, you’d sit down with them, and help them to figure out where they could cut back on spending.


(2) "The same thing is true of our national debt.


(3) "We are spending more than we take in. And in the last couple of years, it has gotten really out of control. We must change our spending habits or we will leave the next generation with a bill they cannot afford.


(4) "Now is the time for a responsible debt limit, before it’s too late.”


Anyone who truly understands how our current federal financing works (aka the "MMT-wise") knows this narrative is beyond bunk, it's gaslighting to profit the 1%, damn the collateral damage to everyone else. Taking this toxic trash one sentence at a time:


1) This Dad-to-Son dialogue is relevant to raising a child to live within his or her means (ignoring who’s funding the credit card, and why), but only in the context of household finance (or even state government, where McCarthy cut his political teeth)—but in the context of federal finance, it's not just irrelevant but it’s just plain wrong.


2) "The same thing is true of our national debt." Totally false and either a) deliberately misleading, if Kevin is a competent federal legislator, or b) a bald-faced lie in service to his own portfolio and his kleptocrat sponsors if he knows the first thing about federal finance.


3) "We are spending more than we take in..." Again, nonsense in the federal context. As the sole legal ISSUER of our currency, "we" (Congress) spends nothing. It issues new money for every allocation of funds; nearly all that the federal government "takes in" is in the form of taxes, which *fund nothing*—they are deleted on receipt, primarily to control inflation. Sure, we should tax the rich as they were taxed in the Eisenhower years (look it up), not to "raise funds" but to reduce today's obscene wealth inequality, which is far greater today than it was in the "gilded age" of the "robber barons." "...We must change our spending habits or we will leave the next generation with a bill they cannot afford." Spending "habits?" like always getting our java drinks at Starbucks instead of at 7/11? The worst spending "habits" of Congress are rewarding the Military with more funds than they ask for, never asking for an audit to find where the missing Trillion$ went, spending more per year than the military budgets of the ten next-biggest-spending countries on the planet *combined,* without a murmur about deficits or "fiscal responsibility.” If it kills, it's sacred and not to be questioned. And if we don't change these irresponsible spending habits, "we will leave the next generation with a bill they cannot afford." Ahem. No generation gets a bill from the previous one's "spending" (Congressional appropriations). They may reap the whirlwind from the wind their fathers sowed, as our children may inherit disappearing islands, receding coastlines, extreme droughts and floods, poisoned land, food, air and water, climate refugees, homelessness, unemployment, hunger, and disease, at an incalculable economic and human cost. How will the next generations handle the legacy we're in the process of leaving them? Will they ever be able to "pay that bill?"


4) Kevin, what would that "responsible debt limit" look like? Ask any Fed Chairman ever about "federal debt," and they will tell you that it's a number on a spreadsheet, always balanced to the penny by funds added to the accounts of the recipients of Congressional appropriations. Congress never has to borrow from China or anywhere else, or from existing programs, for funds it creates at will. It's restricted only by real resources—natural and human—in the real economy, not by arbitrary numbers in a budget. Ever wonder why there are two sets of budgetary "rules" in Congress—one for military "spending," another for everything else (you know, that "promote the general welfare" stuff)? Just ask "Deep Throat"—Follow The Money. Congress does what its kleptocrat sponsors tell it to do. Don't look to "Democrats" to save us from the Red Team of the duopoly. A reporter recently asked President Biden if it's time to abolish the "debt ceiling," as Australia did recently— leaving only two other countries with this peculiar brand of "financial responsibility"—us and Holland. His response? "That would be fiscally irresponsible."


Who can save us from this madness, so that we may avoid the coming "bi-partisan," self-inflicted apocalypse? Look in the mirror, my friends. I was a young teenager when Ike was president. He told a meeting of a Woman's Club, "If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power." Let's face it, our "two parties" are two teams of corporate lobbyists paid to put on a pageant so we can convince ourselves we have a choice. There's no law that says a candidate must belong to any party. There must be good, competent men and women to choose from who can be new, party-free standard bearers willing to lead from behind, ones we can trust to truly represent us, to champion causes that are right and that are moral. The ones you choose will not be career politicians out for power, fame, and wealth, but those willing to harness the nation's near-limitless resources to restore sanity to public life, to perform feats like the leaders of the "greatest generation" did when they defeated the Axis powers and built the largest, most prosperous middle class in history. We did it then and we can do it again. The stakes are even higher now than they were then, and the rewards will be astounding. If we fail, as seems likely on a bad day, we may not recover from our current slide into ecological, social, economic, and political disaster. We need a team like the one with the "right stuff" that got us to the moon and back. I don't know who they are, but their names will not be Biden, Trump, Bezos, or Musk.


Perhaps they could call themselves "the Responsible Party." (Look for that title in an upcoming post.)


 

Friday, January 6, 2023

Is "The Party" Over? The deadly myth of American politics

Many people who I love dearly are psychologically married to a deadly myth: That the “reality” of American politics is something we call “our two-party system,” and that we have no viable alternative to choosing either “Red” or “Blue” candidates, no matter how distasteful we may find the alleged choices to which this system limits us. We must resign ourselves to choosing “the lesser of two evils,” the story goes, even though, by definition, the result of our choice is always evil. The only other choice, picking a “third party candidate” (from one of the available eight American parties), has never been successful; making that “choice” is almost universally regarded as, at best, “throwing your vote away” and at worst “a virtual vote for the greater evil” of the two “major parties.” (Which one is the “greater evil,” of course, depends on what color you choose to identify with.)


Few partisans will admit that their “choice” of candidate is actually evil, and will insist that “their” candidate is far better than the “other one.” However, I think most voters will eventually admit (by the midterm mark) that they actually voted against that “other guy” rather than for “their own.” 


What I meant by the phrase “a deadly myth” in the first sentence of this piece is the almost universally-shared belief that in the United States, our political system is accurately described as “a 2-party system." This belief is bogus, a result of gaslighting performed by its beneficiaries, a trap for those blind to the reality that the phrase is the term the puppeteers use to describe the political theater they perform. Each "party" is really a corporate lobbying group, both owned by the same club of kleptocrat, corporate paymasters—deadly because it has murdered American politics.


Case in point: when the DNC was sued on behalf of Bernie Sanders, claiming that the nomination was stolen from the real people's choice (Bernie), the DNC's lawyer's defense was deflection—holding that, as a private corporation, the DNC has no obligation to the electorate or even to its own rules; that it can choose to select a candidate by any backroom method it chooses, and the courts can have nothing to say about it. The judge agreed; case dismissed. I got this through a net search; you can do the same. (I recommend this one: https://inthesetimes.com/article/in-its-defense-against-fraud-suit-from-bernie-supporters-the-dnc-just-dug-i)


The "system" includes maintaining the necessary stagecraft to maintain the illusion of choice. Are Republicans different? Sure. In contrast to Democrats, they have a stronger consensus these days about choosing (or selecting) their candidates and have taken a different tack. The party which celebrates the exclusion of minorities (especially the darker ones) and blames the victims of austerity for their suffering, must anticipate that these folk will likely "vote blue.”


As the numbers of Blue voters grow, Republicans see that they can only win future elections by excluding these voters from the polls. (See Gregpalast.com for details on the scams they've developed to "meet this challenge.") Under Trumpism (which is what has replaced “Republicanism”), it’s either that or other schemes to steal elections, which they’re now openly plotting (rebranded in Orwellian fashion as  “protecting election integrity”). The Jan. 6th Congressional hearings have already touched on this subject, in one case involving the wife of a sitting Supreme Court Justice (and her husband).


What can we do to “reform our 2-party system?”


Nothing. The first step in solving a problem is correctly identifying it. We the People must first acknowledge the truth: There is no such thing as “our 2-party system.” When a “system” is revealed as a fraud, it must be abolished and liquidated, much like 45’s fraudulent “University.” Washington warned our young nation that political parties were a very bad idea. Voting for “the lesser of two evils” perpetuates an ever-growing evil, no matter what its “color” is. 


Eisenhower  viewed “parties” with almost as jaundiced an eye as Washington when he wrote, “If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.” Today, we have two such conspiracies, owned and operated by the same club of kleptocrats, masquerading as political parties, appearing to battle each other (to provide voters with the illusion of choice) but ignoring the will of the voters. Would you like some facts to back up that assertion? Try this link: https://represent.us/the-strategy-to-end-corruption/?akid=a10031615.371629.I7V2fg&aktmid=tm4215366.6lV7I-&source=conf&t=1 A key statistic that the website represent.us unearthed: 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all on the laws Congress passes.


Represent.us has a road map to what it will take to end legalized corruption. The solution can begin only when the non-rich recognize what the super-rich have known for centuries: we are engaged in a class war, and the rich class is winning. (Warren Buffett, in a candid moment, said just that.)


Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Washington thought “parties” were a bad idea; Eisenhower said they could be extremely dangerous. Here’s a thought: why do we need “parties” at all? They are mentioned nowhere in the Constitution and are now functioning just as Ike described. As I’ve illustrated, today’s “parties” serve only to deceive and distract the electorate while serving only the super-rich, and cannot be “reformed from within;” at the very least, they would have to be somehow magically transformed into what they pretend to be (representatives of the people) and cease to be what they are (tools of deception and control, owned by a tiny club of kleptocrats and manipulated to advance their own interests at the expense of the other 99% of us).


I propose a “nuclear option:” outlaw party control of our government and allow only independent candidates to run for elective office. Of course, “parties” won’t volunteer to abolish themselves, but the same result would happen if We the People recognized the fraud currently enshrined as “our two-party system” and ceased support for any candidate who ran under a “party” banner. Such a national political paradigm shift is surely the tallest of tall orders, but we—not just the American voters of the United States, but people worldwide— face an unprecedented combination of existential crises, which range from global proxy wars which could escalate to a real nuclear apocalypse, climate change so extreme as to create mass migration, shortages of food, water, and power, wealth concentration impoverishing most while making the top .001% obscenely rich, prompting “survivalists” to prepare to kill off neighbors who might want to survive as well in a coming eco-apocalypse…you can all make your own lists of what will happen when (not if) civilization as we know it crumbles. Some estimate that a tipping point, past which there’s no escape from global disaster, could be reached as soon as eight years from now.


By contrast, my proposed “nuclear option” could save (rather than destroy) the planet, by simply recognizing that “Parties as we know them,” at least in America, do not exist, and what does exist instead is a political puppet show akin to Punch and Judy, a pair engaged in a perpetual false battle, one on each hand of a single puppeteer hiding behind a curtain. Step right up and pay your money, folks! (We are paying that price, every minute of every hour.)


Represent.us provides an array of viable solutions, but all of them face the problem of getting past our political theater masquerading as politics. Considering the urgency of an eight-year pre-apocalypse window, is there a feasible, workable shortcut? Suppose We the People could get an independent candidate on the ballot to run for POTUS, and work to get him elected? Suppose such a candidate develops a strategy for getting in place the real reforms we need, despite a Congress still “owned” by the kleptocrat “elite?”


There was such an independent candidate, a “man without a party,” aiming to do just that. This was his website: JonStasevich2024.com. After 15 months of using his own funds to promote his candidacy, he was forced to abandon the effort. This leaves the state-by-state strategy of represent.us as the best one I see to root out money corruption from our political system.


Is “the Party” over? That depends on you, me, our friends and neighbors, and the internet. As Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” (or, do what we all did last time, and vote for the “lesser evil” ).








Tuesday, September 20, 2022

"NoLabels?" Thanks, but no thanks.

There's a new political campaign out there, calling itself "No Labels" (nolabels.org). David Brooks of the NY Times wrote about them on September 1, with the headline "If an Alternative Candidate Is Needed in 2024, These Folks Will Be Ready." The gist of it is that "If one of the parties nominates a candidate acceptable to the center of the electorate, then the presidential operation will shut down. But if both parties go to the extremes, then there will be a unity ticket appealing to both Democrats and Republicans to combat this period of polarized dysfunction." I expect that Brooks regarded Hillary Clinton as "acceptable to the center of the electorate," in contrast to Bernie Sanders who was not (despite the overwhelming support he enjoyed during his campaign). Be that as it may, NoLabels has been around for a decade, producing "bold ideas to rebuild our democracy." I have not done a deep dive into all their programs and proposals, but when I encountered the list of their “enduring beliefs that guide No Labels– beliefs that we hope will once again guide the political and policy choices of our leaders,“ I stopped to write them an email explaining why they would not be getting my support. Here it is:

While your mission looked interesting at first, your “Belief #4” was a dealbreaker. It reads, 

"We believe there is no such thing as something for nothing, and because of this we believe in the importance of a balanced budget. The growing tendency of both parties to support more tax cuts or government spending with no regard for their impact on future generations will lead to a lower quality of life for our children and grandchildren and make it harder for America to tackle future challenges to our national, economic and environmental security."

This belief is incompatible with my recently-gained understanding of macroeconomics (usually referred to as MMT, for "Modern Monetary Theory") and is wrong in so many ways that I cannot support your movement. The American people have been deliberately divided into warring tribes, based on propaganda promoted and controlled by the people currently in power—I believe the appropriate label is "kleptocrats." Some hold office, but most work behind the scenes.They have succeeded in controlling the mindsets of most of us in ways that ensure their continuing power. Let me elaborate.

They have formed a club to maintain their control. It does not need a name or a "Board of Directors," although there are many formal groups that collaborate to the same end. They have a set of beliefs, too, and they recognize each other by their actions more than any set of formal memberships they share. Asa George Carlin liked to say, "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."

Here's what I believe that list of beliefs would look like if it was ever written down:

1) Ordinary people outside our club must not be allowed to know what we do. They have no right to be told, and they are not competent to manage national or world affairs, but club members are.

2) Public-facing remarks and stated positions of club members are intended to present ourselves as being concerned with, and intended to promote, the public welfare—while, of course, they are not. Private-facing information which could reveal our true, self-interested motives must be kept within the club and never publicly acknowledged.

3) We must always promote divisions between groups and set these groups against each other, to distract them from what we are doing and deflect them from attacking us.

4) To neutralize any political opposition to the workings of our club, we must maintain the forms and appearance of a democratic society, providing the illusion of choice through a "two-party system." At the same time, we control "both sides" by selecting the nominees of "both parties" and funding them both. If these measures fail to exclude our opponents, we shall resort to other measures, including blackmail and, as a last resort, "wet ops."

Although there are more than four, these are the essential core of the list.

Returning to the fatal faults in "belief #4" of NoLabels: this belief could be the official manifesto of "deficit hawks," who treat federal (Congressional) spending (appropriations) as equivalent to household, state, or local spending, where all expenditures must come from a finite source (microeconomics) and be subtracted from savings, taxes, and fees, or be borrowed. In each case, a budget must be balanced; spending over income will drive such an entity towards bankruptcy. Currently (and overtly, since Nixon took us off the gold standard), Congress functions within a fiat system. While every federal program must be funded, the required funds are "spent into existence" through appropriations by creating the funds simply by entering numbers on a spreadsheet. The Constitution gives to Congress the exclusive power to issue our currency. Everyone else, by law, is a user of currency.

Non-federal spending of all kinds must come from taxes, borrowing, or fees, where a budget imposes a finite limit on spending. By contrast, federal appropriations are limited only by the total productive capacity of our nation. Since the term "spending" refers to microeconomics and finite amounts in a budget, it does not apply to Congress, the sole issuer of US currency. Therefore, there is no such thing as "federal spending," as it is created through appropriations, not subtracted from a preexisting quantity.

Yes, "both parties" support tax cuts and/or increased (federal) "spending," believing or pretending) that "unbalanced" federal budgets will cause future generations to have a lower quality of life ("and make it harder for America to tackle future challenges to our national, economic and environmental security"). "Both parties" are wrong.

Military (warfare) "spending" is the only kind on which (kleptocrat) Club members put no limits, for which they never demand a balanced budget. They understand our fiat system, in which the sole issuer of currency (Congress, via the Treasury and the Fed) can never run out of funds, or go bankrupt. As Dick Cheney famously said, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." Yet, when bills before Congress require appropriations for other reasons, to tackle non-military "challenges to our national, economic and environmental security," they pretend that the federal budget is like a household budget and raise the alarm that we "don't have the money to pay for it," raising the false fear of "deficit spending," just as you did in your fourth Belief. They falsely claim that "paying for" these programs will require higher taxes or more debt, which must be extracted from them through higher taxes or ruinous borrowing. 

The kleptocrats know, but want everyone else to be ignorant of, the fact that (under our fiat system) federal taxes DO NOT FUND FEDERAL "SPENDING" (appropriations). They're well aware that Congress creates the funds for federal programs by issuing (not "spending") money into existence. So, why do we need federal taxes at all?

Federal taxes serve to delete currency from the "money supply" (actually the credit supply) to control inflation. They are never put into a giant Scrooge-McDuck-like money pit or spent back into the economy. They are deleted from the credit side of the federal spreadsheet. If taxes were paid in cash, they would be shredded.

When any President takes "credit" for reducing our deficit, he is committing fraud. He (or the Fed Chairman) should accept the blame for shrinking the economy, and increasing unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and death rates. The only entities who profit from a federal surplus and its deadly effects are the corporations who gain from depressed wages and the depressed victims who are unable to find jobs with livable wages.

This is why I will not be joining your efforts, no matter what good you might do in pursuing your other beliefs. With profound sorrow, I'm providing my own label to your offer to join: "Rejected."


Friday, September 16, 2022

The Party's Over!

Our kleptocrat overlords, seeking to leverage the “culture wars” to divide us into warring camps, continue to distract us from the grim fact of their thieving control over us. For example, they encourage both overt and closet misogynists to battle the pro-privacy and pro-choice among us over whether or not we should embrace or oppose the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, with the help of four recently-appointed justices who falsely testified under oath that they considered Roe to be "settled law.” Some blame Democrats in Congress for this debacle, because they resisted codifying Roe into law to raise money, leveraging fear that Republicans overturning Roe would help fill their campaign coffers.

Democrats helped confirm four candidates who lied under oath. How are these candidates different from those who lie on a job application? They should be removed, if not prosecuted for this offense. Democrats should codify Roe into law NOW. In addition, they should increase the number of justices to at least 11. 


If partisan politics remains a barrier to implementing the will of the People, I advocate an end to parties. They were never part of the Constitution and were opposed by George Washington. Parties are not what they seem; rather than affinity groups uniting behind nominees through "primary" elections, they are lobbying corporations whose officials can nominate anyone they choose, ignoring the will of the voters. Want proof? The DNC got a lawsuit against them for stealing the nomination from Bernie thrown out of court by speaking this truth, and the judge agreed. 


Meanwhile, the RNC, acting as the agent of Trump, is coordinating a campaign to install pro-Trump state officials who are eager to ignore their voters and appoint "alternate" electors to the Electoral College, to install Trump (or a surrogate like DeSantis) should they lose again in 2024. The events of January 6 were not so much a “failed coup” than a rehearsal for 2024. (See Gregpalast.com for in-depth reports.)


To jumpstart a movement I've dubbed "The Party's Over," I'm backing an independent candidate for president willing to support the People's wishes so real reforms can be enacted; no more rule by party bosses funded by corporate lobbyists to enrich the kleptocrats who now rule us by proxy. Visit his page here on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/JonStasevich2024) and tell him what real reforms should be first. Term limits? Age caps? An end to lobbying? Codifying Roe? Shouldn't it be up to We the People, not "We the Corporations" and "we the parties" to decide how we govern ourselves?

A few proposed antidotes to political despair

There's a deep political despair acutely felt by those who fear another run in 2024 by our former president, and observe the depressing ...