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. 

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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 ...