Elizabeth Warren Makes me All Warm Inside

I have such a crush on Elizabeth Warren.  I am smitten.  I’ve watched The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class so many times I’m starting to feel a little dirty.  Here it is, in case you haven’t made this amazing woman’s acquaintance as of yet.

Today’s New York Times has an article on Elizabeth (yes, we are on a first name basis, though she is not aware of my existence).  Her passionate advocacy for the rest of us in the face of unrelenting influence peddling and pressure from the Financial, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) industries is beyond inspiring.  It’s sexy.  Jon Stewart nailed it in this exchange with Elizabeth the last time she was on his show:

“This is America’s middle class,” she recently said on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” “We’ve hacked at it and pulled at it and chipped at it for 30 years now and now there’s no more to do. We fix this problem going forward, or the game really is over.”

“When you say it like that and you look at me like that, I know your husband is backstage, I still want to make out with you,” Mr. Stewart responded.

Brilliant.  I so envy Jon Stewart.

Unfortunately, the consumer financial protection agency that Elizabeth has been championing is looking a bit punch drunk and staggered here in the final rounds of the legislative battle over financial reform.  Sen. Chris Dodd appears to favor burying the consumer agency in the bowels of the Federal Reserve (OK, probably not Dodd’s favored choice of words).  We’ll see.

RadicalNota

Senator Evan Bayh’s departure sparks debate about partisanship in Congress – washingtonpost.com

Sen. Evan Bayh’s surprise decision not to seek reelection touched off a debate Tuesday among strategists and scholars about whether the Indiana senator’s depiction of the “brain dead” politics and hyper-partisanship of Congress is accurate or overblown — and, if accurate, whether walking away was the right decision.

via Senator Evan Bayh’s departure sparks debate about partisanship in Congress – washingtonpost.com.

I just love the predictability of the Washington Post.  If you want the establishment take on a story, they are the go to paper.  This article on Sen. Bayh’s decision not to seek re-election to the Senate is exhibit A of the paper’s inability to see this as anything but a new twist to the horse-race reporting of, “how does this story fit into the narrative of the Democrats falling apart, the Republicans surging and Obama losing control of his agenda.”

In fact, the real story is Bayh’s plea for the voters to “deliver a “shock” to Congress by voting incumbents out en masse and replacing them with people interested in reforming the process and governing for the good of the people, rather than deep-pocketed special-interest groups.” You can bet that the Washington Post does NOT want to go there.  But apparently Sen. Bayh does want us to go there.  This is a man who grew up with his father in the Senate.  He has witnessed this political body throughout many years and he is fed up.  Sounds like I should get in touch with him about joining the NOTA movement.

Unfortunately Sen. Bayh makes the mistake of thinking that a change in personnel will somehow solve the problem.  It won’t.  A system as corrupt as ours has become will just co-opt the next “reformers.”  Until citizens retake the mechanisms for decision-making through elections our desire for “heroes” to save us will remain unrequited, and deservedly so.

Sen Bayh, whether you know it or not, I consider you a part of the NOTA Nation.

RadicalNOTA

Patterns of Change

(WARNING: Long and philosophical post)

This post is for Raven.  Though we have never formally met, Raven and I are both members of a community that is considered very “fringe” and “out there” by the vast majority of the people in this country.  That is the Burner Community, best exemplified by the Burning Man Festival in the desert of Nevada, but now grown to include many regional festivals around the country.  I have no intention of trying to explain what the Burner Community is and will leave it to anyone who is interested to do their own research, including perhaps participating in a regional festival.  It is much more than you might imagine.

I bring this up because Raven came to this blog due to an email I sent to our regional Burner listserve and she has written a couple of comments in response to posts I have made.  The following excerpt captures what I believe to be the heart of Raven’s, and so many others’, dilemma in trying to understand and engage with the larger political and economic system as it currently exists.

I state all this as an example that no matter what more the government does to destroy its people, we still have the “power” to change it all. Its called “effort”, but with no leadership today to make a movement come around like that, I myself feel lost. What do we do? What “ACTION” can be taken to start the steps? I stated before when I first made a post that I purposely made myself ignorant to politics knowing it was a bunch of BS, untruth after untruth. They will continue to be blatant as long as “WE THE PEOPLE” allow it. Personally, I have to say I feel its so lost that nothing can be corrected.

As someone who has studied politics and economics extensively and also worked within the system to try and create change, I deeply understand the feeling of powerlessness that comes with butting up against entrenched concentrated power that is fundamentally destructive to the majority of the people the system is supposed to serve.  I’ve come to recognize that creating that sense of powerlessness in individuals is a feature and not a bug, so to speak.

Raven also writes that she has come to this blog to be educated.  Unfortunately, any education into the reality of our political and economic system will just prove empirically what Raven intuits.  It is a bunch of BS.  The “Idealists Anonymous” post, while tongue in cheek, was written during one of my bouts of hopelessness because of my understanding of how fucked up things really are.

But I have also put a lot of thought into what I would call Patterns of Change over time and it is here that I begin to see hope for the future.  Many years ago I came upon a concept from evolutionary biology called Punctuated Equilibrium.  This concept was first put forward by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge, two paleontologists whose research in speciation (how new species are formed) led them to posit that the history of biological species was not one of gradual change, in which “evolution generally occurs uniformly and by the steady and gradual transformation of whole lineages through genetic changes within the existing species” (called phyletic gradualism).  Instead, they posited that the history of species is actually dominated by stasis because in large populations genetic mutations “are diluted by the population’s size and are unable to reach fixation due to factors such as constantly changing environments.”  Whereas smaller populations of the same species that have in some way been isolated from the larger “parent” population, “are decoupled from the homogenizing effects of gene flow. In addition, pressure from natural selection is especially intense, as peripheral isolated populations exist at the outer edges of ecological tolerance.”

I imagine your eyes might be glazing over right now, but bear with me because we are getting to the good stuff.  To simplify the above paragraph and put it into a form that we can work with for our purposes we can say that change doesn’t happen in a larger population that is established and stable.  Basicly, potential change is averaged out and stasis and stability becomes the norm (We are moving away from biology and into more of an analogue of sociology and even individual consciousness now.  Something biologists would definitely frown upon).  Socially speaking that means we can’t look for change coming from the established social, political, economic order.  There are too many forces acting to dampen anything that might upset the established order.  I think we can see that clearly in American society and it explains, in my view, why Obama’s campaign slogan of “Change we can Believe In” rings so hollow now.

It gets better and this is where I relate back to Raven and our connection to the Burner community.  If we can’t look for real change to come from the larger established society, where might it come from?  Just like Gould’s and Eldridge’s hypothesis of new species arising from an isolated population on the ecological fringe of the parent population’s range so we might posit that real social, political, economic change comes from smaller communities on the fringes of the larger society.

So Raven, you ARE creating the real potential for change by virtue of your willingness (you might even say need) to be a part of a smaller community on the fringes of the larger non-changing society.  The final analogy that I take from Punctuated Equilibrium, and one that is truly exciting for me, is the hypothesis that once a small isolated population changes enough genetically to become a new species, and if those changes give the new species an evolutionary advantage over the non-changing parent species, the replacement of the parent species by the new “improved” species can be very rapid (in the evolutionary time frame).

So, to bring us back to the social analogy, fringe populations that adopt ways of being that confer some advantage to that community versus the larger society might just be able to radiate those advantageous practices and ways of being out into the larger society at a relatively rapid pace, even in the face of resistance from those who want to keep things the same.

OK, that’s enough for now.  Raven, you might have gotten more than you bargained for when you asked to be educated.  The cross that I bear as I make my own way through life is a burning desire to understand and find meaning in the world around me.  This blog is my forum for sharing what I have learned and will continue learning.  Take from it what you will and please add your voice as you see fit so that I can continue my own education though dialogue with others.

RadicalNOTA

Idealists Anonymous

My name is RadicalNOTA and I’m an idealist.  I’m here at this Idealists Anonymous (IA) meeting because my idealism is causing my life to unravel and I need to get a grip.  I mean, you’d think that after working on environmental policy issues in Washington DC and then here in the South I would have been able to kick the idealism addiction and embrace the pragmatism that is demanded in polite society.  But no, I’ve once again fallen off the wagon and started a blog to chase the quixotic dream of transforming our political system to try and make it actually represent and value the wellbeing of the average citizen over the interests of corporate pigs at the government trough.

What the hell was I thinking?!  You guys have coffee, right?  I’m looking forward to hearing everyone’s stories about your descents into idealism and how you were finally able to stop chasing dreams of making a positive impact and get with the program of fitting in and not making waves.  There have to be some good strategies you guys can show me that will allow me to shut off the visions of participatory democracy and peace on earth and ecological sustainability that continue to plague my every waking hour.  I’ve think I’ve finally reached rock bottom and I’m ready to ask for help through the 12 step pragmatism program.

You do have smoke breaks during these meeting, right?

I’m RadicalNOTA and I’m an idealist

Republicans Chase Wall Street Donors – WSJ.com

Republicans Chase Wall Street Donors – WSJ.com.

It’s gotten to the point that the politicians don’t even realize how outrageous their behavior and language surrounding their lapdog relationship with Wall Street might actually appear to the rest of us.  Case in point, the above article from the Wall Street Journal.  Please read it to get the full effect, but I just have to include a couple of quotes that stand out for there sheer unmitigated gall.  I only wish I had a video of John Stewart facial expressions to go along with them.

Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio made a pitch to Democratic contributor James Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of J.P. Morgan, over drinks at a Capitol Hill restaurant, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Boehner told Mr. Dimon congressional Republicans had stood up to Mr. Obama’s efforts to curb pay and impose new regulations. The Republican leader also said he was disappointed many on Wall Street continue to donate their money to Democrats, according to the people familiar with the matter.

Thank goodness we have the Republicans to stand up for the little guy.

But that is nothing compared to this beauty of a quote by Rep. Eric Cantor (R., VA).

I sense a lot of dissatisfaction and a lot of buyer’s remorse on Wall Street,” said Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the second-ranking House Republican and a top Wall Street fund-raiser for his party.

Do they not even listen to themselves talk anymore??!!  Buyers remorse??!!!  Well, I’m sure Rep. Cantor and the other Republicans are more than ready to step in and give Wall Street their money’s worth.  They will probably even give them a discount, with the economy being so bad and all.

RadicalNOTA

Our debt time bomb is ready to go ka-boom Paul B. Farrell – MarketWatch

Our debt time bomb is ready to go ka-boom Paul B. Farrell – MarketWatch.

This is truly stunning, coming from such an establishment financial source.  The author, Paul Farrell, who I don’t really know anything about, lays out a truly unsettling list of interconnected “bombs” that will be detonating over the next few years.

Yes, 20. And yes, any one can destroy your retirement because all 20 are inexorably linked, a house-of-cards, a circular firing squad destined to self-destruct, triggering the third great Wall Street meltdown of the 21st century, igniting the Great Depression II that George W. Bush, Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson and now President Obama have simply delayed with their endless knee-jerk, debt-laden wars, stimulus bonanzas and bailouts.

Many of these bombs are connected to government and private debt loads that are reaching historical tipping points, others are related to resource use and population.  If you read the article you will recognize these bombs from other sources of information.  I don’t need to list them here.  However, the last 5 bombs that he lists speak loudly (you can almost imagine the man screaming and turning red in the face as he wrote this) of the unholy corporate/government alliance that will stymie all efforts to deal rationally with the economic/environmental/population bombs that are included in the list.  These are the bombs that that we can defuse, if only we will take back our representative democracy.

16. Fed/Treasury Bailout Bombs. Tax credits, loans, cash and purchase of toxic assets from Wall Street banks estimated at $23.7 trillion as new debt was shifted from too-big-to-fail Fat-Cat banks to taxpayers.

17. Insatiable Washington Lobbyists Bombs. Paulson, Goldman, Geithner, Morgan and Wall Street banks, through their lobbyists and former employees working inside now have absolute power over government spending. Democracy and voters are now irrelevant in America’s new corporate-socialism.

18. Shadow Banking: The Derivatives Bomb. Wall Street wants no regulation of this $670 trillion, high-risk, out-of-control casino that’s highly leveraged versus the $50 trillion total GDP of all nations. We forget that derivatives almost destroyed global economies in 2008-09, finally will by 2012.

19. Dysfunctional Two-Party Political Bomb. Polarized partisanship increasing: Every day both parties show zero interest in cooperating for the public good. Instead they fight viciously, resisting everything and anything proposed by opponents. Only goal: Score political points, make the other side look bad.

20. The Coming Populous Rebellion Bombs. Nobody trusts anyone in authority. For good reason. So immediate gratification, short-term betting and a lack of long-term perspective wins for individual investors, consumers and taxpayers as well as Washington, Wall Street and Corporate America CEOs. Today: “Doing what’s right for the common good and country” is just empty political rhetoric.

There you have it.  And this is why we have to tell these greedy soulless Powers that Be that we will not allow them to fiddle (with each other) while the rest of us burn.  We must withdraw our consent and remove their illusion of legitimacy, NOW.

RadicalNOTA

Corporation running for Congress

It’s true.  Apparently Murray Hill, Inc. is a liberal public relations firm that is running in a Republican primary in Marylands 8th Congressional district.  Take a look at their first campaign ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHRKkXtxDRA&feature=player_embedded

Truly awesome!!!

Dodd Calls Obama’s Bank Reform Plan Too Ambitious – NYTimes.com

Dodd Calls Obama’s Bank Reform Plan Too Ambitious – NYTimes.com.

Boy, this was an easy prediction to make.  The “Volker Rule” and other reforms the Obama administration has recently embraced are Dead on Arrival in the Senate.

A Twist in Wall St. Reform Talks – DealBook Blog – NYTimes.com.

If you want to know why the Volker Rule is DOA, read the story linked above.  I include the quote below from the article because it says so much more than the speaker intended.  Hell, it says everything we need to know about the relationship of the bankers and our representatives and let’s us all know who is on top (bolded emphasis mine).

But industry representatives and Democratic Congressional aides say the president’s new proposals have already provoked a sharp increase in the volume and energy of the lobbying on regulatory reform, with more chief executives stepping over their government relations staff to request personal meetings with lawmakers. The big banks, the lobbyists say, have become increasingly alarmed that the legislative process may move in unexpected directions outside their control.

I mean, God forbid the legislative process – the process supposedly run by our representatives for the benefit of the citizens of this country – be outside the control of the banks.

‘Nuff said

RadicalNOTA

Participation is Perpetuation

Just a quick post to explain the fundamental idea behind NOTA as I percieve it.  This fundamental idea can best be described by the title of this post.  Participation is Perpetuation.  In the realm of elections this is expressed in the forced choice we are presented within our degraded two party system.  By narrowing our choice of representation to one of two candidates who, in fact, offer very little in the way of choice, the political system as structured does not allow us to make choices that will impact the system itself.  By taking choices about the political or electoral system itself off the table (funding of candidates, the influence of money, lobbying and access, etc.) the political and economic elites ensure that our very participation in elections serves only to perpetuate the existing system that benefits them at the expense of everyone else.

The fundamental idea behind NOTA (again, from my perspective) is to withdraw our participation in the forced choice of the degraded two-party system.  The paradox here is that simply withdrawing our participation by not voting at all also serves to perpetuate the existing system because we become invisible to the system.  NOTA seeks to resolve this paradox by allowing for an active withdrawal of consent that makes a clear statement about the narrow forced consent presented to us in elections.  By voting NOTA I am saying that I do not accept the demand that I be satisfied with the narrow choices I am given and I will, of my own volition and without waiting for permission, expand my choices by withdrawing my consent to participate in a rigged game.  At the same time I will not be invisible to the system by not voting.

NOTA gives me an avenue for participation in elections that does not serve as an implicit acceptance of the perpetuation of the system as it is currently configured.  It is also important to understand that NOTA is not the basis or foundation with which to actually transform the system, aside from allowing for a mechanism to express dissatifaction with the existing system and choices.

But we must remember that NOTA is ONLY the first step in a larger process of system transformation and is actually an intentionally disruptive act.  Those of us who might choose to exercise our right to withhold consent must also be prepared to offer our ideas and energy to construct the system and policies we can support.

RadicalNOTA

The Infamy of September 3, 2008

In the RadicalNOTA Manifesto I identify Friday September 3, 2008 as the day my outrage meter went permanently into the red.  This was the day the House of Representatives passed the TARP bill, after rejecting the same bill on Monday.  The events of that week stand out in my memory and hold a significance that must be acknowledged and not forgotten.

I remember talking to a friend after hearing about the House of Representatives passing the Senate version of the bill (I was not at all surprised that the Senate had passed a “sweetened” version of the bill on Wednesday of that week) and blurting out that this day would be remembered as the day our representative democracy took its final ragged breath.  Melodramatic?  Oh hell yes, it was a statement made in heated disgust after watching, and participating in, a massive wave of citizens actively contacting their representatives and begging them not to pass this bill.

Articles such as this reported on the wave of constituent disgust with the bailout that flooded the offices of Congress.  The opposition was intense and the message was unmistakable.  It didn’t take an economist to understand that the TBTF banks and others in the financial industry had taken massive risks with “Other People’s Money” (OPM); multiplied the reward for them and the total risk in the system through securitization and other “creative financial products” such as Credit Default Swaps; and then, when the house of cards fell down, came running to the federal government to bail them out with taxpayer dollars.

It was also obvious to anyone paying attention that the TBTF institutions were blackmailing us into giving them the money.  End of the world scenarios abounded in the press.  We were going to immediately plunge into the 2nd Great Depression, breadlines would form overnight, martial law would need to be implemented.  As many people noted, it was eerily similar to the predictions of mushroom clouds over our cities if we didn’t attack Iraq.

The message to constituents coming from those representatives who voted for TARP boiled down to this:  “I didn’t want to vote for this bailout and I understand your anger, but I voted for the bill in your best interest because you don’t understand the complexity of this crisis and how main street will be destroyed if we don’t save the banks.”

It’s the implied paternalism in the 2nd part of that rationalization that completely disgusts me.  “It’s for your own good that I’m taking all the money in your piggybank and giving it to Uncle Bankster to payoff his gambling debts.”  Aside from treating us citizens as children, the TARP fiasco virtually demanded that the citizens would end up blaming government (and the Obama administration) for all of the economic problems that continued to cascade down upon us from this financial crisis.

We were not allowed to take responsibility for NOT bailing out the banks.  That was clearly the will of the majority of the population.  We said, “do not reward the risky and greedy behavior of those who created the mess.”  Economists call it “moral hazard” and the bible calls it “reaping what you sow,” but we all know it in some form or another as taking responsibility for the consequences of your actions.

So not only did the TBTF banks get to privatize their profits while the party was going full swing and socialize their losses when the party stopped and all the family crystal was broken; but we, the majority of citizens who loudly called for those responsible to take their losses, were told that we didn’t understand how that would really hurt us and, therefore, the banks had to be bailed out for our own good.

The ultimate result is the banksters don’t take responsibility for their mistakes and misdeeds and, even more importantly in my view, we as citizens don’t take responsibility (nor should we) for the consequences of the policy decisions coming out of DC.  What if our representatives had actually listened to us in late September, 2008?  What if we did not bailout the banks and other financial players that were, in fact, bankrupt?  Nobody can answer that question, but even if we had fallen into the 2nd Great Depression we as citizens could have dealt with it knowing that we were taking responsibility for decisions WE made in demanding that those who created the financial meltdown take responsibility for their actions.

After October 3, 2008, that avenue was closed off to us.

RadicalNOTA