Capitalism Crushes Democracy, Pt I

Categories: economics politicsAuthor Joe the BohemianPosted on 1 Comment on Capitalism Crushes Democracy, Pt I

Private profit over public welfare is the core principle of capitalism. This enables big corporations to increase their power and exploit our donor-dominated political system. Democracy’s principle of  all socioeconomic strata being served by elected representatives has been replaced by the profit-maximizing goals of big corporate donors, such that plutocracy is clearly our form of government, not democracy.

In 2010 the conservative Supreme Court strengthened capitalism’s control of government with 2 major rulings. The first,  Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,  January 21, ruled (5–4) that laws that prevented  corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds for independent “electioneering communications” (political advertising) violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. The Court invalidated Section 203 of the federal Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA)—also known as the McCain-Feingold Act—as well as Section 441(b) of the Federal Election Campaign Act  of 1971 (FECA), which the BCRA had amended. 

The July  SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission ruling created Super Pacs, which are independent expenditure-only committees, and can raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, then spend unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political candidates. The attacks ads flooding cable TV during campaign seasons are funded by Super Pacs and feature partisan-based personal smears against the opposing candidate.

These recent assaults on democracy are consistent with the long American tradition of aristocracy over democracy. Wealthy land-owning aristocrats were deemed the proper representatives in the American republic.  In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison wrote, “Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” Madison noted the prevalence of the landed class, aristocracy, of his time. He worried what would happen if elections were open to all classes of people, as peasants outnumbered landowners, whose property would then become insecure. Madison stated the government should be constituted to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority, i.e., peasantry.

The United States evolved from its agrarian aristocratic republic into a capitalist behemoth-state.  U.S. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, 1921-1932, stated the capitalist agenda when confronted with The Great Depression. He urged President Hoover to refrain from using the government to intervene in the depression. Mellon believed that economic recessions, such as those that had occurred in 1873 and 1907, were a necessary part of the business cycle because they purged the economy. In his memoirs, Hoover wrote that Mellon advised him to “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. Purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. … enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”

But the capitalist-control of the government was finally countered by President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies with new regulatory agencies and programs to help the non-wealthy get jobs and government assistance. From 1933 to 1973 the GDP of the United States grew 600%, 4.88% annually.  This era marked the closest approximation by our government to a democracy, having been clearly a plutocracy before. By contrast, the GDP growth of 1973 to 2016 was 202%, 2.88% annually. The postwar boom had wages increase 4.5% annually 1948-1966, then 3% annually 1966-1979. Since the early 1970’s wages have stagnated, and are “essentially at 1974 levels” despite the fact that U.S. GDP grew from $5.66 trillion to $18.05 trillion in the same period. Wealth in capitalist state flows upward, not downward.

With democratic policies assisting the non-wealthy, wage growth exceeded corporate profit growth: 4.5% vs 4.2% for 1948 to 1966, 3.0% vs. 0.1% for 1966 to 1979. The anomaly of a pro-labor democracy replaced the pre-FDR plutocracy. Since then, we’ve returned to a plutocracy with wages stagnating as corporate profits increased over time. From 2000 to 2007, a real estate bubble fed corporate profits for 5.3% annual growth while wages grew 0.4%. The new global capitalism minimizes labor costs by offshoring and thereby boosts profits for corporations. It is indeed Reverse Robin Hood economy. Our post-industrial economy is manifested by stock market bubbles, like the tech bubble of the late 1990’s, the real estate bubble of 2002-2008, and the Obama-Trump bubble from 2009 that seems to have ended in recent months.

With the assistance of corporate-funded media highlighting the drama of clashing candidates, twitter posts, and empty slogans subjected to analysis by cable-TV corpo-pundits, we now have the Trump Plutocracy. Big corporations benefiting from unlimited campaign contributions to politicians have their ultimate capitalist czar, Trump, to remove environmental regulations, promote pollution for profit by selling off or using public lands for this profiteering. Putting corporate wolves in government posts to regulate their own industries is essentially replacing government with big business. The private profit of management and wealthy shareholders is replacing the welfare of the public. The public service aspects of government are being crushed by capital. Any aspects of government reducing corporate profit margins are propagandized in trickle-down rhetoric in conservative MSM outlets.

One example of Trump’s letting capitalism crush democracy, is his crusade to unleash pollution in the nation’s waters, as reported in The Nation on 12/13/18.  https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-clean-water-act/ Trump seeks to gut the Clean Water Act, to dismantle the federal law that protects the nation’s waterways, aquatic habitats and drinking water. The Nation reports:

“Early on in his administration Trump attempted to roll back key water protections by unraveling the Obama administration’s updated regulation to the CWA, which established a much broader regulatory scope for waterways nationwide. Though his earlier attacks on the CWA were blocked in court,  Trump’s latest stab at destroying public health and ecological protections would essentially strip federal oversight from vast swaths of the country’s wetlands, streams, ponds, and related habitats. Because it threatens to leave major portions of communities’ water supplies and ecosystems virtually unprotected against pollution, environmental advocates have denounced the proposal as a blank check for corporations, agribusiness, and real-estate developers.”

In our capitalist-bubble-economy era, ten years have passed since the 2008 economic crisis began, usually designated by the 9/15/2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. The recovery and accompanying bull market, stock market bubble that began on March 2009, provide an occasion to reflect on how well or poorly people have done and these include the non-wealthy whose status is typically obscured by typical MSM reporting.

One prime example is how plutocrats in Michigan, even with democrat Obama as President,  took the opportunity to profit by polluting Flint’s water supply since the cleaner water they had before cost more money. On April 25, 2014, Flint mayor, Dayne Walling ended Flint’s 50-year reliance on the Detroit water system. Water from the heavily polluted Flint River, both saved money and privatized profits with a new, private water system—the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA). This callous profit-based decision was compounded by the failure to add chemical corrosion controls, setting in motion an environmental and health disaster.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/04/27/flin-a27.html reported:

“Keishwaun Wade, a Flint high school student, told the rally, “It was a deliberate decision by our elected officials. They did not take into account our humanity and dignity which has been stripped away. They poisoned us. Our government failed us. Our voices have been ignored and silenced in spite of the truthfulness of our concerns. They are dismissing us and will not fix the problem. This is not the kind of society we should be striving for.”

In this post-industrial economy, the long-term trend has been welfare for the wealthy, the 1%, and austerity for the non-wealthy 99%. The statistics given on our “healthy growing economy” paint a rosey hue on reality. Before the 2008 meltdown, the U.S. employment/population ratio was 63.3%. The current ratio is 60.3%. The official unemployment figure is 3.9%, which is determined by dividing the number of jobless people who are looking for work by the total labor force—defined as all those people working or actively looking for work. In August that was 3.9 percent. If you factor in underemployed workers, those working less than full time not by choice, “discouraged” workers, those marginally attached — who would work but feel they can’t find a job — that adds about 12.3 million people to the unemployed total. This raises the rate of unemployed to 7.6 percent. The number of jobs advertised by employers and the number of workers who quit reached record highs in July 2018. The number of unfilled positions increased 1.7%, to 6.9 million, while the number of employees deciding to leave rose 3%, to 3.58 million.

The cornerstone of business and finance news is stock market performance, which is intended to represent the status of the economy as a whole, rather than the well-being of those who can afford a big stock portfolio. Since the 2008 crash, the S&P 500 has grown 3,315% (as of Oct 2018) whereas average wages have grown an annual average of 2.03%. The vast majority of Americans, the bottom 80% in income, own 6.7% of all stocks. The top 10% own 84% and the next 10% own 9.3%. Contrast this salient real fact with the claims of Trickle Down economics.

Since the major recession of 2008, largely attributed to excessive mortgage debt, consumer debt is even worse 10 years later. The debt has shifted from mortgage to auto loans and student loans. The continued reliance on debt reflects how corporate profits tend to flow upward to the wealthy rather than downward to middle or low income workers. Auto loans rose by 42% over the past ten years, from $798 billion to $1.13 trillion, with the average loan 69.5 months (over 5.75 years). About 1/4 of auto loans are to people with subprime or deep-subprime credit ratings. Student loans have skyrocketed to $1.53 trillion from 627 billion in 2008. There are 44 million student borrowers who owe an average of $37,000. Overall consumer debt is $13.95 trillion, 4.7% higher than in 2008, despite the fact of a slight reduction in mortgage debt. This debt averages out to $42,660 for each American. This dismal state of indebtedness does not factor into typical acclamations of the strong economy as reported by the mainstream media.

The less than rosey reality of economic status for the non-wealthy is intentionally hidden by business reporting for the simple reason to make people think they are doing better than they really are. Big powerful corporations own the mainstream media and prefer to have content workers over discontented ones. The economic system for decades has been plutocratically driven, a series of bubbles, fed by globalization, being able to offshore jobs and decrease wages and thereby boost profits. The claims provided by trickle down economics have proved to be false with real median male wages lower than they were in 1975. The increased participation by women in the workforce facilitates the use of household income as a statistic. The inclusion of more two-breadwinner households offsets the fact that mens’ incomes do not keep pace with inflation and more women must work to offset this fact. Clearly, the “American Dream” of decades past has deteriorated, is less possible, less often achieved than it was 40 years ago. Clearly plutocracy is both the economic and governmental system, rather than democracy. The increasing struggles of average non-wealthy Americans to merely “get by”, pay monthly bills, let alone aspire to achieving loftier career goals, are direct results of a continual dismantling of democracy by the plutocracy. Profits come from paying people less, either here or outside the U.S., and these flow upwards, not downwards, as the facts I state here demonstrate.

 

 

SOURCES:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/capitalism-democracy-citizens-united

https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/superpacs.php

https://www.britannica.com/event/Citizens-United-v-Federal-Election-Commission

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0044

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mellon

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/08/14/real-us-wages-are-essentially-back-at-1974-levels.aspx

http://www.smartbrief.com/branded/635D2192-7CCE-4A2F-B6DB-0EC8232131AD/920EB83B-7831-4239-9BCD-8D5302D9A863

https://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2016/09/14/almost-six-million-unfilled-jobs-in-america-question-is-whyread:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-5295767/Worlds-richest-gained-82-new-wealth-2017-Oxfam-report-shows.html

https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2018/sep/18/ro-khanna/what-percentage-americans-own-stocks/https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-says-94-million-americans-out-of-labor-force-in-speech-to-congress-2017-2

 

 

The Triumph of Corporate Tyranny, Part I: War on the Workers

Categories: economics historyAuthor Joe the BohemianPosted on No comment on The Triumph of Corporate Tyranny, Part I: War on the Workers

Ten years have passed since the 2008 economic crisis began, usually designated by the 9/15/2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. The recovery and accompanying bull market, stock market bubble that began on March 2009, provide an occasion to reflect on how well or poorly people have done and these include the non-wealthy whose status is typically obscured by typical MSM reporting.

In this post-industrial or service economy, the long-term trend has been welfare for the wealthy, the 1%, and austerity for the non-wealthy 99%. The statistics given on our “healthy growing economy” paint a rosey hue on reality. Before the 2008 meltdown, the U.S. employment/population ratio was 63.3%. The current ratio is 60.3%. The official unemployment figure is 3.9%, which is determined by dividing the number of jobless people who are looking for work by the total labor force—defined as all those people working or actively looking for work. In August that was 3.9 percent. If you factor in underemployed workers, those working less than full time not by choice, “discouraged” workers, those marginally attached — who would work but feel they can’t find a job — that adds about 12.3 million people to the unemployed total. This raises the rate of unemployed to 7.6 percent. The number of jobs advertised by employers and the number of workers who quit reached record highs in July 2018. The number of unfilled positions increased 1.7%, to 6.9 million, while the number of employees deciding to leave rose 3%, to 3.58 million.

The cornerstone of business and finance news is stock market performance, which is intended to represent the status of the economy as a whole, rather than the well-being of those who can afford a big stock portfolio. Since the 2008 crash, the S&P 500 has grown 3,315% whereas average wages have grown an annual average of 2.03%. The vast majority of Americans, the bottom 80% in income, own 6.7% of all stocks. The top 10% own 84% and the next 10% own 9.3%. Contrast this salient real fact with the claims of Trickle Down economics.

Since the major recession of 2008, largely attributed to excessive mortgage debt, consumer debt is even worse 10 years later. The debt has shifted from mortgage to auto loans and student loans. The continued reliance on debt reflects how corporate profits tend to flow upward to the wealthy rather than downward to middle or low income workers. Auto loans rose by 42% over the past ten years, from $798 billion to $1.13 trillion, with the average loan 69.5 months (over 5.75 years). About 1/4 of auto loans are to people with subprime or deep-subprime credit ratings. Student loans have skyrocketed to $1.53 trillion from 627 billion in 2008. There are 44 million student borrowers who owe an average of $37,000. Overall consumer debt is $13.95 trillion, 4.7% higher than in 2008, despite the fact of a slight reduction in mortgage debt. This debt averages out to $42,660 for each American. This dismal state of indebtedness does not factor into typical acclamations of the strong economy as reported by the mainstream media.

The less than rosey reality of economic status for the non-wealthy is intentionally hidden by business reporting for the simple reason to make people think they are doing better than they really are. Big powerful corporations own the mainstream media and prefer to have content workers over discontented ones. The economic system for decades has been plutocratically driven, a series of bubbles, fed by globalization, being able to offshore jobs and decrease wages and thereby boost profits. The claims provided by trickle down economics have proved to be false with real median male wages lower than they were in 1975. The increased participation by women in the workforce facilitates the use of household income as a statistic. The inclusion of more two-breadwinner households offsets the fact that mens’ incomes do not keep pace with inflation and more women must work to offset this fact. Clearly, the “American Dream” of decades past has deteriorated, is less possible, less often achieved than it was 40 years ago. Clearly plutocracy is both the economic and governmental system, rather than democracy. The increasing struggles of average non-wealthy Americans to merely “get by”, pay monthly bills, let alone aspire to achieving loftier career goals, are direct results of a continual dismantling of democracy by the plutocracy. Profits come from paying people less, either here or outside the U.S., and these flow upwards, not downwards, as the facts I state here demonstrate.

SOURCES:

http://www.smartbrief.com/branded/635D2192-7CCE-4A2F-B6DB-0EC8232131AD/920EB83B-7831-4239-9BCD-8D5302D9A863

https://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2016/09/14/almost-six-million-unfilled-jobs-in-america-question-is-why

read:https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-5295767/Worlds-richest-gained-82-new-wealth-2017-Oxfam-report-shows.html

https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2018/sep/18/ro-khanna/what-percentage-americans-own-stocks/

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-says-94-million-americans-out-of-labor-force-in-speech-to-congress-2017-2

U.S. economy: Rosy for the rich, grim for workers and poor people

https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/mutualfunds/10-years-later-how-has-americas-consumer-debt-changed-since-the-financial-crisis/ar-AAAvtvQ

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/06/13/student-loan-debt-statistics-2018/#5eb6e5837310

Capitalism in the Real World

Categories: historyAuthor Joe the BohemianPosted on No comment on Capitalism in the Real World

Capitalism is a hierarchical accumulative system where all available means are used to accumulate capital and concentrate it. The state evolved alongside capitalism and the pioneers of capitalism voluntarily used state institutions like central banks and state-sponsored companies. Both the Netherlands and England created central banks and East India Companies even before the industrial revolution got into high gear. Capitalism from its onset was embedded in a mercantilist model where rich elites invested in merchant sailors who extracted wealth both from Asia and the New World. During this period colossal amounts of gold and silver from Mexico and Peru came on ships, temporarily made Spain wealthy and then bankers in the Netherlands and England. The mercantilist model of a given country, Netherlands or England, exporting more goods than they imported meant the trade surplusses translated into gold or silver. This model of actual capitalism is based on the voluntary exploitation by mercantilists of Asian and American lands and slaves laboring on sugar plantations, gold and silver mines in the Americas.

Bankers were always integral to capitalism and consolidating their power via central banks or forming family networks like the Rothschild dynasty is a capitalistic mechanism. Before the “evil” Federal Reserve there were moguls like J P Morgan who essentially bailed out the U.S. banking system from the Panic of 1907 and thus made the notion of a central bank appealing. The U.S. federal government was a mere 5% of the GDP in the late 1800’s and a handful of ultrawealthy moguls voluntarily called the shots and owned elected officials. I am sure the factory workers and children working in mines in horrific conditions would have enjoyed a discussion of the voluntary aspects of capitalism or the “free market”, just as abused exploited workers in Bangladesh or Vietnam making cheap clothes or shoes you buy at The Gap or Old Navy would like to talk about “voluntary” aspects of corporations running their states and having global sovereignty over states.

Capitalism today is embedded via its natural evolution in corporations, efficient machines of capital extraction and accumulation from Asians and Latin Americans making Iphones, shoes, clothes, cheap stuff you buy. The voluntary aspect of transnational corporate capitalism is one-sided and hierarchical. The higher you are on the capitalism hierarchy the more voluntary options you have to make wealth. When you are a kid in Bangladesh making clothes in a factory liable to collapse, your participation is not very voluntary. if you are a cocoa slave in the Ivory Coast, you are being involuntarily used for the shareholders of a candy company, its management, and the person in the 1st world enjoying the chocolate made affordable by slave labor.

Time: The Endless Enigma

Categories: history metaphysicsAuthor Joe the BohemianPosted on No comment on Time: The Endless Enigma

What is time? Merriam-Webster defines time as a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future.       

The Oxford Dictionary defines it as the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present and future regarded as a whole

The World English Dictionary defines it as the continuous passage of existence in which events pass from a state of potentiality in the future, through the present, to a state of finality in the past.

However time may be defined, the common element is motion. That conceptual entity we call “time” is moving or going somewhere, and typically from the past to the future,  except in the World English Dictionary definition, with future to past. Time is a core concept of reality and, as such, is defined as a continuum. In each definition some form of the Latin continēre= “to hold together” is used, from which continued, continuous, and continuum are derived. Motion is always a core component of time, and each definition contains a motion-component, whether it is succeed, progress, or pass. Succeed comes from the Latin: sub=near; cedere=to go.  Progress comes from Latin progressus, pp. of progradi: pro=forward; gradi= to go. Pass, the verb, means to move, proceed,  or go. In essence, time’s definitions reveal it as a moving entity that holds existence or reality together.

Time is ultimately an abstract concept that is inferred to exist on the basis of our everyday experiences as events exist seemingly in a sequence from the past into   the present, as the present-now becomes a past-present and a future-present becomes the present-now.  Causality seems to be a major part of the process or flux of time. A match is struck and the flame follows. The held ball is released  and falls. The procession from events viewed as causes to effects adds a certain scientific gravitas to time.

Is time a point or is it a flux? We have the clock definition for a point in time, the Now,  and we see the second hand moving or the numbers changing on the digital  timepiece, clock or watch. The Now seems to be the natural existential core over which minimal debate can be expected. The problem is that Now is not as obvious as we think. If it is in fact a point in time, then why do we see things move? We see a flag waving in the breeze, snow  flakes falling, a ball thrown, various and sundry objects and creatures moving or changing. Time is not the mere summation of discrete points in time. When we look at a baseball travelling through the air, we see a flux of motion, not discrete locations of the baseball in temporal motion sequence. The human mind/brain in fact blurs some portion of the immediate past into the present moment of experiencing reality. The flux nature of time is embedded in our experience of it.

Most discussions of time include Einstein’s General and Special Relativity Theories. General Relativity is noted for Spacetime, the cosmic fabric consisting of time along with the three physical dimensions. Here, time receives a special validation in Einstein’s construct of the universe. Special Relativity fascinates people with time as being relative to motion relative to the speed of light. Time is not absolute as once enshrined in the preceding Newtonian scientific consensus. Time  approaches zero as one approaches the speed of light, but mass also approaches infinity for the high-velocity traveler. Note that time comprises any scenario of a moving object, be it light itself or a super fast spaceship, as speed is the ratio of distance traveled per time interval. The interesting aspect of someone or something moving so fast to slow the passage of time is that the notion of a fixed stable time interval underlies the speed defined for this fast traveling. The current “exact speed of light” is listed as 186,282 miles per second in a vacuum. Whatever the scientific determination of distance traveled by light may be, there must be that time interval in the denominator for the distance numerator. As people entertain themselves with time slowing down for the space traveler as his/her earthbound friends and family experience normally progressing time, we are bound to the fundamental definition of speed or velocity  dependent on a time interval.

Time in any discussion goes back to motion and change. Things move and change and time is inferred to exist to explain motion and  change. The Arrow of Time has the progression of events from past to the present into the future. This constitutes the flow of  time as normally experienced by people. I would clarify this concept of time “moving forward” as the causal chain or flux of events. Picture an object traveling and its motion is freeze-framed at points in time. Time 1 baseball moves to Time 2 position then to Time 3 position. The moving baseball is a causal flux and the past baseball leads to or causes the present and then the future baseball. In contrast to this causal-flux concept of time, I posit time-in-itself, such that all NOW’s slide into the past. What is now always becomes the past, and is thereby transformed into a “then” of the past. Simultaneously, a potential “Now” encased in the realm of future potentiality becomes Now. Physical reality possesses motion and change processes like links in a causal chain or flux that contains the infinite positions or states of an object or event in flux. Time-in-itself, core process of reality’s changing, means any given event originates as a potential event in the future, then “hatches” into the present reality or real event, potential having morphed into reality, and this present reality, a point in time, slides into  the past, its past incarnation.

Given the paradox, of opposite flows, past to future and future to past, is there some resolution to solve it and make some coherent concept of time? Yes. If we conceive of NOW as perpetual, the one core constituent of experience, then this NOW is indeed moving into the future in harmony with the watch’s moving second hand or rapid flux of advancing numbers on a digital watch. Now is moving, therefore time is moving. BUT, what if time is not reduced to THE NOW? What if time is a process or dimension or basic component of reality or spacetime or existence? We have seen time is a process underlying motion and change. If we agree there is a past, present, and future, then what is the relationship or flux process among these three entities? As I stated, each present becomes a past event, and this requires a future potential event to replace the present event that slid into the past.

The unidirectional flow of time or Causal Flux is exemplified by entropy.  In a closed thermodynamic system the Second Law of Thermodynamics has entropy increasing with the forward movement of time, from past to present to future. In a cup of hot water an ice cube is placed, and the discrete separation of hot  water and cold ice morphs into warm water as the heat energy melts the ice and the ice’s coldness cools the surrounding water. A nail of pure iron becomes encrusted with rust, iron oxide or Fe2O3, whether by absorbing oxygen from the air or by water coming into contact with it. Definitions of  entropy  can be confusing, so I cite everyday examples. Time is theorized to exist as a principle underlying chemical and thermal processes or degradation. Yet another example, is a glass object, like a bottle, that shatters into pieces when falling onto the floor or hard nether surface, like brick or concrete or asphalt. The apparent “chaos” of glass fragments is chaos  from order, so to speak. It is inconceivable to reverse “the flow of time” such that the chaotic array of glass fragments assemble to form a bottle.

My last example of science manifesting time is radioactive half-lives. A half-life is the amount of time it takes half a sample of a radioactive isotope to decay into another isotope. The carbon prevalent in nature is Carbon 12, the stable isotope consisting of 6 neutrons and 6 protons in the nucleus. There are also Carbon 13 and 14 isotopes. C-13 is about 1% of carbon, has 7 neutrons, and C-14 is exceedingly rare, about 1 part in a trillion of carbon on earth. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 ± 40 years—i.e., half the amount of the radioisotope present at any given time will undergo spontaneous disintegration during the succeeding 5,730 years. The phenomenon of radioactive half-lives seems to manifest the stable operation of time, as decay uniformly follows a schedule for half a sample to degrade from one isotope to another in a given time interval for that isotope. Here again, there is a process of change and has science designating some law of change and requiring time for it to occur. It’s a causal chain in the past-present-future framework discussed above.

In conclusion for this impromptu essay, Time is a real component of physical reality, non-spatial and immaterial. It’s a core dimension of the universe, underlying change and causation. Time is unique and indispensable, embedded in everyday experience and science’s conceptualization of the universe. The manifestations abound of change and motion, causal chains of event leading to event, and time emerges as the concept or continuum making these manifestations occur.

SOURCES: http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/definition-of-time/

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity

https://www.space.com/17661-theory-general-relativity.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(arrow_of_time)

http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/restore/rt106.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14

The History of Fascism, Pt I

Categories: history politicsAuthor Joe the BohemianPosted on 309 Comments on The History of Fascism, Pt I

This is the first installment of essays on the huge complex topic of fascism. I will get to Hitler and Franco of Spain (1936 -75) along with other fascist regimes in subsequent blog posts as well as ideologues who contributed to fascist ideology.

Merriam-Webster defines fascism as a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of Italy’s Fascisti led by Mussolini) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Author of Fascists, Michael Mann says fascists embrace the nation-state. Racial homogeneity is the basis of the nation where the people rule and such rule may entail the violent exclusion of minority ethnic groups up to ethnic cleansing or genocide. More powerful modern states accompany fascism as they become governed by authoritarian regimes than cleanse minorities and opponents from the nation. The violent purification of the the fascist state comes from above and below. Radical paramilitary movements or citizen armies serve their fascist nations. Sources of power making fascism possible are ideological, economic, military, and political. Fascism, says Mann, is the pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism through paramilitarism.

History shows fascism interwoven with 19th Century European nationalism and the political and ideological responses to Marxism’s failings (at least as idealized by Marx and Engels).  Foreshadowings of fascism sprouted long before Mussolini and Hitler. 1848 saw the publication of  The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. France’s February 1848 Revolution was driven by nationalist and republican ideals among the French general public, who believed the people should rule themselves. It ended the constitutional monarchy of Louis-Philippe and led to the creation of the French Second Republic. This government was headed by Louis-Napoleon who, after only four years, established The Second French Empire which was essentially proto-fascistic, an example of fascism not ordinarily acknowledged as such.

The June Days Uprising of 1848 was staged by France’s workers in response to plans to close the National Workshops, created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a source of income for the unemployed  with pay just enough to survive. The National Guard, led by General Louis Eugene Cavaignac, was called out to quell the protests. Over 10,000 people were either killed or injured, while 4,000 insurgents were deported to Algeria. This marked the end of the hopes of a “Democratic and Social Republic”.

The anti-parliamentary Constitution of 1852 gave all executive power to Louis-Napoleon, heir and nephew to Emperor Napoleon I “who had sprung armed from the French Revolution like Minerva from the head of Jove”. The people of the Empire lacked democratic rights and relied on the benevolence of the emperor rather than on the benevolence of politicians. He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established as a constituent part of the empire. On December 2, 1852, France conferred almost unanimously by a plebiscite the supreme power upon Napoleon III. The Legislative Body was not allowed to elect its own president or to regulate its own procedure, or to propose a law or an amendment, or to vote on the budget in detail, or to make its deliberations public.

One of the pioneers of fascism was a German nationalist, Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-1896). He favored German colonialism, opposed the British Empire, Catholics, Poles, and socialists within Germany. He hoped to see Germany united into a single state with a parliamentary government, and all the smaller states swept away. He supported colonialism: “Every virile people has established colonial power. All great nations in the fullness of their strength have desired to set their mark upon barbarian lands and those who fail to participate in this great rivalry will play a pitiable role in time to come”. Treitschke believed in brutal competition among races, of the Germans versus the Lithuanians, ‘Old Prussians versus the Poles. He recognized that the preservation of the nation must inevitably lead to the destruction of others. Social evolution, the “survival of the fittest” was a struggle between peoples as much as it was one between individual men and women. Having witnessed the destructive power of nationalism, Treischke believed that “war… will endure to the end of history, as long as there is multiplicity of States. He felt that his land’s soil was fertilized by   noble German blood. An outspoken Anti-semite,

He accused German Jews of refusing to assimilate into German society, and criticized the flow of Jewish immigrants from Russian Poland.He popularized the phrase “Die Juden sind unser Unglück!” (“The Jews are our misfortune!”), which was adopted as a motto by the Nazi publication Der Stürmer several decades later. He made several antisemitic remarks such as:

The Jews at one time played a necessary role in German history, because of their ability in the management of money. But now that the Aryans have become accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of finance, the Jews are no longer necessary. The international Jew, hidden in tile mask of different nationalities, is a disintegrating influence; he can be of no further use to the world.

Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), a French aristocract, played a major role as a theorist of racial inequality, instrumental for fascist regimes decrying the contamination of their chosen nation’s race.  He promoted a racist ideology by observing Europe’s imperialistic success. He claimed there were three races, “white”, “black”, and “yellow”. Mixing these races, he claimed, would lead to chaos, therefore, the turmoil in France was caused by a mixing of race. He said the “white” race was far superior at creating a civilized culture and maintaining an ordered government. He also believed that his race best represented the remains of ancient civilizations. It was this thinking that led him to trace all of what he considered the superior civilizations of the past; Greek, Roman, Germanic, and present times, back to a common civilization, which he dubbed the “Aryan” race. He summed up all of his beliefs in the book “An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races”, which later influenced much of the Nazi beliefs. Gobineau claimed that the Aryans had founded all ten of the great civilizations of the world, writing “In the ten civilizations no Negro race is seen an initiator. Only when it is mixed with some other can it even be initiated into a civilization. Similarly, no spontaneous civilization is be found among the yellow races; and when the Aryan blood is exhausted stagnation supervenes.

The first official fascist was Benito Mussolini, who headed up the Bolshevik wing of the Italian Socialist Party from 1912-14, which purged moderate or reformist socialists. World War I tore the party apart as orthodox socialists were challenged by advocates of national syndicalism that advocated a revolutionary war to liberate Italian territories from Austrian control and to force the government by threat of violence to adopt changes that would create a corporatist state. The national syndicalists intended to support Italian republicans in overthrowing the monarchy if such reforms were not made and if Italy did not enter the war. The dominant internationalist and pacifist wing of the party remained committed to avoiding what it called a “bourgeois war”. The PSI’s refusal to support the war led to its national syndicalist faction either leaving or being purged from the party, such as Mussolini who had begun to show sympathy to the national syndicalist cause. A number of the national syndicalists expelled from the PSI would have become members of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Revolutionary Party in 1915 and later in 1921 to his newly named National Fascist Party.

As ethnically based authoritarianism, fascism resonates with the white nationalism within the U.S. as well as various ethnic nationalist movements gaining popularity in Europe considered far right on the political spectrum, largely inspired by xenophobic condemnation of immigrants. Since Obama’s election, white supremacists have been emboldened to “take their country back” and a broader xenophobia launched  the Tea Party in 2009. As our federal government was mired in cleaning up Bush’s global meltdown, Tea Partiers were outraged at the “Marxist Kenyan” in office and his huge spending.  Trump capitalized on this white rage as he started contemplating running for president. In 2011 he badgered Obama to produce his birth certificate. In June 2015, while Trump was a presidential candidate, he said, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have a lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”. Trump’s key officials have included former chief strategist Steve Bannon of Breitbart News whose boss and funder is white nationalist Richard Spencer. Key advisor Stephen Miller is also a white supremacist.

David Duke, the former KKK grand wizard, is unambiguous about what the May 13, 2017 alt-right and neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, means to him: It’s the fulfillment of President Donald Trump’s vision for America.

“We are determined to take our country back,” Duke said from the rally, calling it a “turning point.” “We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.”

Sources: https://samspiegelman1.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/the-evolution-of-nationalism-in-19th-century-europe/

Facscists by Michael Mann

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_von_Treitschke

https://www.vox.com/2017/8/12/16138358/charlottesville-protests-david-duke-kkk

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-mexicans-rapists-remark-reference-2018-4

https://newrepublic.com/article/144954/return-fascism-germany-greece-far-right-nationalists-winning-elections

http://westerncivguides.umwblogs.org/2012/03/14/arthur-de-gobineau-and-his-contributions-to-the-rise-of-racism/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Days_uprising

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_French_Empire

2017: The Plutocracy Thanks Twittertwerp Trump.

Categories: UncategorizedAuthor Joe the BohemianPosted on No comment on 2017: The Plutocracy Thanks Twittertwerp Trump.

Happy New Year. Best wishes for 2018! Since we’ve finished off a dismal year that eclipses all previous black comedies in its absurd realities, what choice do we have but to hope that 2018 must be better than this god-awful trainwreck of a year. Suffice it to say, capitalism not only survives, it kicked sand in the face of socialism this past year. Trumped up trickle-down economics via corporate CEO’s leading government agencies puts foxes running the henhouses. Whether it’s public schools or public lands, private profit for big corporations is the solution under the “populist” Trump. The assclown in chief highlights the fact of puppet figureheads who distract us while corporate moguls run the government. The Twittertwerp creates fodder for the infotainment MSM while his corporate donors, appointees, and speechwriters run the government. The 40+ year trend of bulldozering social programs continues, such that this once prosperous nation blessed with a huge vibrant middle class slides into a Banana Republic of a burgeoning poor population, a nation that is shadow of its former self. Visions of Trumped Up Trickle Down and antiquated xenophobia are served up like opiates for the masses in this deteriorated version of America.

Consider for a moment Trump’s appointees to cabinet positions. We have the CEO of ExxonMobil as Secretary of State. Climate change denier Scott Pruitt heads the EPA. Betsy DeVos advocates for public school money parasites, Charter Schools, which boost private profits with taxpayers’ money. The charade of “government of the people” is now spotlighted with corporate executives who are less interesting to the MSM than the tweets of our assclown CEO, Trump. To state we have entered the Era of Idiocracy rings so true we dare not speak this horrific fact. The Idiocracy has consumed a full year of our lives, 2017.

The Romans, architects of the empire that we currently inhabit, spoke of bread and circuses We have a glorious circus led by Assclown Trump, CEO of Public Distraction and puppet figurehead. The actual rulers thank the Assclown for making their jobs easier.

The Myth of Liberal Ascendancy (book review)

Categories: UncategorizedAuthor Joe the BohemianPosted on No comment on The Myth of Liberal Ascendancy (book review)

G. William Domhoff is possibly the world’s authority on the influence America’s corporate elite has upon state policy. In this book, he puts to rest any claim that their influence has ever waned. He looks at so-called “liberal periods,” like the New Deal, when there clearly were reforms, beneficial to the ordinary citizens, and shows they were possible only because a sector of the upper class judged them as serving their interests as well. From the Great Depression to the Great Recession, a conflict brewed within the corporate elite. On one side were “liberals”, who believed the long-term viability of capitalism required accommodations to labor and other non-rich. On the other side were “conservatives” who were unwilling to make any concessions that would dilute capitalist purity. With both sides committed to preserving capitalism and protecting corporate interest, the factions agreed on far more than they disagreed.

Even in times like the New Deal or the Great Society, the conservatives were ever-present and able to place severe constraints on any possible reforms. Those reforms were largely a liberal capitalist accommodation to demands from labor, women, racial minority and left-wing students. The corporate liberals transmuted this left opposition in ways, which served them. Feminism and civil rights were manipulated to integrate those movements’ potential leadership into the corporate hierarchy. These concessions were never acceptable to conservatives, who were now able to undermine the labor movement and its allies and galvanize support among working class whites who feared their jobs, communities, values and life style were under attack. This new alliance help solidify the power of the conservatives, who have dominated since the Reagan Revolution, and prevented Democratic liberal administrations like Clinton’s or Obama’s from attempting programs, even vaguely approaching the New Deal or the Great Society. Anyone who wants to understand the origins of the current conservative period should read this book.

Government and Big Business are One

Categories: UncategorizedAuthor Joe the BohemianPosted on No comment on Government and Big Business are One

The line between big business and government is very blurry. Big corporations run the government. Corporate execs get cabinet positions. Corporate lobbyists write bills. Our elected officials are funded by corporations. The oft-condemned regulations are typically scripted by corporate lobbyists and  free-market devotees appearing as “expert economists” on conservative media. These members of the corpo-intelligentsia are on the payroll of the billionaires who decry  “burdensome regulations” that create the mythical hardships for the big businesses who run this welfare state, the corpo-nanny welfare state. The so-called “burdensome regulations” are those which serve to protect the environment, consumers, and workers and, therefore, reduce the profit margins desired by the big business oligarchs who run our government.

Former Fox News Trickle-Downer spews Voodoo Economics on CNN

Categories: UncategorizedAuthor Joe the BohemianPosted on No comment on Former Fox News Trickle-Downer spews Voodoo Economics on CNN

CNN gives a trickle-down mythologist and former “top contributor” to Fox News, Stephen Moore, former advisor to Donald Trump, an MSM platform. A prominent free-market economist, Moore previously was a member of The Wall Street Journal editorial board. He currently serves as the distinguished visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, DC.

Moore was a featured economics expert on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS Sunday program, Feb. 26, 2017. Moore founded The Club for Growth in 1999, a right-wing political group that endorses and raises money for candidates. John Nichols in The Nation, described it as “an organization funded by extremely wealthy conservatives to carry out their budget-stripping goals,” and that “has been a key player in Republican Governor Scott Walker’s move to take out the state’s organized workers.” Nichols writes that the Club for Growth is part of a “national strategy” to get “newly elected Republican governors” to destroy labor and unions.

http://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-moore-fox-news-cnn-contributor-2017-1

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Club_for_Growth

The Uncharted Terrain of our Idiocracy

Categories: UncategorizedAuthor Joe the BohemianPosted on 1 Comment on The Uncharted Terrain of our Idiocracy

Trump’s election to the presidency is just one window into this slow motion train wreck, this spectacle that makes political insight and progress impossible. This spectacle began not on election day, but when he announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015. The continuity of plutocracy yawns before the reality show of the presidential campaign of a year and a half. The trend of predatory capitalist capture of both our mainstream media and political system continues. As opposing factions point their fingers of blame at each other, the corporate despots script media talking points for specific target audiences and these despots’ lobbyists script legislation. The process flows methodically, continuously, as bickering over titillation-based media soundbites flood the social media with noise which drowns out any useful knowledge or debate on the issues of our dysfunctional synergy, that is, the idiocracy of infotainment fluff, celebrity trivia, and empty platitidinous smokescreens designed to deter insight into our political system.

The din of bickering factions, political tribes blaming each other, and those feeding on media mind candy, collectively drown out and overpower the relatively minuscule population seeking the knowledge and understanding necessary for the systemic change of this globalized predatory crony capitalist cabal.