"I'm Barack Obama and I Approve of this Self-Portrait of My Opponent as a Disdainful Ass"

Here is a link to The New York Times report on Mitt Romney channeling Ayn Rand. He all but calls the hopeless 47% parasites! I think Obama ought to simply run the clip and then stroll onto the screen with his "approval." Susan suspects that the video was made by one of the serving staff at the event. Maybe a union member? Wouldn't that be sweet.

Will Paul Ryan Recant (Again)?

Where is it written that Jesus refers to the poor as "parasites"? In all my years at Sacred Heart school I do not remember that ever being among the lessons. The church has at least the good taste to be hypocritical in its commitment to the meek and the poor.

Not so Paul Ryan, allegedly chosen to be the Vice Presidential candidate of the Republican party in large part for his traditional family values and Catholic faith. It turns out that he is an acolyte of the intellectual charlatan Ayn Rand. As is well known, Rand peddled a view called "objectivism," a doctrine of egoism that mostly appeals to post-adolescent American boys. In real life could not herself adhere to the doctrine. And, of course, the heroes of Rand's drivel are wholly warranted, on her account, in treating the poor with disdain. Make no mistake, the only ones who - with a straight face -  categorize Rand as a philosopher are the poor folks who need to shelve her works in big box bookstores.

Well, the conservatives started a drumbeat early on demanding that Obama renounce his pastor - that devilish Rev. Wright. It will be delicious to see if the Democrats make Ryan endure the same sort of show trial tactics. It also should be fun to watch as libertarians scurry about trying to place distance between their allegedly credible intellectual commitments and the nuttiness of Rand and Ryan. They should get a feel for what pragmatists have felt for four years as Obama slandered our good name!

The Poverty of Political "Ethics" in the US

A report last week from Mother Jones regarding the loathsome Paul Ryan illuminates the impoverished way moralism shackles American politics. As the story suggests, poor Mr. Ryan found himself being criticized by a bunch of Catholics for his conservative proposals for the federal budget. You know, the ones where massive redistribution from the poor and working class to rich continues unabated. And he was compelled to recant publicly whatever fealty to the incredibly dim Ayn Rand he ever had. But notice options we are left with! As one of Ryan's critics complains:

"I am afraid that Chairman Ryan's budget reflects the values of his favorite philosopher Ayn Rand rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ . . . Survival of the fittest may be okay for Social Darwinists but not for followers of the gospel of compassion and love."

So, of course, it is either Randian objectivism or Christ's compassion. And Ryan, knowing which side the butter is on proclaims himself a devotee of Thomas Aquinas. Is that supposed to be an improvement? I love the way religious mouthpieces browbeat everyone into political conformity.

It is Sooooo Hard to be a Libertarian

Published in The New Yorker 4/19/2010 © David Sipress.

Libertarians are a funny bunch. Sometimes they are useful for their fanaticism, sometimes they are politically dangerous in their fanaticism, sometimes they are simply hypocrites. I've noted these tendencies here before.

Libertarians are not the only hypocrites, of course. But they seem adept at acting upon that particular vice. The classic example is Robert Nozick invoking the rent control laws in Cambridge to prevent a landlord from raising his rent. The story is more complicated - as in many law suits there is no "good guy" - but it is delicious.

Now there is this reminder of how Ayn Rand*, libertarian propagandist par excellence, having denied research establishing a tobacco-cancer link smoked like a fiend (actually like a non-autonomous addict, but that is another matter!) and turned to social security and medicare when she, predictably enough, got cancer late in life. The blatant moochery of it all! I'll bet she patronized the U.S. Postal Service too.

In any case, I came across the cartoon I've lifted here a while ago and have been waiting for the appropriate point to incorporate it into a post. This seems like a good time. I'm sure this is the local volunteer fire department anyway.
____________
* I do recognize the difference between Nozick who was a formidable thinker and Rand who was an intellectual charlatan. Unfortunately, they share the libertarian propensity to hypocrisy.

Some Reasons Why Robust Unions Are Important Right Now

An organizer for United Cannery, Agricultural Packing and
Allied Workers of America talks to a nighttime street meeting
at outside Shafter, California. Dorothea Lange/Library of Congress.

I came across this image today. Unions are not a panacea. But robust unions go some way to protecting people. They can afford some protection from rapacious employers who simply don't care that shortcuts they take are deadly. They can protect them from government regulators who (as Alan Greenspan did this week*) excuse their own failings and brag about an essentially 'C-' performance on the job. And unions might put some starch into the collars of politicians like Obama who, offered an opportunity to resist the consistent and extreme rightward shift in the Supreme Court over the past four decades, seems to be heading toward more accommodation with the conservatives. We need unions.
__________

* "I was wrong 30 per cent of the time, and there were an awful lot of mistakes in 21 years." ~ Alan Greenspan, April 2010. As a devoted disciple of Ayn Rand, Greenspan surely would accept no curve on his grade - that would require him to expect altruism - and in my book, 70% is a solid C-.

"The Reckoning ~ Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy"

"If Mr. Greenspan had acted differently during his tenure as Federal Reserve chairman from 1987 to 2006, many economists say, the current crisis might have been averted or muted.
Over the years, Mr. Greenspan helped enable an ambitious American experiment in letting market forces run free. Now, the nation is confronting the consequences."

For the past several decades Alan Greenspan, right wing ideologue, has been viewed as something of a saint among various administrations - Republican and Democratic. He preached free market "principles" in an unbending and, as is now clear, wholly idiotic way. As part of a series on our financial crisis The New York Times recently ran this re-assessment of the Greenspan regime and is dire consequences.* Of course, the right will howl that hindsight is easy or that casting about for blame is unproductive. But let's be clear, there have been voices of dissent all along. And Greenspan and his fellow travelers simply painted those who expressed doubts as liberal alarmists. Most importantly, if we cannot identify with some confidence the causes of our current mess, we will not be able to reliably construct institutions and craft policies that will make repeats less likely.
Is Greenspan - along with his acolytes - wholly responsible for our current dire economic situation? Clearly not. But he gave ideological cover to politicians and financiers who connived in the pro-market, anti-regulation politics of successive administrations. In so doing he distorted what economists actually know about macro-economic policy and the circumstances under which markets work well.
Greenspan, like many right wingers, wants to blame the current crisis on the mis-behavior of a few individuals. That is like saying that the torture at Abu Ghraib was the fault of a few enlisted men and women. In other words, it is bullshit pure and simple. We know the Abu Ghraib crimes were the result of systematic policy formulated and advanced by BushCo. So too, the opportunistic, self-seeking behavior that Greenspan et. al. now want to condemn is precisely what their free market ideology pushes. (Greenspan is among the few people beyond their teens who seems to lend credence to the nuttiness peddled by Ayn Rand.) For them markets are morality free zones; there is no obligation - ethical, political or otherwise - on the part of individuals or firms operating in markets to do anything beyond maximize payoffs to themselves. This is a silly view of markets, but it is the caricature peddled by the right in this country. And now everyone gets to experience the consequences.
__________
* The epigram and images in this post are lifted form The Times story. Here are the caption and photo credits: "THROUGH FOUR ADMINISTRATIONS Mr. Greenspan had the ear of Washington from 1987 to 2006. He was sworn in by President Reagan, top, and was kept on by new presidents of both parties." From top, Barry Thumma/Associated Press; Doug Mills/Associated Press; Mario Tama/Agence France-Press; Win McNamee/Reuters.