November 27, 2012: Letters from Vienna, Nate Silver’s Opus, No Magic Pants

Shortly before Election Day, November 6^th, I got an urgent email from my daughter in Vienna Austria in high anxiety over the possible election of one Willard Romney to the Presidency of the United States.  Everyone she met in this far away capital expressed similar anxieties and more than a bit of dismay at the prospect of this country electing such a lightweight, if not such a dim-wit to the highest office in the land.  During the week preceeding the election I sent a re-assuring message and, coming from a man who predicted the nomination of one George McGovern by the Democratic Party 18 months prior to the 1972 Democratic National Convention, hoped to help ease the anxiety clearly emanating from the foreign capital.  Here is my response in its entirety:

“Media is media, always covering the horse race and if it isn’t going to be all that close they will try, if they can, to make it close. 

Go to fivethirtyeight.com, Nate Silver’s blog.  He has been the most accurate forecaster in the last several election cycles and is now employed by the New York Times as their analyst.

He calls it a 91% chance of an Obama Win with 312 electoral votes.

I think Obama will win Virginia, Florida, Ohio, and basically run the battleground states.(1)

In Michigan we will throw out the city manager nonsense (2) probably pass the green energy initiative, not sure about the bridge. I think prop 2 will pass too (3).

If you go to Nate Silver’s website you will notice that the election has been trending day-to-day Obama since the first debate.  Romney got a spike out of that but since then there has been a steady, inexorable slope downward from roughly 50% to 48 for Romney.  No spikes downward from ensuing debates, nor from the hurricane (4) that has ripped the East coast, rather a steady decline in support.  This, it seems to me, is a product of what any challenger faces upon reaching parity with the champion.

People know Obama, he has been in our living rooms for five years now.  He is a known quantity. Recovery is never as fast as we’d like in this nation of instant gratification, and there has been enough gridlock (although the country itself voted for gridlock two years ago and has no one to blame but themselves) to have mounted a successful challenge, especially considering the lingering racism that the scums can always count on.

The problem is that Romney never sealed the deal.  He never made the sale, and that is because the country could never get a fix on who he is.

It comes down to trust and character and, unlike the primaries where you can carpet bomb your way to victory with a simple plurality , in the general election—at this level—one must establish a fixed point upon which the people can set their eyes.  Pappy Bush didn’t get it either, famously deriding the “vision thing”.

Instead of spending considerable parts of the mega millions he raised doing Bio pieces touting his business record and stewardship of the Olympics and Massachusetts, he let the President deftly define him as a vulture capitalist wholly bereft of either content or character.  He compounded the problem by refusing to discuss his record at BAIN, his governorship, his personal taxes, his religion, or anything else, leaving the nation with the choice between the known quantity in the White House or a ‘pig-in-a-poke’, and, as the old

adage goes, the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t.

Romney tried to graft a ‘soul’ by putting Ryan on the ticket but the country recoils at the prospect of defunding nursing homes and having grandmother move in with the family.  The Ryan Budget instead of serving the purpose of grafting ‘principles’(read greed) unto an otherwise empty suit, only serves to make the public more nervous about the prospect of putting a whore to the idiot wrong in the corridors of power.

Rick Perry of Texas famously called Romney a “vulture capitalist” in the primaries.  Newt Gingrich called him a ‘Liar’. Another called him a “well-oiled weather-vane”.

Clearly he is the modern equivalent of the whore of Babylon and, because he has refused to step forward from behind the curtain, will not win election.  He will not be missed either by the nation or the Rescumlican Party who, in the end, never really embraced him.

The vote will correspond roughly to the Democratic/Republican geographic split of 1860

with the parties of Lincoln and Douglas reversing positions.

Obama will win the Midwest and Northeast with the line of demarcation being roughly the Mason and Dixon Line.  The Republican vote will be not pro-Romney but Anti-Obama principally along racial lines, for the scums not being FOR anything had stood for nothing and the country is left with no options but to vote its hope or its hate.  Presently Hope Wins.

There will be no ‘magic pants’ in the White House for when the people of the United States speak brother Romney will get kicked into the dustbin of History.”  

Footnotes:

1.  Obama won all those states but failed to win North Carolina among the battlefield states.
2. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder instituted a so-called ‘reform’ by which local governments and municipalities could be taken over by the state government.  Accordingly several cities, school districts, and other units of government, mostly in black and poor areas were stripped of elective representation and taken over by so-called ‘managers’ empowered to break union contracts, sell off public assets, and otherwise rule unilaterally.  The good people of Michigan petitioned and had a measure put on the ballot to repeal this measure.  It passed.
3. The energy initiative failed, not sure about the bridge initiative, another measure which would have repealed another Republican measure committing the state to billions in expenditures to build another bridge to Canada. Prop 2, a pro-union measure making organizing labor unions easier also failed.  So much for my prognostications at the local level.  
4. Hurricane "Sandy" which devastated New York City, New Jersey and a vast swatch of the Northeast

August 6, 2012: Nowhere Man, Wimp Factor II Sulu, Howdy Doody Time

“Doesn’t have a point of view

Knows not where he’s going to” ---the Beatles, “Nowhere Man”

Dullard “Mitt” Romney returned home this week to be greeted by a cover spread in Newsweek magazine with the headline " Wimp Factor”.  It was a reprise of the old Newsweek edition in 1988 on George H.W. Bush during his campaign against the diminutive Michael Dukakis.  Newsweek ran with that theme about Bush the Greater because good old George appeared limp-wristed and had a penchant for hewing too closely to Reagan Republican Orthodoxy.  Having raised the cry for a “kinder, gentler America” he quickly reverted back to the old faux bravado with his now infamous challenge to “Read my lips…”  The press, sensing a lack of resolve, quickly raised the “wimp” issue.

But when it comes to “Quayling” before the forces of reaction, old George was a mere piker compared to the man from” nowhere”.  Upon close examination there is not a single issue of substance, not a single issue of consequence that Dullard Romney has not previously staked out that he has not, within recent months, reversed himself.  In 1994 he told the press that he would be a greater champion of Gay rights than Ted Kennedy.  In those days he supported a woman’s right to choose, as Governor of Massachusetts he signed a law banning assault weapons, and instituted universal health reforms.  All of these things he has now repudiated, and refuses to run on his record as governor lest he remind once again the Idiot Wrong that is the base of his party  that he cannot be trusted.

Moreover when Rush to Judgment Limbaugh savaged Sandra Fluke this spring over women’s reproductive rights, Nowhere Man was nowhere to be found.  When Michelle Bachman periodically utters another of her insane conspiracy theories, or Donald Trump challenges the President’s birthplace, or any of a number of inanities and insanities are uttered by the Idiot Wrong, the Dullard is nowhere to be found.  He is not your father’s Romney and it leaves the nation wondering when will he stand up to the forces of ignorance, racism, intolerance and stupidity.

One suspects that he will not, for there is nothing in the record of his political career that does not smack of unlimited political expediency.  He is a shell, an empty shirt, driven by nothing but blind ambition. 

There are two reasons a man seeks the public trust.  The first is to do something; the second is to become somebody.  Dullard Romney is of the second order.  We’ve seen this before, and all too recently with Dubya.  Both “boys” see in the Presidency a chance to step from the long shadows of their fathers.  Both ‘boys” are using the public trust be become somebody; to become men.  Both are politicians who are hollow at the core, men seeking office to fill the emptiness in their souls, to find an affirmation otherwise unattainable.  It is a validation in form only—not in substance—and the elevation of such a person to the highest office in the land can only bode ill for the body politic.   

   

With the Scumlords working the ropes, Romney is increasingly looking like old Howdy Doody: a wooden head, an empty chest, and able to posture only with the support and by the manipulation of his puppeteers.   The problem is that in the oval office there is no Buffalo Bob to give a moral compass to this marionette.

August 5, 2012: Foot Soldiers of Fascism, Slumlord Becomes Scumlord, Bitter Irony

“Obama is not Hitler.  It is not the President who would put the state in exclusive service to corporate interests; it is the “Teabaggers”.  It is they who are the foot soldiers of fascism.”

                            ---from the “Quotations of Chairman Joe”

I bring up this business with the EGG movement from 1995 by way of illustration.  Like the contemporary “Teabaggers” this group represented a movement long on rhetoric and short on solutions; a movement giving vent to anger and frustration but exhibiting a pervasive ignorance not only of how our world is organized, but of our collective history; a movement purportedly representing the hopes and dreams of hard-working ordinary people, but in fact servicing the narrow interests of a select and wealthy few. 

The most singular issue sparking the emergence of the so-called Ethics in Good Government movement was opposition to zoning.  Ionia County was then one of only 2 remaining counties in the state that had not adopted a county-wide zoning ordinance with such issues left to the local townships to decide and enforce.  No one had proposed county-wide zoning but that didn’t prevent a group of right-wing nuts from launching the movement.  Appearing on the local radio program “Viewpoint”, spokesmen for the group openly cited references to zoning in the 1920 Communist Manifesto as evidence of evil intent. It was, of course obfuscation, a smear.  I don’t think there is such a thing as a 1920 Communist Manifesto. I’ve read the works of Marx and I can testify that nowhere in his writings does the word “zoning” appear. In any case, like old Joe McCarthy, they would level these charges but never produce the documentation.  Nevertheless such nonsense went unchallenged on the air, giving credence to the cretins and further fuelling the fires of fear.  The real problem with zoning was of course the implicit threat such a regimen would impose on the freedom of our slumlord to further exploit and abuse his neighbors.  What the eggheads in the EGG movement refused to understand was the implicit contradiction in their behavior: they thought they were foot soldiers in the cause of justice and freedom, when in fact they were acting in the narrow interests of a cheap-jack real estate hustler.

Fast forward to the present: today we have on our hands a national movement funded entirely by billionaires through their henchmen. The singular issue sparking the so-called “TEA” movement is taxes.  As in Taxed Enough Already, as their placards proclaim.  This movement emerged full-throated in April of 2009 just in time to protest tax deadline day.  Never mind that no one was proposing a tax increase, never mind that the tax code being the object of such protest was that of George W. Bush, never mind that President Obama had just cut the taxes for 95% of the American people. Moreover, the United States ranks 23^rd among the top 30 industrial countries in taxes, and Federal Taxes under Obama have claimed the lowest share of personal income since 1952.  Like the zoning issue in Ionia years before, this was a completely bogus issue designed only to gin up a growing rage that would subsequently be used in the service of greed.

Moreover, like the EGG movement those many years ago, the “TEA” movement has been revealed to be nothing but a so-called “AstroTurf’ movement.   Like the EGG movement it purports to be an entirely grass-roots effort, but is in fact organized and funded for the purpose of servicing the moneyed interests.  Where once only a local slumlord stood behind his spokesman shouting from atop his soap box, now stands the Koch Brothers and other Billionaires through groups like the so called “FreedomWorks” and the “Club for Growth”, working the ropes upon the national stage. The national Scumlords have here replaced the local Slumlord; with the operatives in question behaving none the wiser.  It is a bitter irony.  The populist revolt has been hijacked and put in the service of reactionaries.  Progressivism is threatened by an emerging Regressivism, Reform has taken the form of Reaction in the service of the emerging corporate dictatorship.  None dare declare what stands clearly before their very eyes: protesters in paramilitary camouflage; people showing up to political meetings armed. None dare call the TEA movement what it is.  None dare call it Fascism.

August 4, 2012: Raising Lazarus, In Service of a Villain, Not Your Father’s Romney

Seventeen years ago, in August of 1995, a movement was born in Ionia County Michigan calling itself the “Ethics in Good Government”, or EGG for short.  It was headed up by a lay preacher named Cliff Lazurus and funded by Ionia County’s most nefarious slum lord.  Brandishing the usual right-wing platitudes about government tyranny and black helicopters about to be sent by the U.N. these would be reformers organized a recall effort against nearly every elected township official not in line with their agenda, be they Democratic or Republican.

This movement emerged in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing in which members of a Michigan Militia were implicated.  In a rehearsal for what would be repeated in 2009 by the so-called “Teabaggers”, township halls were flooded with irate citizens shouting down town meetings, many protesters dressed in the camouflaged garb of Militiamen uttering dark threats to township officials. It was pure brown-shirt tactics carried out at the local township level with the predictable effect.

I happened to hold the position of Democratic Party Chairman at the time, and was also employed at the local radio station as an account executive.  As the local scene was reaching a crisis, it so happened that the head of the Ionia County Republican Party, who happened to also be the elected county prosecutor, was making his monthly appearance on the radio station’s daily “Viewpoint” program.  I decided to put off making sales calls and wait and speak with him when the program ended.

When the program was over I went into the studio and sat down.  “Ray”, I said, “we have a problem.”  I then suggested that the parties join forces and publicly announce that we would, both parties, support any township or county official so challenged by this group whatever their party affiliation.  “Can you get your group to go along with it?” he asked.  ‘I’ll resign if they don’t” was my reply.  So we agreed to each of us go to our respective parties and get motions passed to the effect that we would support elected members of the opposite party if challenged by this group.

The respective meetings, were both tumultuous, for such action was unheard of in this jurisdiction.  The Republicans had a tougher time of it since most members of the EGG group were libertarians and more closely aligned ideologically to their party.  Indeed several of the chief organizers were at the Republican affair.  But, as the majority party holding nearly all the county-wide offices , they were, as I pointed out to the Republican Chairman, in a position where they had much more to lose.  On our side I made the point that if we wanted to be players on the county level we needed to stand up and take a position in defense of sound local governance.  After previously securing the support of several of the local party chieftains the motion was introduced at our monthly meeting and, after much haggling, and with more reticence, it was passed.  On the other side, a much more heated ordeal produced an identical result.

Accordingly the way was cleared for me to meet with Mr. Vogt, the County Prosecutor and hammer out a joint press release in which we came to the defense of our elected representatives.

It made front page in the Ionia Sentinel-Standard and touched off a howl of protest from the EGG group to the effect that we were silencing them with strong-arm tactics, violating in the process their constitutional rights to free speech.   

Working weekends on a second job at the local dollar store, I spent a lazy Sunday afternoon composing a letter to the editor in which I took the would-be Adams’ and Madisions’ to task, informing them in no uncertain terms that they have never been restricted from speaking, that we as political parties have a right to function as anyone else in the political arena, and that the next time they read the constitution they should do so only after enlisting the help of someone who can explain to them what it means.

Two days after my letter was published I got a visit at my home.  It was Cliff Lazarus.  He spent nearly two hours trying to convince me that the objects of his organization were right and honorable.  I told him that he was in service of a villain; that the only object his sponsor had in mind was to ensure that no ordinance would be put into place which would require him to fix up his properties, nor sell homes without sewage hookup or floors to people who were mentally challenged.  Cliff did his best to persuade me, but I told him that if he was going to throw that lame shit I can hit it out of the park at will, and the letter to the editor was a roof shot clearing the light standards.  “Cliff”, I said, “I can crank that kind of response out in my sleep”.  He returned disappointed to his movement leaving me to wonder once again how the “lord works in mysterious ways”. 

The public actions taken by the leadership and both political parties in the face of local barbarism served to energize the local community.  The day after the Sentinel published my letter to the editor, I was making my rounds down Main Street when out stepped John McNamara, then the City Attorney.  “Great job, Joe”….he yelled out as we headed in opposite directions. Accordingly the EGG movement quickly began to lose traction.  In the subsequent recall elections only one elected official, an Orleans township supervisor was recalled from office.  Later when the slum lord himself stood for election to the County Commission he was roundly drubbed in a heavily conservative district. 

Past as Prelude:  I am recalling these events as a demonstration of what happens when the power structure decides to act.  This is what happened in the 1950S when Bill Buckley led those in charge of the Republican Party  to purge itself of the John Bircher’s.  This is what happened when the Republican establishment joined forces with those on the “left” to censure Joe McCarthy.  This is what happened when the Democratic Leadership spoke out against the idiocy of the Libertarians posing as “leftists” at the Democratic National Convention in 1968.  We are beginning to hear murmurs within the Conservative movement in opposition to the Idiot-wrong.  The Speaker as well as John McCain have mildly chided Representative Bachmann for her charge that one of Hillary Clinton’s aides has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and that the movement is infiltrating the State Department.  A Republican Congressman from Ohio has resigned his seat, citing the inability of his party to be reasonable and to compromise in order to get anything done.  A New York Congressional Republican has likewise criticized his party’s intransigence.  What’s missing here, is what was missing in Ionia County prior to that meeting at the radio station between the two party Chairmen—the voice from the top.

This is not your father’s Romney.  George took on the tin hats in his party, openly fielding Republican challengers to elected Republican members of the house that were so far wrong that they would prove useless in the greater effort to move the state forward.  George, famously, refused to endorse Goldwater in 1964, uncomfortable being associated with extremism.  George not only took stands on principle but, more importantly, acted on them.  Not so his son.