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Assessing the danger of the American extreme rightPaul Krugman writes today about the dangers of the American extreme right and raises the prospect of right wing extremists making the United States ungovernable during the (ongoing) economic crisis. This thesis is something akin to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. The hard right has already done severe damage to the United States on many fronts, including governability. During Cheney's watch, they already drove America over most of the rubicons that separate civilized countries from despotisms: kleptocratic looting of the public purse, abridgment of the rule of law, rigged elections, institutionalized torture, effective revocation of habeas corpus, pervasive surveillance, aggressive war, show trials of political opponents, and concentration camps. Some of these abuses have been curtailed under Obama but the odds are very good that all of this will come back as soon as the White House is recaptured by the Republican party. More narrowly, the line of ungovernability was crossed a long time ago. What remains of American governance is a broken shell that is only capable of moving forward with legislation that is rammed through the legislative process by massive bribes from business interests. While the wealthy are able to advance their interests through government, the system has not been able to pass any legislation that benefits ordinary people for many years now. America has so far avoided complete collapse because it has not been faced with any existential crises that 1) haven't caused businesses to buy corrective legislation and/or b) cannot be handled by the more automatic components of government. The hard right has already done so much damage to American governance that the appropriate questions are not when the US will become ungovernable but rather how steep the remaining downward trajectory will be and if the end result will be an existential collapse (a la the USSR) or failure into a permanent low-level equilibrium of limited political freedoms and widespread poverty. To answer the question of when the right wing will make America ungovernable, look backwards. It has already happened.
Conservatism as mental disorderThe former head of the CIA unit tasked with capturing Osama bin Laden was recently quoted to say that "the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States." It's no wonder Osama bin Laden was never caught when the people tasked with catching him are instead wishing for him to succeed. A commenter on BoingBoing sums the issue up nicely:
New Excuses NeededSince January, congressional Democrats have used excuse of Senate Republican fillibusters to explain why they haven't moved forward with policy initiatives that are supported by Democratic voters but are opposed by the Democrats' constituency among the oligarchs. With the seating of Al Franken, however, the Democrats have a fillibuster proof majority in the senate and have lost the fillibuster excuse. It'll be most amusing--in the sense of black humor--to see what new excuses the Democrats come up with now to explain selling the interests of Democratic voters down the river to protect the interests of major Democratic campaign contributors.
Medium-term civil stability in the United StatesAt Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith asks if America's "besieged" middle class will snap in the face of upward wealth transfer on a scale described as "rape and pillage." In the medium term, the prospects for genuine reform in the United States are slim to none. The American middle class does not have he cohesion to 'snap' to the left and force American elites to abandon their thirty year project to shift wealth from the poor to the rich. Rather, there is a risk of the middle class 'snapping' rightward into the arms of a demagogue who will further transfer wealth to the rich while claiming to protect the middle class. In order to get somewhere against an entrenched elite that feels itself under no obligation to bow to public opinion, the baseline requirement is organized protest on the scale of what Solidarność and allied groups did in Poland in 1988-89. Getting to the stage of general strikes requires a strong civil society movement, including in part unions but also other grassroots groups that create social cohesion across cultural, economic and political barriers. Without strong civil society, the most that can happen when people are pushed too far are isolated acts of rage that amount to nothing in the overall scheme of things. America doesn't have a civil society worthy of the name. What passes for American civil society is far, far too fragmented, weak, and co-opted to be able to do something on the scale of the Polish protests. The most opposition that to economic looting we'll ever see from the left-populist side are isolated, insignificant, acts of rage. The social organization does not exist to do anything more from the left of the political spectrum. This is not, however, to say that radical change won't happen. While America has no civil society, it does have a very strong astroturf movement. Consider, for example, the 'grass roots' tea parties organized by American business interests and the millions of rubes who happily voted for McCain-Palin. As things get worse for the average American there is a dangerously high risk of a right wing demagogue being astroturfed into power on a platform of fixing the economic crisis with a flat tax, spending cuts, the cancellation of elections, and the imprisonment/extermination of some unpopular scapegoat group upon whom the economic crisis can be blamed. America, in other words, is ripe for a Mussolini or a Hitler. If things get rapidly worse in America then there will be change. It just won't be change for the better. America is already too far gone for that.
Mainstreaming InsanityPaul Krugman writes:
Limbaugh draws an audience of 13 million+ and is the largest talk radio operation in America. With those kind of numbers he is mainstream by definition. The real problem isn't that people like Limbaugh are erroneously described as mainstream. The problem is that there are enough crazy Americans out there to make people like Limbaugh mainstream. America is in deep trouble not just because the right wing leadership (Limbaugh, Palin, Gingrich, etc) are crazy but because half the electorate, most of the politicians, and most of the media are crazy enough to follow them over the cliff. In America, crazy has become so thoroughly mainstreamed that it is the new normal.
Elite HypocracyFrom Crain's New York Business:
From Boing Boing Gadgets:
Ruling elites hardly object to advances in communications technologies that bankrupt the middle class by allowing white collar jobs to be outsourced to the third world. Strangely, however, advances in communications technologies that threaten to bankrupt elites themselves are unacceptable 'vampires' that must be regulated or shut down entirely. Is it too much to ask to have ruling elites who are capable of keeping up with the rate of social change they are forcing on the rest of us rather than merely standing astride history and screaming 'stop' whenever change threatens their sacred cows?
Public Service
Jiansheng's actions are completely understandable given the disproportionate police response to suicide attempts on bridges. Tying up an urban area for hours causes severe public inconvenience, prevents emergency services from reaching legitimate emergencies--fires, accidents, heart attacks--and, in a warm climate, puts thousands of trapped motorists and passengers at risk of heat stroke. One life is not that important. If somebody wants to jump, let them jump and let everyone else get on with their lives. No address was given to contribute to supporting Jiansheng's legal defense.
Conservative MoralityFrom Robert Reich:
According to American conservatives, however, none of this counts. From Think Progress:
Meanwhile in Italy, the Guardian reported:
There are ever fewer reasons not to characterize right wing conservatism as a subclinical form of antisocial personality disorder characterized by a marked lack of empathy. Conservatism is a disease and a parasite on the body politic.
The Black Hole that Deregulation BuiltFrom The Times of London:
Perhaps the best thing that regulators outside of the United States could do to protect their banking systems from future financial meltdowns would be to ban systemically important institutions from investing in the United States. If the Americans wish to leave their financial system vulnerable to systemic fraud then that is their choice. There is no good reason for the rest of the world, however, to make themselves unduly vulnerable to American mismanagement by allowing systemically important domestic institutions to invest in a financial system that has become little more than a toxic casino.
Police State Watch 3Police State: CanadaFrom The Globe and Mail:
Apparently, the explicitly declared constitutional right for Canadians to enter and leave the country is void where prohibited by ministerial fiat. Police State: USA 1From Dallas CBS Channel 11:
The FBI's response to Verizon's complaint? They seized an entire data center and are now 'analyzing' servers used by upwards of 50 businesses the FBI knows to be uninvolved. Police State: USA 2From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
In other words, the very real discriminatory and degrading effects of forcing Muslims, the blind, and cancer patients Many in law enforcement would love the idea of being able to summarily execute anyone acting 'hinky.' What law enforcement loves shouldn't dictate public policy because what law enforcement 'loves' is frequently unacceptable in a free society. Police State: USA 3From The Times (London):
Yep. Let's target everyone who has high adrenaline levels because they're afraid of flying, have just had a fight with family, have an endocrine disorder, have an anxiety disorder, or have high adrenaline levels because they've been running to catch a plane.... Yet another brilliant idea brought to you by people who are terrified of 125ml shampoo bottles, bottled water, blueberry pies, and oranges. Police State: USA 4From The Arizona Republic:
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