Daily Archives: April 26, 2015

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

Republicans are calling out the Clintons for not disclosing all the donors to their charity foundation. Let’s see, what party to this accusation has put all the resources and money into making it easy for political donors to not disclose their identity? What party bought and won the Citizen’s United Decision?1 If there is quid pro quo in the Clinton’s case, a vigilantes group shouting hang-um high and tying to reap the political benefits of gossip is not the way to settle it. We have ample law enforcement groups in the Federal Government to discover and prosecute any violation of law. Of course, if you conveniently have been conditioned to hate or distrust the Federal Government then you probably have also decided another source is more reliable and trustworthy like Fox News for instance. Certainly there must be more checks and balances in Rupert Murdoch’s organizations than anything the framers of our Constitution could have set up. After all Rupert set up the largest collection of gossip media on the planet so he must know something about facts right?

I really do believe the Republican’s dominate rhetorical strategy is to publicly disavow the Darwinian, survival of the fittest,2 ‘free’ market strategies they employ and shift any righteous indignation from the less survivable types towards any ideologies which threaten the conqueror’s dominance. They actually blame the advocates of these ‘dangerous ideologies’ for the very activities they employ covertly and overtly much more effectively and with much greater impact. So, for example, Hillary Clinton is accused of taking money for a charity organization where she receives none of the proceeds for some alleged quid pro quo bribe. She did not benefit from these contributions directly but other, less fortunate folks benefited from them. Allegations of indirect financial benefit have no basis in fact but convenient election year politics by a factually challenged author.3 All the while, the political party which consistently aligns themselves with big business has effectively changed laws which benefit their benefactors.

One such effort the Republicans got through in the Clinton administration deregulated the financial market. From the Clinton years through the Bush years, the sub-prime loans these derivatives where partially based on went from millions of dollars to multiples of billions of dollars. The Bush administration continually resisted efforts to reign in sub-prime lending by gutting regulatory oversight.4 This directly resulted in the collapse of these ‘free range’ financial derivatives effecting the entire planet during the Great Recession. The failures of mortgages alone in the U.S. could have never had this large of an impact on the world economy without the multiplier effect of the deregulated derivatives. Yet, the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation blamed sub-prime loans in the U.S. not financial deregulation even though the bi-partisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission found financial deregulation to be a major factor in the collapse.5

In addition, Republican intelligentsia know if they can convince the slaves they are free they can suppress rebellion and trouble makers. They cater to the aspirational desires of the less fortunate with an illusion of financial success and freedom all the while enacting laws and protections which make it harder for the less fortunate to realize their dreams and easier for the most fortunate to protect and increase their gains. It will be interesting to see how long this charade can go on before it begins to wear thin and it dawns on folks that perhaps the ‘free’ market is more like Santa Clause than reality. One thing we can certainly ascertain that Marx seemed to have missed completely is that people appear to be much more disposed towards aspirational, wish-fulfillment6 than necessity.7 To die without hope is worse than to die without food. It is too bad that this dismal bi-polar choice is also a produced illusion as the tools of a market economy and democracy and fairness do not have to be essentially at odds.

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1 Formalism: When a Lie Becomes Truth (really)

2 Free Market Either/Or Government?

3 The Washington Post, Rachel Maddow explores ‘Clinton Cash’ book’s connection to New York Times, Washington Post

4 The Credit Crisis: The Bush Administration’s Record of Denial and Regulatory Neglect

5 Latest Observations on the Housing and Economic Crisis

6 Aspirational, wish-fulfillment is not rooted in the material conditions of human labor and overcoming alienation. It has no practical basis in need but in wish, phantasma. In this sense, fantasy becomes the nexus of wish and fulfillment. It is rooted in the concrete production of abstract possibility for the implicit purpose of perpetual illusion, the mirage of utopia. In this case, Sisyphus did not roll the huge boulder up the steep hill for punishment but for reward which can never quite be realized. The machinery of this production is built on the ever deferred pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Immediate need is marginalized for the promise of unbridled success. This notion makes Marxist alienation into fulfillment. In effect, it reverses the dialectic of materialism into a totalizing dialect of spiritualism. It diminishes the negative effects of alienation into non-existence, unconscious sublimation which favors the ‘truth’ of the desire for completion over the concrete struggle for existence. The collective and constant reaffirmation of fantastic aspirations replace the Marxist dialectic of aspiration and alienation. Perhaps, this could be thought in terms of Marx’s critique of Hegelian Idealism but with the ‘higher order’ production of non-falsifiable and totalizing ideals and desires for capital utopia replacing the Hegelian Idea (Begriff) and inverting the Marxist analysis of alienation into a collective virtue.

“True heteronomy begins when obedience ceases to be obedient consciousness and becomes an inclination. The supreme violence is in that supreme gentleness. To have a servile soul is to be incapable of being jarred, incapable of being ordered. The love for the master fills the soul to such an extent that the soul no longer takes its distances. Fear fills the soul to such an extent that one no longer sees it, but sees from its perspective.”
Levinas, E. (2012-12-06). Collected Philosophical Papers (Phaenomenologica) (Kindle Locations 1066-1069). Springer Netherlands. Kindle Edition.

7 What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America