Assault on the Working Class

I have always accepted the political dichotomy of the U.S., even G.W.F. Hegel based his entire philosophy on a dialectical process. I agree with Hegel, it is this process of conflicting ideas butting heads against one another that creates social progress. However, it seems to me like the political arena in this country is taking a massive turn for the worse. Since the exodus of our esteemed ex-president George W. Bush from the political arena, it seems like his party has seized the opportunity to not only put his legacy behind them (though their failure to do this ideologically reminds me greatly of principles discussed by Jean Baudrillard), but to take it one step further and push through the agenda that has been so impossible to sell to voters wholesale over the past sixty years. What really disturbs me is how easy it seems for them to sell this systematic dismantling of the working class in America to the working class itself, yet again reminiscent of Baudrillard. While this dynamic has been recognized for quite some time (Thomas Frank wrote a book on it in 2004), it seems to be even more insidious in its present form, no longer concerned with simple profiteering at the expense of the working class but in the complete and utter subjugation of the working class, a return to industrial revolution era corporate despotism.

One recent turn of events that brought this to the forefront of my concern is the new commission on deficit reduction and their recent report. Glancing over the bullet points I saw a couple of items that sounded like a good idea, a reduction in military spending for instance. It was nowhere near the amount needed to cripple the military industrial complex our country has become so enamoured with, a phenomenon which we received due warning about by the way, but it was a start. However, what really struck me were the suggestions targeting the middle class. A restructuring of the tax code, an increase in social security age to almost seventy, and eliminating tax deductions and entitlements. The first thing that jumped out at me was how difficult it would be for an average voter to understand all this, it would seem a beneficial proposal to anyone not particularly well-versed in politispeak. A language comparison is perhaps most fitting, as I read the suggestions in the same manner I read French: un chien-dog, du café-coffee, my mind must go through a process that is absent when I am reading English. In the same way I had to look at these recommendations and think to myself what they really meant: restructuring the tax code-passing a greater tax burden on to the working class; increasing the social security age-making it harder for young workers to break into an industry. With tax deductions and entitlements they did not even list what was specifically on the chopping block, I had to do some digging to find that out. It's not surprising either, go to the voters with the proposal to cut student loan subsidies or employer-based health care benefits and they may lash out against you politically, even in their current domesticated state. However, call such cuts entitlements or discretionary spending and they'll cheer you all the way to the capitol building to vote against their own interests.

In addition, the absolute apathy, no, contempt with which the bourgeoisie and their supporters treat those who oppose such "reforms" makes the words of Karl Marx resound with more vigor than they did in the supposed golden age of communism. 176 years ago, Karl Marx wrote that "The non-worker does everything against the worker which the worker does against himself; but he does not do against himself what he does against the worker." In the same manuscript he describes the relationship of the worker to his labor, "The more the worker produces, the less he has to consume; the more value he creates, the more valueless, the more unworthy he becomes; the better formed his product, the more deformed becomes the worker; the more civilized his object, the more barbarous becomes the worker; the more powerful labor becomes, the more powerless becomes the worker; the more ingenious the labor becomes, the less ingenious becomes the worker and the more he becomes nature's slave." It is amazing how relevant his words are almost two centuries after they were written, even the language they use to describe worker benefits seems to denigrate the worker, "entitlements." It is not such a stretch to go from the original connotation of that word, that workers actually are entitled to such benefits, to the pejorative connotation that is almost universally accepted today, that the worker feels entitled to what he does not deserve. And when we go beyond the surface, deeper into the culture of modern-day capitalism, we find even more comparisons to the warnings of Marx. Today the product of the worker's labor is eminently ingenious, as technology has progressed to a point where we view such inconveniences as paging through a dictionary as archaic; it is eminently well-formed, as the industrial process leaves nothing to the fallibility of human craftsmanship; it is supremely powerful, having infiltrated every corner of our lives and completely dominating our desires. So too is the worker eminently deformed and powerless. As the worker creates these modern marvels, the capitalist demands the cutting of entitlements in order to increase, what else, capital. Certain corporations now post record profits, and they concurrently demand more of their workers in terms of paying for benefits and forgoing cost of living increases. "The more the worker produces, the less he has to consume; the more value the worker creates, the more valueless he becomes."

Strange also how Marx's relevance reaches a critical point just as his legacy has all but buried his political relevance. A slur of being a Marxist, founded or not (and not even taking into consideration that Marx himself did not consider himself a Marxist), is enough to immediately invalidate your opinion among a good deal of citizens, and yet so many of them exist as Marx described: alienated from their labor, alienated from each other, slaves to nature. Perhaps more interesting is how relevant his prophecies are becoming so far from his death. Marx once lamented that Britain was, "the rock against which the waves of revolution break," disappointed in the ability of British communist movements to gain political power. Perhaps this is the reason some were initially so dismissive of Marx, they believed the worker would never dare to challenge this state of being so long as he is wooed by the temptations of capitalism. What they underestimated, perhaps, is the tenacity of the capitalist in pursuing capital, the absolute extremes that he would go to in search of more. What they thought impossible, Marx thought inevitable. Such behavior will invariably turn on itself he predicted, and such a system is bound to fail. What Marx may have underestimated is the amount of time it would take for this to take place. While he lamented to his grave that Britain's proletariat could not gain traction in his adopted homeland, what he failed to realize was the amount of time such occurrences take to manifest themselves. Today the capitalist economy is hit by a recession that destroys proletariat and bourgeoisie alike, ignited by a drive for more capital. Once that drive threw a monkey wrench into the economy it was the worker who valued his capital, who hoarded it in fear of losing it entirely, and the capitalist system which suffered by virtue of not being able to secure more capital. Today's capitalist model represents the pinnacle of an insatiable hunger, cost/profit projections. As Baudrillard outlined, representations go through a progression of simulacra until they have no referential. The numbers on a cost/profit projection do not represent workers, they do not represent a person with a family to feed, with costs to bear, or even one who produces capital. It is a self-representing simulacra, a representation that is believed to represent the worker, but instead represents only the idea of the worker contained in itself, a cost. Profit, capital, is the ultimate goal and the worker a necessary expense. In this mentality cost is cut wherever possible, and the worker becomes not a producer of capital, but a hindrance in achieving capital, one that must be minimized. Thus the prediction of Marx comes into full realization, the worker becomes the scourge of the capitalist, a cost to be minimized. The worker becomes eminently deformed and powerless.

Herein lies the process of the system turning on itself, as the worker is the producer of labor and the system is obsessed with consuming labor. It will consume labor until there is nothing left to consume, and it will fall upon itself. We have been given a cautionary warning from the system itself, as the refusal of the worker to part with his capital perpetuated the downward spiral of the economy just a handful of months ago. Still we do not learn, still we use the pejorative "entitlement," still we persist in decreasing the tax burden on the rich and increasing that of the poor, still the worker and even now the consumer are treated with malevolence, as creatures that inhibit the accumulation of capital. These are the more subtle signs, even the obvious signs of Marx's prediction go unheeded. Middle management, once part of the bourgeois, is now being cut in the name of capital. Those that survive reap the benefits-capital, larger salaries-then turn their attention to the government to attain even more capital. Even those who experience these ill effects continue in their alienation. A wage earner goes from $300,000 to $250,000 and laments his own strife, his inability to pay for the costly amenities he and his family had grown used to. This, against the backdrop of a single mother with the same size family, earning below the national average and having to live out of her car. She is still the leech to the earner, still not able to pull her own weight in society, still alienated from him. Even that now they have a common enemy, the capitalist who is alienated from them both, they refuse solidarity. The system rejoices, even in their collective misery they can not bring themselves to turn against the system, but the system again overlooks its one damning trait, its Achilles' heel: insatiability.

The system will never be satisfied, it will always hunger for more, and such a hunger inevitably leads to cannibalism. Even now as so many workers rejoice and revel in the bask of what is supposedly a resurgent conservatism, the system that masks itself as such has its sights set on them. It eyes their entitlements, it eyes their unions, it eyes all of their labor and capital, and it salivates. Get rid of their health care, get rid of their education, get rid of their ability to bargain for a fair wage, and then maybe the worker will finally fit Marx's dystopic unideal, truly deformed, barbarous, and the furthest thing from ingenious.

The ironic part is that I do not believe in the abolition of private property as Marx did, I do not believe that capitalism must go through this stage of self-imposed destruction. As people like myself send out calls of urgency, calls to preserve stability, calls against the harsh style of progress which this insatiable hunger will lead to, we become more and more like the worker: marginalized. President Obama calls for level-headedness, he strives for negotiation, and is met with harsh rebuke. "We are out to destroy him," the other entity freely admits, it has no concern but that of sating its hunger. The more this happens, the more akin such people feel to Daedalus. We cry out to Icarus that he is flying to high, that he risks destruction, that such turmoil is unnecessary, but he ignores us. Ever looking for a higher horizon, ever in search of a greater thrill, such behavior is analogous to the unending desire for capital, the constant taint of avarice. "Do not fly too close to the sun," Daedalus has called out, all that is left is for him to watch to see whether or not Icarus comes down in flames.

In Defense of the World

I was in a discussion a while ago about Islamic culture when someone argued that the Islamic world hates America.  "Look at what goes on there," he said, "they're burning flags and shouting death to America."  What I inferred from his context is that these people held not only a hatred for America, but an unfounded one at that, a prejudice.  Ignoring the part about the Islamic world and expanding this discussion to the entire world, I would like to beg the question, is this hate really a prejudice?  In other words, is this hate unfounded?

I say the entire world because there seems to be some level of dissatisfaction with our country in just about every other country on the planet.  Perhaps the word hate is extreme in certain countries, I saw a program where they interviewed French citizens about their opinions on the United States.  While overwhelmingly negative, they didn't seem vociferous enough to warrant the qualification of hate.  On the extreme end of the spectrum, though, you have flag burning, effigy burning, and chants of death to America, which certainly seem to indicate an active hatred.  Perhaps generalizing the two and any who fall in between is too broad a generalization, but it serves my purposes so far as this discussion is concerned.  If I can justify the extreme end of the spectrum, speaking only in terms of sentiment and non-violent protest and not extremist violence, then the more muted disdain for the United States should naturally be justified as well.

Is this hatred unfounded?  That is the question that draws the line between hatred and prejudice, a concrete justification of one's views.  In the United States, African slaves and their descendants were largely viewed as mentally inferior, a prejudice due to a lack of scientific support for that position.  We now know, in fact, that there is no genetic difference in the mental capacity of dark and light-skinned humans thanks to our advanced science.  On the other hand, one might say there was a hatred of the white populations by enslaved Africans, such as in Haiti where the first successful slave revolt took place, and why not?  Is that an unjustified hatred, one that is directed at the people who displaced you from your homeland, shipped you across the world in dank ships like cargo, and sold you to a life of hard labor?  There is no prejudice there, an extreme reaction is not only justified but should be reasonably expected.

Can the same be said, though, of a hatred of the United States?  Are these people just prejudiced?  Are they simply jealous of our successful society, wishing themselves to elevate themselves from their current state?  Curious, that the language here even resembles that used to justify slavery in the past.  These people are savages we said, they know nothing of higher learning, only labor.  At least we can use their barbaric nature to further our great society, and by providing that labor they can be part of something greater than they ever could hope for in their primitive society.  Funny, the cyclical nature of history. 

Perhaps it is jealously, though.  Even the impetus for my writing this seems to suggest some level of jealousy.  Today I was reading the newspaper and there were plenty of articles about politics.  The first one I read was about Republican measures to de-list American wolves as an endangered species.  As I read it, their motivations became quite clear.  Why is it necessary to kill these animals?  Because they are threatening human establishments, such as ranching and hunting.  When we Americans expand beyond our needs, when we step over into territory belonging to other species we complain of their presence.  They need to die to satisfy our needs, and why?  Because we are not satisfied with what we have.

I turned next to an article on a Republican senator, one who is rallying to oust not only Democrats but Republicans who do not fit his own dogmatic description of a true conservative.  When not only is there suffering and pain aplenty around the world in many forms but here in the United States in an economic form what is this man concerned about?  Ideology.  I was reminded a bit of my recent arguments over healthcare, and what was the primary argument against it?  It was an imposition on personal liberty.  The biggest issues here are the personal mandate and the taxes on certain foods, but these arguments have a fundamental flaw, that is that the personal decisions of these people naturally effect other people.  We do not live in personal bubbles, our actions can have consequences beyond the reach of us and those in our immediate vicinity.  Having individuals who do not need health insurance buy it provides revenue for the health insurance companies to cover individuals who actually need care, and in turn those same people who are buying insurance and not using it will one day reach a point where their use will surpass their payments and they too will be dependent on those who do not use insurance.  In the same way, those who over-consume sugary foods are at increased risk of diabetes and other health concerns and are therefore costlier to insure.  What is the problem with attributing this cost directly to the people incurring it, rather than on to the insurance consumer body as a whole?  Well, it's an imposition on personal liberty.  There is a reciprocity to our personal actions, though, and liberty is not always as clear cut as it is made out to be.  The concern on one side of the argument is pertaining to the actual consequences of actions, and on the other side the intangible, ideological concerns.

How does this pertain, though, to the hatred of the United States across the world?  It shows exactly how we are becoming a society that is increasingly concerned with theorizing rather than actual consequences, a society of pontification.  The reason this is a problem is because this does not hold true for most other citizens of the world.  As soon as I finished the article on the Republican I read an article on Somali refugees.  This article talked about a man who had his whole family killed by a rocket, and another man who was forced from his small subsistence orchard and lives as a transient.  The article detailed the lives of people who have to live with war, death, and total unpredictability their whole lives.  Similarly, a while ago I heard someone complaining about their trip to France being postponed because of terrorist threats and lashing out at Middle Easterners in general.  Immediately I thought of someone else I knew living in the Middle East who had previously described fleeing her home before rocket attacks hit in the area.  Given this, it seems a bit petty to complain about a ruined vacation while others have to live in constant danger every day.  It also seems petty to me to spend so much national energy on ideological debates when there are people who literally have nothing but the clothes on their back.  Does ideology matter to the Somali refugees?  While we sit here and argue about the intangible, people all over the world deal with the tangible through no choice of their own.

So perhaps this hatred really is derived from jealousy, but is that really unjustifiable?  Is it really so incomprehensible to be jealous of those who can work and live and have the luxury of debating ideology without having to worry about the real world results?  More importantly sometimes they have to deal with results created by us.  We create conflicts, like preparing the Taliban to fight the USSR, only to invade Afghanistan decades later because those same people empowered by us to impose our will are suddenly not as friendly to us.  We upset the established progression of societies like that in Iraq because we think we have the right to impose our way of life on other countries, and in the wake of such invasions chaos ensues.  The United States contributes to 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, yet does not constitute 1/4 of the world's population.  We over-consume, and the rest of the world pays the economic price.  We consume one of the largest portions of the world's oil, again despite not having a proportional representation of population.  We create problems of global supply, and while the rest of the world deals with both supply and pollution problems we sit around and debate ideology.  We debate about rights: about our right to pollute the earth, about our right to alter ecosystems, about our right to impose these problems on the rest of the world without any concern given to consequences.

And yes, some around the world approach the idea of living like Americans with trepidation for this very reason.  I recently saw a man being interviewed who said he wanted America's prosperity in the Middle East, but he didn't want America's attitude.  There is a jealousy of our prosperity, but not of our way of life.  What people want, what everyone wants, is some level of stability and the rights that are guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution: to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  There is no shame in being jealous of that, but that doesn't necessarily translate to hatred.  What translates to hatred is our national apathy over issues that affect the entire world, and the contrast with national outrage over ideology.  What translates to hatred is the fact that we can sit here, fat asses and all, and complain about the issue of liberty in regards to taxing food items that can drive health insurance prices up for everyone.  What translates to hatred is the fact that while people go without water, food, shelter, or even a way of life across the globe we sit here and argue over whether we have a right to kill ourselves through gluttony.  Is that hatred unjustified?  Is it wrong to hate a person who gorges themselves while you go hungry, who throws out food while yours is rationed carefully and sparingly, who is indignant at the thought of being taxed for buying unhealthy foods while you would relish three square meals a day, healthy or no?  Is it wrong to hate a nation that constantly intervenes in foreign struggles, and is constantly being met with resentment by those who must deal with the consequences while we sit and argue about it?

And yes, you might think it an injustice for this to be generalized to all Americans, but why should that matter to them?  Perhaps there were white men in Haiti who were sympathetic to the slaves, but they received the ire of the slaves nonetheless, and why not?  To those slaves, white men had imprisoned them and that is where they directed their angst.  This is not a prejudice, this hate is founded.  Undoubtedly there are Americans who are part of the solution, who give to humanitarian causes, oppose war, and do everything they can to make the world a better place, and yet this America that the rest of the world knows remains.  We concern ourselves with the intangible, and we direct our energy to the perpetuation of apathy.  As a society we support this system of exploitation and reckless indifference of the consequences.  I am not saying that Americans don't have cause to resent this to some degree, but we should not think that this hate is a prejudice.  Some resentment is natural when presented with an opinion that is critical of one's own culture, but what absolutely must not be allowed is for us to think that this hatred is unfounded.  Yes, some people hate America, but if any American were displaced and put in their position it is likely they would come to hate America too.

Common Ground

In recent years, there has been a growing fear in Europe about the spread of Islam throughout the continent.  It is not relegated to one specific area, cropping up in countries such as England and the Netherlands.  It is perhaps most apparent, though, in France, which has gained considerable attention in recent years for taking drastic measures to curb the public display of Islamic religious symbols under the pretense of secularization.  These measures are horribly misguided, and are creating acrimony around a social dynamic that already has a good deal of it.  They are simply a mistake, and completely counter to the democratic ideals that France helped instill across the globe.

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not have a favorable view of religion.  I'm an agnostic atheist myself, and I frankly don't think religion is necessary at all in today's world.  However, these measures not only target religion but culture, are based in xenophobia, and do nothing but further acrimony between different religious groups, even those not directly involved.  They should not be tolerated if not for the obvious nature of suppressing human rights, then for the malice they paint the different religious groups with.  I, personally, think that France's history of secularization has been beneficial for the most part.  France has walked a delicate line of keeping government as removed from religion as possible and vice versa without upsetting its large portion of religious citizens (61% Catholics, 6% Islamic, 1% Jewish).  Some secular practices I think could be very beneficial to the United States, such as the requirement that any school receiving government money not require any religious classes as a requirement.  Not only would that be scoffed at here, but some movements have tried to go the other way, manipulating curricula to include religious doctrine as in Texas and Kansas.  Indeed, secularization has some far-reaching benefits, such as the curbing of the systematic degradation of objectivity in the sciences by religious extremists.

That being said, not only are laws like the one passed in France in 2004, banning the wearing of any religious symbol, horribly discriminatory against religion, but are completely detrimental to the cause of secularization.  France, as well as the rest of Europe, has been marred by religious quarrels for as far back as modern history goes.  Ever since Christianity spread to the so-called barbarian tribes that once occupied those lands have they been fighting over who has the correct interpretation, in addition to fighting Muslims from the Ottoman Empire and placing harsh, discriminatory laws on their Jewish populations.  Secularization in France was actually intended to be a response to this, the government is not to interfere in religious matters and religion is not to interfere in the policy-making of government.  This is another example of a secular reform that I think could be universally beneficial, I only dream of the day when politicians such as Bobby Jindal and Ayatollah Khamenei no longer use their government positions in order to broadcast their extremist religious policies.  However, these recent secular reforms go completely against that spirit.

The main argument against secularization has always been that government can become too oppressive, that they can begin to curtail the rights granted to the religious.  Any good secularist should consider it their duty to prevent exactly this from occurring.  When secularization works this is nothing more than an unfounded fear, when these concerns start to become reality they strengthen the arguments against secularization.  American Christians fear secularization, they fear the government intrusion onto their religious practices.  Up until this point those fears have been unfounded, France has had a perfectly functional secular democracy in a country dominated by Catholics.  They know have a right to fear, they can now point to secularization banning religious symbols in school and say that there is concrete evidence of secularization being oppressive.  More than in any other manner, I am against this as a secularist.

The interesting dichotomy that this last point brings up is one of the Christian perspective.  One would think that, especially given the long-standing grudge many American Christians have held towards secularization, these recent bans would be prime fodder for an argument against secularization.  Not so, most Christians I have heard from are largely in favor of this.  Why would that be?  Perhaps because the law doesn't so much target religious expression as it does Islamic culture.  These laws have been passed under the pretense of secularization, but the wearing of religious ornaments in schools has never been an issue for either Jewish or Christian students in the past in France.  It seems it doesn't become an issue until hijabs and burqas begin to become more prevalent.  In short, these secular reforms are specifically targeted at Islam and are supported due to the growing Islamaphobia present in France and other European countries at the moment.  Like the Jews of old Europe, Muslims are now the target of social ridicule and ostracization in an institutionalized manner.  The reason most Christians do not speak out against secularization when they would otherwise is because they, too, harbor some of this Islamaphobia.  I believe I wrote extensively about the golden rule a short while back, again Christians should learn to heed their own scripture.  The Bible preaches tolerance and evangelism not by proselytism, but by setting a good example.

To be fair, there are some within Christianity who do still abide by these principles.  For as much criticism as I heap on the Catholic Church, they are taking the lead in this issue in Europe.  The church has allocated substantial funds to helping immigrants, the bulk of which are Islamic, become more acclimated in their new homes throughout Europe.  Some detractors have called this movement, started under Pope John Paul II, one motivated by his own memories of Polish Jews who were forced into transience during the days of institutionalized racism against Jews.  My question to them is why is this a bad thing?  History is there for us to learn from, to ensure we do not repeat mistakes.  I understand that some might invoke Godwin's Law here, that no one is talking about killing Muslims outright or anything even close to that.  To them, though, I would say that all oppression begins this way, that the oppression of the Jews began with false tales of their supposed supernatural nature and unflattering caricatures and depictions.  It began with a lack of understanding of their culture, and a vilification of them due to this lack of understanding.  This is exactly what we have occurring with Islamic culture.  Will it devolve into mass genocide?  More than likely no, but there is plenty of recent oppression that can be traced back to cultural tensions, such as the fighting in Rwanda and Sudan and the systematic oppression of Muslims in China.  To let this type of cultural warfare not only take hold, but to do so in a country whose thinkers birthed the very ideas of modern democracy and human rights, is simply unconscionable.

Speaking of these cultural differences, they are less pronounced than most people think.  A common rallying cry of secularization supporters who target Islam in Europe is that Muslims want to spread Sharia law.  Aside from the misunderstanding of that word that is inherent in western culture, most Muslims do not actually support Sharia law in the context we commonly know.  The word has been hijacked from religious extremists, and the Muslims who do support Sharia law only support broad, religious principles that are typically synonymous with what we refer to as human rights.  Furthermore, a distinct minority of Muslims actually support subversion of existing governments, only about seven percent.  Another common misconception is one that Muslims do not respect women's rights, and also that the hijab is a solely religious garment.  A majority of Muslim women actually support women's rights, and though smaller, so do a majority of Muslim men.  Muslim women also do not view the hijab as a symbol of female oppression, as has commonly been suggested by western women's movements, but as a part of their culture, and also as a way to be recognized not only by their beauty but by their own intellectual merit.  It is frankly arrogant of westerners to suggest that they do not have the right to choose whether or not it is a symbol of oppression.  Women fought for so long to have the rights to express themselves how they wanted, and now they choose to dogmatically dictate what is oppression and what isn't?  It is hypocrisy at its finest.

The simple truth with Muslims, as with Jews and any other religious groups, is that they are more similar to us than we give them credit for.  They believe in principles of equality and democracy, they choose to go to countries like France not to subvert their culture, as has been claimed, but to adapt to their culture, to find a haven from the oppression that occurs in countries like Iran where religion is used as a smokescreen to hide political authoritarianism.  By focusing on the small differences and using them to vilify and dehumanize a group such as Muslims countries like France are spitting in the face of their democratic ideals.  These laws are wrong; they are wrong on a level of human rights, they are wrong on a level of religious toleration, they are wrong on a level of properly representing secularization.  I am proud of being not only a secularist but an atheist in part because such disputes as this should be beneath either one, and not only does it lessen my pride to see that is not true but it also serves to make me a target of ridiculous arguments that atheists and secularists are religious bigots.  France has three words at the bottom of the symbol of its government: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.  Où est-ce que ta liberté?  Où est-ce que ton egalité?  Où est-ce que ta fraternité?  Liberté, egalité, et fraternité pour tout le monde, ou pour personne.

We're Living in a Society

So the subject of healthcare has been on my mind a bit as of late, due in part to arguments I have had and a particularly arrogant debater from the Wall Street Journal spouting off on a radio show.  In addition, the topic of government spending has come up quite a bit in this discussion, and I feel a need to get a few things out there that seem to be flying under the radar.  For one, this snide journalist who also made assertions that colleges don't offer meaningful education (mental footnote for a later discussion), stated that we don't have the money to be spending on healthcare, and that it was a fallacy to say that having more young people in Medicare would help with its cost issues.  I'll shelf the latter right now and go straight for this, "we don't have the money," argument, my question is where were all these conservatives during the Bush years?  Oh dear god in heaven, medicaid is broke, that absolutely proves that government-run programs can't work successfully, right?  Not when you intentionally run them at a deficit.  That's one thing that never ceases to enrage me, is these conservatives will talk until they're blue in the face about fiscal responsibility, then turn around and act in the most fiscally irresponsible manner in order to acquire political capital.  We didn't have the money for Medicare Part D back then, everyone knew that, and yet Bush and the Republican Congress passed that, "socialist," spending increase.  Better than just that, they passed it at a time when they were paying for two wars AND cutting taxes.  Now suddenly we try to spend money on something that isn't politically motivated and that actually helps the health of our citizens and we don't have the money?  But we still have money for war, we still have money for the type of government-run medicine that garners votes.

Speaking of which, you hear many Republican congressmen coming out in support of the Tea Party, saying they don't believe in government spending, but is anyone paying attention to what they're doing behind the scenes?  There was a lot of rhetoric being circulated among right wing circles during the debate around healthcare about transparency, or the purported lack thereof on the Democratic side, but are they keeping track of what their own camp is doing?  While Obama and the Democrats proposed cuts in Medicare and Medicaid (that's right, socialist Obama proposing cuts to government-run medicine), the conservative side fought against those cuts.  Aren't these the same people crusading against government-run medicine?  Don't they hate all forms of government spending short of military?  The answer is simple, they don't have the guts to go to senior citizens and make their grand, hyperbolic speeches about conservative ideology.  They have no problem going to young voters, first-time voters, voters who rarely use the healthcare system and making these sensationalistic claims about government spending, but put them in front of a crowd of seniors and government-run healthcare is the best thing in the world.  And why?  Because it garners them votes.

This brings me to my next point, which I will preface with a discussion of economics.  Tea Partyers, conservatives, libertarians, whatever you want to call them, always claim that their ideology is based on simple economics.  It's common sense, it's right there for everyone to observe.  Why, then, do they continue to ignore certain basic economic rules that don't fit in with their ideology?  This journalist, and I use the term lightly (yet another mental footnote concerning later discussion), claimed that the assertion that having a younger contingent in Medicare would help to bring down costs was faulty.  Faulty, how is that?  Let's go through the basic operation of the insurance industry.  Insurance is mutual risk, that is a group of people pay into a fund knowing they may not see a return on that money, but when they do need a costly item such as medical care an individual will see a return.  Let's go even simpler for this, insurance is a gamble.  Think of the insurance companies as the house and the consumers as the players.  Whom  the  odds favor is dependent on whom we are talking about.  If we take an example of a twenty year old the odds favor the house, he will pay for the insurance and use it probably only for checkups, and perhaps less than that.  All the money he pays winds up as a profit for the insurance company.  Now let's say his father, fifty or sixty, has insurance under the same provider, the odds favor him.  He's going to use his insurance more and for more costly procedures, the insurance company stands to lose money on him.

This is where we get to the reason why this journalist's logic is simply wrong.  Insurance providers are casinos that make money on younger patients and lose it on older patients.  Medicare is insurance targeted towards the elderly; this means a lot of operations, a lot of visits to the doctor, and in general more costs.  An operation running almost exclusively on providing care to those 65 and older is simply not sustainable.  Medicare cannot run at a profit without young people paying money that they will likely not recover, and if there are young people paying into Medicare it will result in increased profits.

This is also the reason we need the government mandate for all consumers.  I have heard arguments against this measure in principle, but not in practicality.  The fact is that getting rid of industry policies of bumping policy holders with pre-existing conditions or those who become more of a liability as they get older was necessary.  This was the game the insurance industry was playing, and why I think health insurance simply cannot remain for-profit.  Executives were playing a game, they were treating the industry as a market and not as a necessity for individuals.  Take the example of the father and the child, if the money they make on the child outweighs the money they lose on the father they're still running at a profit.  One would think that would be good enough, but not so.  The attitude the industry took was one of maximizing profits, whatever the cost, and is part of an unsustainable attitude towards capitalism (mental footnote for later examination).  It's not enough that they make a profit, if there's money they could be making, or saving, they treat that as a loss.  Together the father can child represent a net profit, but if they bump the father that's increased profit for them.  This is the detrimental attitude I am speaking of, not being content with just making a profit but maximizing profits, even if it comes at the expense of certain consumers.  Furthermore, this completely defeats the purpose of insurance, there is no risk because as soon as there is a risk the individual is bumped.  That really is a scam, that's saying to the young people that when you're young we'll take your money because it nets us a profit, but when you're old we're going to bump you because we'll actually have to pay you.  That is, frankly, outright robbery.  And I know there is a sentiment among younger people of not wanting to pay in the first place?  Why pay money for something you're not going to use?  Well, in the words of George Costanza, "because we're living in a society here!"  This is a perfect example of co-dependence, of the type of communal thought that benefits individuals.  Yes, you pay more money than you use when you're young, but when you're old you just might see a return on that money, if you don't get bumped that is.

Which is, again, why the individual mandate was required, to get the number which ranges between fifteen and thirty million Americans who are young and uninsured to buy insurance, to drive up profits for insurance companies, to make it more feasible for them to keep the customers who net them a loss in the form of payouts.  I still hold that executive salaries are extreme in the industry, that going to a non-profit format would cut down on overhead in this regard and net a lower price for the consumer (isn't that what free market theory states, that the market should provide the best product for the lowest price?), and that there are other issues such as the overabundance of overpriced and sometimes inferior drugs and medical techniques when talking about Medicare costs.  The issue still remains, though, that this is all basic economics, why can't these supposed masters of economics realize these simple economic tenets?

On the Mark

There's plenty going on in the world right now, but nothing more notable, or important, as the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. President Obama just delivered a live address from the Oval Office dealing entirely with the situation down there, and his speech hit all the right points with exactly the right tone. Contrary to what the Republican Party would have the rest of the world believe, having a single moment where you even begin to stop hating President Obama will not automatically impose cultish devotion to him upon you. Many of us, including myself, who have supported the President from the beginning have disagreed with many of his actions. I can say that there are a couple key issues in which I feel he has not been as assertive as he should be, but thankfully he picked the most important issue to draw a line with and hold his ground. This oil spill is not only an economic issue in terms of jobs lost, an environmental issue in terms of sheer damage, or a policy issue in terms of enforcing regulations on corporations, but it is an issue that will affect this country for generations to come in the way the ecosystems of the Gulf are affected.

The President hit on all of these points and said all the right things. For all the people complaining about the severity of how the government is dealing with BP, the President reminded us that people lost their lives and their livelihoods. For all the people complaining about government regulation the President reminded us that increased oversight would and should have prevented this problem. For all the people complaining about the temporary halt imposed on offshore drilling the President reminded us THE most important thing in this issue, which is that a delicate ecosystem that was already endangered was compromised further, and that the natural beauty which has been part of America for well over a century has been irreversibly altered. The President didn't mince words in fear of being called a hippie environmentalist, or a raving socialist, or a bleeding heart liberal. He said what absolutely needed to be said in a strong and assertive manner.

And make no mistake, he will be called all those things and more. I'd wager all the money I had right now that the ideologues are already spewing these insults, hell I wish someone would take that action, I could use the eleven dollars. When those insults do come, though, they will be, to put it bluntly, bullshit. We can sit here and debate the pros and cons of government intervention and non-intervention, we can talk about socialist policies vs. the free market, but if there is one political constant it is that purely ideological views are never completely correct. I've never before stated that free market principles are useless, simply that there are pros and cons and that the goal should be to minimize the latter and maximize the former. One particularly prominent drawback are the corners that are cut by corporations when there is no watchdog looking over their back, such as BP's lack of proper equipment and safety procedures on the Deepwater rig. They you have the apex of an unrestricted industry, millions of gallons polluting our natural beauty, the deaths of eight oil rig workers, and the loss of productivity for an entire coastal region. This is where the free market ideology fails, this is where sensible conservatives should be able to say to themselves that there are limits to how far corporations should be allowed to go without oversight. You think BP doesn't wish the government had been more forceful with them now? They lost well over half of their value in the stock market, their debts now outnumber their holdings, when they were making millions of dollars by cutting costs I'm sure all the execs were patting themselves on the back and talking about that vaunted free market philosophy, but now that they're losing billions-not because of socialism or government intervention but because of their own short-sightedness-I'm sure they wish they had spent a little more on trying to prevent a disaster like this.

BP is not the victim here. Their recklessness led to the deaths of eight of their workers. How is it that certain people would talk about capital execution for someone like Michael Jackson, who had never been convicted of a crime, but then turn around and defend the people who have the deaths of eight innocent workers on their hands? Why is it that a corporation is now a person in the eyes of the Supreme Court in terms of their right to exercise free speech, but not in their responsibility in reckless homicide? Recklessness leading to eight deaths would be a death penalty in Florida, it would be multiple life sentences in other parts of the country, if BP is a citizen of the United States why shouldn't it get the [corporate] death penalty? That's not even counting the damage done to the environment. Think of if an individual citizen polluted a natural beauty near wherever you are. What if I had defaced Mount Rushmore, dumped oil at Yellowstone or in Lake Michigan, or at one of our other countless places of natural beauty? This is our country, not an individual's country, not a corporation's country, our country. One person, or even a group of people, could care less about what happens to OUR natural beauty, but it affects far more people than just them. The idea that anyone who cares about these natural treasures we have can have their opinions simply written off is selfish, small-minded, and un-American. This country and its natural beauty were meant to be enjoyed by all Americans, and BP ruined that beauty for all Americans. The American people, including the ones who lost their lives in that explosion, are the true victims.

This is the right time for President Obama to be assertive, this is the right time for him to call all the profiteering opportunists in political positions across the country that the claims they made in pursuit of more money are flat out wrong, and it is time for him to take a stand for a group of concerned citizens who care about this country in a sense that transcends the political and financial arenas, and who have been written off for daring to care in the past, and tonight the President did exactly that.