Challenge the Establishment

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Un-Tapped Power-Block

Connecting the dots back to the last post,

People are rejecting both parties. The quick reversal of public support for the Democratic Party ... reveals something deeper. ... general repulsion of the establishment political parties by a large swath of the public has not yet become an accepted part of the mainstream narrative. ... This is in part because the establishment media controls the narrative to a large extent.

Which is where we left it.

The corporate media are intertwined with the political establishment that is being rejected by more and more people. The political establishment has become impotent and people don't want half-measures. The media, drinking from the same punch bowl of celebrity and money, do a dance of poking and prodding the political establishment, but they also employ half-measures; we don't get quality news.

It seems that polls suggest people reject the media establishment too, but then it also seems that people still tune in to it and parrot it. (Is there some TV-addiction involved?). Perhaps the growing media reform movement will become more popularized and create a ground swell of the public tuning out; effectively boycotting TV.

This scenario might be more plausible than first meets the eye. One reason is that media reform is a topic that appeals to both the left and right wings; it's a cross-over subject. That means there is a natural block of people whose numbers are larger than on other issues that split the left and right.

Other examples include opposition to the financial bailouts with no strings attached, the call to audit the Federal Reserve that gained a unanimous vote in the US Senate, numerous civil liberties issues like the government spying on US citizens and the erosion of Habeas Corpus, just to name a few. On these subjects, there is a history of the left and right coming together in a power-block.

I think this power-block, despite its natural instabilities, has significant untapped potential that could be organized.

I'll leave it there for now, but if you're curious about this topic, check out More on the Left and Right Joining Forces.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Obama's Bad Numbers: Sign of Something Deeper

It's true that the poll numbers about mid-term election losses could be wrong; but for argument sake, lets assume that the majority of the voting public is now leaning towards the Republicans, or more accurately, leaning away from the Democrats. That's a quick turn-around just two years after removing the Republicans from power in the White House and Congress.

The quick reversal of public support for the Democratic Party is evidence that a large portion of common people have little allegiance to either party. No news there. However, the sense that people are leaning away from the Democrats after having just rejected the Republicans in 2008 says something deeper. People are rejecting both parties.

This also isn't news. Most of the news has been about Tea Party activists rejecting establishment Republican candidates; however, it wasn't long after the 2008 election of Barack Obama that people were predicting he would loose his base of support if he took the corporate track. Obama has taken the corporate track on the bail outs, health care and financial reform. Now the predictions are coming true, including Gallup poll figures showing a lack of enthusiasm among people registered as Democrats; Obama has lost many of his ground troops for getting out the vote.

The loss of Congressional seats by the dominant party during a mid-term elections is a decades old pattern and much has been said of this. What has not been said much is that this back-and-fourth is a sign of the public rejecting both establishment political parties, but having little other choice. This insight of a general repulsion of the establishment political parties by a large swath of the public has not yet become an accepted part of the mainstream narrative. This is in part because the establishment media controls the narrative to a large extent.

That's the setting, or the political landscape. Where do things go from here? That's a topic for another post.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Progressive Broadside of Obama's Mouthpiece

Yes. Obama's mouthpiece, Robert Gibbs, recently stuck his foot in his mouth, thought it's not sure he realizes or acknowledges it. I'm speaking of the following, from the GLH Blog:

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

The progressive GLH Blog elaborates on why he's pissed off at

'Barack Bush's flunky Robert Gibbs'

in "Barack Bush's Toady Attacks Single Payer".

More on the Left & Right Joining Forces

Maybe you've experienced this. You take interest in something you've not noticed before, say a car of a particular color. Then you start noticing this thing all over the place when you didn't before.

Maybe that's what's going on with me an the thesis I'm pursuing about the potential power of principled people on the left & right joining forces to challenge the power and policy of the establishment. I've been addressing this topic in the past few episodes of GDAE Podcast:

Part 1: (20-min abridged) - The Thesis of the Left & Right Joining Together. Motivations and Defining the Thesis. Real-world example: Challenging the Consolidation of Media Ownership.

Part 2: (30-min) - More than a Hypothesis: Real-world examples of Left/Right Joint Efforts to Challenge the Establishment. The call to "Audit the Federal Reserve."

Part 3: (30-min) - More Real-world examples. The late-1800s Populist Movement & the current movement calling for strict adherence to 10th Amendment of the US Constitution.

Now I'm starting to see more real-world cases and other people observing this social phenomenon. The Tea Party movement, for the most part, is NOT a part of this left/right coming together. That's in part because it's partly co opted by corporate sponsors and demagogues like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck (tho the concerns of its diverse membership are similar).

This is also not about establishment conservatives who reject the Tea Party, or , or at least hold them at a distance. Tho, there can be some intersection these principled establishment conservatives too. One example is the conservative and liberal lawyers who challenged the constitutionality of California's Anti-gay marriage Proposition 8. (The two lawyers were conservative Ted Olsen and liberal David Boies, the two of whom battled each other in the Bush v. Gore 2000 election coup). But lets face it, Olsen & Boies are part of the establishment mindset.

It's hard to pin down this phenomenon, in part because it is diverse and complex. But, when you hear the examples and discussions on the previous podcasts, it starts to take shape. I'll be expanding on more examples in the August GDAE Podcast, so stay tuned.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

A Sense of Desperation

As we hear that the Obama Justice Department reached settlement with Goldman Sachs there are many reactions. My reaction is that the establishment is feeling desperate, fearful of a teetering capitalist system that cannot tolerate the implications of an honest judgment.

Goldman Sachs designed an investment package of subprime mortgage loans that was highly likely to fail, invested in its failure, but sold it to others as a good investment. They get caught, and by most accounts by analysts who understand these things, the record Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) penalty of $550 million is well below the $1 Billion that was expected as a baseline for settling this fraud case. But you don't have to take the word of the analysts, the reaction of Wall Street was a sigh of relief expressed in terms of a rise in Goldman's market value that greatly exceeded the penalty amount.

This is just one example of many in which the establishment's fear of a teetering economic system has led to tepid, dishonest policy. The inability for the Washington establishment to consider a single-payer system is another example. We're told that there simply wasn't the political will, and that the insurance and other health related industries were "too strong." I suspect the real reason is that the capitalist economic system is too weak to endure a transition from the current inefficient, paper-pushing health care system to a more efficient one.

I'm sure there are many other examples.

Source:

Cross-posted at GDAE Podcast.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

GDAE Podcast Episode 32

Common Interests on the Left & Right - Part III

Left & Right Populists: The American Populist movement of the 1800s with Jim Hightower (Bill Moyer's Journal).
Left & Right United: The Tenth Amendment with Michael Boldin (Mother Jones Magazine).
Green Economy: Energy efficiency and jobs (Demand Side Podcast).
MUSIC: Brazilita, a sweet little version of the song Brazil.

Play Episode 32 from this page:

Click to Download Episode 32.

Listen to Part II in the series, Episode 31:

Listen to Part I in the series, Episode 30, (20-minute abridged version):

Thursday, July 22, 2010

A Desperate Establishment?

As we hear that the Obama Justice Department reached settlement with Goldman Sachs, there are many reactions. My reaction is that the establishment is feeling desperate, fearful of a teetering capitalist system that cannot tolerate the implications of an honest judgment.

Goldman Sachs designed an investment package of subprime mortgage loans that was highly likely to fail, invested in its failure, but sold it to others as a good investment. They get caught, and by most accounts by analysts who understand these things, the record Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) penalty of $550 million is well below the $1 Billion that was expected as a baseline for settling this fraud case. But you don't have to take the word of the analysts, the reaction of Wall Street was a sigh of relief expressed in terms of a rise in Goldman's market value that greatly exceeded the penalty amount.

This is just one example of many in which the establishment's fear of a teetering economic system has led to tepid, dishonest policy. The inability for the Washington establishment to consider a single-payer system is another example. We're told that there simply wasn't the political will, and that the insurance and other health related industries were "too strong." I suspect the real reason is that the capitalist economic system is too weak to endure a transition from the current inefficient, paper-pushing health care system to a more efficient one.

I'm sure there are many other examples.

Cross-posted on GDAEman Blog