AlterPolitics New Post

Stagecraft: Our Presidential Contest Has Devolved Into Little More Than A Fake Wrestling Match

by on Friday, September 28, 2012 at 3:34 pm EDT in Economy, Election 2012, Politics

For those on the Left, one of the most frustrating aspects of this Presidential election has been following the narratives of both establishment parties, each aligned with the other in their complimentary fictions, as they deceive the American voters into believing there is an actual choice to be made here. 

Beyond the rhetorical divide, the actual differences between Obama and Romney are minor, if not downright trivial. Each candidate, regardless of how he has actually governed in the past, uses the talking points from his party’s platform to tap into the ideological preferences of his base. The contest is little more than a theater of deception.

Romney, who governed like a Clintonian Democrat, now speaks in ways that appeal to his base, which continues to drift rightwards a la Tea Party.

As Governor of Massachusetts, Romney implemented what would become the blueprints for Obamacare, and offered generous subsidies for those in his state who couldn’t afford it. He embraced a pro-choice position, favored gun control, was pro-gay-rights. He opposed the flat tax, was critical of Bush tax cuts. He believes in global warming, and has supported ‘cap and trade’ policies. 

Whereas Romney has been forced to move rhetorically to the right, Barack Obama, who himself has governed from right-of-center, needs to reestablish his own cred with his liberal base, and is thus, only too happy to accommodate Romney in aligning their fictions.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle that both candidates have had to overcome with regards to their respective bases is in trying to convince them that there actually are fundamental differences between their visions for America’s economic model.

The Obama campaign was the first to seize on a distinction when it released a video showing Mitt Romney at a Boca Raton fundraiser expressing disdain for Obama voters, suggesting they are “dependent upon government” and feel entitled to handouts.

But this video revelation actually enhanced the far-Right cred that the Governor had been so desperate for. You might think his own campaign planted the video. In fact, he proudly wore the video revelation around like a medal. The Tea Party won’t see me as a RINO anymore, he likely surmised.

Seeing this as the perfect red meat issue needed to re-energize his base, Romney pivoted to the hot-button ‘Socialism’ charge. He charged Obama with being another Socialist-minded liberal who wants to take money from those who work hard and succeed, to then redistribute it to those who don’t.

After unearthing a 1998 video showing a young Obama expressing that he believed in “redistribution at a certain level,” Romney pounced:

“He [Obama] really believes in what I’ll call a government-centered society. I know there are some who believe that if you simply take from some and give to others then we’ll all be better off. It’s known as redistribution. It’s never been a characteristic of America,” Romney said Wednesday at an Atlanta fundraiser. “There’s a tape that came out just a couple of days ago where the president said yes he believes in redistribution. I don’t. I believe the way to lift people and help people have higher incomes is not to take from some and give to others but to create wealth for all.”

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus seconded that description of Obama, and now all GOP surrogates are on message, making the ‘redistribution’ buzzword the central theme in Romney’s campaign.

But of course this depiction of Obama couldn’t be further from the truth. Obama has actually governed like a starry-eyed Milton Friedman disciple. Bloomberg News decided to investigate Romney’s ‘redistribution’ charge, and here is what they found:

If President Barack Obama is trying to spread the wealth, he doesn’t have much to show for it. […]

[S]ince Obama took office in January 2009, wealthy Americans have continued to pull away from the rest of society. In the aftermath of the recession, income inequality in the U.S. reached a new high in 2011, Census Bureau data show.

Even as the president has decried the hollowing out of the middle class, the fortunes of labor and capital have diverged on his watch. Quarterly corporate profits of $1.9 trillion have almost doubled since the end of 2008, while workers’ inflation- adjusted average hourly earnings have declined.

“At the very high end, people got a whole lot wealthier whereas income stagnated at other levels,” said Anne Mathias, director of Washington research for Guggenheim Securities LLC. “Fifty years ago, people talked about the other half, how the other half lived, and now we’re talking about the other 1 percent.”

But, forget reality — back to the fantasyland that is our Presidential Election.

Knowing his progressive base sees the U.S. economy through the 1% vs 99% prism and views his last 3 1/2 years as a monumental sellout to the 1%, Obama likely sees an opening in Romney’s ‘redistribution’ charge. This Republican accusation may be exactly what he needs to energize his own base. Perhaps it can help him to get his populist mojo back.

And the theater just continues on and on …

But make no mistake about it, whichever candidate wins — be it Obama or Romney — things will continue right along this Neoliberal road we are on, and the firmly-entrenched 1% will have their man.

Edit: In response to reader who questioned the validity of statement re: Mitt Romney’s alleged support of gay-marriage when Governor of Massachusetts, and after further review myself, I have decided to remove the statement: (he implemented same-sex marriage by executive fiat).

Confidential Memo Outlines Right-Wing Coordinated Propaganda Campaign To Crush Wind Power Energy

by on Thursday, May 10, 2012 at 8:54 am EDT in Environment, Politics

The Guardian recently obtained a confidential strategy plan co-written by John Droz, a senior fellow at conservative think tank American Tradition Institute (ATI), to spearhead a national propaganda campaign against wind farms as a green energy alternative to fossil-fuels. 

One of their primary objectives is to “cause subversion” in the message of the wind power industry “so that it effectively becomes so bad no one wants to admit in public they are for it (much like wind has done to coal, by turning green to black and clean to dirty).”

They plan to join forces with the fossil-fuel industries (including oil and coal), as well as with right-wing think tanks (including ALEC and Americans for Prosperity — both funded by the billionaire Koch brothers) to procure financing and to counter findings by the wind industry. Experts will be selected to provide testimony to government agencies, as will key people who are capable of interfacing with the media.

They plan to utilize the tea party, anti-tax groups, business organizations, property rights advocates, and they recommend creating “controversy to spark ideas” and to “get people talking.” The memo states “public opinion must begin to change in what should appear as a ‘groundswell’ among grass roots.” And this appearance of a ‘groundswell’ will “reach the elected officials and policy-makers” in such a way as to compel them to abort their wind power initiative.

It is reminiscent of the national health care reform debates, when the Tea Party stormed Town Hall meetings — shouting, interrupting, threatening — giving the appearance of a serious ‘groundswell’ of opposition to government intervention into health care. Of course, poll numbers, did not substantiate the impression the Tea Partiers and right-wing media left on our intrepid Democratic politicians. A majority of Americans (including the highly coveted Independent voters) were polled as being very much in favor of a public option.

The strategy memo goes further into how they would have hands-on coordination with the tea party and other groups:

The networking committee will be responsible for coordinating the response of networked groups … includ[ing] the tea party, anti-tax leagues and utility rate groups as well as government watch-dog, anti-waste groups. This committee will help spread our message to the network groups and then gather feed-back as to their interests and needs for further information from the organization.

Additionally, they plan on using Youth Outreach (a tax-exempt Christian group whose goal is to bring students and young people into the Church), to help coordinate an anti-wind-power program in public schools and on college campuses. Here is the sneaky way they envision Youth Outreach helping to convince young people that wind power is not a viable energy source:

This will include community activity and participation with sponsorships for science fairs, school activity etc. with preset parameters that cause students to steer away from wind because they discover it doesn’t meet the criteria we set up (poster contest, essays etc). 

Other measures in this effort include:

  • Sending “dummy businesses” into communities that are considering wind power as an energy source, to propose building 400 foot billboards, in order to spark local controversy. 
  • Running ads, funding/distributing signage, bumper stickers, etc., and spreading propaganda across social sites like Twitter.
  • Commissioning a book ‘expose’ on the wind power industry, to spread negative messages about how it would harm communities and negatively impact people and the environment.
  • Spearheading boycotts of any company that imprints a wind-turbine seal on the packaging of its products (to inform green-conscious consumers that wind power was used in its production). 
  • Suing developers, zoning boards, etc. all across America, for a whole host of reasons, all while maintaining comprehensive documentation on these suits, so that any successful legal strategies can be reused in other communities. 
  • Create counterintelligence branch.

And to oversee all of this, they propose forming a tax-exempt organization, with $750,000 in seed money, and a paid staff. The organization would be comprised of the following committees: Media, Science, Regional State Coordinators, Networking, Lobby/Political, Group policy. 

The strategy memo even goes as far as to provide a case example demonstrating how the group’s committees would respond upon learning that a wind power funding bill had advanced in Congress:

In this example, the group policy committee has identified that a particular bill providing funding for the opposition has been advanced to committee for a hearing. Policy committee has asked for a coordinated effort to stop the progress of the funding measure.   

First, the lobby committee uses their contacts to begin a campaign from the inside against the bill with phone calls and private meetings. They meet with several staffers who suggest that the bill is being supported because it has been moved as green legislation and several committee members are afraid to oppose it on that basis. The lobby committee reports this to media and science for further action.

The media committee decides to use a full page advertisement in the Washington Post as a method of communicating the ‘not so green truth’ to congress, and at the same time coordinates a special interview and story from a scientific point of view that illustrates the dirty side of the industry. At this same time, the science committee holds a press conference to announce that the industry is using dishonesty and “greenwashing” as a cover for what amounts to corporate welfare.  

The message is also repeated in Wash Times, WSJ, Fox and other sources.  

State regional coordinators are tapped at this time to provide a letter writing campaign from the grass roots asking the key legislators to back away from the funding measure. This campaign is also echoed in various directorate groups coordinated from the organization including tea party, anti-tax leagues, etc.    

The coordinated effort stretches across multi-channels and multi-voices, and appears to come from as many as a dozen separate sources, but the message is the same and stays on point. The created barrage of voices provides enough cover that the elected officials have a way to vote no because they can clearly see they have support for our position.

ATI, a think tank devoted to discrediting climate science, told The Guardian that its senior fellow Droz worked independently on this plan, though the document does list ATI as a group likely to join the effort.

Droz held a meeting in Washington last February, attended by members from 30 anti-wind-power groups, including the Tea Party Patriots. Since then, the groups have begun pooling their efforts together on this issue, including phone call and email campaigns to Congresspeople.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this memo, is the insight it gives into how the corporatocracy works to maintain the destructive, yet highly profitable, status quo. 

Everyone intuitively knows this sort of coordination happens, but this memo actually documents it: the insidious collusion between industry, right-wing think tanks, AstroTurf groups (like the Tea Party), tax-exempt Christian groups, lobbyists, right-wing media — all collaborating, synchronizing their propaganda (so that all remain on message), while pretending to act independently of one another; and thereby giving the grand illusion of a ‘ground swell’ of opposition coming from many different places.

Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Addresses The 5 Most Important Issues Facing The U.S.

by on Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 7:05 pm EDT in Election 2012, Politics

On October 24, at the historic State House in Boston, The Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein announced her candidacy for President of the United States. She is running as the alternative to the two ‘Wall Street’ parties that have remained steadfast in selling out the interests of the American people for the enrichment of the corporatocracy.

A couple months before her Presidential announcement, Dr. Stein was asked to identify five pressing issues facing our nation, and how she would resolve them as President of the United States:

Jobs:

CREATE JOBS THROUGH A GREEN NEW DEAL – an emergency program to achieve full employment and jump start a green economic recovery. This would provide a Manhattan Project/WWII scale mobilization to transition to clean renewables and related green sectors of the economy (including local food and recycling manufacturing) to avert climate catastrophe while achieving energy independence, improving trade balances and meeting urgent transportation, energy, housing and environmental infrastructure needs for the 21st century.

It will be funded by taxing the rich and large corporations, through trillion dollar savings from single payer health care and the associated reduction of health care inflation, and through downsizing the bloated military.

The Green New Deal will get economic help directly to people – and end the Obama/Bush trickle-down philosophy that forces ordinary people to subsidize the massive transfer of wealth and power to the super-rich.

Restoring the American Dream:

The Green New Deal will include an ECONOMIC BILL OF RIGHTS, including the right to living wage jobs, health care, quality education, retirement security, and affordable housing.

Endless Wars:

PEACE NOW – End the needless wars that have drained America of the resources we need to fund our communities. Bring the troops and war dollars home now. Reduce the bloated military budget to provide defense not empire building.

Imperiled U.S. Democracy & Civil Liberties:

RESCUE DEMOCRACY — Restore our freedom of political expression, our imperiled civil liberties, and protections from government surveillance by the swollen Homeland Security complex.

End the hijacking of political speech by the biggest spender, (resulting from the Citizens United and Buckley v Valeo supreme court decisions).

Create real freedom of political expression, full public participation, and informed voter choice – free from fear and intimidation – at the polls through policy reforms including: publicly funded elections, free access to public airwaves for all legitimate candidates, instant runoff voting and proportional representation, fair ballot access for all political parties and candidates, safeguards against electronic election fraud, and an end to voter suppression schemes, the corporate-electoral revolving door, and rampant influence-peddling by lobbyists.

Health Care:

SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE (improved Medicare-for-all) to provide quality, comprehensive health care to all as a human right.

Single payer saves money by ending the 30% administrative overhead of private insurance and by controlling the runaway health care inflation that is bankrupting families, business, and all levels of government. And it puts an end to insurance company meddling in personal health care decisions and choice of doctor.

For those who wish to learn more about Dr. Stein’s policy positions, she did a Q&A session this week with the CA Independent Voter Network, where she expounds on her vision for a new America. In the interview, she addresses the importance of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the commonalities between the Green Party and the Ron Paul wing of the Tea Party, RomneyCare and ObamaCare, how Bush and Obama have egregiously abused their executive powers, and how both Presidents have violated our civil liberties in ways that signal the beginnings of a ‘proto-fascist state.’

More information on Jill Stein can be found on her website, and by following her on Twitter.

The American Left Awakens: As The Middle Class Goes, So Goes The Political Middle

by on Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 10:56 am EDT in Occupy Wall Street, Politics

It could be said that a democracy’s chosen economic model lives and dies by the prosperity of the majority. A thriving middle class has been the key stabilizing factor in American politics for generations. As such, systematic change in the United States has traditionally come slowly and incrementally.  But after a decade of zero job […]

‘Christian Right’ Is An Oxymoron

by on Monday, April 25, 2011 at 11:28 am EDT in Politics

I cannot think of two ideologies more diametrically opposed to one another than Christianity and right-wing conservatism. Yet, in U.S. politics no two words get conjoined more than “Christian Right”. How is it that people who claim to live according to the compassionate teachings of Jesus Christ — alleged champion of the poor and the meek […]

“Job Creators” & “Investors”: The Disconnect Between Republican Policies & Economic Stimulus

by on Monday, March 7, 2011 at 11:03 am EDT in Politics

The Republican Party’s latest economic policy proposals are nothing short of pure unadulterated neo-liberalism — the radical merciless ideology foisted upon the world by economist Milton Freedman. Recent events throughout the country have been playing out like a chapter straight out of Naomi Klein’s hugely important bestseller, The Shock Doctrine. First the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2%, […]

Tucson Shooting Survivor Arrested At Taping Of ABC’s ‘This Week’ For Threatening Tea Party Founder

by on Saturday, January 15, 2011 at 9:53 pm EDT in Politics

ABC’s ‘This Week’ with Christiane Amanpour shot a ‘Town Hall’ meeting today called “Tragedy in Tucson: An American Conversation Continued” (to be aired Sunday Morning) where survivors, witnesses and first responders of the massacre were reunited.  Towards the end of the otherwise sad and emotional event, as was described by AZ Central, Amanpour brought up […]

When Lies And Conspiracies Are All You Have To Energize Your Base, Be Prepared For Violence

by on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 5:44 pm EDT in Politics

If a person falsely shouts ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, thereby creating a stampede in which innocent bystanders get trampled, then that person can be held liable, as was decided in the 1919 Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States. This verdict distinguished between untruthful statements used to incite violence (i.e. falsely shouting ‘fire’ in […]

WATCH: Bill Maher Pans Jon Stewart’s ‘Restore Sanity’ Rally’s False Equivalency Theme

by on Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 4:13 pm EDT in Politics

I love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and was ecstatic their “Restore Sanity” Rally was so successful.  But I have to agree with Bill Maher here as he comically nails the Rally’s major flaw:  Its main theme, in attempting to be bipartisan, created a false equivalency between the Right and the Left. ENJOY:

The Reagan Legacy

by on Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 1:33 pm EDT in Politics

Andrew Levine reflects on Ronald Reagan’s legacy, and how — to this very day — it continues to derail sensible policies: The most enthusiastic Reaganites today are radical, nationalist, racist and xenophobic; just like the fascists of old. And because Democrats lack the courage and conviction to stop them, they drag our politics rightward, regardless […]