“Because we’re a capitalist system, everything is a thought of as a ‘commodity’” ~ Dana Gould

Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition group member Sarah Bond said that liberty is at risk under President Obama’s economic stimulus plan and the recently passed California budget.

“Capitalism is the only economic structure that promotes liberty and freedom,” Bond said. “Capitalism is under attack from a socialistic government expansion through needless tax increases and reckless spending. I am demonstrating to protect capitalism, so that my children have the same opportunities and freedoms that I have had.”

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Capitalism seems to be taking it on the chin lately so, in honor of the opening of Michael Moore’s new film 'Capitalism: A Love Story', I thought I’d get my licks in, too.

First, and very importantly, I’d like to differentiate between the two levels’ of capitalism as I see it. I think there is normal ordinary “individual capitalism” and there is “corporate capitalism”. And, there is a HUGE difference between providing a service or a product to people - and making some money in the process - and just plain trying to make money. Local individually-owned stores and businesses are usually the former. They carry on to provide necessary products or services, not to make a fortune. They're not in it just for unbridled profit; they want to see the smiles on peoples' faces in their local communities, as well as make enough money to live good comfortable lives.

Corporations and big businesses are different; they exist primarily to make a profit; to “maximize return to their investors.” They churn out services that are crappy or products that are cheap and often designed with planned obsolescence to break down after awhile. They don't care about providing quality materials, no matter how much they might advertise that they do. They're not in it to provide real stuff for ordinary people, they're in it for the money. This is the capitalism that has grown to monstrous proportions, become toxic to our very survival as a society, and shaken our society to the very core in doing so. From merely an economic system, capitalism has become a virus, caring for nothing but its own survival and replication, and literally threatening the survival of its host in the process.

One of the classic defenses of capitalism is that it makes productive use of one of mankind’s baser faults: the tendency toward greed. This may still be true, but is no longer an operable thesis simply because there are no longer any controls on the baser nature. We used to give at least lip service to the idea of the Seven Deadly Sins, one was of which Avarice. But, the morality that used to exist no longer holds greed (or any of the other Sins) in check. As a result, capitalism has run amok. Greed is the engine that drives the economic system that corporate capitalism has become; this capitalism is the codification of Greed. In the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” Gordon Gecko said “Greed IS GOOD!” and everyone nodded their heads and went right along, one character snidely asking: “What’s in it for moi?” And look where we have come in 22 years.         

This kind of corporate oligarchy is nothing new; remember the “robber barons” of the 19^th Century. Their brand of laissez faire capitalism led to child labor, sweatshop factories and many deaths. Its hold was finally broken only with the rise of workers unions and anti-trust legislation in the early 1900s.

And there have always been certain businessmen who were greedy and went into their work with the attitude of vultures, giving no quarter to any, gobbling up competitors, terrorizing their employees. For virtually all of American history, there have been only rich and poor. The vaunted American Middle Class dates only from the end of WWII – before that was the Great Depression; before that, the rise of unions just mentioned.

Since 1967, probably the last year of true social progress in the United States, the average wage ratio between company CEOs and the workers of those businesses has grown from an already large 40-to-1 to an outrageous 550-to-1! Average household income has continued flat, not even increasing to keep pace with normal inflation; small businesses are taking an increasing brunt of our tax burden, especially in states like California; the Horatio Alger spirit that fueled American growth in the 20^th Century is discouraged at every turn causing some of our best minds to go elsewhere (would you believe France!) to make their modest fortunes.

Especially in the last ten years, government has promoted cronyism, curtailed and destroyed oversight and regulation, fostered financial shenanigans that nobody can even understand, let alone regulate, and supported bigger and bigger consolidations until the businesses became “too big to fail”. And then – sure enough! –were then bailed-out to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Sometimes called ‘corporate welfare’, I prefer to call this ‘Republican socialism’. This is what we are seeing much of in the U.S. today where the profits are concentrated among the few, the shareholders, the politically connected; and the liabilities or losses are spread out among the many, the taxpayers, the politically disassociated. Clearly, corporate capitalism is no longer working in the United States – if, indeed, it ever really did.

And, of course, it goes the other way, too. Corporate donations to politicians amount to literally millions of dollars. For example, the current health care bill that is being hashed-out in Congress is already bought and paid for. The Senate Finance Committee’s ranking Reptilian, Sen. Chuck Grassley has received more than $651,000 from the healthcare industry. But wait – before you liberals start to crow – good ol’ Max Baucus, the Dumocrats committee chair, has amassed almost $1,763,800 from those same interests.§ And that’s only the top two members!

Now, let’s add to all this the recent developments in the industries that have been in the news such as insurance, real estate, banking and health care. While those actually involved in the treatment of illness (nurses, therapists, some doctors and other true health care professionals) are struggling to make a decent living, the corporations involved in insurance and health care are raking in billions by denying needed care to those who are sick and infirm. Real estate and loan interests created the fiction of sub-prime mortgages, causing the housing meltdown that spread to Wall Street. And banks, which used to be a place to store your money, now are “investment banks” – factories to make money by creating and marketing those impossible-to-fathom “financial products,” like derivatives. Now, after all these have spread their capitalist poison over the land, we sit in the tunnel of the worst recession in 70 years, hoping that we’ve seen the bottom and are finally on the way up. Wall Street may be on its way up – the Dow is actually in sight of 10,000 again – but you can bet that you and I aren’t out of the woods.

And now, the final reason I have decided to name the capitalism of corporations “viral capitalism”: the ultimate euphemism: “life settlement securities.” It has come down to this: death as a commodity.

Here is how it works. The bankers buy life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. They then bundle them, repackage them, and sell them to major investors such as pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die. These death bonds bet heavily on the inevitable surcease of breath. More bluntly, the sooner the death, the greater the return on investment.¶ Either way, Wall Street would profit by pocketing sizable fees for creating the bonds, reselling them and subsequently trading them. So, even as Washington debates increased financial regulation, bankers are scurrying to concoct new products.

These “death bonds” repeat the sub-prime mortgage formula that generated outrageous fees and bonuses and contributed to the housing bubble, bust, and bailout. Same players, same computer models, same huge bonuses and fees along the way. A new ghoulish mega bubble; this time using people instead of houses.

Mark my words: these death bonds will become THE iconic image of corporate capitalism run amok.

So, there we have it. From its beginnings as a system that promised everyone a piece of the pie – if you only work for it – capitalism has evolved to a viral monster that unmistakably threatens the very society that gave it breast milk. Far from affording freedom and opportunity, viral capitalism assures our children a jungle where, unless they are in that top 1% that controls virtually all the capital, they will need to literally fight for their very survival.

One last thing: in his film, Moore promotes the idea that capitalism’s opposite is democracy. I must disagree with him on this point: while I think the two are incompatible, I do not think they are opposites because one is a political system while the other is an economic system. Of course, as I have (hopefully!) demonstrated, the two systems are intertwined – at least in this country they are. But, they are not opposites.

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STAY TUNED TO THIS BLOG-SITE FOR THE NEXT EXCITING CHAPTER IN "CAPITALISM" …
A HOUSE DIVIDED

                FOOTNOTES:

§ figures from OpenSecrets.org (http://www.opensecrets.org/cmteprofiles/profiles.php?cmteid=S12&cmte=SFIN&congno=111)

¶ more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/business/06insurance.html

In my youth, one of my favorite movies was “A Thousand Clowns”. One pivotal scene is where Murray, a handsome, intelligent, creative, wonderful guy – who is unemployed by choice, tells his girlfriend, Sandy, that he didn’t get a job that day.

Murray relates how he was walking around, trying to plan how to tell her, and he said aloud, “I’m sorry”. And another pedestrian passing by said, “That’s alright, Mac”. He tries to tell the guy that he wasn’t talking to him but he stops, thinking. So, he continues, he stood on a busy street-corner in Manhattan just apologizing. To nobody in particular, about nothing in particular.

“And,” he concludes to Sandy, “ 95% of all those people passing by forgave me.”

Yes, apology is a powerful thing. What husband hasn’t discovered that, by simply apologizing to his wife, he could de-fuse a potentially explosive situation. A simple “I’m sorry” can, indeed do wonders.

You accidentally bump someone on the street, you automatically say ‘sorry’. Or inadvertently intrude on another’s conversation, for example. Or unintentionally say something that might offend someone… you apologize out of simple courtesy, like we all learned in kindergarten.

So, what the hell is wrong with Americans in general – and Republicans in particular – regarding apology anyway?!

Sarah Palin (*spits to the side*) famously told an audience that there was nothing America had to apologize for. Nothing?! Not ever?! And nobody – NOBODY EVER! – from the Bush administration apologized to America for any of the many failures of the past eight years. Not the 9/11 attacks, nor the response to Hurricane Katrina… especially not the systematic dismantling of the Constitution….

Politicians in Europe easily apologize for their transgressions… and resign their posts. American pols – in either party – deny, deceive, don’t apologize and never, NEVER simply resign. (Recently, Van Jones was a particular aberration. Surprised the heck outa me!)

And I know from my own experience the power of what I like to call a pre-emptive apology: de-fusing a tense situation by apologizing first, thereby actually cueing a softer response from the other person.

But, Rep. Joe Wilson, the loudmouth congressman from South Carolina, he can’t be bothered to apologize to congress, in which house he opened his mouth unruly – after all, he already said ‘sorry’ to the Prez. No, only apologize one time. No, don’t neutralize a potentially explosive situation with your colleagues. NO, he says.

OK, I admit the resolution of disapproval is politically motivated; the Dems wanna stick it to him for dissing the Prez. But Joe – come on, Joe! – you did the deed in the House. Just say you’re sorry to the House.

Take a lesson from Serena Williams, whose open-mouth-insert-foot moment was a LOT worse than yours.

She apologized to the line judge even after being assessed the maximum $10,000 fine by the USTA. She even posted the apology on her website – before going on the win the doubles event with her sister.

Apologizing… that’s class. And Joe, you haven’t got it. You need to go back to kindergarten.

This post is adapted from two “New Rules” rants given recently by the political humorist Bill Maher.

And before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare."

Polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. Twenty-four percent could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman.

Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll says 18% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. No, Americans are not stupid; they're interplanetary mavericks. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen, and a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks - which is absurd because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge" in the same sentence.

People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than 1%. And don't even ask about cabinet members: seven in ten think Napolitano is a kind of three-flavored ice cream.

And I haven't even brought up America's religious beliefs. But here's one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.

And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There's a lot of populist anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow citizens. "Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway.

If you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.

Which is the way our founding fathers wanted it. James Madison wrote that "pure democracy" doesn't work because "there is nothing to check... an obnoxious individual." Then, in the margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.

Until we admit there are things we don't know, we can't even start asking the questions to find out. Until we admit that America can make a mistake, we can't stop the next one. A smart guy named Chesterton once said: "My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying.” It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' To which most Americans would respond: "Are you calling my mother a drunk?"                  
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Never underestimate the ability of a tiny fringe group of losers to ruin everything. Now, for the past couple of weeks, we've all been laughing heartily at the wacky antics of the Birthers, the far-right goofballs who claim Obama wasn't really born in Hawaii, and therefore the job of president goes to the runner-up, Miss California, Carrie Prejean.

And, you know, there's nothing you can do to convince these people. You could hand them, in person, the original birth certificate… with the placenta… and have a video of Obama emerging from the womb with Don Ho singing in the background, and they still would not believe it.

Hey, Birthers, want to hear my theory? My theory is Obama was born in America, and you were born with the umbilical cord around your neck. I don't know what his mother was doing when she was pregnant, but I'm pretty sure yours was drinking.

I'm joking, of course. And laughing it off has also been the reaction from Democratic leaders, so far. Proving that Democrats never learn.

Because, in America, you know what? If you don't immediately kill errant bullshit, no matter how ridiculous, it can grow and thrive and eventually take over, like crabgrass or Cirque du Soleil.

This Birther stuff might be a deluded, time-wasting, right-wing obsession, but so was Whitewater. And look where that ended up? Liberals said, "Oh, what are they going to do? Keep expanding the case until they impeach the president over a blowjob?" Yeah. I'm telling you, in America, there is no idea so patently absurd that it can't catch on.

Or, more recently, we had the Swift Boat allegations against John Kerry, making him, a genuine war hero, into a coward in a race against a guy who never left Texas. This was so stupid, Kerry refused to even discuss it. And we all know how well that worked out.

Now, you may ask, how does something as inane as Whitewater or Swift Boats or the Birther thing gain traction? I'll tell you how. The same way the story about Elton John almost dying from ingesting too much of Rod Stewart's sperm gained traction in my high school. Dummies talking to other dummies.

It's just easier now because of the Internet. And because our mainstream media does such a lousy job of talking truth to stupid.

 

Today, the California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 8 declaring that marriage is indeed allowed only between a man and a woman. Of course, this is not the last we will be hearing about this issue here in the land of fruits and nuts. I would like to see the entire question rendered moot by the adoption of the Domestic Partner Initiative which attempts to eliminate the "marriage" issue by replacing the word "marriage" with "domestic partnership" within California legal doctrine. More about this later; first, some history:

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George Washington was married without a marriage license. Our federal Constitution has nothing in it about marriage. So, why should any of the state Constitutions have any article defining who can and can not marry? How did we come to this place in America where marriage licenses are issued? Why is government in anyone’s bedroom, anyway?

 Marriage began as a religious institution and remained that way for thousands of years. There was no requirement to obtain a marriage license in colonial America. When you read the laws of the colonies and then the states, you see only two requirements for marriage. First, you had to obtain your parents permission to marry; second, you had to post public notice of the marriage 5-15 days before the ceremony.

Up until the time of the Civil War, there was no such thing as a “marriage license.” During the years of slavery, all the states in America had laws outlawing the marriage of blacks and whites. In the mid-1800’s, certain states began allowing interracial marriages, or miscegenation, as long as those marrying received a permit from the state. In other words they had to receive permission to do an act that, without such permission, would have been illegal.

Not long after these permits were issued, some states began requiring all people to obtain a license to marry. Finally, in 1923, the Federal Government established the Uniform Marriage and Marriage License Act (they later established the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act). By 1929, every state in the Union had adopted marriage license laws.

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By now, there is so much legality involved with marriage that it is impossible to turn back the clock and erase the evolution of marriage. This, however, is exactly what the Proposition 8 contingent wishes to do. The institution of marriage has evolved from strictly a religious rite into what we now have – a mixture of religious, legal and social that serves none of them adequately. But, government must assure that all citizens are equally protected under the law. Long ago, even couples who were ‘living in sin’ had the legal protection in many states of “common law marriage.” How can a state Constitution legalize Unequal protection?

I recognize that those people fervently believe their arguments. However, the issues they raise illustrate the hypocritical morality and, at times obvious bigotry, of the anti gay-marriage crowd.

The Constitutionality of the issue seems very clear to me: legally speaking, any two people ought to be allowed to marry. Our great Constitution was written from a YES standpoint, not from a NO position. It does not outline actions that are forbidden, but freedoms that are guaranteed to us all.

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Here is what I think: Religious marriage should be completely separate from governmental marriage. 
Organized churches would still decide the rules for religious marriage; legalities would dictate the rules of civil marriage. I think it makes absolute sense to rename the latter “civil union”, but “domestic partnership” will do. There is no other ritual of any religion that government is a part of, only marriage. And this is as it should be. Congress and, by extension, the states, are proscribed by the First Amendment from becoming involved in religion, and government should get out of this part of religion by clearly separating church marriage from civil marriage. That, simply, is what the Domestic Partnership Initiative would do.

The initiative is simple and forthright. It reads:

Replaces the term “marriage” with the term “domestic partnership” throughout California law,
but preserves the rights provided in marriage.

Applies equally to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation.

Repeals the provision in California’s Constitution that states

only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

You can get more information ( but, unfortunately, not much; their website is very bare-bones) at www.dompar.org.

Right now, the organizers (two college students!) are coordinating a petition drive to secure enough signatures to place the initiative on the November 2010 ballot. If you live in California, I fervently recommend that you support this issue. If you live in another state, you might consider starting a similar campaign.