A (Rich Man's Utopian) Wish + Some (Libertarian) Bullshit = The Path to Prosperity

Hire the Heritage Foundation to make up numbers about what might, nae, WILL happen once tax cuts are extended into infinity and you know what House Republicans get? The Best Economy Ever!* And a budget with a title straight out of an Ayn Rand fan's wet dream.** 

*According to projections. Reading actual theory helps. You know what I mean? Going to the source and reading that rather than reading the utter nonsense politicians, their researchers, Reason, propagandists, and their fans tell you about the sources.  --Now I'm scolding. My wife calls me a nag, but I promise I mean well.  Anyway, ever play Telephone?  The lesson is Always go to The Source.

When we read the sources, study the theory and its history, we need not be geniuses to recognize that American libertarian economic theory is not much more than a grandiose expression of a capitalist wish. It's nothing based in reality and history, as in a scientific study of the market, like Marx's scientific study of Capital in his three volume classic of the same name.

Americans, borrowing from the Austrian School of We Don't Like Socialism, confuse ideological representations of How We Should Think About Markets & The Way Markets Function with The Market Itself & The Way It Works. Republican hired "theorists" are ideologues and propagandists; they are more accurately researchers. They take the idealism in American cultural notions about individuals and liberty and apply it to basic supply-side economic theory and rather complex utopian bullshit from guys like Hayek. (See the Laffer Curve for a legendary example of a "thought experiment" gone wrong.)

Democrats aren't much better. Of course, Democrats aren't attempting to give our wealth and resources to the wealthiest while cutting every social welfare program in health and education.  Republicans are batshit crazy and their far right "libertarian" friends are even nuttier.  (See, The Pauls.)

**Objectivists actually disagree with Libertarianism for some important reasons that I can care less about because they are both full of crap, but that always seems to get lost in popular culture and its representation of white people's fantasies of world domination.

Your Homework: Where does much of the conservative mindset about Our Destiny come from?  It's rather complex. Nevertheless, Kant did a good job of distilling a conservatives vision of Man & His Destiny. We all know how the story goes. Read how it was written. Kant's not the first to attempt to describe this vision of our destiny, but his argument about an Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View is one of the most concise and easy to read.

The goal is to try to understand, to see, how we look at what Kant does in this study differently than what the Republican researchers and their libertarian friends have been trying to do for the last 40 years.  Why are we willing to look at the philosopher's work as something worth criticizing, revising, working on, changing, interpreting, and so on, yet willing to take something like the Heritage Foundation's weak and tweaked research as fact?  We can take it further: What is it about philosophical study and research that we find worth debunking as fiction and political propaganda worth supporting as fact? 

Why No Strikes in the United States?

Political campaigns do not unify us and our interests; a strike does.

You might wonder why a general strike hasn’t occurred.  And as my last post’s author describes, there are several reasons.

One way of thinking about the politics of the decision not to strike, to continue protest in several states and to work looking forward to the next elections is that the union protesters, their non-union allies and their political leaders have made a rather strange decision regarding a general strike.  They have chosen not to make a choice.  They haven’t said, “We will not strike.”  They have said, “Let’s wait and see.” They have rather passively decided, in the midst of a lot of action, to not act.  We must ask, Why?

I suppose there are several methods we can use to solve the problems caused by the Republican-led attack on public workers across the United States.  Listing all the methods and the reasons for supporting the most useful is not necessarily helpful. Such a task is always secondary to a much more subtle process that disrupts the collective, concentrated, useful power in our organized labor.  In other words, before we can decide to strike, something else is already happening.  My argument is that this something that is happening is political and aimed at directing the power in our unions, the public unions in this case, into an effort to support a political party that cannot (because of its role in society) protect our unions’ interests.

Never mind that much of American labor functions under the notion that it does not have the freedoms its employers have to make contracts, set standards and function in the market.  Employees seem to feel obligated to cooperate under almost every condition for the benefit of Employers’ self-interest. Let’s apply this sense of cooperation to unions. The unions seem to have a similar problem with their political parties.  The unions feel obligated to support/cooperate under almost ever condition for the benefit of Politicians’ self-interest. It’s rare that unions get much from their politicians other than press.

We have tied our ability to organize labor to the success or failure of politicians and their political campaigns, much in the same way that most American employees tie their self-interest to the success or failure of Employers and Employer interest. One thing we know for sure.  The Employers and Employees do not have the same self-interest.

A general strike would put everybody’s interests at stake. A political campaign does not.  And that’s the power in a strike.  Where is this concern, right now?  All tied up in politics.  In ideology.  And ideology is imaginary representation.  And a strike is very, very real.

Reading Notes

I'm reading Michael Breen's The Koreans: Who They are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies (Thomas Dunne Books, 1998. Revised, 2004.)

The book is sold as "[a] splendid work of explication and analysis" for and about Korea and Koreans. If I were Korean, I'd hate these books.

Maybe it's an easy critique to make, but Breen's writing is one moment fair and the next paternalistic, patronizing. He's aware of this and the book, so far, has several sentences sprinkling his intent not to be that way. When a writer has to tell his readers what he's not intending to do, then he needs to reconsider focus, direction, or genre. To be fair, much important work in writing represents an author's failure to accomplish his or her intent.

I don't mind anecdote and memoir, nor do I mind the critical analysis that often accompanies firsthand accounts of other cultures. Breen's observations are not trite. They are complex and careful, though often digressive.

As a reader, I do mind when interesting and anecdotal travel writing poses as vital cultural discourse and attempts to sell an author's illustration and caricaturization of an entire culture to his readers as authoritative vis-a-vis the author's own culture's view of the world and the subjects in his work. Breen is offered expert status on Korea and Koreans because he's an expat journalist who has extensively covered Korean business and politics. I'll write more about this in the coming days, but I can't shake this: when a foreign business and politics journalist claims he knows about the everyday lives of everyday Koreans, he's completely full of shit and gravitas.

It's not that foreigners shouldn't write Chapters on Korea, as Breen does, entitled "Korean Heart". Do share with your Western readers what you've decided is so complex about Korean passions and intellect: how, even though you admit you can't understand it, you have something valuable to say about it. Nothing at all wrong with the attempt. What's improper is the uncritical acceptance and implementation of a mindless binary about Western and Eastern consciousness that itself is based upon a complex series of mutual misrepresentations and generalizations about several cultures. It's as if the binary opposition is in itself an excuse for painting not one but all cultures with broad brush strokes for the purpose of making some rather simple points about other people appear poignant and complex.

Sounds like I am really having a go at Breen, doesn't it? I don't know about that. I'm dissatisfied with the state of intellectual discourse in books about Korea. I think he's a talented writer. It's clear he cares about Korea. I suppose I don't know what to do with his book. I guess I find it intellectually lazy. I'm reviewing it right now and yanking passages to illustrate my points. So, more to come shortly.

Grassroots Politics in Seoul: Free School Lunches Movement

Free school lunches movement becoming a key issue of June 2 regional elections : National : Home

Lee Chang-rim, a 33-year-old candidate for Seoul’s Dobong District Council who has decided to run in the June regional elections, is a ‘citizens’ candidate.’ Lee does not belong to any political party. His support base consists of grassroots groups like Korean Womenlink, Hansalim, the National Association of Parents for True Education, the Saenggeul Jageun Library and the Dobong Citizens‘ Association. Lee said, “In Dobong, grassroots groups have maintained a tradition of staying active in their own areas and then running a ‘citizens’ candidate’ in every local election.”

This is Lee’s second attempt at a regional election. In 2006, he ran for district council, emphasizing the issue of free school lunches. The response from the community was enthusiastic. Middle and high school students without the right to vote took pictures of menu boards with their cell phones and sent text massages saying, “Chang-rim, please change this.” Student parents patted his shoulders and said, “It is a really great thing that you are doing.” But in the end, he was unable to overcome the Grand National Party’s forceful wind. Lee said, “In the regional elections over the years, we have constantly seen the wind of centralized politics sweeping through, contrary to the intention behind introducing the local government system, which was to spread grassroots democracy.”

The year I arrived in Korea, the free school lunches movement was in full swing. I haven't heard much about it again until this story from today's 한겨래 (Hankyoreh). I don't know what it's like at most schools, but the student meals were awful stuff at my high school. The food cooked for faculty and staff was not much better. This year, because of the popularity of the issue and parents and students complaining, the school has hired one of its own faculty members to be the nutritionist and plan meals. So families and employees have had their say, and the nutritionist has a rather significant obligation to do well.

We have healthier (smaller) portion sizes, less 반찬 (banchan: side dishes which are an important part to Korean food culture and a good meal must have them) and higher quality food. This should result in less waste and less expense while creating better health. A win all around. Believe it or not, some teachers are complaining because of the healthier portions. That's old school Korean thinking: more food is better. I don't get it, but it's part of the food culture and tied to feelings about food and wealth. But you can't really argue with better, healthier food. For now, the new system is working. I hope they adopt it permanently.

Anyway, it appears as if the Grand National Party is losing its popularity here. It's hard to tell because Koreans don't talk politics like Americans do. So, I don't ask. And the mainstream English newspapers' coverage of political news is lacking. Well, The Hankyoreh is very political, but it's a left wing paper. It's hard to judge what moderate Koreans think about these things. But conservatives are not popular here except with the oldest generations who remain rather staunchly conservative on principle. (Meaning they hate everything equally.) Korea's conservative movement, like the one in the US, suffers from a lack of new ideas and lack of desire to treat younger generations and their explicit progressive spirit with any visible public respect.

Hopefully, Lee Chang Rim can get elected. A young, progressive candidate fighting for students' rights (by proxy, parents' rights) is pretty cool grassroots politics here.

The Catholic Church and its Culture of Life (Nicaragua)

Christian "Culture of Life" rhetoric and Pro-Life zealots produce some very flawed legislation worldwide, but here is an upsetting story about strict legislation aimed at saving the life of a fetus at all costs.

Pregnant Nicaraguan Woman Denied Treatment for Metastatic Cancer

When Christians legislate we get pain, death, fear, immobility, and moral ambiguity.

We must continue to struggle to keep Church and State separate. Always.

Did you know that hating homosexuals is now considered expressing your freedom?

Well, like this bigot's weird argument about natural rights and reproductive responsibilities, it's a load of conservative horseshit.

GOPride? That's pretty hilarious, too.

This is how American conservatives talk politics when they get together and celebrate their values. Actually, this self-righteous American dude is a member of a conservative youth group. A popular one on college and university campuses across the US. Conservatives like to encourage young men and women to hate with a rather high level of energy. Young Americans for Freedom is, among other things, a Glee Club for Hate. Where bros and their girlfriends can get together and talk conspiracy and white power and learn how to use rhetoric to tie it all in to the American Tradition. So, when they get older they can be more like Karl Rove or Dick Cheney than Barrack Obama.



I expect nothing less from the Young Americans for Freedom, but the weird conservative getting up at the end of the clip stating "freedom of opinion, freedom of opinion" over and over is truly grotesque. CPAC is a place for all the bigots to call home.

GOP politicians and the conservatives who end up voting for them each election cycle like to claim that they are into "big tent" politics, meaning that they are a diverse group. And the argument insists that they are a more diverse group than liberals. Well, yes, they are. If you include all the far right bigots in the US in your tent, then you are a big tent. You win. Good for you and your rotten values. I still would argue that your tent is pretty fucking white.

(Oh and do listen to Ann Coulter, who is looking pretty gaunt and tired these days. Listen to her clip about the diff between wars of convenience and necessity. Like always, she supposedly has a point.)

dagConfessions: Power & The Right To Peacefully Assemble

A US citizen visiting Korea for more than a year might have a hard time understanding Korean Democracy without doing a little homework. My wording might seem a little odd, but I think I could have been here for three months and not have come away with the desire to write this post (other than to share the story.)

The longer I live in Korea, the more I learn about the way the government and police operate. What disturbs me isn't the fact that I know about oppression and now I can see it happening outside my window. I'm not precious. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I haven't ever experienced a difference in how citizens think about Law. I guess I'm experiencing a kind of alienation for the first time that I could easily permit to become anger and frustration directed at Koreans and about Korean culture. But I want to resist that temptation because I think it's power I'm experiencing. Power, that as a white guy from the US, I have never confronted. I've read about it, sure. But this is different.

Koreans and Americans do not have the same experience and understanding of Law. A little knowledge of history explains the experiential aspect of the difference between our cultures. It's our, Korean and American, understanding of Law I want to quickly focus on before sharing a story from The Hankyoreh to illustrate my feelings. Feel free to comment if you disagree or want me to flesh this out. I'm more than willing to.

Many Americans, I'm ashamed to admit, don't really know that the reason we think and act like we do, as Americans do, has a lot to do with Laws. In the US, we have a Constitution and system of Laws that protects rights and punishes crimes. Americans like to talk about Rights all the time. We like to insist our Rights are Natural, even that we are born with them. We even have much of Continental Philosophy (See, Kant et al.) to back-up our notions that democratic life within a capitalist market is part of Nature's unknowable plan to guide us to ever more control of ourselves and toward overall Liberty. Nevertheless, we forget that without our enforceable social contract, all our Rights would simply be wishful and hopeful thinking. Yes, I'm saying that Americans take it for granted. I think we all know this is true.

Koreans have Laws with a big "L", too; it is, after all, the Republic of Korea. But Korean citizens don't think about their Republic as a Republic of Laws in the same manner Americans do. Laws in Korea are tools used by the police and the government to enforce the government's will, which is more appropriately stated as enforce the majority Party's will.

Koreans simply cannot freely speak in public in opposition to their government's ruling Party without worrying about punishment. Nor do they have the ability to freely assemble to protest and/or to organize in dissent without worrying about punishment. And when they do assemble in groups in active dissent, punishment does occur. A tourist passing through Seoul on a summer weekend would have to be blind not to notice the massive police presence in the streets.

I'm trying to come to terms with the visible and sometimes abject oppression many Koreans and immigrants struggle with here. The only thing that keeps me from running back to the US in disgust is that I'm well aware that, though Americans like to pretend it's otherwise, we have abject oppression in the US that is quite comparable while less widespread. In Seoul, it's easy for me to see it. I'm not from here. At home, I have to look for it. But it's there.

What I'm trying to come to terms with is understanding the middle-ground Korea occupies right now between the totalitarianism of the recent past and a more free Democracy of the sometime in the future. And I want to understand why Koreans don't have the feeling that it's their right. That's for another post, though. (And I should say that all the liberal and leftist Koreans I have met would say that it is their right. I'm generalizing here, of course, and I hope not too much.)

Below is a link to a story from a recent edition of The Hankyoreh. Korea's versions of Conservative Republicans are members of the Grand National Party (GNP). The American GOP and the Korean GNP have a lot in common. At this moment in time, both parties' membership likes to claim that they know better than everybody else how to legislate. In addition, they are the parties of old, well-off men and their sons and their wives. GNP visions of Korean daily life remind me of the white power structure that guides the GOP through its decision-making back home.

Currently, The GNP is attempting to enact a law that would make it illegal for people to assemble in groups between 10pm and 6am. The dissenting members of government insist that this could be handled by instituting a permit process, that an outright ban would be too extreme.

The law isn't the problem here; the warrant the GNP uses to argue in support of it is the problem. The GNP's reason is that somebody might break a law or a late assembly might turn violent. It's a real problem, this logic. A US citizen would say without too much pushing: Hey, a person has to commit a crime before being charged with one. We don't use laws to prohibit people from choosing to break laws. People choose to participate in our social contract. If a person breaks a law, then we punish that person. And so on.

In Korea, the social contract is an idea and law is a tool used to enforce participation. For the most part, Koreans accept this enforcement. Rather than shaping legislation that encourages peaceful participation in free discourse, laws that suggest what a true disturbance is, a law is suggested that prohibits all assembly. Most foreign historians and essayists on Korea like to argue that the existence of this general acceptance of oppression is a hangover from the bad days when dictators ran daily life in Korea. Well, I think that's a shitty excuse for a real problem that needs real reform to ever change. In addition, I think it's terribly patronizing to listen to white intellectuals talk about Korea's hangovers. It's a shitty, demeaning, and anti-intellectual means to addressing a complex cultural construct.

GNP introduces bill to completely ban nighttime outdoor assemblies

Here are two paragraphs from the article. They highlight the problem I address above:

The GNP lawmakers at the committee meeting, including Cho, called for the bill to be passed during the February extraordinary assembly after the bill had been handed over to a subcommittee for legal deliberation. GNP Lawmaker Kim Tae-won said concerns over the destruction of evidence or escape were great regarding nighttime assemblies, and they could very likely turn into violent demonstrations. Thus, he added that until a peaceful demonstration culture takes root in South Korea, a time restriction would have to be placed on outdoor demonstrations.

Democratic Party Lawmakers Kang Gi-jung and Kim Yoo-jung, however, protested the bill, saying that since it excessively restricts the people’s Constitutionally-guaranteed basic rights, it would be better to place limits on noise or venues rather than time. They called on the GNP to drop discussion of amending the Assembly Law and instead hold hearings to gather public opinion. A bill proposed by Democratic Party Lawmaker Chun Jung-bae and Democratic Labor Party Lawmaker Lee Jung-hee, currently stuck in committee, would in principle permit nighttime outdoor assemblies under the condition that participants maintain law and order.

Tea Party: The Party of White Power

If you thought that Tea Party populism is about change in America, you're right. It's about turning the clocks back to Reconstruction Era culture. Separatism, White Power, selective immigration, Theocracy, et al. Tom Tancredo's opening speech is enough to make me puke.

Tell me that Tancredo's speech is not brought to you by the people who can't believe we elected a black man. He tries to hide his well-known bigotry by mentioning John McCain (after all, Conservatives love to hate on that guy anyway,) but this is all repressed hatred and fear of a black planet nonsense. Don't stop listening after he calls for literacy tests; the best is yet to come when he calls for all non-Christians to leave the US.

Remember, Tancredo is the guy who believes "we should bomb Mecca." He needs the Tea Party and has been waiting for this moment. It's like a Coming Out Party.

Imagine, relevance for Nationalist White Power sentiments in the US!

Asshole of the Day: Pope Benedict

Critics of the UK's Equality Bill claim it "may force churches to employ sexually active gay people and transsexuals when hiring staff other than priests or ministers." It's a common claim against equal rights legislation: corporations and religious organizations worry that such legislation will force employers to hire homosexuals against their wishes. Of course, that's unlikely; very unlikely. Moreover, statements like it are the worst kind of propaganda because they are designed to encourage dissent by tugging at voters' hatred and fear of difference.

What legislation like the proposed Equality Bill does accomplish, in fact, is to attempt to prohibit employers from discriminating against qualified employees and applicants based on their sexuality. It provides a mechanism that will permit legal action against known bigots. This is markedly different from forcing organizations to hire homosexuals. On the other hand, it does insist you shouldn't say no to a new hire simply because a person is a homosexual.

Christian organizations always fret that subversive members of the population, like homosexuals, will rush to apply for lay jobs at Churches when and if legislation is passed making it illegal to willfully discriminate. It's a rather silly, though harmful, fear.

The Pope gets all metaphysical about "natural law" (Catholic code for Catholic Doctrine on Natural Law.) Benedict claims that equal rights legislation "actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed." I absolutely HATE this kind of crap.

What Pope B is saying is that by protecting the rights of disenfranchised and oppressed citizens via legislation, we must punish those people who are not disenfranchised and oppressed. Blatant nonsense & overtly political rhetoric from one of the world's most powerful spiritual leaders.

What does an employer lose if he or she hires a homosexual? What is lost? No discernible economic value, that's for sure. And I would claim that no spiritual value either. What the Catholic Church does is usurp spiritual authority, interprets it for you, makes it rather human and bureaucratic, ties it to one of several medieval to ancient traditions, and calls it good Doctrine because the Vatican says it's so. I call bullshit on that. The Church revises Doctrine all the time.

Benedict is certainly not the guy to go to when considering Human Rights.

Once again, the leader of the Catholic Church shows that he cares not one bit for human rights.

ADDED at 1546, 2Feb09: Let's be honest. Looking at my first citation from the BBC article, which is a BBC journalist's paraphrase of religious organizations' claim against the Equality Bill, we can see what religious organizations are concerned about. It's not necessarily that an employee might be homosexual, it's that he or she will be a sexually-active homosexual. It's not really a debate I relish having with a religious zealot: Does homosexuality violate natural law? But Christian leaders are claiming 1) that practicing homosexuals are violating natural law and 2) that people who violate natural law don't have the same human rights as other people. It's nonsense; it's wrong; it's in every way not Christlike; and, finally, it's contradictory to the Pope's argument about natural law and equality.

US Health Care Reform

I responded to this post from Katharine Q. Seelye on the New York Times' health care debate blog "Prescriptions". I doubt my comment has been moderated yet, as I just posted it, but it should be up soon. When it gets posted, it's possible I'll write a little more about here.