B.Phillips: 17th Amendment

All over the country we hear the word accountability from politicians, pundits, citizens and so on. We expect those who we elect to any office be accountable for their actions to the public. Sadly this is not the case. Everyday we see more and more evidence that those who reside in Washington D.C. live inside a bubble. From within this bubble Congressmen pass legislation which seems only to benefit themselves and perhaps a select group of their constitutents. The House of Represenatives is designed to be the will of the people, and the Senate is to be the voice of the State. Problem is that these Senators are far more secluded from their States than ever before. Thus the issue of Senate accountability comes up. There just isn't any. To get to the point of the matter I profess that we must repeal the 17th Amendment. My argument for doing so is to make senators accountable for their actions. I believe that if governers were given the power to appoint senators again there would be greater accountability of these men and women to the states they represent. Citizens have better access to their local government officials than to anybody serving in Washington.

Uncommon Sense: The Problem with Government stimulus in the current economy.

Government stimulus in an economic downturn is good at one thing, inspiring lender confidence. The idea behind this is that if more money is lent (especially to business owners) that economic growth will result. So you may be saying isn't that just what we need right now? Well the problem isn't lender confidence its consumer confidence. http://www.conference-board.org/pdf_free/economics/bci/tcb20.pdf, http://www.phoenixmanagement.com/newsroom/phoenix-survey-indicates-lenders-confidence-waning These two studies indicate the problem is with consumer demand, there is plenty of money in the lenders pockets but no one to take it. So the next question is what sparks consumer confidence. That question is simple, tax cuts. Tax cuts put more money in the hands of the consumer and lead to businesses wanting to expand. Quantitative easing is the current trick that the Obama administration is using to jump start the economy but again this is a form of government stimulus and affects only lender confidence. We need to boost consumer confidence and the only way to do that is broad and sweeping tax cuts.

Michael Lines: If level 1 is a totally incoherent rant, this is level 0.8.

Given that our media is owned almost entirely by massive private corporations, eliminating the possibly of a free-press, the use of propaganda as means to create 'consent' for a pro-corporatist government comes as no surprise. Couple this with the fact that our single-member district system with plurality vote essentially eliminates the possibility for that any sizable third party will gain power; and instances such as the 2000 election, were a supreme court decision essentially stole the election from the American people, we must ask ourselves why the system is constructed in such a way as to alienate the entire body of individuals who supposedly provide their consent for its existence?

I attribute the vast majority of contemporary voter disenfranchisement to the propagation of neoliberal doctrines. It is not my intention to argue for a particular economic system, although I do feel it necessary to say that the concept of a "free market"­- particularly one that tries to exist in an interconnected global economy, is no less utopian then Plato's Republic... but I'm sure that's a topic for another time on this blog.

A tremendous amount of Marshall plan aid was tied directly to the purchase of goods from what would soon become the behemoth that is heavily subsidized domestic agribusiness. American agriculture exports increased by a multiple of five during this period, thanks to heavy government intervention. Agribusiness continued to grow in the booming post-war economy, and as American presidents continued to spread neoliberalism globally, by imposing quota systems, and refusing to support even popularly elected democracies that seemed as anti-business, the ramifications of this growth started to become much more clear. Even peace-keeping aid was tied to American agriculture, and very close to home NAFTA created a "free-trade" zone in the northern hemisphere. The result of this "free-trade" initiative, as we have seen time and time again, is that the Mexican commodities market was flooded with heavily subsidized American product, this in turn essentially eliminated domestic production for domestic needs within Mexico. Not surprisingly the farmers who didn't flea to the city to drive down wages and produce cheap goods before it was discovered they could be produced even more inexpensively in China, turned to cash-crops. Poppy and coca plants and the like are relatively inexpensive to grow and require almost no seed capital (unlike many fruits etc.) Luckily these farmers were rewarded with helicopter gun-ships and crop dusters– all done under the guise, of course, of the most noble of causes, the every present 'war on drugs.

I probably shouldn't, but I simply have to address the man, the myth, and the legend­­­­– Ronald P. (not his actual middle initial) Reagan himself (don't say I never did anything for you Luke.) Championed as the apostle of deregulation and limited government, the neoliberal Joseph Smith if you will, R-Reag is the lustful dream-boy of conservative pundits everywhere. Famous for zingy one liners like "vote with your feet," most conservatives would prefer it if you didn't actual look beyond the mans speeches. R-Reag was the most protectionist president in postwar history, doubling import regulation and further propagating the handy neoliberal quota-system. The GFD tripled under the of R-Reag administration, and government institutions such as the department of education, which are considered among conservative community, saw their operating costs increase significantly. What then, did Reag-dog actually do? –– He convinced the middle and lower-middle that the doctrine of neoliberalism was divine, while at the same time essentially practicing the protectionist concept of socialism for the rich. Cute.

There is also a divisive line in the business community. They need us to both love and hate government. Love government when it attempts to provide us with liberty through the total deregulation of financial markets, and the lowering, or even eliminating, of corporate tax burdens– effectually shifting the national tax burden to the lowest echelons of society. But hate government when it attempts to enact legislation that goes against the very essence of liberty itself– healthcare, assistance for the elderly and other social services, which are by and large, widely supported in the non-corporatized segments of society. These services and legislations rely on a power central government, acting as an interest aggregate, for the general (un-coerced) will of the people.

Here we reach an issue, however. The state, which is a centralized power structure with seemingly endless military and legal clout, is, unfortunately, the very definition of an illegitimate power center. A corporation can foreclose on my home, take away my medical insurance and fire me leaving me unable to provide food for my family... A government can sentence me to death, life in prison, tap my phones, read my emails, force me to submit to a fully nude full body scanner (lest I refuse, whereupon they will give me a thorough and invasive pat-down.)

We now appear to be at a crossroads: Tyrannical big-business on one side, illegitimate big government on the other. Sure, we can argue in favor of a pro-statist socialist society, which derives its legitimacy through proper channels, and we can also argue in favor or an anarcho-capitalist society in which monopolies are not allowed to function by virtue of the fact that humans are rational actors who also purchase in their best interest. We can also argue in favor of a free escalator to heaven... but it wont get us very far.

My original purpose was the expose the pathology of neoliberal doctrine, but I began to think that I would be far too irresponsible not to treat the pathology of the state. When I read about the subject of TSA practices on the blogosphere I originally dismissed it as another Alex Jones rant– but I recently traveled from TUS to SJC on Southwest airlines so I now have personal experience. TSA is currently implementing full, radiation-ridden, body scanners. You stand in a gigantic machine, with your hands above your head, and have a picture of your body in all its naked glory taken and analyzed. After watching several people "opt-out" of participating in this radiation ridden soft-core pornography produced under the guise of national security– which included them going through a medal detector and having their entire body groped (including very sensitive areas such as the inner-leg near the groin area)– I decided I'd just let them have a nudie. So there I was, standing in San Jose International Airport, thinking about nothing but George Orwell.

If neo-liberal doctrine is spread through propaganda and deception, and our only hope for combating private interest aggregates is through the civil sphere, and our civil sphere is fundamentally our government (at least at this point in time) and our government is an illegitimate neototalitarian entity....

My real question is, how fucked are we actually?

And is there anything we can actually do?

Fitz--The Free Thought Association is Back!

This post is for new authors that I am inviting to join me here. This is a blog I started about four years ago with a graduate school friend of mine. We recruited a number of authors to debate and discuss a variety of topics in politics, political science, and philosophy. I now want to revive this with a group of new authors who have met through school or teaching.

The purpose as I see it is to try and generate some discourse again on a variety of politically related topics. So to that end, politics, political science, and political philosophy will be the main topic of discourse and I ask the new authors to stick to that.

No real guidelines other than that. Length and content I leave totally to the discretion of the author. Style is totally up to the author as well...if you want to post a link to a piece of news and give some commentary on it, write a bit of funny/witty satire, take a more serious tone, or write a small researched article that cites sources...any of those are fair game. Feel free to post bits of your own personal manifesto, political creed, ideology, or your vision of utopia/dystopia.

I have deleted all previous content in order to start fresh. I may however re-post some of my old writings for you to tear apart, but only after I've posted some new stuff.

I ask that when you do post that you put your user name at the front of the title as I have done with this one...so we immediately know the source of the new article. I also ask that in the labels section you put your user name as well...so that articles are easily searchable by author. You may also label them according to topic: such as "news commentary" or "utopia" for example.

Comments, that is where people will respond to blog posts and again, feel free to comment critically, constructively, attack or defend your positions. I ask that it remain civil and attack the message and not the author themselves.

Finally, I will give administrative permissions to all authors. I have brought the blog down to the barest essentials, but there are many blog tools we could add to the site. So take a look at some of them and make suggestions at any time for tools and gadgets we can add to the blog. Also feel free to add links in the links section of the blog.

That is it for now, post and comment as often as you like and I hope we can generate some great ideas for discussion and debate!