…and this is a 
How low will he sink?
Category: Politics
Posted on: October 12, 2008 12:28 PM, by PZ Myers
I'm hanging out in the airport in Springfield, Missouri, and of course CNN is blaring on all the televisions. As is typical, it's just one news story repeated and rehashed and gnawed over endlessly, but what is surprising is what the story is: John McCain is running a filthy, dirty, racist, hate-mongering campaign. Revere has a fine post pointing out the McCain Doctrine: all's fair if it gets him elected.
Heck, you ought to read all of Revere's posts in the Annals of McCain-Palin. And once you've felt enough disgust at this man, lighten it up with the latest Freethinker Sunday Sermonette, which this time around is an excellent example of satire.
Politics
Comments
Posted by: Bjørn Østman | October 12, 2008 12:46 PM
The past eight years have shown us that it is easy to deny what you have done in the past, so by that measure, it really doesn't matter what you do or say during the campaign.
Posted by: Kobra | October 12, 2008 12:50 PM
The dirtier McCain gets, the less my Republican friends want to vote for him. Keep it up, John!
Posted by: foxfire | October 12, 2008 12:51 PM
Yeah, PZ, this is getting crazy. John Lewis is being portrayed as a villain because he tried to make a point using a historical example, perhaps with the hope history doesn't repeat itself.
And I thought I was the only one who "lost it" recently..... at least I went nuts over a 401K situation.
What *is* it that some people do *not* understand about FactCheck.org?
Posted by: JStein | October 12, 2008 1:13 PM
It seems that the man who would rather "lose an election than lose a war" is willing to lose a war, an economy and whatever portions of his dignity still remain, and he may lose the election anyway.
This man is an idiot far too willing to make things up to get elected. If he's lying now, just wait until he gets in the White House.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | October 12, 2008 1:21 PM
The cynic in me says that the GOP has had racist tendencies for about 20 years or so, but earlier they were able to hide it well behind various innocuous code phrases. I really noticed this when Gingrich became Speaker. It appears that their code phrases no longer work as well as before on the masses, so they have to get closer to what they really mean to keep the party base rabid.
Posted by: raven | October 12, 2008 1:47 PM
McCain does not look well, a point many have noticed. He hasn't really been visible much lately, odd 3 weeks from a major election.
A recent poll states that 46% of the US population doesn't believe he would make it through a first term
At 72, he is too old. By itself that might not matter but the guy has had a rough life and his health is clearly shakey. High levels of stress for long periods of time kills and IMO, he wouldn't last all that long as president. Which leaves Palin, who is acting like she is running for president rather than vice president. Which she probably is.
Posted by: Joel | October 12, 2008 1:48 PM
"John Lewis is being portrayed as a villain because he tried to make a point using a historical example."
Hmmm...Hillary makes a point using a historical example, and it is said that she wanted people to vote for her because Obama would be assinated. Now, this guy makes a point with a historical example, and it's with the hope some crazy white people don't go blowing up churches, because we all know what white people are capable of, don't we.
Posted by: Dust | October 12, 2008 1:56 PM
Thanks for the viedo link, now I understand the vital necessity of voting for Obama! Bring on the Rapture indeed!
(Cue the choir)
"He'll fuck you up,
Yes God will fuck you up,
If you dare to disobey His stern command"
I'll be humming that catchy tune for days!
Thanks PZ!
Posted by: Levi | October 12, 2008 2:04 PM
IMHO, Obama's response to the smears is awesome:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv8eiDvrHJ4
23 days to go, and things are not looking good for John McCampaign and Sarah Trailin'.
Posted by: Cloudwork | October 12, 2008 2:19 PM
I still dont like him but he himself seems to be lightening up a bit, just the party isnt
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4926283.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7665780.stm
watch the vid on the bbc one
Posted by: Nicholas | October 12, 2008 2:35 PM
While I would agree that McCain is running an increasingly dirty campaign, I'm not so sure that there's any inherent racism in McCain's campaign itself, just his supporters.
Posted by: LightningRose | October 12, 2008 2:50 PM
Annals of McCain-Palin
I'm thinking there's one too many 'n's in "Annals".
Posted by: Nan | October 12, 2008 2:51 PM
@ 5. The racism in the Republican party goes back 40 years, to Nixon. He figured out that after LBJ pushed the Civil Rights bill through it would be easy for the Republicans to pick up the racist South through the use of code words ("states' rights"). The real parallel with McCain would be Nixon, not Wallace.
Of course, Reagan turned covert racism into a fine art by giving speeches in places like Philadelphia, Mississippi, using similar language. Philadelphia will be infamous forever for the brutal murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwermer in June 1964. Reagan giving a speech there praising states rights made it clear to bigots across Dixie that a Reagan administration would give short shrift to enforcing civil rights laws. Reagan also worked real hard at turning the face of poverty black -- every time he railed against welfare he'd make sure the examples shown were black even though most poor people in this country were (and are) white, would have been perfectly willing to never spend a dime of federal money fighting AIDS (homophobic doesn't begin to cover his attitude), and turned the government in general into the enemy.
I don't think McCain would have ever said anything at any of his rallies if it hadn't been for the combination of a supporter putting him on the spot with a direct question about Obama, cameras and microphones being trained on McCain at the time so he had no choice but to say the right thing, and a growing chorus of questions and complaints from the news media.
Posted by: Scott M | October 12, 2008 2:54 PM
To McCain's credit: During one of his appearances, a woman got up and accused Obama of being an "Arab". McCain shook his head, took the mike from her, and insisted that Obama was a "fine man, a family man, with whom I have great disagreements."
Which kind of undermines some of the nastiness of his own campaign.
Posted by: Nan | October 12, 2008 2:55 PM
@ 5. The racism in the Republican party goes back 40 years, to Nixon. He figured out that after LBJ pushed the Civil Rights bill through it would be easy for the Republicans to pick up the racist South through the use of code words ("states' rights"). The real parallel with McCain would be Nixon, not Wallace.
Of course, Reagan turned covert racism into a fine art by giving speeches in places like Philadelphia, Mississippi, using similar language. Philadelphia will be infamous forever for the brutal murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwermer in June 1964. Reagan giving a speech there praising states rights made it clear to bigots across Dixie that a Reagan administration would give short shrift to enforcing civil rights laws. Reagan also worked real hard at turning the face of poverty black -- every time he railed against welfare he'd make sure the examples shown were black even though most poor people in this country were (and are) white, would have been perfectly willing to never spend a dime of federal money fighting AIDS (homophobic doesn't begin to cover his attitude), and turned the government in general into the enemy.
I don't think McCain would have ever said anything at any of his rallies if it hadn't been for the combination of a supporter putting him on the spot with a direct question about Obama, cameras and microphones being trained on McCain at the time so he had no choice but to say the right thing, and a growing chorus of questions and complaints from the news media.
Posted by: Scott M | October 12, 2008 2:55 PM
And he got booed for it by his supporters.
Posted by: Nan | October 12, 2008 2:57 PM
Sorry about the double post. I have no clue how that happened.
Posted by: Capital Dan | October 12, 2008 3:12 PM
While I agree to some extent, Scott, John McCain still chose to provide a rather gutless answer. Throughout his sad little response, he never once said that Obama wasn't a Muslim. He could have ended this bullshit once and for all, but he didn't. This "Obama is a Muslim" meme, and the fear behind it, is the only thing McCain has.
So yeah. While the call for sanity was a nice gesture, I doubt he was anywhere near sincere.
Posted by: Cereal | October 12, 2008 3:56 PM
"To McCain's credit: During one of his appearances, a woman got up and accused Obama of being an "Arab". McCain shook his head, took the mike from her, and insisted that Obama was a "fine man, a family man, with whom I have great disagreements."
Which kind of undermines some of the nastiness of his own campaign."
Are you kidding? Has no one else picked this up? McCain retorted to the accusation that Obama is Arab by stating that he is instead "a fine man". This implicitely says that Arabs are not, fine, family men. McCain is implicitely accusing all Arabs of being indecent. The man tried to climb out of the mud only to get stuck in more mud. That's how deep the mud the Republicans are in is.
Posted by: Carlie | October 12, 2008 4:15 PM
To McCain's credit: During one of his appearances, a woman got up and accused Obama of being an "Arab". McCain shook his head, took the mike from her, and insisted that Obama was a "fine man, a family man, with whom I have great disagreements."
Which kind of undermines some of the nastiness of his own campaign.
No, it doesn't. He's only backing off now because the mainstream media has started reporting on how rabid his supporters are getting, and he's scared that if someone does try an actual physical attack on Obama that he'll be blamed for it. He's just like every other racist - he's happy to be as vile as possible until he's in the spotlight, then runs scared because he knows he's not "supposed" to be like that.
Posted by: Rose Colored Glasses | October 12, 2008 5:06 PM
Why do I fear it is only a matter of weeks until McCain and Company start talking about lynch mobs, segregation, and the Klan. (The KKK is, I think, the only hatefest that is still solidly behind McCain.)
Posted by: Katkinkate | October 12, 2008 5:48 PM
All democrat voters should avoid polling booths in democrat-dominated areas if they can, and send in a postal/absentee vote. Just in case a republican nut-job tries to scew the vote with bullets. Also avoids 'doctored' voting machines.
Posted by: shane | October 12, 2008 11:01 PM
Raven mentioned that John doesn't look well. What happens if he does kark it between now and the election? Would Palin become the new candidate by default or can the Republicans choose someone else? If he kicks the bucket after November presumably Palin would be sworn in as President? I suppose if that happens moose will become an endangered species.
Posted by: The Steinmaster | October 12, 2008 11:16 PM
That dirty McCain! Thank the stars that PZ Myers never spreads hate for anyone or any group.
No sirreeeeeee!
You can go the the bank on that!
Posted by: Azkyroth | October 12, 2008 11:20 PM
With apocalypse-cheerleading religious-right wackjob Sarah Palin needing only the Secretary of Defense's agreement to order the launch of America's nuclear arsenal (as I understand it), and with 7 or 8 other nuclear powers in the world, the endangered species list would, potentially, read "all of the above."
Posted by: The Steinmaster | October 12, 2008 11:23 PM
Darn right, Azkyrot. Too bad those atheistic scientists (Dawkins assures us most scientists are atheists) kept providing nukes to every government with the means to obtain them.
Its kind of dumb to put guns into the hands of waring gangs.
Posted by: Rey Fox | October 13, 2008 12:09 AM
Ben, please go back to portraying dull schoolteachers in movies. Play to your one strength.
Posted by: Mystyk | October 13, 2008 1:51 AM
There's an old saying in the legal community that works equally well in the political arena, and I think it warrants mention:
"When the law is against you, argue the facts.
When the facts are against you, argue the law.
When both the law and the facts are against you, attack the opposition."
John McCain's campaign entered that third category right around the time Palin was chosen to fill the ticket, and she has held that banner just as high and proudly as he.
Posted by: Arnosium Upinarum | October 13, 2008 2:49 AM
Re: the Annals of McCain-Palin:
How amazing it is to witness this sudden outburst of GOP outrage now.
Where the hell have these voices of honor and integrity been over the last umteen years as an army of jerks like Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and Coulter whipped up a rabid lather of shock-jock-like hostility, hate-mongering and intolerance all camouflaged as patriotism?
Why, taking political advantage of the opportunity, conveniently raking in the votes from a carefully cultivated mob-mentality, that's where.
The eggs of duplicitous hypocrisy laid by neoconservatives and their religious fundamentalist cohorts have at long last begun to hatch their rotten contents, and the stench is unbearable.
Incredibly, over a third of this country's citizens apparently still cannot detect the smell.
The neoconservative Republican party: theirs is a legacy unprecedented as the most shameful that has ever disgraced the annals of political discourse in these United States.
Posted by: Walton | October 13, 2008 3:06 AM
Erm, it should be remembered that McCain actually said, in addressing his supporters, that Obama was a "decent family man" who no one needed to be scared of.
McCain and Obama are both, as far as I can tell, essentially good human beings who are trying to improve things. Unfortunately, they both have less palatable supporters - but is that really news? We already knew that there are some loony wingnuts who vote Republican because they think the Democrats are part of some world Arab socialist UN anti-Christian conspiracy. Likewise, the likes of Louis Farrakhan have endorsed Obama. There are extremists in both camps, but I don't see that this reflects badly on the candidates themselves.
As I've said elsewhere, I agree with Obama on issues such as same-sex marriage and the educational curriculum (both, incidentally, areas where the president has very limited power), but I agree with McCain on tax policy and foreign policy (for the most part). (On healthcare I'm not impressed with either of them; McCain's plan to eliminate the tax preference on employer healthcare schemes seems to be a step backwards, IMO, while Obama's plan would go too far and be too expensive). They both have some good ideas and they are both people who are deserving of respect. Partisan rancour isn't constructive.
Posted by: Arnosium Upinarum | October 13, 2008 4:54 AM
Walton? Erm, it should also be remembered what he DIDN'T say all those many times when the lout-contingent in his audiences shouted out hateful slurs....BEFORE he realized his schtick was getting out of hand.
...and it should be remembered he also - just yesterday AFTER his more concilliatory tone - vowed to "kick his 'you-know-what' in the next debate.
What a swell guy.
He flips and flops with the alacrity of roasting kernals of popcorn.
True, partisan rancour isn't constructive. McCampaign has proven that abundantly. But calling them out for shamelessly continuing to mislead Americans with lies and unsubstantiated character attacks is NOT a partisan exercise. There's a subtle but enormous difference, and as an American citizen, you ought to know better. We should ALL know better. Yet evidently over a third of us don't.
One thing that may seem relevant is this: would you trust a boundlessly ambitious guy who has conducted on of the most grotesquely deceitful presidential campaigns in living memory - a self-described man of action "straight-talking-maverick" who in reckless desperation and with an awesome command of cynicism - picks a clueless hocky mom from Alaska as a running mate whilst whistling that tiresome old tune about putting the country first?
THAT guy? THAT guy, with his obviously FAILING campaign, is supposed to be respected for his presidential decision-making capacity? THAT guy, who keeps insisting he knows how to do things right and has more qualificatyions and experience than anybody else in leadership?
He's a bad joke.
What a swell guy.
True, partisan rancour isn't constructive. McCampaign has proven that abundantly. But calling them out for continues to disgraceful tactics in the form of
Posted by: Arnosium Upinarum | October 13, 2008 5:06 AM
Oops...a bit of a tick there. It was supposed to end at "...a bad joke."
also, it's "qualifications" and "...ONE of the most deceitful campaigns in living memory."
Apologies
Posted by: Arnosium Upinarum | October 13, 2008 5:45 AM
Highly recommended reading:
M. Kane Jeeves (Political satire blog by Ed Naha)
http://mkanejeeves.com/?p=320
---
Typical response to a commentor:
"...I saw an interview with that 75 year old woman who said Obama was an "Arab" and was corrected by McCain the other day. The woman says that Obama is an "Arab terrorist." She works as a volunteer for McCain and sent over 300 mailers out (that day) listing some stuff about Obama that she wouldn't repeat on camera. She's friggin' 75 years old and thinks he's tainted by Muslim blood and will destroy the country...Oy.
"Another old yahoo brought a stuffed monkey to a Palin rally with an Obama sticker affixed to its head. So, the ol' duffer is a wagging' this monkey around and having a yee-haw ol' time when he notices he's being videotaped. Slowly, he lowers the monkey, removes and crumples the sticker, tossing it aside, and hands the toy monkey to a startled little boy. Ah, the courage of bigotry.
"Oh, yeah. McCain's team sez he can't be a bigot because when all that bigotry was going on, McCain was a POW, so he missed all that stuff. They honestly said that.
"You'll excuse me, now. I must find a plug socket to tongue."
[Ed Naha - who notices LOT's of things others don't]
IMHO the best underground political satirist in the country.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | October 13, 2008 5:51 AM
Then you are an idiot.
What has Republican fiscal policy got the US recently, apart from a global financial meltdown, having to add another digit to the national debt clock, and enriching the wealthy and impoverishing the middle class, leaving the US with the largest poverty gap in the West?
Foreign policy? What, the Bush Doctrine? That the US alone has the right to start wars of aggression because they've got the most nukes and aircraft carriers and nobody has the power to stop them?
All people are deserving of respect as persons, but both candidates are not deserving of equal respect as candidates.
The massive gap in their respective qualifications and achievements (which, having a giant hard-on for war and violence, presumably you still fail to acknowledge) and now the way in which they are allowing their campaigns to be run. Isn't dog-whistle politics enough? What does it take? Does McCain himself have to call Obama "that uppity nigger" on national TV?
Posted by: SC | October 13, 2008 6:51 AM
For those who missed it the first time around:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/are_you_on_this_list.php#comment-913574
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | October 13, 2008 7:32 AM
SC @#35,
I wonder if he ever found the lettuce abbatoir?
Posted by: Citizen Z | October 13, 2008 7:46 AM
This is crap. If it's "the tawdry guilt-by-association gimmick" when it's used against someone who actually met the candidate and introduced him onto the political scene, it would have to be even more so when it involves a random nut that the candidate might not have even heard. (The Secret Service didn't hear him.) And I think it's despicable to call McCain a racist because he has racist supporters.
Posted by: Walton | October 13, 2008 7:52 AM
Emmet Caulfield at #34:
The global financial meltdown cannot be blamed entirely on Republican policy; some of the blame, surely, must go to the Clinton administration, who, through the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, pressured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into giving out mortgages to anyone and everyone in order to increase home ownership rates among the urban poor? (They even required that unemployment benefit be treated as a source of income in assessing creditworthiness!) I agree that Republican policy has not been fantastic, however; Bush has replaced "tax and spend" with "borrow and spend", and has actually increased the size of the federal government (in terms of both spending and number of employees). What America really needs is a genuine small-government libertarian who will actually reduce the size and scope of federal government and give more power and money back to the people; but there is no such candidate in the present race. Economically, McCain is the lesser of two evils. (Also, given his protectionist rhetoric in the Democratic primaries, I'm very concerned that Obama would be amenable to introducing tariff protectionism in order to "protect American jobs", which would be bad in the long run for both America and the world. Global free trade is the source of much of today's prosperity; let's not throw the baby out with the bath-water.)
It seems to me that inefficient and bloated government, in fact, is the source of a lot of America's problems. A point that is often missed is that, when federal, state and local spending are all counted, America's public-sector spending as a percentage of GDP is similar to that of most European social democracies. The US federal government alone even spends more on healthcare per capita ($2,700 in 2004) than other OECD countries - for less return, seemingly.
As I have pointed out on other threads, economic history - the success stories of Hong Kong and Singapore, the massive growth of Ireland's economy in recent years following free market reforms, the 10-15% GDP growth rates regularly sustained by post-Soviet economies such as Estonia which are busy privatising infrastructure and cutting taxes - show that a capitalist free-market economy works, in delivering prosperity and greater human development. Inequality of wealth is a side effect, but I don't see this as a problem. Wealth is not a zero-sum game; the fact that the wealthy are getting wealthier does not mean the poor are getting poorer. The only measure of poverty which is relevant is that of absolute poverty - and countries with a low-tax, free-market economy consistently have lower levels of absolute poverty than other nations.
This is why I prefer McCain's economic policy, marginally, to that of Obama. I am very concerned about Obama's tax plan; he plans to let the Bush tax cuts expire (replacing them with bigger cuts for lower income-earners), which will mean higher marginal tax rates as high as 50%. McCain's plan is not perfect - I don't want to see more national debt, and I would rather see a commitment to massive cuts in federal spending - but I trust him with the US economy (which, of course, affects the economy of every nation on earth, in today's globalised world) far more than I trust Obama.
Posted by: SC | October 13, 2008 7:57 AM
Evidently not, since he's back here.
Emmet's referring to his hilarious comment:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/this_is_how_obama_could_make_m.php#comment-929310
(Hate to gush, but I still remember that as one of the funniest lines I've read here. Also glad I searched for it - seeing my own comment right above reminded me that Walton also has his doubts about evolution. Really doesn't get any better for him when you delve back into those past threads, does it?)
Posted by: SC | October 13, 2008 8:02 AM
Ah, where are all the Pinochets these days...?
Posted by: Walton | October 13, 2008 8:17 AM
...Walton also has his doubts about evolution...
Where the hell did I say that? If I implied it, then it wasn't my intention. I am not a biologist, and have just enough knowledge to be keenly aware of my own ignorance on the subject. As far as I can tell from the empirical data and the scientific consensus, there is very strong evidence in favour of evolution, and none that I am aware of in favour of "intelligent design" or creationism of any type.
I have never advocated that creationism should be arbitrarily given "equal time" in schools, or treated as if it were part of modern science. It is not science (as confirmed by court rulings as well as the overwhelming view of the scientific community). It should be taught in classes on religion and philosophy, certainly, but it does not belong in science lessons. So I am no creationist and I object to being painted as such.
However, if, in a hypothetical election, candidate A supports teaching creationism in schools but also supports tax cuts, free market economics and privatisation, whereas candidate B opposes creationism but supports socialism, big government, "redistribution of wealth" (naked theft), rigid labour market restrictions and more state ownership of industry, then I would support candidate A. (This dichotomy never happens in the UK, by the way, where there's almost no support for creationism. But I'm given to understand it's quite common in the US.) The state of the economy - on which millions of ordinary people's jobs and livelihoods rest - is always more important than teaching good science in schools. I realise I'm not going to make myself popular saying that to a forum full of scientists, but it's what I think. However strong our principles, we all have to make sacrifices and compromises.
Posted by: SC | October 13, 2008 8:27 AM
What you said was that you "accept the probable reality of biological evolution," the "probable" implying that you're not fully sold on the theory. I directed you to the specific comment above @ #39, so it's a bit lazy of you to fire back with "Where the hell did I say that?" rather than seeking to explain or justify the earlier remark.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/this_is_how_obama_could_make_m.php#comment-929231
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | October 13, 2008 8:28 AM
It can fairly firmly be blamed on lack of appropriate regulation in the face of the willingness of both lenders and borrowers to behave irresponsibly.
Under Clinton, the national debt went up about 25%; under Bush, it went up 100%. Case closed.
Oh my FSM, you haven't fallen for that fairy story as well, have you? I suppose you want the US to go back to a gold standard as well?
The truth about the "Celtic Tiger" is that Ireland's economy at the beginning of the 1990's was tiny. By reducing corporation tax to 10% (now 12.5%), the Irish government was able to attract foreign direct investment (mostly from the US) year-on-year that was a significant fraction of GDP. Using favourable transfer-pricing, international corporations were able to concentrate their profits in Ireland, where taxes were lowest, artificially inflating GDP, but not growing GNP at nearly the same rate (Ireland's ratio of GDP/GNP is huge). Intel building a single silicon fab for $10bn massively boosted GDP, that would not have been true for an economy the size of the US. What worked for Ireland only worked because Ireland is a very small country. The same policy simply cannot work for a much larger economy because there isn't enough international capital to have a significant effect. In a nutshell, pour $40bn into a $40bn economy and you double it. Pour $40bn into the US economy and it makes no difference. The idea that the Celtic Tiger was due to some super enlightened right-wing fiscal policy is simply bullshit of the greatest smelliness. It was mostly dumb luck.
Another tinker-toy economy that can grow massively as a result of amounts of capital that are considered loose change on Wall Street.
Then, surely, as the most vociferous international proponents of this policy, the US would be the greatest beneficiaries, with the highest HDI, yet the crown belongs to economies with higher levels of regulation.
Another staggeringly naïve statement. McCain is in thrall to the same oligarchs as Bush, he will do nothing to benefit anyone but them, and the ordinary American will suffer once more. Obama might be different. Maybe. Fingers crossed.
Posted by: negentropyeater | October 13, 2008 8:30 AM
here, corrected it for you :
What America really needs is a genuine small-government libertarian who will actually reduce the size and scope of federal government and give even more power and money
back to the peopleto the owners of capital.Posted by: Walton | October 13, 2008 8:40 AM
To SC at #42: I added the proviso "probable" because, as I said, I'm not a biologist, I don't have much of a personal interest in that area of study, and I don't know enough of the facts or the theory to have a meaningful categorical opinion. However, as I said, I'm not a creationist and I object in the strongest terms to being pigeonholed as one.
To Emmet Caulfield. I see what you're saying about the relevance of a country's size; and it's absolutely true that Estonia, for instance, achieves very high levels of growth partly because it started from such a low base. But the point is, capitalism has consistently shown itself superior to socialism. Look at Chile, which has a higher HDI and a consistently higher-performing economy than its Latin American neighbours. During the Allende government, before the free-market reforms which were introduced under Pinochet, inflation was in the thousands of percent and the Chilean economy was a total disaster. (Don't get me wrong; I'm not endorsing Pinochet's political methods. He murdered a lot of people. But saying "Pinochet supported capitalism, Pinochet was bad, ergo capitalism is bad" is a logical fallacy, and is as silly as saying "Mao was an atheist, Mao was bad, ergo atheism is bad".) Similarly, the UK economy was in a terrible state in the 1970s, largely due to top marginal tax rates of 90% and a huge, bloated government bureaucracy with nationalised industries. Mrs Thatcher changed all that, revitalising Britain's entrepreneurial culture, and we now enjoy the benefits of a relatively strong macro-economic trend.
I don't deny that regulation is important; indeed, it is vital to ensure a genuinely free market, and to prevent the formation of corrupt cartels. And I agree with you that the US political system, in which big business can tie the hands of regulators via the system of lobbyists and influence peddling, often leads to "crony capitalism" and a situation in which fair regulation and a free market are sacrificed in favour of the interests of a clique of large corporations. (Being pro-market is not the same as being uncritically pro-big business; it's time some American conservatives learned that.) But the only way to resolve that is systemic campaign finance reform, in order to eliminate influence-peddling by lobbyists - and guess which senator co-sponsored the biggest campaign finance reform bill in thirty years? A certain John McCain.
Posted by: Nec_V20 | October 13, 2008 8:42 AM
I don't know if any of you have read the Rolling Stone article on John McCain:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain
if not, then I would suggest that you do so.
Now a lot of people criticise McCain because nearly every sentence he utters has the words "My Friends" in it. But the one thing that really pisses me off is the widespread use of the term "The Folks" by US politicians.
The use of this term epitomises the thinking of "us" (the politicians and their narrow circle of privileged access) and "them" the unwashed masses.
Where did the phrase "My Fellow Citizens" go and when was that banned from public political discourse? Never mind that the phrase "The People" would be too fatal a reminder to those in Washington that the US Constitution starts of with three words writ large and they are "We the People".
The reason why these phrases are not used is because it would point to the fact that politicians are public servants, and not - as they have displayed themselves to be - public masters.
There was much ado about the fired US Attorneys serving "at the pleasure of the President. Well the President and every other elected official serves "at the pleasure of The People".
Bat Masterson (yep the gun-slinger) once said, "Everything in life evens out, take for instance ice. The rich get their ice in Summer and the poor get their ice in Winter."
In the US and also elsewhere (I'm German and live in the UK at the moment) the "Fourth Estate" has atrophied to the point where it has become the real estate of the rich.
But now in the Winter of our discontent, a new Fourth Estate is emerging PZ, Kos, Amato and many others in the US are showing that the phrase "We the People" is still a viable entity and that this new entity is no longer willing to deliver the ice in Summer and is well on the way to extending the ice for everyone else at least into Spring.
Posted by: negentropyeater | October 13, 2008 9:02 AM
But purely capitalist economies (ie US) have not consistently shown that they were superior to mixed economies (ie W.Europe).
When are you going to integrate in your brain, Walton, that the choice is not between extreme capitalism and extreme socialism, but between extreme capitalism (the anglo-saxon model) which is by now clearly showing its failure and mixed economies which maybe do not provide such high growth, but sustainable one and less risk for its people, where some chunks of the economy are socialised (healthcare, banking, energy, education : the basic needs of all people) and others are based on free market capitalism.
Read this article, and please come back and comment it :
http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/making-bail/2008/10/06/name-economy
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | October 13, 2008 9:20 AM
SC,
Oh, no, please do :o)
Walton,
I agree with a lot of your explanation, but I simply can't reconcile your explanations with your conclusions. You acknowledge the need for regulation, but you support people who have presided over catastrophic deregulation (Republicans) or are idealogically opposed to regulation (Libertarians). You acknowledge that Ireland and Estonia are inappropriate examples of the success of free-market economics due to their small size, yet you offer Ireland and Estonia as examples of the success of free-market economics. You say that you oppose cronyism and corrupt cartels, yet you offer Pinochet's Chile as an example of the success of free-market economics. Inflation is an economic metric, it is not an end in itself. The objective should be the happiness, health, freedom, and security of the people. I wonder if the average Chilean would agree with your praise of Pinochet? Personally, I'd rather have inflation than death squads, but that's just me.
McCain's campaign finance has been very shady indeed. He managed the primaries on a shoestring, true, while spouting off about campaign finance reform, but ever since the scandal over using FEC funding as collateral for a loan, and accepting money from the extreme right, he's in the pockets of the same oligarchs and religious nutbags as Bush, and it's "business as usual" on Capitol Hill. The wheels fell off the McCain "campaign finance reform" bandwagon a long time ago. That you are still flogging that dead horse means you're either very out-of-date or being disingenuous. Proof positive of McCain's bizarre two-faced approach is the TV interview where he attempted to take credit for getting the bailout bill through, after $150bn of earmarks were added to secure the Republican vote, then said that the president should veto bills with earmarks. Staggering dishonesty from the straight-shooting maverick.
Posted by: frog | October 13, 2008 9:56 AM
EC: The objective should be the happiness, health, freedom, and security of the people. I wonder if the average Chilean would agree with your praise of Pinochet? Personally, I'd rather have inflation than death squads, but that's just me.
About 30% would - the same as the 30% in the US that will follow the right directly to hell. 30% think that Pinochet is Satan incarnate and the rest wish that both the radical right and the radical left would drop off into the Humboldt. They've been trying to set up Antarctic towns to which they could exile them ;) (At least I think that's the explanation).
Chile has huge social tensions. As long as high-growth rates continue, everything will be fine -- folks can go to the mega-malls and the kids can focus on their fashion tribes (a really strange social phenomena). But underneath it, there are seething skinheads (another absurd social phenomena in a mestizo nation), Pinochetistas who are as insane as an American libertarian (with much of the same talking points), impoverished schools, and an expanding desert threatening people's health and economic welfare.
But then, we're seeing some seething social stress here in the States as well --- but everyone keeps on looking the other way and pretending it's not there. It takes a hell of a lot of ipods to keep folks busy in the long term.
Posted by: SC | October 13, 2008 10:01 AM
Well, I object in the strongest possible terms to being accused of pigeonholing you as a creationist. I never did any such thing. I pointed to a comment of mine in which I had quoted directly from your own comment, which appeared to express doubts about evolution. You're not a biologist so you don't think you can tke a stand on evolution. Yet you're also not a historian, political scientist, or sociologist, and it doesn't stop you from making pronouncements in those areas, or regurgitating those of ignorant pundits.
Here's more about the Chilean "Miracle":
http://www.counterpunch.org/leight12282004.html
http://www.gregpalast.com/tinker-bell-pinochet-and-the-fairy-tale-miracle-of-chile-2/
Anyway, for fuck's sake, the original article I posted on the other threads was not primarily about Pinochet or his policies, but about the forces outside of Chile that were behind and in support of those policies. Friedman and Hayek and their drones developed and championed them, and celebrated Pinochet on the international stage. They didn't chastise him for mass torture and murder; they saw this as necessary to their revolutionary project and reworked their definition of political freedom to suit this project of social engineering. You cannot reject Pinochet's political acts in one breath and cheer his alleged economic successes in the next. They are of a piece. And you can't ignore Friedman and Hayek in this equation. Do you condemn their views and support of Pinochet, and if so do you think this has implications for your economic ideology? Or are you arguing that you have to break some eggs...?
As for "free markets" bringing prosperity and well-being, as others have shown, the statistics do not support your argument. But even granting that you can find national "free-market" economies that are successful at any given moment by whatever measure, you are simply ignoring the fact that what we've had for centuries is not a conglomeration of distinct economic entities but a capitalist world system. At any moment, some countries or regions (or cities) will be doing better than others for a variety of reasons.* Fortunes rise and fall. Overall, however, the system tends toward greater inequality both across and within countries, greater concentration of wealth (and therefore of political power), and ultimately widespread poverty. As capitalism lurches from one inevitable crisis to the next, concentration and inequality increase. The Cold War was a brief, anomalous era in capitalist history in that political considerations gave power to efforts to "save capitalism from itself." But capitalism always pushed against them (Bretton Woods was already on shaky ground with the emergence of the euromarkets in the '50s). With the end of the Cold War, efforts to save capitalism from itself have less traction, and we are returning to the state of affairs a century ago. [I don't disagree with others here that mixed economies are worlds better than what you're advocating, although I don't agree with that as a model, either, since 1) I believe people should have direct democratic control over economic production, 2) the mixed economies of Europe are also based on the exploitation of those in the Global South, and 3) they don't provide a bulwark against the pressures of global capitalism, which will eventually break them down.]
As for relative and absolute poverty, these also need to be considered from a global-systemic perspective. The people who grow the food and make the goods you buy and use are not generally in your country, but in places like China, Haiti, and Guatemala. Many of them suffer absolute poverty and also live in police-state conditions in their work. "Free markets" for them - imposed by the IMF with the complicity of their governments or not - have meant neoliberal regimes of dismantling of essential public services, "free-trade" zones from which they see no benefits, and sweatshop jobs under 24-hour guard. (This is no surprise, as the history of capitalism has been the history of theft and the maintenance of existing relations through coercion and force.)
Freedom should mean being able to choose your own economic system and not to have it dictated to you. Why do you think neoliberal policies are so reviled across Central and South America and bring protests around the world? Why do you think Evo Morales and Hugo Chávez were elected, and have been supported by huge numbers of people? No one forced people to do this, or to elect Aristide in Haiti, but the US government will kidnap democratically-elected leaders (Aristide), support military coups against them (Chávez), and foment political violence in collusion with local elites (Bolivia) in an effort to protect its and its corporations' interests. Why would this be necessary, if neoliberalism is so great? Why did Allende have to be taken out and replaced with a dictator, if this is the kind of system people really want?
Also, there are people in the US living in serious poverty. With the current crisis (and especially if McCain becomes president), people may sink to levels we haven't seen in this country for decades. Absolute poverty. It is not at all unthinkable, and that's the direction we're headed unless there's a change.
*I've always liked Eduardo Galeano's comment on these statistics (I'm paraphrasing): "Who makes this Per Capita Income? I'd like to meet him."
And stop talking about capitalism as though it's about little farmers' markets or mom&pop general stores. No one's buying it. Capitalism is about transnational corporations and banks, and an increasingly small handful of them at that. There's nothing democratic about governments selling or giving public resources to them or about taking away any public power to control their actions. You support a "firm stance" in the so-called War on Terror, which in practice has meant the violation of basic rights and freedoms. You are not for freedom for people, or anything resembling it.
And don't even get me started on "free markets" and the environment, especially since Nick Gotts has made that case very strongly already.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | October 13, 2008 10:45 AM
Indeed. Every country seems to have some turkeys who'll vote for Christmas.
Posted by: SC | October 13, 2008 10:52 AM
I'd never heard that before. I like it.
Posted by: frog | October 13, 2008 10:54 AM
SC: Why did Allende have to be taken out and replaced with a dictator, if this is the kind of system people really want?
Allende only won a plurality. He did not have a mandate for revolution. If he'd stuck with land reform, he could have kept a broad base of support, but he followed the endless cycle in Chilean history of populists overplaying their hand, leading to an anti-democratic take-over, leading a generation later to the return of representative democracy.
Yes, the US was a bad guy in the play. But the play was primarily a Chilean play, driven by Chilean history and Chilean actors. Down to the suicide in La Moneda - a replay of Balmaceda, I believe.
Some things are local. Chile has it's own crosses to bear on all sides, and the Allende administration was a mess without sufficient popular support for the wide-spread take over of small-scale businesses that happened towards the end.
Posted by: negentropyeater | October 13, 2008 11:03 AM
SC,
Looks like right now, it's going to be the other way round... It's the pressures of social welfare that are going to break down global capitalism, simply because in the end, humans do realise that they'd rather trade off more useless consumption at credit against reduction of risks.
Look, this crisis is before all one of deleveraging, the world wants above all a huge reduction of risks, therefore reduction of debt, less growth, but sustainable growth. The transition period, that of deleveraging is going to be very painful, but that's an unavoidable consequence of the excesses of the past. The entire world is going to enter into a global recession. If it lasts more than 2 years, which is still unclear (it will depend on how stupid or intelligent our governments are, if they make the mistake of trying to stimulate consumer demand like BushMcCain rather than investing on huge infrastrucure and innovative projects like Obama), we will then have a global depression and then violence and civil wars. In any case, this is going to be a fundamental discontinuity, because what will come out of it is a world that will not tolerate anymore such high risks. Growth will not be the key instrument, but sustainable growth, and that is something free market capitalism has no idea how to regulate.
Posted by: frog | October 13, 2008 11:20 AM
NE: It's the pressures of social welfare that are going to break down global capitalism, simply because in the end, humans do realise that they'd rather trade off more useless consumption at credit against reduction of risks.
It seems to me that the underlying problem is the same one that's been around for a century -- that capitalism is great at increasing production, but at the same time increases inequality which destroys demand. "Social welfare" is one reasonable response -- increasing equality to the point that there is sufficient stable demand for the goods being produced.
The stability of the system depends on a sufficiently strong counter-weight to capital movement for the long-term health of markets. But the mechanisms of democracy haven't really improved, while the movements of accountacy have exploded.
The only good tool that I've seen develop is the open source model -- but software is a tiny fraction of production, and progressives don't seem to take an interest in the nuts-and-bolts of problems in that way; but then, it may just be my own ignorance.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | October 13, 2008 11:34 AM
There also has to be some redress of the notion of "national debt". I wonder what it actually means any more, if anything. It seems to have lost all connection with the normal idea of debt as something which has to be repaid at some point in the future. There is no way in hell the US is ever going to repay 10T$ in debt, nor is any country in Western Europe realistically going to arrive at any point in the foreseeable future at a situation where their national debt will be repaid. In practice, "national debt" seems to mean "amount of money the government may pull out of their own ass without the international financial markets going apeshit", this is tacitly admitted by talking about "limiting the growth" of the national debt rather than reducing or eliminating it.
Posted by: SC | October 13, 2008 11:36 AM
frog,
The history of interference of the US government and US corporations in Latin American politics, including coups and including this one, makes it impossible, it seems to me, to attribute such events primarily or entirely to "internal" politics, whatever this might mean in a globalized world. Just as there are strong "internal" forces in Bolivia now arrayed against Morales and the social movements supporting him (which also have transnational links), whatever happens with Bolivian politics cannot be viewed from a narrow national perspective.*
I suspected that someone would take issue with that statement. I've always wondered why, while people generally recognize the role of the US government in shaping the politics of other countries (Guatemala, Haiti, Iran,...) they often resist it in the Chilean case. But in any event, even if the major players were internal actors, that does not prove that Allende "overplayed his hand," that this caused him to lose support, or (much less) that this is what brought about the anti-democratic takeover. (I mean, he wasn't voted out of office; even extremely popular leaders can be overthrown undemocratically.) This history - which I hear with regard to Chile but not really other countries in the region - sounds more like a canned line of argumentation that people have been led to accept. Makes me think of this film:
http://icarusfilms.com/new97/chile__ob.html
I don't have any of my materials here related to the case, though :(, so I can't really back up my alternative interpretation of events.
*By the way, this just in:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10547
Posted by: Walton | October 13, 2008 11:53 AM
SC, with all due respect, I cannot understand how anyone, looking at the economic history of the world, can really make assertions such as those that you've made. (In contrast, Emmet Caulfield and frog, while I disagree with many of their views, have made an argument which I can understand and respect. I can understand those who advocate social democracy and a mixed economy; I cannot understand those who - in this day and age, and seeing the mess it invariably causes - still advocate socialism.)
Many of them [people in industrialising countries] suffer absolute poverty and also live in police-state conditions in their work. "Free markets" for them - imposed by the IMF with the complicity of their governments or not - have meant neoliberal regimes of dismantling of essential public services, "free-trade" zones from which they see no benefits, and sweatshop jobs under 24-hour guard. (This is no surprise, as the history of capitalism has been the history of theft and the maintenance of existing relations through coercion and force.)
Total and utter nonsense. Yes, it is true that a country which has recently opened up its markets, and is in the process of industrialisation, invariably goes through a stage where many of its people work in low-paid manufacturing jobs in poor conditions. Businesses relocate from wealthier countries to poorer ones so as to reduce their wage bills and overheads. What then happens is that the demand for labour in the newly-industrialised country goes up, pushing up wages. There are new entrepreneurial opportunities, and people whose family have always been subsistence farmers - with no economic opportunity - have, for the first time, a chance to make money for themselves and provide for their kids. And by the next generation, their kids are getting an education and have opportunities to reach management positions. Eventually, the country transforms into a developed country with a stronger economy. This isn't just a theory: it happened in Taiwan, it happened in South Korea, it happened in Singapore, and it is in the process of happening in parts of China and India. The standard of living in China for millions of people is not great; but it is rapidly improving for many, because an industrial economy provides more opportunity than does one based on subsistence farming.
As to your excoriation of free trade zones: one of the things which keeps farmers in the Third World poor, and working at subsistence level, is the system of agricultural tariffs and subsidies put in place by the US and EU governments, which make it impossible for Third World agricultural exporters to compete on equal terms in US and EU markets. In other words, it is government protectionism in favour of domestic interests, not capitalism, which is creating more poverty. Free trade zones are ultimately good for everyone; by promoting competition, they force industries in all countries to become more efficient in order to compete, therefore driving down the prices of consumer goods. Protectionism is always, in all circumstances, a bad idea.
The other major cause of Third World poverty is political instability. International business is not going to invest in a country if it is prone to violence and civil wars, if its legal system does not protect property rights and contracts, and if it does not have a stable currency. They are especially not going to invest in a country such as Venezuela, where Chavez's authoritarian socialist government is happy to expropriate foreign-owned business property, where the judicial system is corrupt and politicised, and freedom of trade is rapidly diminishing.
In sum: if every country in the world had a stable system of government with an efficient legal system and strong currency, and there was universal free movement of goods, capital and labour across boundaries and full international free trade, Third World poverty would soon be a thing of the past. Capitalism is not "exploitative". Rather, it is the perfect expression of freedom and the most effective road to prosperity.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | October 13, 2008 12:04 PM
Indeed. And if there were any doubt, note that newly minted Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman has this to say about the two candidates' relative merits:
Note that Krugman, though a famous liberal (by U.S. standards, that is... for the benefit of the honest-to-FSM European liberals in this crowd), is hardly an Obamamaniac: He hard some sharp criticisms of Obama during the nomination campaign and (IIRC) supported Clinton. Nevertheless, Krugman finds Obama well informed and sensible and McCain frightening.
Oddly, when it comes to our economic future, I give Mr. Krugman's opinion a bit more weight than Walton's. Go figure, eh?
Posted by: SC | October 13, 2008 12:06 PM
I think we may be talking about different timescales. My broader point is that ultimately it matters not what "the world" wants or what tradeoffs rational people are willing to make or whether people want to live in a less risky world (despite incessant propaganda extolling the "freedom" afforded by risk-taking and insecurity) or whether Keynesian welfare states or systems of financial regulation provide a better or more stable environment for capitalism.
All of these can be true, and the same forces within capitalism that broke down the regime of accumulation that characterized the Cold War era - despite strong opposing political factors - will prevail in the end. Even to the extent that the political will is there and it's politically possible to put/keep in place regulatory frameworks and social safety nets, these are only a temporary imposition. They will be e