Politics Plus

Lincoln Mitchell has written a fascinating piece on the fixation that the Tea Party Peons and their GOP masters have with Socialism.

A recent Bloomberg National Poll confirmed what was already apparent, that the Tea Party movement has an intense hatred for anything they, or their leaders, deem to be socialist while both appreciating and wanting more government support for programs they like and, of course, not really understanding what the term socialist means. The Tea Party movement has a long, if perhaps not so distinguished pedigree, as fear of socialism has been a tool by powerful economic forces in the US for more than a century used to oppose any policies which might help poor and working people.

For over a hundred years the US has been characterized by a consensus dread of socialism while continuing to enact enormously popular policies that are essentially social democratic in nature. Health care reform is only the most recent example of this type of legislation which also includes Social Security, veterans benefits, Medicare, head start, food stamps which have become particularly popular in this economic downturn, and various other programs, subsidies and tax incentives.

In recent decades socialism, even among many of its advocates, has evolved into social democracy which seeks to take the edges off of the injuries of capitalism without substantially changing the system itself. Most of the industrialized world, including the US, learned in the first half of the last century that the only way to sustain capitalism was to rein it in somehow through providing support and protection for citizens. The social programs that were enacted in the US during the 1930s, as well as those in subsequent decades have always been quite popular. Americans, like Europeans and others, appreciate government safety nets, public projects and other benefits. The primary difference is that in the US, we have become very comfortable with elements of social democracy, although we still have far fewer of these than most wealthy industrialized countries, while we remain virulently opposed to the word "socialism" or even the phrase "social democracy."

Of course, using government resources to levy taxes and provide services including defense, infrastructure, education, economic incentives and programs is not socialism. It is governance. In America socialism is the bogeyman that is wheeled out from time to time to oppose programs that are viewed as too big or too costly, but even that is not entirely accurate. Defense buildups throughout the last decades have infused enormous amounts of money, through lucrative and often wasteful government contracts, into the economy, transferring hard earned tax dollars into profits and jobs, but nobody really calls that socialism

In the US the term socialism is only used to describe some programs. Programs that seek to help big businesses through tax incentives, even waiving taxes entirely, particularly by state and local governments, are referred to as being pro-growth. Programs that help mostly middle class Americans such as veteran’s benefits, social security and Medicare are viewed as government service delivery. However, programs that seek to help the poor, such as the health care bill, are referred to as socialist. Thus socialism for the middle class is not questioned; and socialism for the wealthy is often viewed as a necessary economic strategy, while programs to help the poor are presented as dangerously subversive. There is, of course, a high degree of hypocrisy in this view, but it reflects how the right wing has largely succeeded in framing this.

Accordingly, it is much easier to mobilize Americans against the idea of socialism, rather than the policies themselves. It is almost certain that most of the Tea Party demonstrators who are so against health care reform because they view it is socialism would be demonstrating even more passionately and actively if they were told that the government was going to do away with Social Security or Medicare because of a need to balance the budget.

The specific irony about the movement against the health care reform bill is that the passion and red-baiting was directed against a bill that was not only the kind of legislation that should have been popular among moderate, pro-market Republicans, but that similar legislation was supported by pro-market Republicans. It is one thing to call President Obama and the Democratic Party socialists because, you know, they like helping poor people and community organizing. Making these attacks against the likes of Mitt Romney or George H.W. Bush, would be unequivocally nutty, but both of these Republicans supported very similar legislation in the past… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

Socialism and capitalism are purely economic terms.  They have nothing to do with their underlying political systems.  Both can operate in totalitarian regimes.  Nazi Germany was totalitarian capitalism.  The USSR was totalitarian socialism.  Both can also operate in free societies.  Switzerland is free capitalism.  Sweden is free socialism.  Neither exists in pure form.  In pure capitalism, wealth gradually concentrates in fewer and fewer hands until the vast majority of citizens no longer have the means to purchase goods and services.  In recent years, conservatives removed the restraints that kept capitalism in check, and unless balance is restored, our economy will suffer that fate.  In pure Socialism, there is no incentive for entrepreneurs to innovate, leading to a slow death of the economy through stagnation.  This is what happened to the Soviet Union.

Healthy economies are a balance of the two, having elements of both.  Some things are best socialized: police, military, libraries, firefighting, and health care, for example.  Some things are best capitalized: entertainment, technology, household services, and manufactured goods, for example.

The point is, people need to be educated so that they recognize that the right’s ongoing outcry is nothing but a fear tactic with no basis in reality.

In this op-ed, Elizabeth Warren examines the hypocrisy of Wall Street’s argument for evading regulation.

For almost a year, the big banks and the American Bankers Association have presented that choice to Congress. Lobbyists argue that meaningful consumer protection will jeopardize the safety and soundness of banks, telling lawmakers that they must decide between the two.

While American families have made clear that they overwhelmingly support the reforms that a new consumer financial protection agency will produce — like clear, understandable terms and conditions for consumer credit products and accountability for the big banks — the lobbyists have made equally clear their plan to kill the agency.

ABA lobbyists now aggressively insist that separating consumer protection and safety and soundness functions would unravel bank stability. Yet just a few years ago, they heatedly argued the opposite — that the functions should be distinct.

In 2006, the ABA claimed to act on principle as it railed against an interagency guidance designed to exercise some modest control over subprime mortgages. It criticized the proposal for “combin[ing] safety and soundness guidance with consumer protection guidance, creating confusion that is best addressed by separating them.”

The ABA went on to argue that the “marriage of inconvenience between supervision and consumer protection appears to blur long-established jurisdictional lines.” And then: “ABA recommends that the safety and soundness provisions relating to underwriting and portfolio management be separated from the consumer protection provisions.”

Read that again: The ABA in 2006 said that policymakers should separate safety-and-soundness and consumer protection — exactly the opposite of its position today.

This 2006 memo illustrates the ABA’s real consistency — consistent opposition to meaningful reform.

If there is a smoking gun in the battle over financial regulatory reform, the 2006 ABA memo is it.

In the memo, the ABA also argued that: 1) the proposed guidance “overstates the risk” of so-called nontraditional mortgages; 2) the nontraditional mortgages were not “inherently riskier” than traditional mortgages; and 3) the nontraditional mortgages “simply present different types of risks that may be well-managed by prudent lenders.”

So much for the ABA’s expertise on what increases the riskiness of banks.

The ABA’s efforts to block rules over subprime mortgages contributed directly to the economic crisis. They also offer irrefutable proof that bank lobbyists will say anything to block meaningful reform.

If saying down is up and up is down — or, for that matter, that the CFPA’s consolidation of seven bloated, ineffective bureaucracies into one streamlined agency will create more bureaucracy — then the ABA lobbyists are willing to say it.

They were just as willing to argue against the integration of safety and soundness and consumer protection functions in 2006 as they are willing to argue for the integration of safety and soundness and consumer protection functions today — so long as it derailed any meaningful consumer protection.

The lobbyists’ consistent theme is unmistakable: They oppose meaningful rules in the consumer credit market.

In 2006, they opposed any structure that might have produced rules to rein in subprime mortgage lending. In 2010, they oppose any structure that might rein in a broader array of tricks and traps.

They are now lobbying hard to water down the consumer agency’s independence with oversight vetoes and other administrative roadblocks that have no precedent in the federal regulatory apparatus — not out of principle, but because they don’t want meaningful rules.

The ABA’s reversal reveals that its safety-and-soundness argument is — and always was — a diversion.

The ABA’s premise that the country can’t have both meaningful consumer protection and safety and soundness is wrong. In fact, its defense against an independent consumer agency boils down to this: If banks can’t trick and trap people with fine print and legalese, they won’t be able to turn a profit.

When other industries have argued that tricking their customers is an essential part of their profit model, they haven’t gotten far. For example, it might be profitable in the short run to substitute baking soda for antibiotics, but basic safety regulations prevent such moves — and the pharmaceutical industry still manages to do just fine. In fact, the industry flourishes, bringing better, cheaper products to customers.

Similarly, the consumer agency now before the Senate is designed to cut out tricks and traps pricing, fine print that no one can read and sharp practices that strip billions of dollars from consumers.

The ABA’s position is particularly galling because it was the lack of meaningful, independent consumer protection that helped bring down the entire banking system and cause the current crisis. Without billions pumped into subprime mortgage lending, the housing bubble could not have inflated; Lehman and other MBS traders would have lacked the raw material that fueled their excessive risk taking, and the destabilization of millions of families and neighborhoods would not have occurred… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Politico>

As usual, Warren’s analysis is both brilliant and on-target.  Banksters’ success at evading regulation has transferred the industry from service provider into predator and made it a key component of the GOP’s only successful program: No Millionaire Left Behind.

As long as Banks and related companies exist that are so big and entwined in our economy that their failure will endanger our economy, they will continue to prey on the poor and middle classes.  Therefore they must not only be regulated, but also be broken up.

The GOP attempt at “See?  We have one too!” has been a gift that keeps on giving, providing not only multiple examples of GOP hypocrisy, but also, a treasure trove of side-splitting humor.

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee says the committee is investigating a nearly $2,000 expenditure at an L.A. nightclub that regularly features topless dancers, and asking the staffer who spent it to return the money.

"We are investigating the expenditure in question," said the spokesman in a statement. He also pushed back against the original Daily Caller story, which in detailing the spending, said, RNC Chairman Michael "Steele travels in style."

"The story willfully and erroneously suggests that the expenditure in question was one belonging to the Chairman. This was a reimbursement made to a non-committee staffer. The Chairman was never at the location in question, he had no knowledge of the expenditure, nor does he find the use of committee funds at such a location at all acceptable," he wrote. "Good reporting would make that distinction crystal clear. The committee has requested that the monies be returned to the committee and that the story be corrected so that it is accurate."

Late update: The Daily Caller pegs the person who spent the money as one Erik Brown of Orange, Calif. Brown owns a direct mailing firm and has tweeted about hanging out with Steele. (Here’s the cached link. Brown’s Twitter account was deleted today.)

And, according to the Caller, Brown’s firm has done work for Steve Poizner’s California gubernatorial campaign, to the tune of $10,000.

Neither Brown nor a spokesperson for Poizner immediately returned a request for comment… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <TPM>

This was more than just a topless club.  It’s specialty is depicting lesbian bondage.  There is pressure on Steele to resign.

Rachel Maddow and Ana Marie Cox covered this and other Steele failures in some detail.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now, why am I, a lefty blogger, supporting Michael Steele?  The more donors’ contributions the RNC spends depicting homophobic GOP values in lesbian bondage clubs, the less they will have to spend promoting violence against Democrats.  The more inefficient and wasteful the RNC remains, the lest effective they will be at doing the one thing that will damage this country more than any other thing they could do: getting Republicans elected.  The more hypocrisy the RNC displays, the more voters can see that voting Republican is only an option for fools.

Stay right where you are, Michael Steele!  You’re doing a heckuva job, just like Brownie.