The US Government has Lost its Reason for Being

Dave Lindorff's blog
The US Government has Lost its Reason for Being
by Dave Lindorff | February 6, 2010 - 12:23pm


There were two points in President Obama's State of the Union address that provoked resounding and universal applause in the chamber from the assembled senators and representatives of both parties. One point was when the president said he wanted to start his job-creation program "in small businesses, companies that begin when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides its time she became her own boss." The other point was when he said, "While we're at it, let's also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment; and provide a tax incentive for all businesses, large and small, to invest in new plants and equipment."

The lusty cheering and applause were not based upon some belief on the part of the assembled legislators that this was about alleviating the pain and suffering of the one-in-five Americans who is out of work, or who is struggling to support a family on the income from some pathetic part-time job paying minimum wage. It was apparent that this was a cheer for the idea of giving more money to the capitalist class. Period.

In today's America, those in power have completely disavowed one of the key goals--if not the key goal--of democratic government, which is, as the Constitution put it so admirably in its opening sentence, to "promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty."

There is nothing in that Preamble about promoting the welfare of the business classes. The only justifiable reason for doing so then would have to be in order to promote the general welfare. And yet decades of policies aimed at promoting the welfare of the corporate elite and to a lesser extent promoting the welfare of the business classes in general (what used to be called the "trickle-down theory"), have demonstrably not only not promoted the general welfare; they have worsened the general welfare.

By every measure, the tax policies, welfare policies, trade policies, labor law policies, and Wall Street deregulation policies of the government, whether in Democratic or Republican hands, have led to a declining standard of living, a transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich, and a gradual increase in the underlying level of unemployment (the "acceptable" base level of unemployment which establishment economists consider to be "full" employment), not to mention to the extraordinary current level of unemployment.

"Trickle-down," it turns out, really means "piss on."

President Obama's talk about jobs is bogus. Jobs are leaching away from the US at a prodigious rate, like water pouring through the holes of a sieve, thanks to trade policies that encourage companies to shut down US operations, move production abroad, and then sell the once locally-made goods back to increasingly impoverished Americans. Any new jobs created are lower wage, and prone to interruption, given that they are in services, and aren't linked to any major capital investment.

Proposed programs like a $5000 tax credit for hiring a worker or revoking tax breaks for companies that shift production overseas are a joke, simply a rhetorical sop to the listening audience not meant to be taken seriously. (No employer will make a new hire just to snag a $5000 cut in taxes, and in any event, a credit is only useful to a company that is making profits and paying taxes, and such firms have no need of assistance to get them hiring. It's the companies that are in trouble that would need encouragement to hire, and they aren't paying any taxes.)

What is clear from the wild applause to these two lines in the State of the Union address is that government at this point is not about improving the general welfare at all (if it ever was). It is self-evidently about enriching the rich.

And at that point such a government has lost its reason for being.

This explains why the health "reform" bill has been such a farce. It was never about improving the health care of average Americans (something that could have been easily, quickly and efficiently accomplished by simply expanding Medicare to cover everyone). It was always about ensuring the enrichment of the various players in the health care industry, who already own 17.5 percent of the entire US economy.

It explains why we aren't getting any kind of re-regulation of the predatory financial industry. The goal of de-regulation was never to make life better for average Americans. It was to enrich the financiers, and it did that very well. And no de-regulation is going to happen, because the goal of Washington politicians is to continue to enrich those financiers.

It explains why we're at war in Afghanistan. There is no conceivable threat posed by this poorest of nations located, landlocked, in a part of the globe that is maximally remote from the US. Yet we are being committed to an endless war there, costing a nominal $100 billion a year (times two or three when you add in the financing of the debt, and the costs of care for the injured troops over their lifetimes), because that war enriches the munitions industry, and also provides justification for an annual $800 billion military budget--a staggering sum that sucks the very life out of any program aimed at "improving the general welfare."

The whole government enterprise at this point is an ugly affront to the Preamble of the Constitution.

We will all be better served if and when the whole thing is brought down.

The way I see it, we've pretty much lost our government, and just voting in new politicians isn't going to fix anything (we just demonstrated that!). Our best hope then is a popular groundswell for a new Constitutional Convention. Let's roll the dice and try over, now that we've seen how our government can be stolen.

I agree it's a scary idea. Who knows what we Americans are really like? Maybe we are a nation of selfish imperialists and racists and sduch a convention would lead to a restoration of slavery or apartheid, a mass deportation of minorities, incarceration of gays and lesbians, and open endorsement of empire and a police state. But I like to think that we Americans are actually as good as our mythology tells us we are, and that a constitutional convention could lead to a new government that would really be of the people, by the people and for the people.

Capitalism cannot EVER 'promote the general welfare' of anyone but the Ruling Class

K&R

;-)

"Both parties will piss on you, but at least the Democrats will give you an umbrella." Well maybe so, but that umbrella has become torn and tattered.

We have better odds that way. The way it is set up now, unless and until the rich relent and share the wealth, this country is doomed to fail.

“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.” ~ Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

its called

CORPORATE PROFIT AND MONEY

entities made up of one or more states, somewhat like the European Union.

As long as our Federal government appears to have as its main purpose the aid and comfort of Big Finance, the "Defense" (sic) industry, and multinational corporations, I'm beginning to question whether there's much benefit for the rest of us in maintaining it.

sw

soon with spain, portugal, ireland.

not autonomous; imposed from above.

It's not like the EU has its own standing army to enforce its will.

I must admit, however, I have not been paying much attention to what's happening with Greece, et al. Aren't they basically getting screwed by same forces of multinational Finance that are screwing EVERYBODY?

If you look at countries that enjoy a level of success much greater than the United States (as measured by things like, poverty rates, employment rates, income disparity rates, number of guaranteed entitlements (health care, post-secondary education) etc. etc. - they are SMALL. In a country of 300 million plus people, government becomes abstracted and people feel disconnected.

We badly need decentralization of power, where people have more local control over the things that effect their lives directly.

I can see where that would have some definite dangers, of course, but what we have now doesn't work well for anyone except the Plutocrats.

sw

In the early history of the country most people considered themselves citizens of their state (example considered themselves a "Virginian" or "North Carolinian").

The idea of a tightly controlled central govt in which states have lost most of their powers via dubious reading of things like Commerce Clause didn't really become accepted until post civil war era.

Most taxes were raised and spent locally. The federal had very little power or finances. Being a state senator was a more prestigious position than a federal Senator.

So in short the United States was intended to operate like the EU. Semi-autonomous states with single currency working together for common defense. With federal govt ensuring "fairness" between states (fining North Carolina if it did not let "imports" from Virginia for example).

I've often wondered if we wouldn't have been better off letting the South secede, provided there could have been some other way than war to render slavery economically nonviable.

There are portions of the Constitution that are simply out of date in today's modern era (ie electoral college). The Constitution was written in an era when the Founding Fathers feared a strong central government. To be honest, right now we need a strong central government.

And strengthen the system we have...

If you think that can't be done, I don't see how you expect this nation to create a whole new framework from scratch.

I mean, where's the pork in re-instating Glass Steagall?

Or taxing at higher rates the upper one percent of Americans.

Or changing the tax code so that the hedge fund managers don't pay a mere 15% but a great deal more?
(School teachers, for instance, pay 18 to 22 percent - but hedge fund managers worth tens of millions pay 15%. Why?)

It's comforting to read someone else saying the things I've been saying (less eloquently) for a long time now. That sentence isn't about stroking ego - I'm saying sometimes you feel like you're out there all alone in thinking, and sometimes it's good to know that you're not.

PS - I want to PM you with a question.

PM me, I hope I can have an answer for you.:hi:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

---Thomas Jefferson, US Declaration of Independence

no one could have said it any better.

businesses. The medium sized businesses get wipe out (look at the airline industry). That is why Obama is focussing on small business. That is where the jobs will be in the future and he just can't ignore that.

The current rules of the road make small business have long odds of survival. We do not currently have a free market system and that at the least has to be effective in rebuilding on a strong foundation.

Our system is anti-competitive. Much of the lobbying is to ensure that the big dogs stay that way, not just to screw over the average person.

If you want real opportunity and for small business to flourish then a good start would be to break up some heavy weights so the little guy has room enough to breathe.

with a wage that lets you buy stuff
we have sold the worker out completely
we need tariffs to protect jobs and products
the unequal pay around the world should not be an excuse to sell workers down the river
patriotism demands it, real patriotism

to fight for genuine change.

Hear here

The casualties of capitalism grow too great to bear
any more of my citizenry’s despair.

To those who hoard bullets and covet the stature of some indoctrinated robe,
Be warned, I see my public as spanning the globe.
The dead, the dying, and the milked bone dry
I find are as offensive afar as what I see nearby.

It matters not to me,
that they think or appear different from me
For each designs their own path to choose
No one else should get to decide for another to lose.

No explanation can justify the depth of the greed
Or cap the horrors of what grows in this degenerative seed
The heart and the mind of human condition
can’t be held in perpetuity to a profits need for submission.

And when the law of the land
speaks to and for only what is deemed grand
The only options left to the spirit of the common strand
will be to die or stand.


I've never reposted before, feels a little moochy to me.
Edited for anomoly in transition, which provides the opportunity to say k & r, tyvm.

Well said.

Or maybe it's because they don't give a fuck because they got theirs. :puke:

1. Most likely the wealthy and powerful would control the drafting of any new Constitutional Convention.

2. If they didn't live up to the promise of the original Constitution, why would they live up to the second?

I would instead suggest starting grass/net roots efforts to amend the current Constitution, specifically spelling out wants, needs, protections and limitations.

There could be ongoing series of conventions, debates and movements solely committed and dedicated to the very idea of amending the existing Constitution, this may more likely prevent throwing the baby out with the bath water, while allowing the nation to plot it's course with more fluidity and thereby making it easier to overcome inertia.

Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, dajoki.

:thumbsup: