KCRWs Left Right & Center 11.28.08 SHOW

Finally, someone in a public forum invokes the name of one of the most important thinkers of the post-enlightenment age with an intent

For whatever reason, my original post seems to have appeared missing most of the original content I had lovingly typed up some six hours ago. I will assume that it is part of a state-sponsored effort to censor me, thus depriving a bewildered populace their sole opportunity to hear the TRUTH.

What I had wished to express was my appreciation for Mr. Scheer's unafraid and intellectually honest invocation of Karl Marx, a man who, at the very least as a critic of capitalism, should be considered essential reading. That the reaction this provoked was a torrent of obsolete fallacies designed to connect liberal social policy, or indeed democratic socialist policy with the horrors of the gulag is no surprise, but it is striking how feeble they are beginning to sound.

Marx remains relevant and remarkably prescient, though it doesn't take the herculean effort of actually reading the lengthy and rather soporific Das Kapital to know that a system that periodically must be saved from itself is not without serious flaws. It is my sincere hope that we can have an honest debate about these issues, a debate unencumbered by Cold War era orthodoxies, whether left or right. And no, my dear friends on the right, the matter is NOT settled. And yes, I know I shouldn't start sentences with "and."

Good God!

In my comment above, I wrote that Obama's victory has emboldened some.
Well go and read Jeff's comment, immediately above mine and you can see that obviously I'm right.

He referred to Marx as "relevant and remarkably prescient"- yes that's what he did. He also referred to Bob Scheer as "un-afraid and intellectually honest". That's interesting. I have a four year old cousin who I love with all my heart, but he's pampered and spoiled and still walks around with a pacifier in his mouth. Sometimes I tease him by swiping it, whereupon he throws a tantrum- stomping and screaming like a little brat. I never realized that he was actually being "unafraid and intellectually honest". That's my bad.

Jeff pillories Tony Blankley for bringing up the Soviet Gulag, and writes that he wants to engage in debate "unencumbered by Cold War era orthodoxies".

Yes, let's just forget the past Jeff. Why would we want to remember Gulag, and the social policies that brought that about. Why should we discuss who is responsible for such things and what philosophies inspired them? Complete waste of time.

Why don't we just trade our "obsolete fallacies" for Marx's much more useful ones? Differences of opinion is so "old school"- partisan bickering must cease.

The Age of Obama is here. Unity is key.

It's time to shut up and get with the program

Interesting to me that as the emphasis of the show has shifted to the economy, Tony Blankley and Robert Scheer have sort of switched places, with Robert coming across as a reasonable, sensible sort, and Tony sounding further and further out on the fringe. Peel away all of the classic economic labels, and who is making sense? Robert is, in my book.

So, Ali C, you want to save capitalism from itself? Knock yourself out. Your boy Obama's going to be a bit busy turning back the seas and healing the planet, so you showed up just in time.

You write that I "misunderstand those who claim Marx as an influence on their thinking." I'm not sure what you mean. As I said, Bob Scheer spends a good chunk of each week's show spewing Marxist rhetoric. He began today's show praising Marx by name. You defend Scheer and in doing so freely admit that you use "a Marxian analytical framework to determine our current economic systems flaws and postulate my own remedy." Several others here in the comments section have put forth sentiments praising Marx. I'm saying that you're Marxists, or at least to a great degree influenced by Marx. Exactly what am I misunderstanding?

Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber and others have called Obama out as a Marxist. For this they were pilloried in the press and the blogosphere- accused of playing the "politics of fear", engaging in thinly veiled racism and just all around hate mongering. Yet Obama's campaingn speeches were full of redistributionist, class warfare Marxist rhetoric. Obama's close friend and mentor, Bill Ayers, actually refers to himself as a "Communist with a small "c"." I wrote above, that Obama's election has emobledened some, and the comments on this thread, praising Marx and the European Social Democrats who stress their debt to Marx only prove my point. The fact that someone is Marxist or a fellow traveller, does not end the debate. Just stop hiding behind terms like "Progressive"- stop insulting our intelligence.

"If you can honestly say that you don't think the current system is in need of fundemental reform then i can say nothing more."

I never said that. I don't know what we should do. I'm not an econimist and won't pretend to have any great knowledge of higher economic principles. But that hasn't stopped me from running a successfull small business for the last several years. Anyway, a lot of people who get paid a lot of money to walk around pretending to know's going on have been proven completely clueless in recent weeks. As Tony has been repeating on every show these last few weeks: let's stop pretending we know exactly what happened and have just the right cure.

"References to the Gulags are entirely misplaced." ?

Really? Tens of millions dead and imprisoned as a direct result of the implementation of Marxist social and economic policy and we're just supposed to shut up about it? I know you'd like to forget it. Gulag state- terror and engineered famine-these are just some of the inconvenient truths of what your "Useful Fallacies" have wrought. You've railed at Bush for eavesdropping on terrorists, yet the likes of you would tap the phones of Joe the Plumber. No we're not going to shut up about it.

If you want Scandinavian social democracy then go to Norway. Stop trying to pull that crap here, and if you insist on doing it then be upfront about it and let the public know what model you're working towards. At least that way people can accept or reject it knowing full well what they're being offered without you sneaking it into place gradually and in subtle increments. And yes, the EU is on a crash course to totalitarianism- as a matter of fact they're just about already there.

"I'm amazed that someone as blinkered in their thinking as you actually listens to LRC but i'm certainly encouraged that you do."

You've announced here your grandiose desire to "save capitalism from itself" yet you accuse me of being "blinkered". That's really rich- yes, that's just delicious.

Yes Arriana's an airhead. A complete blow-hole. Hearing the sound of her voice is like hearing Little Miss Muffet sitting on her tuffet. You defend her against my slur by citing her credentials- not by citing any singlular accomplishment, simply her academic credentials. It's funny, but the last few years, whenever I engaged in political debate online or with my Democrat friends and was treated to rants full of hateful invective, insulting Bush as a hollow-headed simpleton and worse, and by extension insulting me as I had voted for him- its funny that my citing of his Yale degree and the fact that he's one of the few who are deemed physically fit and mentally qualified enough to recieve training as an Air Force jet fighter pilot- funny that this was never enough to vouch for his natural intelligence and innate abilities. It's funny that all of a sudden, credentials matter- yes it's simply hilarious. I'm basking in the irony.

Go ahead, defend Bob Scheer if you must. The man is a nut. And referencing Karl Marx while making a critique of American capitalism while broadcasting from a junior college radio station in the heart of the People's Republic of Santa Monica is not courageous. It's not even "somewhat courageous". Please.

PLEASE

Ayn Rand 's objective philosophy would look at the current graft and dirty-doings of today's bankers and objectively say to Tony ---- "..please stop misquoting me!..."

Dear Mr. Hannity,

or rather, Jim (oops!),

If you have time to write such lenghty diatribes, than perhaps you can take a few minutes to bother justifying some of your assertions. You know, the particularly egregious ones lacking in any evidence or basis in the real world. You can start with "FDR created poverty." Hell, maybe you could explain what my affinity for Marx has to do with the President-elect, if anything (I'm not up for a cabinet position, if it makes you feel any better). I would also love the evidence, I'm assuming recently uncovered by yourself, that finally proves unequivocally that William Ayers is Obama's "close friend and mentor." Lastly, if you would, provide an example of EU totalitarianism, or at the very least a credible indicator of the potential for it.

Also, let me put your mind at ease about one particularly paranoid non sequitur of yours. I have no desire to tap the phone of "Joe the Plumber." I didn't care to hear what he had to say the first time.

And to revisit the gulag fallacy, you would be onto something if anybody was advocating authoritarian communism, or indeed advocating communism at all. That hasn't happened, and you don't advance debate by continually employing these straw men.

I have no more time for tired McCarthyism.

Tony Blankley had a psychoanalytical catharsis on the Nov 28th show. When questioned about medical bankruptcy and Medicare issues, his superego failed to check the republican child (id) and shouted out: people will get sick and die like always, that is what he plans to do. WOW!!!! The wheels are really off the wagon, when you hear the id’s.

I’ll depart with a few words from the Master:

“Unheroic though bourgeois society is, it nevertheless needed heroism, sacrifice, terror, civil war, and national wars to bring it into being.”

Karl Marx

OR if you do not like that one try this tid-bit:

“At the present time, the system of protection is conservative, whereas the system of free trade is destructive: it dissolves old nationalities and pushes extreme antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat. In a word, the system of commercial freedom hastens the social revolution.”

Karl Marx

Read the Master

Tony Blankly’s defense of capitalism in the way it has been practiced in this country for the past two centuries is so reductionist that it makes the grade-school “Adventures of Dick and Jane” read like Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. He insists that the “high” American standard of living (of which a significant portion of U.S. citizens don’t truly share in) would have not been possible if not for a free market unfettered by government. Never mind the brutal appropriations of land originally owned by Native Americans, the heinous institution of slavery, or the ruthless exploitation of immigrant workers that has been going on for the past 125+ years. Never mind the federal government subsidies given to the banks, the corporate farms, the oil firms, the automotive companies, the telecommunications conglomerates, the iron and steel businesses, the railroads, etc., etc. ad nauseum. Never mind the convoluted laws, regulations and protections (usually enacted when no one else is paying attention) bought by those self-same industries from Washington, D.C.

Mr. Blankely became so indignant when Mr. Scheer accused him of agreeing to government intervention when it came to helping out giant industries and their CEOs but not for the people who toil for them. He may not appreciate the revealing of his true sympathies but it is EXACTLY the relationship that Mr. Blankely obviously favors.

If you want to read a lucid and revealing history of the American economic system, try “Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy” by Ted Nace. He reminds his readers that large corporations and capitalism are not synonymous phenomenon. In the beginning of this country’s history, corporations were tightly regulated in their setting up, their management, and in their longevity. It was in the middle of the nineteenth century that hardnosed businessmen became successful in manipulating government for their own self-centered aims, especially when it came to re-interpreting and carrying out the goals of The Fourteenth Amendment.

What wonderful show - Classic LRC; not to mention some terrific blogging.

I was however appalled by some of Tony’s comments. For me this is the problem with conservatism. There is a barely masked, completely unreasonable anxiety that the masses could be given more access to the pie. When ever there is any suggestion that this might be considered, out comes the fear mongering to the degree that even to discuss other philosophies such as Marxism, brings on references to the Gulag and statements that our freedoms will be encroached upon.

At one point Tony pronounced; “we have more health care than anyone else on the planet” Knowing Tony, I am sure that if he were asked to back up such a statement, he would have some convoluted, intellectual way of explaining his assessment. However, it sounded childish and petulant. And from everything that I have read, it is untrue.

Note to Tony: There seems to be a pattern here. First, you very carefully lay out your position. Then, at some point, you make some preposterous comment that forces me to question everything that you have previously said. I want to understand the conservative point of view and why we should espouse it. However, when you make such statements, your credibility goes out the window. You have such a good mind. And you have obviously had a wonderful, education. Why do I feel that at times you choose to use that good mind and education to support the insupportable?

The question that provided the basis for this discussion concerned the future of capitalism. It is an important question within which mention of Smith, Marx and even Ayn Rand seem entirely appropriate. Unfortunately, far too many of the postings that rely on either Smith or Marx seem to be coming from people who have obviously never read a word of either. Smith did not propose a system of business operating without control; he described a system in which individual greed would be controlled – unnoticed - by competition. He wrote of a mostly pre-industrial system, mostly free of monopoly and unions. It is not his fault that the world changed and we should not pretend that it has not. As for Marx: do I really have to mention that he is not to be blamed for Stalin?

Reality should tell all of us that those committed to perpetuating simple choices between purified systems, between capitalism and socialism, or (to borrow from Tony Blankley) gulags vs. universal health care, are postulating a choice that does not and will not exist.

We live in a mixed economy and we will continue to live in a mixed economy. The question about the future of capitalism must focus on whether we can achieve a mix that provides things like a good education, and decent basic health care, for everyone. At present, despite Tony Blankley’s breathtaking discovery that “we have more health care than any nation on earth,” we are a long way from achieving either of those goals. Isn’t it time we recognize that neither can be provided on the basis of markets?

A decision to build a society where every individual can achieve a good and appropriate education, and in which no family ever need fear ruin from the cost of health care, is not to suggest that we might usher in the end of history, but to express hope that we, in this country, can come closer to providing a framework for justice and equal access to meaningful liberty.

I nearly spit out my diet soda when Tony intoned that people will "get sick and die, just like they used to."

This has been a "chaotic" session where a discussion of popular ideas of well known but generally unread authors has resulted in a burst of namecalling, revering at least the public personas of Sarah Palin and "Joe the Plumber" (who was basically nothing claimed about him) and representing that emotional place in the political debate, as well as some well trained academic people who know more than I do about Economics and Chaos theory.

There shouldn't be any doubt that today's economy is unstable, basically a new world of globalism, new rising populations in Asia, contracting natural resources, the Reagan Bush era transfer and concentration of wealth in the wealthiest, an unparalleled US killing machine pushing the limits on what can be done with invasion and occupation as an instrument of national policy, and all sorts of social changes, consumerist materialism and high tech gadgetry. Blankley says that no one understands it, which doesn't mean we should stand helplessly by while the rich and powerful run roughshod. But he's right about the uncertainty we face.

Blankley's statement that "we can't afford health care for everyone so people need to get sick and die like they used to" is probably a decent statement of the conservative paradigm, certainly as it manifests itself in American politics. There is lots of progress but we can only afford it for a few. A Scandanvaian social democratic economy can spread some of that around, but would be a lot less fun at the top.

While Marx lived and was followed in a period when the world was viewed more mechanistically, so that people could assume that a "dictatorship of the proletariat" was the inevitable path to a just society, there is little doubt that his critique of abuses of wealth (as opposed to what to do with them) was valid in his time and this has persisted into ours. Scheer was also correct that a lot of success comes from siezing political power and gaming the system. One of the commenters mentioned Apple computer as this "butterfly effect" of entrepreneurism. The real economic winner was not Apple but Microsoft, which wholeheartedly pursued the path of making itself a monopoly, and when the Clinton Administration went after them, gave lots of money to Bush, whose Justice Department then made a favorable settlement. That's buying the government, which reached a modern summit during the Abramoff era. Preventing this is one challenge we certainly face. (Microsoft's owner then got into the non-profit charity business at the same time. How much good do we think the nonprofits and foundations will do, without resources to sustain the initiatives they try to seed?)And while one problem with regulation, as someone has mentioned, is that the regulators can never think of everything, a bigger problem with regulation is that regulation is too good an investment to keep the inordinantly wealthy from capturing it.

USSR people created "gulag abuses" butr these begin to turn into Guantanamo abuses as the powerful, particularly in time of anxiety, act ruthlessly against those who stand in the way of getting what they want. As the line between public and private violence merges with Blackwaters and other private security arms emerge, it is clear that we face large problems. The presence of an emotionally committed gun lobby, which got the Supreme Court to interpret an ambiguous constitutional provision in their favor, is another aspect of the future to consider.

So how do we prevent the concentrations of wealth, now institutionalized with multinational corporations that exceed the power of any legal or economic system to contain them, from pursuing short term self interest in ways that are ultimately destructive. Greenspan admitted that he expected more wisdom than he got. Why were we surprised? The economic system gets what it pays for, and often what it pays for is more short term feeding frenzy like we saw in subprime. Is this rational or irrational behavior? Or is it structural because we do not pay enough for system integrity?

More significant questions are how to involve more people in economic decision making, to prevent people from being emotionally vulnerable to the manipulations of consumerist materialism, and to involve them actively in something resembling citizenship in a global village.

Hello all,

I have just listened to the show and then read the comment line, whew! Thank you all for taking the time to contribute.

I am amazed at the hubris of those willing to casually re-wire our economic system and provide simple glib broad brush solutions. The

What Tony doesn't get is that getting old and dying is the best case scenario. All to many people get sick and outlive their financial resources. It's not a matter of choice.

Hearing Tony nattering on long after his turn was up reminded just how much conservatives hate to lose and how poor they are at it.

I would say that all participants overlooked some fundamentals. The capitalist system is premised on strong, healthy competition. Historically, the role (some would say the ONLY role) of government in a capitalist system is to insure this competition; hence anti-trust regulation. That role has been radically suppressed over the past 30 years.

So when one looks at the plethora of bailouts, one should ask, “How were these companies allowed to get ‘too big to fail’”. Clearly if they are too large to fail, then they are anti-competitive and should have been broken up long before they reached this point.

Similarly, with health care, the issue is lack of competition. When one is suffering from a health issue, rarely is there time shop among competitors, nor is there the necessary information for “consumers” to base decisions upon. The nature of health care results in it being dispensed by “local monopolies”. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Over a century ago, America came to the realization that many capital intensive enterprises require distributions through local monopolies – water, sewer, electricity, etc - and implemented various oversight mechanisms to regulate them within the American capitalism framework. It is time that healthcare – especially emergency hospital care – fell under this same umbrella.

On a different point – the credit crisis – the world is undergoing a massive deleveraging. Over the past ten years or so

An open discussion about how we as a society want to continue is exactly what we need. I think we need to remove the pro-military-America-must-dominate-consumerist frame and look at allot of possibilities that are not currently being considered.

We are facing the dwindling of the abundant resources that have fueled all of the growth in the industrial and information ages (Most of the high tech industry is depended on exotic and rare metals and minerals that are in short supply see Coltan or REE). Deeply connected to the dwindling resources are the environmental changes that have taken us out of the Holocene and into the Anthroprocene. Human agriculture has been possible because of a particularly calm and consistent climate era. Science is telling us this is changing, probably dramatically.

We need an economic environment that encourages research and innovation in the areas that actually matter to human life. I don’t think the sort of crony capitalism that we have been living with is up to this challenge. The problem with capitalism and communism is the tendency for a few people to gain power and then spend all of their effort to maintain it regardless of the consequences to the population, from tobacco companies to the military industrial complex to Stalin isn’t this obvious?

We are spending way to much of the remains of the Holocene on warfare and cheap consumer goods, we need to be spending our resources on healthy food production efficient housing and manufacturing, and implementing real energy solutions instead of trying to ring the last dollar out of twentieth century solutions.

The only way I see this as happening is if we the people take control of our democracy again and make our voices clear to our representatives. In almost every way our government is stuck in a system that supports the wealth/power structure that exists, to the detriment of most of us. (Spend some time at this site, which makes this point clear) It is true that we have been trickled on and that has given us a historically lavish lifestyle here in the US and in Europe. Of course the rest of the Americas and Africa have mostly received warfare and poverty in payment for their resources.

We could build a new economics system based on the real needs of people, one that encourages everyone to have ideas and input. The problem with our competition above everything model is that people with great things to contribute, but without the desire or emotional framework for fierce competition end up pushed aside and forgotten. Isn’t it possible for us to set our egos down for a little while and make a system that can process ideas on their merit rather then on who is the most driven to succeed?

FREE ENTERPRISE REQUIRES A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD.

What gets lost in this discussion is the fact that the Republicans have been advancing anti-competitive policies such as no-bid contracts for the likes of Halliburton, subsidies for big oil companies, and allowing huge corporations to operate from behind foreign shell companies and thereby dodge tax liability.

Meanwhile, small businesses and individuals are strangled by a myriad of complex laws.

In Los Angeles, a few people attempted to start a fuel oil co-op, only to find they must meet onerous licensing requirements to past muster with no fewer than three government agencies. They ultimately had to scrap their plans. All they wanted to do is store food-grade vegetable oil for use as fuel in passenger vehicle diesel engines!

Compare this to the folks who packaged and resold sub-prime mortgage debt, causing the current financial crisis. They were able to conduct business with absolutely ZERO regulation.

Liberals like me are only asking for parity. How about this for a summation: businesses and individuals should enjoy equal protection under the law, and that includes exposure to liability under government regulation.

If you call that "socialism", I call your grasp of economics "idiocy".

Wow, it is amazing how emotional this topic is. I can't imagine any of the hosts actually read this comment board considering many of the comments border on vulgarity in their emotional extreme. Not quite the intellectual debate I had hoped for when I came to this page. But then again, neither was this last debate on the air either.

This program really showed the very ugly underbelly of Tony vision of civilization, or the ‘other’ (not his) class. It appears that the 'ideal' for America can be found in Charles Dickens descriptions of 19th century England’s harsh brand of laissez faire capitalism (think of Scrooge as the middle class, Bob Cratchit as Tony’s working class bloke). Maybe Tony really believed Margaret Thatcher when she said that that there was no middle class. The occurrence or sustainability of a middle class without the aid of government regulation (especially through progressive tax policy) is about as likely in pure capitalism as finding an armadillo sitting on top of a fence post.

The early versions of the game Monopoly (AKA landlord, finance, etc.) set out to demonstrate this ultimate result of unrestrained capitalism – one person ends up owning EVERYTHING. Markets don’t do fairness.

Dear Mr. Miller