Rosenberg: Obama wanted to cut safety net all along

Rosenberg "uncovers" an Obama "conspiracy" that Tea Partyers and liberals alike don't want to acknowledge: he's been plotting to cut Social Security and Medicare without raising taxes to Clinton-era levels since BEFORE he was inaugurated, before the Tea Parties even existed.

Then, when Obama proposed cutting Medicare, exactly as Republicans proposed, they attacked him for it. He doesn't understand he's playing a losing game.

Or maybe he doesn't care?:

But, of course, Obama is not going to be running again. He will be collecting speaker's fees from the donor class. And they like what he is doing just fine. Obama's real base, it turns out, is exactly the same as George W Bush's: the have and have-mores. This budget is for them and them alone. To think otherwise is to continue living in denial.

Read it and weep, everyone.

Obama's imaginary budget-cut mandate

By Paul Rosenberg

April 18, 2013 | Aljazeera

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/20134186829216639.html

Rosenberg: Political 'moderation' is killing us

Rosenberg succinctly explains the destructive and yet politically successful behavior of today's Congressional Republicans:

If unreasonable positions ensure that the other side gets equal blame in the centrist's scorekeeping and resulting media coverage, then they are inherently "can't lose" positions. This provides a basic floor which biases the entire process against being reasonable.

If some sort of action is eventually necessary (as it is with budget issues, and most other governmental questions as well), then the unreasonable side - which by definition cares less (perhaps not at all) about real-world consequences - has an increasing advantage the longer that the issue remains unresolved, thus further motivating them to remain unreasonable. If they start at 50 percent (equal blame), things only get better for them over time, as the blame burden remains constant, but the cost pressure to do something rises much more accurately on the reasonable side.

In the process, argues Rosenberg, politically viable but unworkable political proposals get conflated with politically "serious," i.e. reasonable, ideas -- first among the MSM and with Washington elite, then among the wider public:

So why is the discussion dominated by a non-solution while a real solution can't even be discussed? It's because the "politically viable" sense of serious totally dominates over the "pragmatically effective" sense of the word, and because what is politically viable is circularly defined: extremist Republican non-solutions are politically viable because Republicans adamantly insist that they are, no matter how laughable they may be - and centrist bipartisan ideologues routinely and reliably endorse their false claims as matters of fact when they do so. The fact that they aren't even remotely serious, in the problem-solving sense, never even enters the picture.

And here Rosenberg sounds almost like Rush Limbaugh, who rejects bi-partisanship as an inherent political virtue:

Problem-solving and argument-winning have become two entirely antagonistic activities, and "moderate" "centrist" "bipartisanship" has become the creation of such profound confusion that the voting public won't catch on until it's far, far too late.

Today's Republicans are wrong and unreasonable. Any "middle ground" between their ideas -- the Paul Ryan budget, for example -- and reasonable progressive ideas is still wrong.  We cannot afford to call "less wrong" a job well done. We have big problems and we must be right!

The US on suicide watch: Death by 'moderation'

By Paul Rosenberg

March 22, 2013 | Aljazeera

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/2013320184843513125.html

Rosenberg: Obama's better-managed empire

Here's how Rosenberg sums up the lost promise of Obama's presidency, at least when it comes to America's foreign wars:

It's tragic, really. Obama certainly has the capacity to comprehend the sea of troubles he is sailing on, but he lacks the will, desire, and imagination to steer America into a fundamentally different direction. He cannot even begin to conceive of "no war" as an option - indeed, as Martin Luther King would say, as the only option. He is America's "leader" in a decidedly limited, managerial sense, when history and the American people had cried out for so much more - dare I say it? - For a visionary... Or at least for a leader along the path that visionaries have lit before us. Instead, Obama is a go-along-to-get-along president who shares virtually all of the imperial operational mindsets, even as the ever-mounting costs of empire are tearing the American republic apart. Virtually all the aberrations from constitutional government that the neocons under Bush advanced have been continued under Obama, thus confirming them as bipartisan aberrations.

Which is why, tragically, it's America, indulging its own demons, that continues to make al-Qaeda's case, in a way that nobody else possibly can - certainly not al-Qaeda itself.

It's not America alone, of course. It's simply the way of empire.

The lost promise of Barack Obama

A smarter empire is no substitute for a lost republic.

By Paul Rosenberg

February 19, 2013 | Aljazeera

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/02/2013217838625713.html

Gun nuts defend Confederate, not U.S., Constitution

YES!  Finally somebody else had the balls to say it: 

Although nullification, secession and armed conflict are not exclusively Southern responses to Obama's gun safety agenda, they certainly are much stronger there than elsewhere and they reflect the historical reality that these same false constitutional doctrines helped pave the way to the Civil War - the only episode of mass treason in US history.  

Once you allow this simple historical fact to sink in, the whole notion of "constitutional conservatism" finally starts to make sense. You see, the constitution these folks are referring to is not the Constitution of the United States of America.  It's the constitution of the Confederate States of America, whose entire reason for existing was to preserve the institution of slavery, and the political power of the slave-owning elite. 

And that constitution, thankfully, has already been shot full of holes, in the bloodiest war in American history, which it was the cause of. Nothing tells us more about what "constitutional conservatives" are really up to than a look back at the horrors of that war, and the unspeakable evils that it sought to preserve and protect. 

If these gun nuts want to re-fight the Civil War then, in the immortal words of George Dubya Bush: "Bring 'em on." The result will be the same. Just ask Randy Weaver and David Koresh.

P.S. -- Rand Paul's complaints about "King Obama" prove he is a blithering idiot who doesn't understand our Constitution or system of government. Even worse, he doesn't have his dad's wit, simple charisma, consistency or the courage of his [absolutely wrong] convictions. I'll say it again: these scions of prominent politicians are the worst kind -- Rand Paul, Mitt Romney, Dubya, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Al Gore -- and we should avoid them like the plague, because they are out to prove something, not to do what they think is right.

Gun lobby's bad aim shoots down myth of 'constitutional conservatism'

By Paul Rosenberg

February 6, 2013 | Aljazeera

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/02/20132371127714836.html

Locke, Hobbes and history v. Gun nuts

Paul Rosenberg is absolutely right in his philosophical argument that lasting liberty is incompatible with individual gun ownership; but he spends most of his time refuting the less deeply held belief of the pro-gun crowd: that freedom-loving individuals need guns for their own security.  

Rather, the gun nuts' main argument against reasonable gun control is that we the people need more and deadlier guns to overthrow our government if it ever becomes tyrannical.  

This is a bad and eristic argument in favor of individuals' unrestricted access to all types of deadly guns. Yet it's difficult to refute using purely inductive logic because something similar has never happened -- especially in the most powerful country in the history of the world with a military of 3 million and all the wizz-bang futuristic weapons you can think of.  For argument's sake, such a nation has never gone from democratic to tyrannical and tried to oppress its own people.

And so we liberals can only make reasonable, rational arguments to the effect that we the people wouldn't stand much of a chance fighting such an evil government. And in the meantime, 30,000 gun deaths a year (including 9,000 gun murders) is a high price to pay for the "freedom" to defend ourselves in such an unlikely what-if scenario. (I actually think flesh-eating zombies taking over is more likely, but that's just me....)

What's more, as I told my Uncle T. (who subscribes to this argument) over Christmas, if the United States government ever did become so murderous and tyrannical, then it would mean there were at least 1,000 lapses in our democratic vigilance leading up that moment that had nothing to do with our weapons or guns. It would mean we the people largely had ourselves to blame for it. *

Apropos, Rosenberg points out that John Locke and the Founding Fathers had no idea how important peaceful protest would become in securing the freedom and civil rights of so many millions of people, starting about 160 years later.  (That's yet another thing they never imagined, in addition to AR-15 semi-automatic rifles in the hands of madmen....). 

And so despite the Founding Fathers' lack of prescience...

... that doesn't mean that Locke's underlying logic has died. To the contrary, the issue of the consent of the governed has never been more alive than it has been in the last few decades. But what's most interesting is that it's taken such a strong turn toward non-violent, unarmed revolution, seen most recently in the peaceful successes of the Arab Spring. Of course these did not succeed everywhere, and violent struggle emerged in several countries, yet it should be remembered that nothing remotely like this was even conceivable at the time that Locke wrote. And yet, the underlying thrust of his logic has been supremely vindicated by the non-violent lineage of Thoreau, Gandhi, King and Mandela - a lineage that stands directly opposite to the gun-crazed vision of the NRA. [Emphasis mine - J]

What I should have added to Uncle T. was that, as Mark Ames recently pointed out, gun ownership actually decreases our democratic vigilance since guns give far too many Americans an unearned sense of complacency, or a sense that the mere act of owning firearms is a "rebellious" thing in and of itself... and meanwhile they sit at home on their couches while the plutocrats corrupt our government and screw the Average Joe's of the country who "cling to their guns and religion," instead of those gun owners being politically active. (And no, being an NRA member does not make somebody politically active.)

... (Sigh) But these are all reasonable things to say to unreasonable people. That's why I'm mostly preaching to the pro-gun control choir here.

* And I added to Uncle T. the unoriginal thought that a better defense of our liberty against government tyranny than the 2nd Amendment is our professional, all-volunteer military and the esprit de corps instilled in our troops who vow to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution. It's one thing for them to shoot armed baddies overseas; but it's quite another thing for them to obey orders to shoot and kill their fellow citizens at home, armed and unarmed alike. To defend their countrymen is the exact reason most of them sign up in the first place!  And so, this argument in favor of the unrestricted right to bear arms is quite insulting to our U.S. servicemen and women.

Locke and unload: Why the NRA doesn't understand rights

It's the exact inability of guns to secure our freedom that establishes the foundation for our civil government.

By Paul Rosenberg

December 27, 2012 | Aljazeera

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/20121226104857715225.html

'Socialist' Adam Smith on owners v. labor

Rosenberg's latest post is worth reading in full; I'll just copy two quotes he gives from the father of economics Adam Smith regarding the "masters" and "workmen" of the world, because his observations still hold true. The first one relates to collective bargaining, without which individual workers are always at a disadvantage to their employers:

A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.

And here's a second one... so apropos the present-day USA!

Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters.

Remarks Rosenberg:

This is why economics used to be called "political economy", because the great classical economists never lost sight of the fact that economics was a thoroughly political activity, not something outside of the life of a political community.

Politics -- not economics -- is why our "masters" of business are not only beating our "workmen" in the state-by-state battle against right-to-work laws and a higher minimum wage; it's also why they are able to win expensive federal and local tax breaks, not to mention direct financial incentives -- and meanwhile, nobody bothers to do a cost-benefit analysis, even ex post facto.

But we sure can see the effects on workers' wages over the past 30 years, despite their ever-rising productivity, there's no denying it.

Socialist firebrand Adam Smith points the way in struggle for a living wage

By Paul Rosenberg

December 15, 2012 | Aljazeera

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/20121214131829224157.html