Where the GOP Went Wrong and Why It Still Is

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The GOP seems always to grow more militant after its failures. The failures have been many. As a result the GOP has turned both wrong and radical, more kooky than cult-like, both radical and rabid! This trend is traced to the Reagan years –an era that the GOP longs to resurrect but failing that might be happy if their recollections of that era were not undermined by the truth about it. Republicans would love to recall a time in which the lovable old Ronald 'there you go again' Reagan would earn a place in the American pantheon among the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR! Reality has not been on the GOP side for quite some time now. 

Look at the Reagan years. What went wrong? Did nothing go right? Reagan is most often associated with 'supply-side' economics –the GOP's favorite psuedo-ideology cited to justify whopping tax cuts for what was euphemistically called the 'investor class'. We live with the legacy of that kind of thinking: it is the emergence of a ruling elite of just 1 percent of the total population, the tiny, near microscopic minority which, in fact, owns more than the rest of us combined.

Arguably –this elite rules us because they own us. In effect, 'we' –the 90 plus percent –have assumed the burden that might have fallen to those more wealthy than us, those more able to sustain the financial burden. The result is slavery: we work and thus create the wealth of which we, as a class, are denied! I refer you to the works of any major economist since Adam Smith. All of them --from Ricardo to Marx, from Friedman to Keynes –have espoused the 'labor theory' of value.

The right wing predictably maintains that growth under Reagan proves supply-side theory. The opposite is true. Reagan's failures disprove 'supply-side' or 'trickle-down' theory for all time. Supply-side theorists believe that if top marginal tax rates are reduced then the potential loss of tax revenue will be offset by growth in the economy. That has never happened. The 'theory' is but a theoretical curve drawn on a napkin. Reagan, meanwhile, is remembered for having doubled the national debt and tripling the national deficit.

The test is whether the tax cuts produce more growth than occurs during normal business cycle recoveries. 'Supply-side economics' fails the test. Between 1979 and 1989, the growth rate was 3% --nothing to write home about, certainly not confirmation of 'supply-side' economics.

'Trickle-down theory' is not even the product of academic research. It's origins are found in political magazines, not scholarly journals. In fact, many right-leaning professional economists prefer a smaller government but have not advocated extreme tax cuts. None believe that with extreme tax cuts the economy will grow and most certainly not to the extent that revenues will actually increase –as supply-siders had said they would.

N. Gregory Mankiw, the Harvard economist, the senior Bush's own economic advisor, called Reagan's supply-side advisers “incompetent and unscrupulous”. In 1995, Irving Kristol, confessed that he supported supply-side theory but only because of its "political possibilities".

Now we come to the very reasons Bill Clinton is reviled by those who have lots of money –more money that normal people are allowed to even dream about. In 1989 the top 1% were taxed at a rate of 28.9%. By 1995, that rate had risen to 36.1%. Like Chicken Little, the 'supply-side' crowd warned that the sky was falling. It didn't! The result was unprecedented growth (not seen in decades), lower unemployment, and a whopping budget surplus. For having done such a great job, Bill Clinton was very nearly impeached and removed from office.

In general, tax cuts may stimulate demand but that is most surely the case only if those whose spending supports the economy get the tax break. That segment is, obviously, the middle class! The ruling elites do not spend in ways that drive the economy. Rather, they squirrel away their riches in offshore banks and other tax dodges. It's good money down a bottomless pit, wealth that is forever lost to the nation.

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The 'Cowboy' on Facebook
Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

An Alternative to Tyranny: Restore the Fairness Doctrine

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The right wing is lying to you again. They have rolled out the media, which they now own, to tell you, to brainwash you, to intimidate you into believing that if the Fairness Doctrine is restored, you won't have free speech anymore. That is an egregious, bald-faced lie!

You don't have free speech NOW but only because you no longer have access to media. You might have had effective free speech if the Fairness Doctrine had not been trashed by Ronald Reagan, Reagan-heads and wing nuts.

Today --the airwaves are no longer yours; the 'airwaves' are owned by about five or six huge conglomerates which oppose fairness because, it is absurdly and fallaciously said that it would infringe their rights of 'free speech'. The only rights that have been infringed are YOURS!

What about your rights?

I can answer that: you are 'outta luck'! What had been your rights are denied you and given to big corporations with but a stroke of a pen! That just five or six corporations may exercise 'free speech' while you, a real living, breathing person may not is the inevitable, perhaps defining result of fascism.

When the Sinclair Broadcast Group retreated from preelection plans to force its 62 television stations to preempt prime-time programming in favor of airing the blatantly anti-John Kerry documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal, the reversal wasn't triggered by a concern for fairness: Sinclair backpedaled because its stock was tanking.

The staunchly conservative broadcaster's plan had provoked calls for sponsor boycotts, and Wall Street saw a company that was putting politics ahead of profits. Sinclair's stock declined by nearly 17 percent before the company announced it would air a somewhat more balanced news program in place of the documentary (Baltimore Sun, 10/24/04).

But if fairness mattered little to Sinclair, the news that a corporation that controlled more TV licenses than any other could put the publicly owned airwaves to partisan use sparked discussion of fairness across the board, from media democracy activists to television industry executives.

--Steve Rendall, The Fairness Doctrine: How we lost it, and why we need it back

I wish Randall had entitled his article: FREE SPEECH: How we lost it and why we need it back! Fact is, there is no freedom of speech if it is reserved to just one percent of the population. That is the case today!

And it was so easy to deny you both free speech and fairness! Access that had been yours by right of free speech [First Amendment] and affirmed by law [Fairness Doctrine] was denied you with the stroke of Ronald Reagan's pen!

Huge corporations, now called 'real people' by a deluded, psychopathic SCOTUS which believes that only the very, very, very rich have rights like free speech. Because you are not rich, you must be silent. Because you cannot afford the millions of dollars it would require to buy the 'time' that is wasted by the likes of demagogues Billo Really? and Rush 'Lard Ass' Limbaugh, an opposing view, or even a correction of outright lies, is simply not possible.

Big Brother lives!

As a major market News Director, I administered the Fairness Doctrine which ensured that everyone, every group had a voice on the very airwaves that the Communications Act of 1934 said belonged to the people. Just try to get on the air today. Telling them that you worship and adore the marble bust of Reagan won't make any difference. You are just as out of luck as the rest of of us.

The domination of media by corporate power is a defining characteristic of fascism. A Fairness Doctrine was necessary to prevent the corporate/fascist powers form dominating public airwaves. It worked! Labor once had a voice! Dissenters once had a voice!

Progressives/Democrats once had a voice! Labor had a voice! And today --you don't have a voice! I don't call this outcome 'free speech' and I am incensed by the orchestrated campaign of lies that tell you that the 'Fairness Doctrine' is anti-free speech! George Orwell must be rolling in his grave!

That only legal abstractions may exercise free speech on what had been your 'property', I call a violation of the First Amendment. There is no 'freedom of speech' if only one percent, a ruling one percent of the total population, may exercise it.

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) that required broadcast licensees to cover issues of public importance and to do so in a fair manner. Issues of public importance were not limited to political campaigns. Nuclear plant construction, workers’ rights, and other issues of focus for a particular community could gain the status of an issue that broadcasters were required to cover.

Therefore, the Fairness Doctrine was distinct from the so-called “equal time” rule, which requires broadcasters to grant equal time to qualified candidates for public office, because the Fairness Doctrine applied to a much broader range of topics. In 1987, after a period of study, the FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine. The FCC found that the doctrine likely violated the free speech rights of broadcasters, led to less speech about issues of public importance over broadcast airwaves, and was no longer required because of the increase in competition among mass media.

The repeal of the doctrine did not end the debate among lawmakers, scholars, and others about its constitutionality and impact on the availability of diverse information to the public. The debate in Congress regarding whether to reinstate the doctrine continues today. In the 109th Congress, bills such as H.R. 3302 were introduced to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. In the 111th Congress, the proposed legislation related to the Fairness Doctrine would prohibit the FCC from reinstating it.

--CRS Report for Congress

Trashing the Fairness Doctrine is but one of many lingering harms inflicted upon us by one Ronald Reagan. Reagan is no hero. Read the Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters. Reagan ARMED Iran which was --at the time --an enemy of the United States. By law, that makes, Reagan a traitor. See FINDLAW or the Cornell University Law library online. As we have come to expect from right wing regimes, the laws that apply to you, do not apply to the rich, the powerful or to those entities newly 'created' people by SCOTUS:

In terms of abstract doctrine, the law of treason condemns anyone who owes allegiance to the U.S., who adheres to U.S. enemies, and who gives them aid and comfort by an overt act to which two witnesses testify. As courts have applied that doctrine, however, it threatens any citizen or resident of the U.S. who publicly expresses disloyal sentiments. The Internet has made it cheap, easy, and dangerous to publish such sentiments. It hosts many an expression that an eager prosecutor could cite both as proof of adherence to U.S. enemies—a subjective state of mind—and as proof of an overt act giving them aid and comfort—an objective fact to which any two of the expression’s readers could testify. Even if no prosecutions for treason arise, the alarmingly broad yet ill-defined reach of the law of treason threatens to unconstitutionally chill innocent dissent.

--Tom W. Bell, TREASON, TECHNOLOGY, AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

Clearly, Ronald Reagan and many throughout our government at various times since the right of the rabid 'right wing' have committed treason as it is legally defined. Should you try it, you will be prosecuted. That different laws, standards and procedures apply to you even as you are denied a voice upon what had been publically owned airwaves is tyranny!

I have defended the Fairness Doctrine on principle. But there is yet another case to be made. The Fairness Doctrine is essential, it is 'needed' as a practical matter. That so many have never heard of the Fairness Doctrine and at last as many misunderstand it, it proof that the corporate media has not and is not informing the population. Cynically, the ruling elites, just one percent of the total population, prefer to keep you ignorant, uninformed. Better to deny your rights; better to enslave you; better to effect the corporation domination which has, in fact, enriched a ruling one percent of the total population.

Edward R. Murrow: Restore the Fairness Doctrine

Dennis Kucinich on Fairness

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Bush Sr's Faustian Bargain with China or How US/China Trade Threatens to Wipe Out the US Middle Class

US/China trade has benefited China and a US elite consisting of about 1 percent of the nation's total population. It should come as no surprise, then, that the origins of US/China Trade are traced to the GOP administration of Richard Nixon. It is to be expected, then, that it was George Bush Sr who laid the groundwork for this sellout of the American middle class. Fact is 'US/China trade' was never intended to benefit the average American tax payer. And it never has!

The date of Nixon's historic China visit is January 26, 1972. The groundwork had already been put into place by Bush; the 'real deals' had most certainly been cut by George Bush Sr who visited the Forbidden City, presumably, in advance of Nixon's highly televised, worldwide media event.

Bush, a former 'Ambassador' as well as a former CIA operative, may have been deemed eminently qualified to make the trip. It was in the Grand Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency in downtown Houston that Bush Sr told me in a brief one-on-one interview how he had been duped into eating dog meat at an official dinner in the Forbidden City. I've often wondered if the US, in the subsequent trade deals, were likewise duped into eating 'aromatic meats', dog meat! I've often wondered if China just outsmarted the Nixon/Bush gang of crooks --or was it a deliberate sell out? Only the Nixon/Bush cabal, their complicit 'material support', and the increasingly tiny elite has benefited. In an era that has been defined by Reaganomics and unfair tax give-aways, only about one percent of the US population has benefited and it has done so at the expense of the remaining 99 percent of the population.

It is clear in retrospect that Nixon/Bush sell-outs to an evil Chinese regime have not benefited the cause of freedom in either China or the US. China now differs from China under Mao by having insulated themselves against a future 'people's revolution' with the creation of a 'conservative' middle class. It is hard to imagine this class coming into being without the trade concessions made that country by Nixon, by Bush, and the markets opened up to them by Wal-Mart. All benign as all this may seem, a terrible price had been paid for it.

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - The US trade deficit with China cost 2.3 million American jobs between 2001 and 2007, the Economic Policy Institute said on Wednesday in a report likely to fuel debate about free trade ahead of November elections.

Even when they found new jobs, workers displaced by job loss to China saw their earnings decrease by an average of $8,146 each year because the new jobs paid less, according to the report, funded in part by labor unions.

"This report is ground breaking because it shows the extent of damage caused by Chinese cheating," said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which helped fund research for the report by EPI, a left-leaning Washington think tank.

"(We hope) it will help to focus the debate on trade to where it needs to be right now with respect to China," Paul said, noting that free trade is shaping up as a major issue in the November presidential election, especially in closely fought battleground states like Ohio.

US manufacturers, labor unions and many lawmakers have long accused China of manipulating its currency to give Chinese companies an unfair advantage in international trade, and are pressing China to continue to allow the yuan to rise against the US dollar to help level the playing field.

--Andrea Hopkins, US-China trade has cost 2.3 million US jobs: report

It may be argued that US consumers have benefited from the lower prices for Chinese manufactured goods found primarily in Wal-Mart. But --at the expense of US manufacturing and jobs? It was a bad bargain! There was a time when shelves were stocked with appliances of American manufacture evidence of a productive population which is now reduced to tele-marketing time share scams for a living. Shopping at Wal-Mart is no longer a free choice! Bush may call that freedom! I call it fraud, slavery, extortion, gangsterism!

The CIA, of which Bush Sr was once director, plays important parts in the government's betrayal of the American middle class. Expert in waging wars by proxy, the CIA has encouraged terrorism, subverting elected governments.

CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy).

--Steve Kangas, A Timeline of CIA Atrocities

Pakistan is a case in point.

Since 9/11, the Bush administration has been propping up Musharraf's military regime with $3.6 billion in economic aid from the US and a US-sponsored consortium, not to mention $900 million in military aid and the postponement of overdue debt repayments totaling $13.5 billion. But now the administration is debating whether Musharraf has become too dependent on Islamic extremist political parties in Pakistan to further US interests, and whether he should be pressured to permit the return of two exiled former prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who have formed an electoral alliance to challenge him in presidential elections scheduled for next year.

--Pakistan: Friend or Foe? The US shouldn't prop up President Musharraf's military regime, Selig S. Harrison

The late Benazir Bhutto revealed the truth before she was brutally gunned down in the streets of Karachi: US policy causes world terrorism. She died before she could tell the rest of the story. See also: Terrorism is worse under GOP regimes.

When the United States aligns with dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, it compromises the basic democratic principles of its foundation -- namely, life, liberty and justice for all. Dictatorships such as Musharraf's suppress individual rights and freedoms and empower the most extreme elements of society. Oppressed citizens, unable to represent themselves through other means, often turn to extremism and religious fundamentalism.

Benazir Bhutto, A False Choice for Pakistan

By now, the point must be clear: no one but an elite one percent of the US population has benefited from the treasonous deals that Nixon and Bush cooked up with Chinese despots, the men who gave to the world a horrible legacy at Tiananmen Square. October 2003 figures from the US Census Bureau make stark reading:

• Median household incomes are falling
• The number of Americans without health insurance rose by 5.7 percent to 43.6 million individuals.
• The number of people living below the poverty line ($18,392 for a family of four) climbed to 12.1 percent — 34.6 million people.
• Wages make up the majority of income for most American families. As "Downward Mobility," NOW's report on workers and wages illustrates, many American workers are facing corporate efforts to cut pay and benefits, which could lead to more American families struggling to stay out of poverty.

As every decent American has lost faith in the despotic regime inside China, there is almost no one living outside the US who believes in the 'American' ideal. Bush has absolutely ho moral authority from which he might dictate a 'Pax Americana'. Inside the US, our own 'ideals' were disdainfully repudiated by a would-be emperor. The entire world sees this for what it is: a cruel fraud upon the American people and the world.

The average American HAS NOT benefited from US/China 'trade'.

• In 1960, the wealth gap between the top 20 percent and the bottom 20 percent of Americans was thirty fold. Four decades later it’s more than seventy-five-fold.
• Either way -- wealth or income – America is more unequal, economists generally agree, than at any time since the start of the Great Depression…
  
• And more unequal than any other developed nation today.

—Inequality.org

Americans HAVE NOT benefited from the rise of leeches like Wal-Mart. Here’s why:

• Despite bringing in over $378 billion last year, Wal-Mart repeatedly underpays its American workforce. More than 80 wage & hour lawsuits, including a recently certified class action lawsuit in California, are currently pending against the company. Plus, it faces more than 200 discrimination lawsuits for unfair promotion practices, pay discrepancies and other issues, including the nation’s largest workplace gender discrimination lawsuit. By failing to fairly compensate its employees, Wal-Mart cheats states out of income tax revenues.
• Wal-Mart also pays poorly. While the company seeks to benefit from the government’s rebate payout, Wal-Mart’s low wages means store employees have little or no disposable income to spend to stimulate the economy. Think about what even a small raise for Wal-Mart’s 1 million+ workers would mean nationally, or what it would mean to your city or town if everyone at your local Wal-Mart got a raise.
• Wal-Mart sources the vast majority of its products from countries overseas, meaning most of the cost of a given Wal-Mart product doesn’t go into the U.S. economy. Rather than boosting the U.S. economy, Wal-Mart has played a major role in exporting U.S. manufacturing jobs to countries with low labor and environmental standards. Meanwhile, the company has embraced unions in its Chinese stores and has negotiated with them to raise Chinese salaries. Apparently, what is good enough for China is not good enough here at home.
• Wal-Mart underfunds its health care plan and cuts corners whenever possible, forcing many of its employees to postpone care, thus decreasing their productivity and increasing the eventual cost of their treatment. In desperation, many of them rely on state-sponsored care and drain yet more funds from American communities. That means when Wal-Mart employees end up in emergency rooms, it’s U.S. taxpayers who end up footing the bill. If Wal-Mart were truly interested in stimulating the economy, it would begin to adequately fund its health care plan and take care of its own Associates.
• Wal-Mart routinely dodges state and local taxes, meaning money spent at a Wal-Mart store won’t end up in your community. Wal-Mart actively works to challenge property tax assessments and creates complex real estate arrangements to obscure how much taxes the company owes. When Wal-Mart dodges its tax burden, it takes precious revenues away from cities and states to pay for roads, schools and other services. In turn, individual taxpayers are forced to pay more to make up the difference (which takes more money out of their pockets) or get by with less.
  --The Quaker Agitator, Why Wal-Mart Does Not Strengthen Our Economy

Also see: Wal-Mart is Pure Evil!

Bush's latest approval rating continues the downward trend to about 28%. That Bush still polls above ten percent is inexplicable. It was psychologist Carl Jung who estimated that as much as 30 percent of any population is certifiably psychopathic! Therefore, Bush is losing even the 'crazy' vote on which the GOP has often depended!

Only about 1 percent of the population has benefited from his program of mass murder, corporate crime and aggressive war, and plunder. Bush's true base of about one percent of the population alone have benefited from a war of seemingly endless death and carnage. His vaunted 'surge', was, in fact, a ruthless program of ethnic cleansing, a war crime that will be charged him when he is put on trial, possibly for his life!

China, for the time being, has had an interest in keeping the US ponzi scheme propped up --they sell billions of dollars worth of crap to US citizens via Wal-Mart, the economic Kudzu that ate America.

Between 1989 and 2003, the ever-increasing US trade deficit with China has led to about 1.5 million jobs that either moved overseas or never were created in this country as production shifted to China, according to a report released Jan. 11, 2005, by the US–China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), a congressionally appointed panel. The pace of job losses has picked up since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, with about one-third of the total, or 500,000, occurring in the past three years.

Lower Wages for US Workers

By supporting foreign-made goods on such a massive scale, the company that trumpets its All-American image is creating incentives for corporations to destroy good jobs in the United States.

• As the world’s largest company with sales of $288 billion in 2004, Wal-Mart exerts a strong downward pressure on wages, and not only for its own workers. Its sheer size and buying power gives it the ability to influence wage rates of its competitors and suppliers, including manufacturing and construction companies.
• Wal-Mart pressures its suppliers through a policy that says the price Wal-Mart will pay and will charge shoppers must drop each year for basic products that don't change. To survive in the face of the retail giant’s pricing demands, suppliers have had to lay off employees and close US plants in favor of out sourcing products from overseas.

By purchasing such a large amount of goods produced in China, Wal-Mart indirectly supports continued workers’ rights abuses by Chinese authorities.

--Wal-Mart's Imports Lead to US Jobs Exports

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that Wal-Mart squeezes suppliers for the lowest price. Factories respond with longer hours, lower pay. Wealth, as we have learned the hard way, trickles UP --not down. Robber barons in either the US or China will always make up losses out of your ass. In China, the workers have no choice: China forbids independent trade unions. That is a policy not unlike that of the US GOP and Ronald Reagan, specifically, who is not fondly remembered for his effective War on Labor and his ineffective war on terrorism and drugs.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Monday projected the US budget deficit will soar to a record of nearly half a trillion dollars in fiscal 2009 as a housing-led economic slowdown cuts into government revenues.

The economic and fiscal deterioration will complicate efforts to bring the budget to balance and pose challenges for whoever takes over the White House in January, either Republican Sen. John McCain or Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

"I believe whoever becomes the next president will have a very, very sobering first week in office," predicted Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat.

...

White House budget chief Jim Nussle cited the government stimulus checks and slower economic growth as primary reasons for larger deficits in 2008 and 2009. "The determination was made that getting the economy back on track was a higher priority than immediate deficit reduction," he told reporters.

...

The new report said the budget deficit would fall to $178 billion in 2010, and surpluses would emerge in 2012.

However, the deficit projections did not include the full amount of funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or costly tax law changes, and acknowledged it would be a "challenge" to reach surpluses in 2012.

--Jeremy Pelofsky and David Lawder, White House sees record budget gap in 2009

Who Will Stand Against Bush's World Wide Tyranny?

See: Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win

Published Articles

• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part I, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part II, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part III, In Fascist Dictatorships Telling the truth becomes a crime
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part IV, the state forces an 'existential' choice
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part V, Public Opinion Becomes Irrelevant
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VI, The government places itself above the law
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VII, The Government Denies 'Due Process of Law'
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State Part VIII: Atrocities are justified with lies, myths or propaganda

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