Links/Open Thread

Not Everyone Hates Citizens United, particularly local TV stations, pithily writes Michael Socolow in Slate:

For local broadcast channels and their it-bleeds-it-leads newscasts, the Supreme Court might as well be that mythic relative who leaves you an unexpected fortune in his will. The cascade of political money to your local channel began for real in 2012. That year, according to the Pew Research Center, local television stations received $3.1 billion in political advertising revenue. That was 48 percent more than was spent just two years earlier (before Citizens United) and represented more than double the amount raked in during the previous presidential election in 2008.

Read the whole thing. In case you were still wondering why you keep getting that queasy feeling whenever you unwittingly morph from Judge Judy berating the poor and marginalized into local news berating the poor and the marginalized, Socolow lays it all out for you.  My own local news fare lurches between lambasting "progressive" Mayor De Blasio for his un-tough on crime demeanor, to ads for charter schools produced by anonymous dark hedge fund money, to big bank lobbies honoring recently re-elected NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo (whose administration is currently under investigation for alleged corruption) for his support for Wall Street. These local propaganda mills make the national network news conglomerates actually seem journalistically responsible, even with their feel-good animal videos and their hideous Viagra and Big Oil ads. Cancelling my cable is looking more and more like a treat to be savored, rather than a deprivation in my infotainment diet. Plus, all those books that must be read before one dies are piling up on my nightstand.

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Where were you when you discovered your own personal political and moral conscience? Was it a book, a friend, a teacher who opened your eyes? Henry Giroux tells his own personal story in a heartfelt Truthout essay about his simultaneous embrace and transcendence of his working class roots. He recounts the epiphany that the dreck that the ruling class sells us day in and day out is not only harmful to our health, it is pure poison:

 The struggle to redefine my sense of agency was about more than a perpetual struggle between matters of intelligence, competency and low self-esteem; it was about reclaiming a sense of history, opening the door to dangerous memories, and taking risks that enabled a new and more radical sense of identity and what it meant to be in the world from a position of strength. I found signposts of such resistance in my youth in Black music, stories about union struggles, the warm solidarity of my peers, and later in the powerful display of public intellectuals whose lectures I attended at Brown University. The people who moved me at those lectures were not academics reading papers I barely understood, or intellectuals who seemed frozen emotionally, spewing out a kind of jargon reserved for the already initiated, smug in their insularity and remoteness.

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Speaking of stories on union and class struggles, one of the great influencers of my own youth was the folk music group The Weavers. Ronnie Gilbert, the female voice of that quartet, died this week at the age of 88. From Rolling Stone:

The Weavers' first concerts were often free performances at union meetings and on picket lines. In 1949, about to break up, they were offered a two week residency at the Village Vanguard in New York City that proved so successful they stayed for six months. The stint earned the Weavers a deal with Decca Records, which led to television and radio appearances, and extensive touring.
Amidst their success, the group maintained their progressive and leftist politics, which drew the eye and ire of those in the anti-communist movement of the 1950s. In 1951, the Weavers were investigated by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, which sought to probe potentially subversive citizen threats, and soon they were blacklisted from performing and recording.

The daughter of Russian/Ukrainian immigrants and labor activists, Gilbert was inspired in her own youth by the voice of Paul Robeson. Her activism was her music. And luckily for us, she also wrote an autobiography before she died, to be published posthumously this fall. While you're waiting, here's a link to one of my own Weavers favorites -- Which Side Are You On?

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Which side is New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on? Well, we know it is not the crazy Republicans. Nor is it the crazy leftists, whoever they may be. They certainly do not exist within the moneyed realm of the ironically named Democratic Party. To his credit, unlike other pundits, Krugman rarely delves into the river of false equivalency in his columns. But he really stuck a big toe into it in yesterday's effort, cutesily titled Fighting the Derp. For the uninitiated unhip readers out there, Krugman helpfully explains that "derp" is a South Park cartoon neologism defined as repeating the same lies over and over and over again to give them legitimacy and currency. In other words, "derp" is another way to describe Goebbels-style propaganda.

Here's the "both sides do it" part of the column that really pissed me off:

Thus, if you’re a conservative opposed to a stronger safety net, you should be extra skeptical about claims that health reform is about to crash and burn, especially coming from people who made the same prediction last year and the year before (Obamacare derp runs almost as deep as inflation derp).

But if you’re a liberal who believes that we should reduce inequality, you should similarly be cautious about studies purporting to show that inequality is responsible for many of our economic ills, from slow growth to financial instability. Those studies might be correct — the fact is that there’s less derp on America’s left than there is on the right — but you nonetheless need to fight the temptation to let political convenience dictate your beliefs.

My published response:

  "Liberals" are admonished to also be careful of studies purporting to show that income inequality is responsible for many of our economic ills. And then PK neglects to mention any alleged lefty studies.

Is he referring to Nobelist Joseph Stiglitz's work on inequality, which shows that the wealth gap, deliberately manufactured by financial deregulation and political malfeasance, is indeed responsible for a tepid economy and slow recovery due to stagnant wages? Or is he referring to Barack Obama, who's been acting more like a Reaganesque supply-sider lately with his shilling for the Trans-Pacific Partnership "trickle-down" power grab by the ultra-rich?

I'll do my civic duty and read Stiglitz and others, like Bill Black and Michael Hudson, who rightly point to blatant corruption and rule by the plutocracy as a prime cause of economic inequality. I'll put my faith in my fellow citizens, 61% of whom believe, according to a recent NYT poll, that this inequality is getting worse. We believe, along with Sens. Warren and Sanders, that the whole economic system is rigged against us. I'll also put my faith in the most recent OECD figures showing that the US ranks near dead last in all Western measures of social and economic health.

There may be a derp problem, but the real problem is that of the insatiable greed of the pathocrats and the influence of their unlimited dark money in what is still quaintly called a democracy.

To be fair, Krugman did follow up his column with a blogpost/chart purporting to debunk a causal relationship between inequality and a bad economy. He first conveniently tossed out the widely used and respected Gini co-efficient measurements of wealth inequality because they apparently do not fit with his own theory. His argument was rather too technical for a layperson like me, but do read the comments. People with obvious economic backgrounds and expertise were not impressed.

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 As an antidote to Krugman wishy-washiness, be sure to read Thomas Piketty's review of a truly radical economist's prescription to heal the scourge of historic and global wealth inequality. And then get a hold of the book (Inequality: What Can Be Done? by Anthony B. Atkinson) if you can. I got so excited that I plunked down an outrageous 16-plus bucks to download it from Amazon, but it's been well worth it so far. He addresses mere laypersons! In just the first few pages he tears apart the neoliberal metaphors that I love to hate -- level playing fields and ladders of opportunity! -- and gets right into how politicians and pundits avoid talking about how people often stumble and fall on those level playing fields and how "we" avoid talking about actual equal outcomes.

Piketty writes,

He also argues for guaranteed public-sector jobs at a minimum wage for the unemployed, and democratization of access to property ownership via an innovative national savings system, with guaranteed returns for the depositors. There will be inheritance for all, achieved by a capital endowment at age eighteen, financed by a more robust estate tax; an end to the English poll tax—a flat-rate tax for local governments—and the effective abandonment of Thatcherism. The effect is exhilarating. Witty, elegant, profound, this book should be read: it brings us the finest blend of what political economy and British progressivism have to offer.

In other words, Atkinson is even more radical than Bernie Sanders. And the fact that he concentrates on Britain should not at all dissuade us from translating his Rx to our own shores. After all, it's a global economy. The City of London and Wall Street are one and the same entity. Obama's consigliere Jim Messina just helped re-elect austerian David Cameron to another term as prime minister.

But as Atkinson cheerily writes in his intro: "The world faces great problems but collectively we are not helpless in the face of forces outside our control. The future is very much in our hands."

Like I said, quite the antidote to learned helplessness, one of the many neoliberal toxins being poured down our political gullets to induce the chronic condition known as Panglossitis. Things could always be worse in this best of all possible worlds, of course. But why not demand better? The only thing holding us back is the propaganda of the fear-mongers.

Give up that dark money-driven cable infotainment and embrace your inner Henry Giroux and Ronnie Gilbert. Life is too short not to.