Back from several days in Washington. The city still has all the disadvantages of being a one-industry town, with almost everyone working for the government or lobbying the government or reporting on the government or trying to influence the government or litigating on behalf of or against the government. It's like LA and the entertainment industry, or downtown New York and finance. Everyone is in the same bubble, and every conversation sounds vaguely similar.
The only difference this time is Washington feels under siege, as if marauding bands are closing in on it. Unlike Europe, America doesn't have feudal traditions that in the last century spun into fascism and communism. Our right and left are much closer to the center than are Europe's.
But the American right -- whose roots are found in Jeffersonian libertarianism and the Jacksonian alliance of small southern farmers and northern white workers -- is moving further right, and pulling the Republican Party with it. It's fueled by economic fears combined with racism, anti-immigrant nativism, and southern white evangelical Christians.
The puzzle is why Wall Street and corporate America are going along with it when their interests are so different. The new Republican right is anti-Wall Street and protectionist. It doesn't want to expand immigration. It distrusts big business and opposes the sorts of special tax cuts, subsidies, and big government contracts that big business has thrived on. The Obama administration has been far better to corporate America and Wall Street than the new Republican right would ever be.
I don't get it, but the alliance between the energies of the new right and the money of big corporations and Wall Street is formidable, and in this early summer of our discontent Washington can already sense the barbarians at the gates.
ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
Follow Robert Reich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RBReich
Right back at you!
Spelled correctly, the words are "seriously", "immigration" and "monetary". Punctuated correctly, the words are "don't", "parents' " and "California's". Capitalized correctly, the name is "Wall Street". And the snide assertion "you dont even know" and the adjectival phrase "live in your parents basement" are each part of ad hominem attacks--and groundless ones, at that.
A funnier parody of Ignorance attempting to criticize Knowledge could not have been written!
Nice work.
Thanks for the laugh
My company was expanding like crazy and hiring and happily paying a ton in taxes until the first "rolling brown out". A business can not operate if they are wondering when the machines will turn off. Manufacturers had no choice. If they had to suffer from third world infrastructure controlled by monopolies they might as well get the benefits like cheap labor as well. They pulled up stakes and moved out like farmers fleeing the dust bowl.
A lot of things have contributed to that $16bil deficit. But 11% unemployment and a declining tax base are 100 times worse than any "loopy liberal spending".
And it is the exact same story Romney and his corporate masters want to spread across the country. Corporations are people my friend.
If it's idiotlogically similar, then what does it say about the direction that part of our country might be taking?
One simple act of congress could eradicate all illegal immigrants overnight. Just make them legal.
The things that makes them illegal are the laws that aren't working. Allow them to get green cards and become citizens and voila, no more illegal immigrants.
There are no illegal Cubans in the US. Zero. Nada. There are no illegal Puerto Ricans in the US. Has that destroyed New York City or Florida?
Nativism isn't about wanting the laws obeyed. It is wanting the laws that you believe you have earned. Because your ancestors came from a place that had a path to citizenship, you feel you deserve to live and work here. You think you are better than the people who aren't Americans. You don't want them to obey just laws. You want them to go back to where they came from.
What happens if the Republicans win senate and presidency? They now control the supreme court and will control the judiciary, and with voter suppression it becomes one party rule. In time the oppressed public will raise up and the use of the patriot act, police, military, private contractors, CIA, FBI and other government agencies will keep the population under control. This is the path the American democracy is on.
Fanned for a clear and terrifying vision of a very possible scenario.
The partnership between the leaders of the religious right (Dobson, Robertson who ran for president in the 1980's and runs regency law school. His goal is to populate the justice department with religious lawyers, which was done under Bush 2, and the judicial branch), and corporate America is cemented. The religious right (Evangelical) will help deliver the vote for a policy making voice and power in government for a state religion. Big Money Koch Brothers, Sheldon Edelson and others will not only dictate financial policy for their greed but the power to control government (through members they control) beyond any one election. These people want to be the power behind the transparent throne for decades.
This is the history of the world that keeps repeating itself. Democracies do not last long when the powerful suppress and alters the vote, while running dominating propaganda machines. The American democracy is in the throws of it's demise. The distraction is hatred, prejudice and fears, and the preoccupation to have shelter, food on the table, pay debt and have a future.
Vote 3rd party!
"The puzzle is why Wall Street and corporate America are going along with it when their interests are so different. The new Republican right is anti-Wall Street and protectionist. It doesn't want to expand immigration. It distrusts big business and opposes the sorts of special tax cuts, subsidies, and big government contracts that big business has thrived on. The Obama administration has been far better to corporate America and Wall Street than the new Republican right would ever be."
I think you may have hit upon the answer. There are many things the extreme Right supports that are against the interest of big business and finance, but the partnership works because they get some of what they want -- low tax rates, freedom to pollute, and less regulation -- things they are unlikely to get from Democrats.
You raise good points, but this new class of right-wing politicians have neither America's best interests at heart nor their own. They are, for the most part, opportunistic agents of the richest few who, as you accurately say, believe "that all of it belongs to them" and to whom, in fact, about half of America's financial wealth already does. To the greedy rich, these new right-wing politicians are, individually, quite expendable. Although not exactly field hands, they are also neither the primary nor intended beneficiaries of the services they render. Their masters are.