Class Warfare Blog

June 9, 2010

But, Surely, That Couldn’t Happen Here, Could It?

Even a cursory examination of the history of Central and South America of the last 60 years or so will show a definite pattern: when a “populist” government gets elected in any country, one of two things tends to happen, either there is a military coup or there is capital flight from the country and the country’s economy collapses.

It is easily demonstrated that U.S. foreign policy involves a great deal of military aid. I used to think this was to help those countries defend themselves from their “enemies.” I now see this in a different light. We not only sell these countries arms (often to a country and their supposed “enemies” at the same time) but there is training as to how to use those weapons, joint military exercises, officer exchanges, educational opportunities at military academies, etc. Certainly, there tends to be good relationships between our military and their military, as that is a stated goal of ours. And, if the secular government gets too “populist,” it is a relatively easy matter to express some displeasure, maybe have the CIA foment a little chaos, and suggest that the country needs a “strong leader” to one of their colonels or generals and, voila, instant coup.

If that doesn’t work, the monied interests in the country are offered spectacular investment opportunities overseas, where they can “weather the storm” and as the capital leaves, the economy collapses and the government is blamed. The monied interests in that country take no real damage, they are still rich, and they “get their country back,” the one where they get to call the shots, and a government wanting to take their money and give it to “the people” is squashed.

“But, surely, that couldn’t happen here,” you say.

Let’s see. Even before Barrack Obama was elected he was being painted as a “dangerous liberal” and a “radical.” After he got elected, the rhetoric was amped up to him being a “socialist,” “Marxist,” and “populist.” (I discount the “Nazi” epithets as being just a variation on “socialist.”) This is quite amazing for a centrist politician. Obama is at the most extreme a center-left politician, and not at all an ideologue, being instead a pragmatist. So, why all of the Marxist-leftist-liberal-socialist labels? And all of the complaints about “taxes being too high” when income taxes are at their lowest level in over 50 years because the Obama administration gave in to Republicans and included $300,000,000,000 of tax cuts in the “stimulus bill”? (Republicans claimed, in the face of all the evidence being contrary, that tax cuts were the “only way” to stimulate the economy. They later claimed that the stimulus package did no good whatsoever, “not one job created,” “not one job saved.” Clearly, their own “tax cut idea” should have had an effect? If you are unaware, it did, just a smaller one for the money spent as tax cuts offer way less “bang for the buck” than do, say, public works projects or even food stamps when it comes to stimulating the economy (food stamps always get spent, tax cuts often go into savings and paying down existing bills).)

The pattern would suggest either a military coup or economic collapse is on its way. A military coup seems very unlikely as the submission of the military to civilian control seems strong.

Economic collapse due to capital flight . . . hmmm. Start with the Republicans doing everything they can to stop any and all programs the Obama administration proposes, especially those that might have some ameliorative effect on the economy. This is not the action of the “loyal opposition” which has the goal of improving the quality of the legislation or program by injecting their own ideas. This is an out and out “dig in the heels and say ‘Whoa!’” strategy, basically it is pure obstructionism. If nothing gets done, the recession will probably drag on and economic woes are the most likely cause for a “change in power.”

Then, there is the fact that the major business banks are back to what brought our economy to the brink of collapse, speculating. Are they making business loans easier to help the economy recover? Uh, no. Are they making loans much at all? Uh, no. These banks have concentrated much of the capital available in the country into their own coffers and no amount of “community banks” are going to be funding new energy technology startups, or any of the other future-oriented business that need to get going right now; they don’t have that much capital to invest. And while these “business banks” (aka Wall Street Investment Firms) have donated what appears to be quite a bit of money to Democrats and to the Obama campaign, that was just “insurance” money. Those donations are to make it appear that they were “supporters” of the administration all along. But their hearts belong to Daddy, aka the Republican Party, their “real” friends. So, they can make good money speculating (in essentially rigged games, it now appears) and they will hold off vigorous lending in the hope that, at least, the Republicans can take control of one of the Houses of the Legislature and bring everything to a halt. Then there would be no more “regulations” which are, as we all know, “anti-business.” Maybe even the White House can be reclaimed by the GOP and business can get back to writing the legislation it needs instead of all of this nonsense to protect “the people.”

Hmmm, sounds like “capital flight” to me. Not investing in the future means not a lot of business will be able to hire folks, which means an anti-incumbent attitude in the voting cadre. And this is all supported by the GOP, the party against limitations and regulations on business and which claims that government shouldn’t do anything to stimulate the economy because it won’t work and can’t work. So, they are desperately trying to prevent the government from doing anything because they think if the economy recovers, the Democrats will stay in power. If they really believed what they claim to believe, they should merely stand by and watch the government try this and try that, it will fail and they will be able to say “Look at what they did! It was entirely ineffective. And we told them so. Elect us.” They obviously don’t believe their own ideology and they and their monied sponsors are actively trying to lay the country low for political gain.

If anything disqualifies the GOP from leadership it is this despicable behavior.

Surely, it can’t happen here . . . Ohmigod, it’s happening!

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