An Apparent Economy.

Chipsters were never very good at algebra, but we excelled at geometry and, consequently, astronomy which, as everyone knows, is simply geometry in motion. We were particularly fascinated by Ptolemy, that genius astronomer of the 2nd Century whose great work, the Almagest, plotted the heavenly motions of planets and stars and whose calculations were so accurate they continued to be used by seafarers well into the 19th century.

Ptolemy introduced into my 17 year old mind a distinction I had never thought of before, or if I had, not very clearly. I knew that things could be disguised; that is, made to look like something they were not -- that after all was the whole point of Halloween when we chipsters scampered around the neighborhood dressed up as a human beings. But it never occurred to me that something could be other than what it actually was. For this stunning concept, we must thank Ptolemy.

Of course, as everyone knows, Ptolemy decided [yes, it was a decision] that the Earth was at the center of the cosmos and that the sun, planets and stars revolved around us. But that wasn't half of Ptolemy's genius. He also decided that since the circle was the most perfect of forms, the sun had to revolve around the earth in a circle. This made perfect sense, and from this premise, calculating where the sun would be next Tuesday would be a simple matter of counting the degrees per day around the celestial clock.

The only problem was that the sun was not where it was supposed to be next Tuesday. No, it was a little bit behind. To make matters worse, the following Friday, the sun wasn't further behind, but had mysteriously advanced forward by half a degree or so. The sun was playing games.

Ptolemy scratched his head and then had the stroke of genius, for which he will ever be remembered and honored by Man. He decided [sic] that there was a "real" sun which moved in a perfect circle, and a merely "apparent" sun which we saw to be further forward or behind and which moved in an epi-cycle around the circle.

As the epi-center moved around the center, the sun moved around the epi-center and this device explained not only why the sun was where it only appeared to be, but also enabled us to accurately predict where it would not really be.

Ptolemy called this "Saving the Appearances" and with ever increasing complexity and ingenuity he saved the appearances for all the planets and, in fact, for the entire cosmos.... at least the apparently visible one.

The Almagest is full of phrases like the "true sun" and the "apparent sun" or the "mean Venus" and the "actual Veuns" the "recession" of the Equinox and the like. I don't know who it was who decided that the "simplest proof is the most elegant." Ptolemy's proofs are far from simple and they are the very paradigm of elegance. Next to him, Copernicus and Kepler are dull, dull, snore, CLUNK.

Everyone should be required to study Ptolemy in order to understand how a premise will dictate a result and how a theory will self-validate and yet, from a certain point of view, be entirely wrong. I say this without intending to cast the least aspersion on Ptolemy for whom I have the greatest admiration and a certain affection. The problem concerns what we know, and how.

Given my background in astronomy, it is hardly surprising that my curiosity was pricked three years ago when a friend of mine, who is an investor, started complaining about how no one was talking about the "real economy."

"Real economy?" I asked with raised eyebrows. Was somebody ... Paul Krugman perhaps? ... out there saving the appearances?

"Yes, the real economy," my friend said with vehemence. No one has caught on that there are TWO economies out there: the corporate economy and the economy for the rest of us.

Gary's point had all the elegant simplicity of an epicycle, and it was, in fact, nothing very complicated. The government counts corporate earnings as part of the country's GNP. So, for example, if GM's profits are up, since GM is an "American" corporation, that contributes to the boost in "our" economy. But suppose, GM's earnings are up due to investments and earnings overseas, say for example, in China? How does this "boost" anything back home in the United States? GM isn't even required to deposit its profits in American banks, but can salt them away in a box in Dubai. What has any of this to do with you and me?

Nothing! Gary said, with a grousing air of annoyance before going on to belly-ache about the falsehood of labels and how "American" corporations were allowed to import duty free products apparently manufactured in China because they were really "made in the U.S.A."

For three years, my friend has been complaining about the economic fraud being perpetrated and about a press that aids and abets corporations that are literally gutting the country alive. Starting six months ago, Gary began complaining that corporations were "now" even shipping their capital overseas. "Soon there will be nothing left! And Americans are too damn stupid to see what is taking place right under their noses."

We at the Gazette have done our part, and have passed along Gary's wisdom to the High Mucky Mucks at the Times and other pillars of the Fourth Estate; but to no avail. Like Henny Penny's more optimistic cousins, the press runs about headlining "Corporate Earnings are Up!!!" "The Recession is Bottoming Out" ... before going on to say, without really thinking much about it, "although 'it is expected that' it will be a jobless recovery."

Oh, rejoice. "Yes, we have no bananas."

Finally, the other day, Robert Reich, who is at least as savvy as our friend Gary, published an article in which he acknowledged that what was good for GM was not necessarily good for America. In an article entitled, The Bad Job Numbers and the Secret Second Stimulus Reich writes,

"American companies are more profitable, to be sure. But there’s a massive disconnect between profitability and employment."

Meanwhile, GM's CEO announced cheefully, that the company had turned the corner, that profits were expected to be up, and that the stodgy Buick was selling like hot cakes in the booming middle class market in China. Of course, the UAW took it in the nose on health care and pensions, but hey, the Recession is over! We have positive GNP.

Since the end of the World War, the U.S. has been a fabulously rich country; and it still is, if capital assets are counted. But everything is finite, and anything can be depleted.

Robert Reich calls for more "stimulus" spending to create jobs (at home). But that is no longer a viable solution, particularly under Obama, whose Neo-Trickledown© economics [ here ] have simply consisted in throwing public money at private corporations without strings attached. (It's called "hope" ...dude.) It is too late for that. What is needed is outright nationalization of corporate assets so as to keep them here and repatriation of jobs which have been exported overseas.

Most people have realized for at least a decade if not more, that the U.S. was shipping its productive capacity overseas. But they suffered a disconnect in not seeing that this ultimately impacted on national wealth. It was simply taken as axiomatic that if cheaper overseas production boosted corporate profits at home that was "good for America." How so? According to Clinton, America benefitted by being turned into the world's financial file cabinet as Americans were "retooled" for "good paying jops" in the paper-shuffling "service sector".

Well it did not work out that way, and even in terms of trickledown, there was real trickledown (the kind that led Henry Ford to pay his workers $5.00 a day) and apparent trickledown (the kind that witches and wizards like Greenspan conjured up from their bubbling cauldrons).

We are being gutted under our very noses, and still the country does nothing. It is more enthralled by the Leno-Conan debate over who will reign in our insomniac hours.

Ridet et moritur. Ridet et moritur.

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Fathomable Contexts

According to Ha'aretz, film director, Oliver Stone has the world "up in arms" over a new documentary that tries to put Hitler and Stalin -- the Evils of Evil -- into context. "You cannot approach history unless you have empathy for the person you may hate," Stone is reported to have said.

Stone is perfectly right, which is why I've always said that most of what passes for history -- "Hitler" included -- is myth. Manichean myth, in fact. As I result, I usually end up provoking gasps of incredulity as I reproach the unassailable and defend the indefensible.

Why, just the other day I rode to the defense of Stalin. I forget exactly how the topic came up, but a friend of mine made a remark that just assumed that Stalin was rock solid, certain "bad".

"Whoooa... wait a minute, wait a minute," I said, "you gotta put things in context.... Stalin was a great man."

Arrested silence.

Stalin faced a cruel, historical choice. It is usually said that Russia was "medieval". No such luck. What we call "medieval" was pre-national but certainly not primitive or incompetent. In all respects, medieval Europe had a vibrant cultural and economic life that involved most of civil society. As for dumb serfs -- what civilization doesn't have dumb serfs? Russia, on the other hand was lumpen. One ought not to exagerate here, either, but on the whole, Russia subsisted in a pre-industrial, pre-urban state ... one that was enviously rich in natural resources. What was a despot to do ?

Russia was flanked by industrial power houses whose economic engines demanded resources. And behind these lay Britain and the United States, always hungry for a bargain anywhere. The expedition to Archangel had shown what they could be counted on. If only for her own defense Russia had to bring herself up to industrial snuff. But not only for defence. If the masses of Russians were to be lifted out of the bog of their existence, what alternative was there but to become like Germany, the United States, France, England?

However, each of these countries had had at least two hundred years for their "industrial revolution" to unfold. Only an imbecile would think that this revolution unfolded without leaving a trail of intense human misery... of five year olds turned into cart-hawling beasts of burden in mine shafts, of women physically wrecked at 20, of millions working 16 hour days and eating bread adulterated with alum. These hardships were spread out over a century or more, and so appear to be less intense -- but they formed a Gulag of Misery all the same.

The Soviety Union had to.... well.... take a Great Leap Forward and accomplish in decades what had taken the West centuries. Of course the misery was intensified. And not just misery. What the so-called Industrial Revolution actually required was a massive accumulation of surplus value. The working class was not reduced to foul and fetid levels of subsistence out of some sort of spite, but rather because that is how the capitalist system acquires "wealth". Wealth -- which manifested itself in the store fronts of vast warehouses of commodities -- had to be squeezed from somewhere. Thus, the cruel paradox for Communist Russia was that in order to modernize she had to pack 200 years of capitalist squeezing into 20.

Still, it was an astonishing achievement; and beyond astonishing when it is taken into account that the entire process was devastatingly set back by the Nazi invasion which levelled most Russian cities, scorched the country side and killed 20 million people. And still, 15 years later, Russia beat the U.S. to the punch and put a satellite into orbit. And in order to do that, Soviet Russia had to create from the nothing of ignorance and superstition an at least technologically educated working and managerial class.

When we take a step back and contemplate how the Congress of the world's wealthiest nation has quibbled and fumbled and managed not to provide universal health care to its citizens, Stalin's achievements are breathtaking.

"Leave it to you....." my friend laughed.

Well, this was not to deny that Stalin was something of a psychopath and that his system committed monstrosities. Nor is it to deny that much of the glittering material progress was spiritually hollow and environmentally devastating. It was only to put things in context.

As if by coincidence, the woman who had sheltered Anne Frank, died the other day. Needless to say the English speaking press carried the story, along with detailed accounts of how the Frank family had almost survived in hiding against "unfathomable evil" as the New York Times put it with an air of self-evidence.

"Unfathomable...." If something is "unfathomable" it cannot be comprehended or thought about; and if it cannot be thought about, it cannot be learned from but can only be trembled at in mute stupidity. That is not the path toward progress.

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Oh, Those Wacky Keystone Prosecutors

Leave it to Washington to end the year with a farce, as U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington ordered the dismissal of an indictment against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused in a politically charged 2007 shooting incident in Iraq. [ Report ]

Most of the press reported the story as one of prosecutorial bumbling. The creme de la creme of the Justice Department had stumbled and fumbled into compromising the Government's case by using the defendant's statements in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Sanction time!

But Judge Urbino's findings, upon hearing, were a little less comic. He found the prosecutors' explanations of their conduct to be "inconsistent," "extraordianary" and "implausible" Significantly, he did not say "off the wall."

"The only conclusion the court can draw from th[e] evidence is that ... the trial team purposefully flouted the advice of the taint team when obtaining the substance of the defendants’ compelled statements, and in so doing, knowingly endangered the viability of the prosecution.”

In other words, the District Court found that the Department of Justice had thrown the case

Throw a case against Blackwater? How could this be? The answer reveals the nature of the dark comedy that passes for American Justice at the turn of the millenium.

As anyone who has ever watched a COPS show knows, the Constitution prohibits self-incrimination and neither police nor prosecutors can use statements made under duress or compulsion. No Miranda? Case out! Next!

Whoa! Not so fast. Almost immediately after Miranda was decided, the Court began back-pedalling, as the Burger and Rhenquist majorities conjured up every possible exception, limitation and defeasing circumstance they could think of. One such "exception" was the so-called inevitable discovery doctrine, the essence of which is stunningly simple: Hey, if the incriminating evidence would have been discovered disiregardless of the defendant's statements, who cares?

Who indeed? Not the Court.

Lawyers now had a new sand box to play in, as the courts fashioned rules, standards, and thresholds for determining independent inevitability.

While the Courts were coming up with creative ways to protect themselves from tainted confessions, Congress was busy passing laws requiring government agents and contractors to give full and honest accounts to their debriefers following any screw-up, malfeasance, scandal or crime. After all, it was important for the Government to get to the root of the evil, whatever it might be, in order to fix it. And this required full and candid and fearless disclosure by those most intimately and, dare we say, criminally involved.

But suppose whatever it was that was being investigated did involve criminal conduct. It was fairly obvious that statements made to investigators under threat of loosing one's job could not be considered "voluntary". (Garrity v. New Jersey Jersey (1967) 385 U.S. 493.) So then, did confession bar prosecution? For a moment the Government looked confused.

The Court was quick to help out. In Kastigar v. United States States, (1971) 406 U.S. 441 it turned to the inevitable discovery rule and held that, in cases involving administrative debriefings, a criminal prosecution could proceed if the Government proved that it made no use whatsoever of the compelled statements or that any such use was harmless less beyond any reasonable doubt. Enter "taint teams".

Obviously an investigator or lawyer who was aware that Jack had confessed to killing his girlfriend at 2.00 a.m. on a lonely back road in the wilderness of Montana after the two met up at the world's biggest most crowded mall in Winnepeg would have a hard time investigating the case from scratch without ever taking a "lead" from the confessed facts he was aware of. And so, in inimitable bureaucratic fashion, the Justice Department set up teams of lawyers whose job it was to keep other teams of lawyers in the dark, so that they could discover the truth by their own unaided lights and meet their burden under Kastigar.

One would have to be a veritable Pangloss not to realize that Government had managed to set up a double layer of protection for malfeasance in public service.

There may indeed be situations in which government has a bona fide interest in discovering the whys and wherefors of some systemic failure. Investigating "unauthorize killing" in occupation zones is not one of them. It is the height of bully boy cynicism to put on choir boy stoles and claim that a full and broad and detailed confession by Blackwater guards was needed in order to "understand" the "effectiveness" of our own rules of engagement.

The whole exercise simply allowed the guards to craft a confession-cum-defense that would heighten the difficulty of "inevitable discovery" of any key fact needed for conviction. And anyone who does not believe that Blackwater guards received "debriefing-instruction " as part of their training is a fool.

But Blackwater is the Government's darling. To make ultra-sure that no prosecution would ever see the light of day, the government's "taint team" spilled ink all over the damn place and in case that wasn't enough the "prosecution team" ignored whatever pro-forma or face saving "warnings" and "advices" the taint attorneys did deliver.

The Justice Department would have us believe, that their top attorneys on a high profile case were just a bunch of Keystone Prosecutors missing one another and bumbing into eachothers behinds. The whole thing falls into the category of Lucius' "boating accident" in I Claudius.

Is there anything in Washington that does not raise a stench to Heaven?

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Yesteryear Christmas Greetings

Occluding the Season

Someone on a chat-channel pasted a link to a David Duke diatribe on how "the Jews" were effacing Christmas from our national consciousness. As might be expected, the polemic suffered from overdrawn inferences aided by material omissions. Moreover, it was not clear to me that Duke's Christmas tradition was not simply a Disneyfied version of German-English holidays which didn't leave much room for equally Christian traditions of other sorts.

However, in one factual respect, the report was correct: Rahm Emmanuel, accompanied by two Chabad Lubavitch rabbis in black, had lit the "National Menorah" on the White House Ellipse.

National Menorah? I had never heard of such a thing and I certainly have never seen a Jumbo Candelabra on the White House lawn. Where have I been? When did this start?

According to the AP, the National Menora "tradition" began 30 years ago when Jimmy Carter "attended" a lighting of Hanukkah candles in 1979.

Well... someone at the AP is overstating a case. What Carter did was attend a low key, privately sponsored ceremony -- much in the way presidents munch on ethnic foods and issue commemorative proclamations on the occasion of some hyphen-American holiday. It all fell into the category of ribbon cutting in the Kumbaya State.

The White House archives confirm as much, stating that "many Presidents" -- i.e. Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton -- "have participated in lighting ceremonies marking Hanukkah." However, 2001 " marks the first year a Hanukkah lamp (a menorah) was lit in the White House residence" by President Bush-II and attendees.

In other words, the 30 year "tradition" boiled down to a president toodling off somewhere to light some candles. It was not until 2001, the candles were brought to the public space of the White House, and even then, the ceremony was conducted behind closed doors.

With good reason too, since "one of the oldest symbols of the Jewish faith is the menorah, a seven-branched candelabrum used in the Temple." (Jewish Virtual Library - [here] ) By any standard a public presidential validation or endorsement of a ceremony symbolizing a "faith" would violate the Establishment Clause.

So how is it that a sectarian religious symbol which also doubles as a foreign national emblem gets erected on the nation's Capitol Mall?

The argument trucked out along with the menorah is essentially one of "equal time" -- if you Christians get to light up your tree, we Jews have a right to light up our candlestick. This was the argument put forth Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky with respect to airport Christmas trees. Contrary to David Duke's polemic, Rabbi Bogomilsky did not demand that the Christmas in the SeaTac airport be taken down but rather "requested that a Hanukkah menorah also be displayed" [ Seattle Times ] Bogomilsky is also a member of the orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch, sect which has evidently set for itself the mission of promoting an equal but separate icon.

The promotion rests on the fallacy that the Christmas tree is a religious symbol. It is not. Whatever religious significance it might once have had in the pagan forests of Germany, the Christmas tree is no more than a cultural motif. And a rather universal one at that.

It would be difficult to argue that a Tannenbaum which once graced Soviet era not-Christian Christmas cards constitutes a peculiarly and specifically Christian symbol. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has so held, which is precisely why a Christmas tree is allowed on the White House lawn, whereas a Nativity Scene is not.

In contrast to the absence of bishops or cardinals attending or blessing the the lighting of the National Tree, the lighting of the National Menorah has always been conducted by and in the presence of rabbis.

Of course, as with almost anything Jewish, the Menorah has a dual character. Thus, the same Jewish Virtual Library which describes the Menorah as a symbol of faith, goes on to state in a separate article that the lighting of menorah candles on "Chanukah is not a very important religious holiday." The celebration arose from the super abundance of lamp oil which miraculously appeared during the siege of the Second Temple by King Antiochus IV against the Maccabees "a religious traditionalist group" who had joined forces in a revolt against [ ] the assimilation of the Hellenistic Jews and and oppression by the Selucid Greek government."

Even here, a religious motive and a spiritual miracle are assigned to the menorah symbol. But, stripping the object of all possible religious connection, what is left is a symbol of a national uprising against foreign domination -- a sort of Jewish Cinco de Mayo.

One is left to wonder whether we will soon see the lighting of the National Sombrero on the Ellipse as well.

What is ironic, if not galling, is that an object which symbolizes apartness and a rejection of assimilation should receive public validation under the rubric of "inclusivity". While it is certainly appropriate for public officials to give recognition to the distinct and separate traditions and heritages that make up the American tableau, it is quite a different matter to elevate one of those symbols into a national icon. In fact, given the Menorah's non-religious role as the symbol of a foreign nation state, it is hard to see what justification could exist for erecting it, in that or any capacity, on our nation's Capitol Mall.

On the other hand, despite its name, the Christmas tree was and remains an appropriate national symbol because it is religiously neutral. As noted, a decorated tree is an object that has been adopted the world over as a motif for end-of-year celebrations, of all hues. In the United States, the decorating of a Christmas tree is a festivity engaged in by virtually everyone and by virtue of that very commonality (Jews included) is appropriately a symbol of all of us during this Season.

The hoisting of a menorah on public space is an artifice that seizes upon the inherent ambiguities between culture and religion. Traditionally, virtually all of a society's culture flowed from religion. Even where a cultural artifice had a material or economic origin, it was inevitably "spiritualized" and became imbued with a religious significance or, at least, connection. Since the close of the 19th century, the dynamic has flowed in the opposite direction. Originally religious motifs have been secularized and, under the "scientific" aegis of sociology religion has been reduced to an aspect of culture. The Supreme Court has struggled to implement the Establishment Clause within these ambiguities.

The more or less traditional legal rule set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) 403 U.S. 602 was that the Establishment Clause prohibited "entanglements" between Church and State. The rule recognized that in the modern state, strict separation between the government and anything was impossible. In sociological fashion, the Court interpreted the clause in light of its supposed "function" and held that state action (1) have a secular legislative purpose; (2) must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion and (3) must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion.

The issue was more or less simple so long as at issue was whether the government was funding lunches or textbooks in parochial schools. But what about a Nativity Scene on the steps of City Hall?

In Lynch v. Donnelly (1984) 465 U.S. 668 the Court ruled that the issue depended on the "setting". Where the creche was simply part of a larger display of non-religious cultural artifacs such as "a Santa Claus house, reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh, candy-striped poles, a Christmas tree, carolers, cutout figures representing such characters as a clown, an elephant, and a teddy bear, hundreds of colored lights, a large banner that reads "SEASONS GREETINGS," the Nativity Scene lost its religious character and its erection at a minimal cost of $200.00 could not be regarded as involving excessive entanglement or as having the primary effect of promoting religion. After all, the State funds art museums, which are chock full of religious paintings, and

"whatever benefit there is to one faith or religion or to all religions, is indirect, remote, and incidental; display of the creche is no more an advancement or endorsement of religion than ... the exhibition of literally hundreds of religious paintings in governmentally supported museums."

The issue came before the Court again a few years later, County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, (1989) 492 U.S. 573 when the court was asked to rule on the constitutinality of an "equal time" Menorah / Manger / Tree display on city property.

The Court had little difficulty with the creche. It ruled that the Nativity Scene was essentially and unavoidably religious in nature. But, unlike the multi-cultural setting in Lynch, Allegheny's creche stood alone. Its isolated display on public property -- not connected with any other cultural exhibit -- constituted a public endorsement of a particular religious idea. Manger out (at pg. 613)

However, the Menorah and the Tree were part of a separate display, across the square, supposedly celebrating "liberty". Except for Justice Brennan, the Court agreed that whatever pagan symbolism the Christmas tree may have had, it had become widely viewed as a "preeminently secular symbol" of the "Christmas" [they meant "seasonal"] holiday. The Menorah, however, posed " a closer constitutional question"( at pg. 613.)

"The menorah, one must recognize, is a religious symbol: it serves to commemorate the miracle of the oil as described in the Talmud. But the menorah's message is not exclusively religious. The menorah is the primary visual symbol for a holiday that, like Christmas, has both religious and secular dimensions. Moreover, the menorah here stands next to a Christmas tree and a sign saluting liberty. While no challenge has been made here to the display of the tree and the sign, their presence is obviously relevant in determining the effect of the menorah's display." (At pp. 613-614.)

In other words, because the Christmas Tree was non-religious, it served to "secularize" an otherwise Jewish religious symbol and reduce the the whole display to a celebration of Liberty without endorsing either Christianity or Judaism.

Justice Brennan dissented, arguing that the display endorsed both religions since the Christmas Tree was a patently religious symbol. Although Justice Brennan is worthy of great respect as a jurist, on this point, he was plainly wrong. The Christmas Tree, so called simply because the Solstice and Christ's birthdate coincide, is not a religious artifact. While the Solstice Tree has been incorporated into a religious holiday it is patently not the symbol of Christianity the way the Menorah is the symbol of Judaism and the Jewish State.

The defect in the Court majority's reasoning lay not in its secular characterization of an evergreen but in the supposition that a symbol can have its religious essence "leeched" out of it by a tree. If that were the case, why not erect a Cross as well?

Equally shallow was the majority's reasoning that the posting of a sign saying "Liberty" could secularize the "message." No one could have thought that this was a Fourth Of July celebration in the snow. Moreover, if the whole issue depends on signs, why not accompany the Nativity Scene with a sign that reads "Family Values Through the Ages."

Alleghany was a bad decision because the ground of decision was simply fear of giving offence to a vociferous minority intent on "equal time".

It goes without saying that all religions are deserving of official respect. But the constitutional line is drawn at "endorsement". It is certainly true that religious artifacts can loose their liturgical import when viewed simply as artistic or cultural products. But that is not what is involved in erecting a "national" anything. A national symbol is one which, by virtue of being "national," speaks to and represents all of us. That, the Jewish Menorah does not do, and its hoisting on the Ellipse is an interloping occlusion of the otherwise common festivities we observe as nation at this time of year. That non-sectarian and festive commonality is sufficiently represented by our National Christmas Tree which desrves to stand majestically alone.

First National Christmas Tree -1923

Kitchen Debates Redux

In the early Fifties, shortly before the Nixon-Kruschev Kitchen Debates, the Soviet Union decided to prove that it too could be a consumer society -- that the Dictatorship of the Proletariate could shower goodies on the worker as well as any capitalist trickle-down. Enter GUM

GUM, or the Glavnyi Universalnyi Magazin (Главный Универсальный Магазин), was originally housed in the shell of what had been a 19th century trading mall on Red Square. Once the Soviet Union picked itself up from the devastations of the Great Patriotic War, the mall was converted into a general mass-merchandise mart for the masses.

The range of GUM's goods counted over 30 thousand items, including textiles, ready-made clothes, shoes, knitted and linen goods, kitchenware, household goods, furniture and rugs, furs and headwear, stationery and toys, and recreational goods. Eventually, some specialty food items were included as well. The basic idea was, You can get anything you want at the State Department Store.

And anywhere as well. As the decade wore on and the missle gap closed, branch GUMs opened around the country, diffusing through the vast reaches of Mother Russia all the goods and trinkets the Central Planning Office could order up. Pictures in Soviet Life proudly showed ordinary Russians being... uhm.. as almost American as anyone.

Life Magazine showed us the same pictures, but with a different sub-text. Those poor Russian wannabees! Look at them lining up outside gussied up warehouses to grab what they can carry. Sure it's better than nothing -- even if it is shoddy -- but would you want to live there?

Yesterday, for some reason, I thought of GUM.

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Wussiecrats & Womans

Do you really think that we who have stood before you a hundred or a thousand times preaching faith in a new Germany,... would lay down our weapons in exchange for a parliamentary railroad pass? If we only wanted to become representatives, we would not be National Socialists, but rather German National Party members or Social Democrats. .... We do not have the stomach for that. We do not beg for votes. We demand conviction, devotion, passion! A vote is only a tool for us as well as for you. We will march into the marble halls of parliament, bringing with us the revolutionary will of the broad masses from which we came, called by fate and forming fate. We do not want to join this pile of manure. We are coming to shovel it out!

---Goebbels, On why you should vote National Socialist

I’ve always admired this fire in the belly, and if people look at me askance it is because they confuse the post-war myth with the pre-war reality. The myth is that the Nazis put an end to a struggling democracy, like a boot brutally squashing a lovely Spring flower under heel That is nonesense. Whatever they may have brutally done after coming to power, a democratic Weimar was as dead as door nail by 1929 when Hindenburg began to rule by presidential decree. What existed from thereon out was a parliamentary dementia in its final throes.

The reality was far more than a “Depression” which, it is said, confused and frightened Germans. It was that. On the morning after the United States enacted the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930), six million Germnas were thrown out of work. But it was that on top of a decade of acquiescent defeatism that had left Germany, as Hitler put it, “a dismayed and shattered nation.”

The inescapable record is that, since taking over the government in 1919, the Social Democrats had acquiesced in every imagineable act of diplomatic and economic subordination to outside interests: accepting guilt for the Great War which was no more Germany’s fault than it was France, Russia or Austria’s; accepting the loss of territories that had been as much German as French or Polish; accepting a demilitarized helplessness, and accepting a crushing burden of reparations which reduced Germany to a virtual debtor-slave state through 1980. The most remarkable Social Democratic initiative in this dismal sequence was to initiate the hyper-inflation of 1920 which wiped out everyone’s savings and gave us photographs of people pushing wheel barrows of worthless marks to the bread shop.

It is true that Germany began a “recovery” in 1925 which lasted until 1929; but it was a recovery engineered by Wall Street banks which backed a new temporary currency (the so-called rentenmark) and underwrote the Dawes Plan pursuant to which American banks lent money to Germany to help it pay reparations to France and England who in turn paid back their loans from American banks. Needless to say, like Pay Day Lenders today, Wall Street didn’t help Germany pay its debts for free. The result in Wall Street was that juicy interest payments were raked in from all sides; but Germany itself had been “privatized” and was a mere cork bobbing on the swells of “market-magic”.

It is of course unfair to blame the Social Democrats alone for this wretched state of affairs -- and the Nazis didn’t. For most of its existence, Weimar was governed by a coalition of Social Democrats with the Catholic Center Party and a variety of lesser right wing parties. With the death of the Social Democrat Stressman in 1929, the chancellorship passed to the Catholic, Bruening who faced the economic debacle by raising taxes and cutting back drastically on social services (while trying to negotiate some breathing room with American Banks). Who wouldn’t be disgusted?

But to truly understand the disgust one has to be aware of the promise. Beginning in the 1880s -- a period known as the Grunderzeit or Foundation Time -- Germany was the most prosperous and advanced country in the world. Bismarck had lain the foundations of the social welfare state, including unemployment benefits, pensions, education and health care. While nothing is perfect, the pictures from these times show a remarkably healthy and happy people virtually across the spectrum. Now, beginning in the 1930’s, across the spectrum, there was nothing but political chaos and misery, as people lined up for soup and bread and as armed bands from all political hues marched and fought in the streets.

Who would not be engraged by such a state of affairs? Goebbel’s speech drew from and spoke to a just anger. Not to vicariously feel that anger is to not understand history -- a history trenchantly summarized by Hitler upon assuming office.

“MORE than fourteen years have passed since the unhappy day when the German people, blinded by promises from foes at home and abroad, lost touch with honor and freedom, thereby losing all. ...

We never received the equality and fraternity we had been promised, and we lost our liberty to boot. ...

The insane conception of victors and vanquished destroyed the confidence existing between nations, and, at the same time, the industry of the entire world. ...

The misery of our people is horrible to behold! Millions of the industrial proletariat are unemployed and starving; the whole of the middle class and the small artisans have been impoverished. . . .

It wasn’t quite “Marxism” that had ruined Germany, but with due latitude for poltical rhetoric, Hitler had distilled the essence of the matter. A political cowardice and incompetence, bordering on the treasonous, was allowing Germany and its people to be despoiled. Why?

A year later, speaking to the Nuremberg Party Day rally, Hitler recalled the early days of the Nazi “struggle” which, he said, had been infused with a single guiding principle: “We would be a party with an ideology” The crowd roared its approval. Some 80 years on and this hardly seemed something to roar about. “I promise I will stand for something” isn’t much of a promise is it? But this reaction overlooks the historical context.

It is worth remembering that it was Lenin who in 1914 excoriated the Social Democrats for loosing their ideology by enlisting in support of the Kaiser’s war. He accused them of flying a false flag, of betraying socialist ideals, and of being shameless opportunists and chauvinists who had forged an alliance with their antipode, the bourgeoise state. In a word, an ideologically committed socialist could not be a nationalist. “Social-nationalism has grown out of opportunism and it is opportunism that gave it power.” (Lenin, Collected Articles, pp 133-134)

It was a curiously prophetic damnation; for, when this was written in 1917, the National Socialists did not yet exist. But the thrust of Lenin’s perception was that by being a party without an ideology, the Social Democrats could only be a party of opportunists who would inevitably become the opposite of what they had set out to be.

Hitler's statement was not as empty as it might seem at first. With Lenin's critque in mind, it can be seen that having any ideology at all works against mere opportunism which itself is the greatest political degradation of all. Hitler’s accusation that the Social Democrats had sold out to American finance capitalism was a charge that began with Lenin’s accusation that they had sold out to German nationalism. They were, in either view, a party without convictions in search of a railway pass. [FN1- Qui Bono?]

But Social Democrats were not the only sell outs. The Catholic Center also sold out. These two coalition parties were politically closer than one might think. The Catholic Center (predecessor of today's Christian Democrats) formed part of what at the end of the 19th century was called the Third Way -- parties that rejected the anti-social materialism of liberal capitalism as well as the anti-national or anti-religious dialectical materialism of Marxism. Proponents of the third way included the likes of Bismarck, the Catholic Church, the various hues of fascism and falangism and Proudhon’s “petit bourgeois socialism” (quoth Marx). While these factions disagreed on collateral issues, they all espoused an ideology of class cooperation within a mixed regulated economy for the good the state as reflecting the good of the whole. The gradualism of the Social Democrats, which espoused “interim” measures on the “peaceful march toward full socialism” brought them into the third way and rendered them (at least in Communist eyes) de facto fascists. Communists themselves regarded fascism (in this broad and economic sense) as a transitional phase and no one in Europe at least would consider it odd to call FDR’s New Deal “fascism-lite”.

However, in addition to agreeing on a basket of socio-economic issues, the Social Democrats and the Catholic Center also also collaborated in the overall geo-economic passivism of the Weimar Republic -- policies which by 1930 had led to nothing but national-bankruptcy. The difference between the two parties could be said to be that the Social Democrats sold out their socialism and ultimately their nationalism whereas the Catholic Center sold out its nationalism and ultimately it’s social syndicalism. From the Nazi perspective, they both had sold out the German People “thereby losing all”.

The subsequent war has obscured the validity of the Nazi position. The Allies (by which we mean the United States, England and France) were not interested in doing anything just by Germany. They had her down and were going to keep her there and squeeze her for what she was worth for the ultimate benefit of American banks. In such a situation, there were three alternatives: the Communist alternative of a revolution against the entire capitalist system, the Nationalist solution of autarchic economic self sufficiency (which was adopted by Canada in 1932 and Germany in 1933) and, lastly, the quivering Quisling solution of meekly negotiating the least wrenching shaft possible. The Nazi choice, which flipped the Allies the bird, was well within the parameters of the practical and honorable. Who would not tell them to Go to Hell?

To summarize one of the most complex periods in history with a few paragraphs is perilous indeed, so caveat lector. Understanding the appeal to Germans held out by Nazi criticisms of Weimar's geo-political and economic "policies" should not be mistaken for indifference to their ultimate, genocidal crimes against humanity.

It is also important to bear in mind that, in terms of political economy, virtually all parties in Germany in 1930 were to the left of any current political party in the United States. None believed in the “magic of the market” or in the privatization of civil society; virtually everyone in the United States does. [Fn2]

Thus, in terms of political economies, no comparison truly exists between today’s Democratic Party and either Germany’s Social or Christian Democrats. Whatever inching FDR and later LBJ may have begun toward something like the Bismarckian State, it has long since gone by the wayside.

But it is precisely in the “wayside” that an analogy exists. Like Germany’s Social Democrats of yore, today’s Wussiecrats are “a party without an ideology” -- a collection of craven opportunists, who sell out, over and over again, to the masters of the “bouregoise state” -- corporate finance and industrial capital, just as the coalition parties in Weimar caved in and sold out to much those very same interests playing out on the international stage

If the Wussiecrats do not hit the air-waves and the streets with a firm progressive propaganda, at once educating and drawing strength from the broad masses of ordinary people, it is precisely because they don’t have an ideology. If they cave in before rabble rousing slanders and compromise, compromise and compromise again with banksters and corporate interests who regard American “society” as nothing more than something to be plundered until it has nothing more to give, it is because they are willing to stab the American people in the back for a jet ride and a paltry jingle of compaign coin.

Lenin and Goebbels saw the phenomena from different angles -- the one from the class perspective of the worker, the other from the national perspective of das Volk -- but both, were they here today, would recognized the Wussiecrats for what they really are.

-oOo-

Agustan Ara Pacis (Altar [East-West] Peace)

ANNOS UNDEVIGINTI NATUS EXERCITUM PRIVATO CONSILIO ET PRIVATA IMPENSA COMPARAVI. PER QUEM REM PUBLICAM A DOMINATIONE FACTIONIS OPPRESSAM IN LIBERATATEM VINDICAVI.

I have always gotten a wry kick out of the Divine Augustus’s opening lines to the summary of his Life’s Work [Res Gestae]. It took a certain panache to say “In my nineteenth year, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army with which I set free the state, which was oppressed by the domination of a faction.”

Of course, as everyone understood, Augustus had in fact established a military dictatorship; but to the end, he assiduously persisted in the fiction that he had “restored the Republic” -- and that fiction was his great and perduring act of statesmanship.

Augustus hated the title of imperator -- “chief,” “commander,” “duce” or “fuhrer”. He gave short shrift to sycophants who addressed him as such and as soon as he could he gave up direct command of the legions.

“Although the senate and Roman people consented that I alone be made curator of the laws and customs with the highest power, I received no magistracy offered contrary to the customs of the ancestors. What the senate then wanted to accomplish through me, I did through tribunician power, and five times on my own accord I both requested and received from the senate a colleague in such power."

It was not a lie; but for those familiar with the Roman Constitution the statement was a subtlety of evasion and equivocation that is simply exquisite. Yes. Augustus was merely, the “first” senator, an amiable, bourgois gentilhomme, who merely had the honorary privilege of speaking first in the Senate. The charade was strictly observed by the better Caesars for almost two centuries. As Gibbon inimitably put it,

"Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom."

"The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed."

But Augustus was also sensible that the Romans were governed by pride. As much as a spurious freedom, they could be led by the nose if they were assured that they were the masters of the world.

As is well known, Julius Caesar was assassinated by “strict constructionists” who feared (not unreasonably) that he wished to make himself a king. But, according to the German historian, Mommsen, there was another issue at play as well: Casesar wanted to be ruler of a Mediterranean Empire.

Virtually all ambitious Romans of this epoch were obsessed with the memory of Alexander the Great. In despair at 30, Pompey sighed that at his age Alexander had conquered “the world”. But it wasn’t just a conqueror that young Romans saw in Alexander. They all understood that Alexander had forged a new social and cultural demographic broadly known as “Hellenism” under whose Greek umbrella the various peoples and cultures of the Middle East were united. From Greek statuary in India, to the Septuagint in Judea, to the Library at Alexandria, to a thousand different manifestations of language, food, song, and prayer, Alexander’s achievement was a monument on whose foundations we today still stand.

According to Mommsen, Caesar’s real ambition was to complete this work -- to forge a new multi-cultural empire around the shores of the Mediterranean. He conceived of turning the Senate into a representative body for all the peoples of this world within the construct of something like a strong but constitutional monarchy. The dalliance with Cleopatra was nothing romantic, but rather a calculated move to associate a co-monarch who could command the obedience and reverence of a key eastern block within this new empire.

The Romans -- and especially the Roman mob -- would have nothing of it. They were Romans; they had conquered the world; they were not about to be “degraded” to the level of peoples whose butts they had kicked. The Romans, like Americans today, were nothing if not belligerent, loud, jingoistic and xenophobic. As of Augustus’s day, they were also fat, lazy and spent their time munching snax while watching the Big Game.

Augustus understood the nature of the beast and foreswore any caesaresque notions of “pan-mediterraneanism”. No, no. Roman ways, including Roman privileges were sacrosanct.

But ever the artful, dissembler, Augustus laid the patient groundwork for precisely that pan-mediterranean empire that his predecessor understood had to be. Augustus did it by means of something that might be called a “Roman Option.”

He gave instructions that Roman citizenship was to liberally granted, not to every unwashed metic, but to as many responsible middle class types as possible. At the same time he encouraged the extension of Roman malls, theatres and manners wherever possible.. New Romans were to be welcomed into the Roman Senate and lesser regional senates were to be established throughout the Empire.

It worked. Within a hundred years, Rome was ruled by emperors born in Spain or Gaul or Africa. Within two hundred years, the Greeks were called Romanoi. De facto, Augustus had created the Mediterranean Empire that was the apotheosis of the Ancient World (in the West).

But the “original” Romans themselves remained fat, lazy and self-enfatuated. The vitality of empire passed to the peripheries while the center itself remained degenerate and decayed. It is almost impossible to comprehend how debased the Romans had become. The saying that made the rounds in the Empire’s closing decades was: Ridet et Moritur

She laughs and expires. Romans were literally at the Games when Alaric besieged the capital in 410. They had come to “expect’ empire. Their legions marched off to battle with glistening armour animated by the strong expectation that they had a right to win. Increasingly they lost. Increasingly they paid off their enemies and, in the end, by the Sixth Century, when the Germans had taken over the Western Empire, the name “Roman” had become an insult.

As is well known, Gibbon blamed Christianity, for this rotting from within. But that, in my opinion, was his delightfully sarcastic Enlightenment prejudice. To a certain degree, Christianity did reflect a “turn inward” but of all the many cults and gnosticisms that rampaged the Empire in its later days, Christianity was, in fact, one of the more socially focused and practical.

It is also somewhat stretched to think that Romans were fussing about all the theological controversies Gibbon so sardonically ridicules. No doubt then, as now, there were those fought over unseen fundamentalisms and those who exploited such fantasmagoric convictions political advantage. The Pagan-Christian squabble over the statue of Victory in the Senate Hall remains a paradigmatic example of mankind's propensity for factionalism "even where no substantial occasion exists." (Madison, Federalist Paper 10) But closer to the heart of Roman degeneracy the fact that they confused their past achievements with their present capacities and had come to expect the good things in life as a birthright. They became, in Gibbon’s word, “ennervated” and despised those who actually worked and fought for a living as crude lower people.

Without any irony Americans are pleased to think of themselves “as Romans” Alas, the analogy holds. At all levels, Americans are a people infused by a sense of “entitlement” -- not simply to welfare or food stamps (that’s the least part of it) but to a “consumer life style” purchased, now, on easy credit, to be paid off tomorrow sometime, if ever. This entitlement is buttressed by the a phalanx of absurd prejudices, artfully fanned by the corporate media

We are a Light unto the nations; the freest most succcessful society ever.
We are a nation of hardy invidivuals; the most powerful country in the world and we kick ass

Selfishness is taken for individuality and self-reliance morphs into nastiness against the less fortunate. The actual deficit of either bravery or freedom is made up for by vicariously enjoyed brutality and indifference to cruelty.

There are, as everywhere and at all times, decent and thoughtful Americans. But the country as a whole tailors to the image of the indulent slob who confuses his present capacities with his past prowess while living in the clarity of mythical simplicities.

The artfulness of Augustus -- what makes him great in the eyes of history -- is that ultimately he used his deceptions for some concept of the greater historical good. Hoodwinking his own people and despite them he laid the foundations for what became the Western World. Hardly a shabby accomplishment.

To say that there is no Augustus on the American horizon is an understatement. The corporate caesars who rule this country and shroud their boardrooms in darkness do so not for any exalted vision of the common good, but for their own rapacious profit. If Rome was plundered from outside, America is plundered from within.

Thousands of the industrial proletariate have forever been thrown out onto the streets as US enterprises shipped jobs overseas and then paid their whores in the press to whip up anti-immigrant hysterias.

The middle class whose shrinking wealth was puffed up by easy credit has had its holdings wiped out by a financial bubble which has come close to bankrupting the world’s economy. Two adminsitrations have flooded bank coffers with trillions of dollars and yet, after unloading themselves of toxic assets and refusing to refinance crushing mortgage terms, the banks not only refuse to lend even to prime customers but are closing down their retail operations. This is a “Fuck You” to America on a colossal scale.

After declaring bankruptcy on the broken back of unions, car manufacturers undercuts their own dealers and sell directly on the internet. Most of its sales are overseas anyhow.

To say, as the Mudia do, that consumer confidence is “down” ignores the more salient fact that “confidence” is down because wherewithall is nill. In this last month, actual unemployment rose to between 16 and 18 percent. Defying the worst prognostications, available credit sank by 20 billion and 35 millions or 12% of the country is on food stamps.

By all real indicators, the economy is imploding; but this fact is papered over by statistics that take into account the astronomical asset plunder of the upper one percent. This is much like saying GDP was “up” under Ghengis Khan.

There are, in fact, two economies: theirs and ours. To date, none of the Obama Administration’s nostrums have actually worked in favor of the working man or to stimulate a real productive economy. Now comes the Obama Administration with a health reform proposal that will require everyone to buy into one of the most sinister and evil scams the economic world as ever seen --- the U.S. medico insurance complex.

Is Obama’s proposal an Augustan Artifice, giving lip service to the sacred free market taboo while creating a new reality or is it just a timid cave in to corporate caesars? It is hard to say because thus far he has been low key, cryptic, equivocal which is, to be sure, the very essence of Augustan statesmanship. But the details that have thus far emerged provide “incentives” without “requirements” That was the same approach that has allowed banks to literally walk away from all socially economic responsibility while pocketting billions.

Disguised or not, without directly imposing standards on the medico-insurance complex the villainy will simply find new and improved ways to exploit the public. We need not repeat the horrors of this “uniquely American” monstruousity. What might be worth knowing is who profits from it.

• Ronald A. Williams, Chair/ CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834 per annum,
• H. Edward Hanway, Chair/ CEO, Cigna Corp, $30.16 million
• David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/ CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million
• Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc, $20.06 million
• Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529
• Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million
• Jay M. Gellert, President/ CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million
• Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million
• Angela F. Braly, President/ CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771
• Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
• Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
• Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc, $ 1,061,513
• William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million
• Cleve L. Killingsworth, President/CEO Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3.6 million
• Charlie Baker, President/ CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million
• James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million
• Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555

Such compensation levels are anti-social per se. And it is the same in every other sector of the economy. These corporate creatures are an alien virus. They have no shame and no sentiment. When they have consumed and gutted America from within like some voracious cancer they will simply pack up and relocate to Dubai, protected by a private army of Blackwater goons.

And while they themselves are thus destroyed what do Amurkans do? Twitter et moritur.

o0o

So as I look out at the U.S. panorama today, I think back to Rome and Germany. Our political parties are as spineless and oppotunistic as Weimar’s and our people are as arrogant and enfeebled as the later Romans. There is no grass roots party with a true fire in its belly and there is no statesman with the long view and subtle artifice of an Augustus.


©WCG, 2009
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