A Welcoming Community
Martin and I have debated the Kinks once or twice, as they are my favorite rock band of all time, whereas he sees them as lightweight and forgettable.
I hope you won’t mind, Martin, but I’m sharing an old Kinks song for you here in hopes that it will touch you in your moment of loss and soften the edges some. From my heart to yours, as it were, offered in the spirit of friendship, here is “Days” as performed by Ray Davies with full choir at Glastonbury in 2010.
Godspeed and RIP, Andrew.
I hope that the regulars here might help me flesh out a list I’m compiling of instances where neoconservative policy has served to aid Islamic extremism or vice versa, irrespective of the extent to which this aid appeared to be the result of poorly conceived or executed policy. Current events in the Middle East, Netanyahu’s meddling in our election included, have pushed things so far that it’s getting very hard to ignore the elephant in the room. (So to speak.)
I like to work with bulletpoint-style lists. Here’s what I have so far:
(There’s probably some juicy stuff from our role in the Iran-Iraq War that I don’t know. Anyone?)
I think all these things are linked. Further, I strongly suspect that I’m just scratching the surface here. Who can tell me what I’ve missed?
Pissed.
I know that’s the first feeling I get looking at the photos of the devastation of the gulf coast. I’m pissed that people were so stupid, so mindlessly greedy, that they were willing to play dice with God’s creation to achieve a higher shareholder dividend. Someone must pay. And that someone shall be BP, the company that made this disaster inevitable. That’s what anger demands: a recipient.
But is it sufficient to lay the blame with BP? Wasn’t Exxon similarly greedy and negligent during the Valdez disaster? And why stop there? Why not look at Union Carbide and Bhopal? Or, to use a more timely example, Goldman Sachs and our financial system? Why are so many corporations so blatantly rogue?
Could it be because the system is designed to reward the rogue corporation over the responsible? More below the fold.
Take a moment to re-examine one of the great progressive bête noires: corporations’ legal equality with humans. Humans have a complex set of requirements for survival: food, clothing, shelter, clean water, clean air. Corporations need none of that, so long as they have human labor and money to feed them. So, of the two groups, which is going to be least inclined to protect the fundamental needs for human survival? Sure, the corporations can’t afford to kill off the humans; but they can’t afford to provide them their needs in abundance, either.
Imagine if BP’s executive management had been perfectly conscientious citizens serious about BP’s obligations to put the environment before the bottom line (an obligation that most Republicans will tell you doesn’t exist, but just stay with me for a second). At some point, some shareholder is going to look at a quarterly report and see that profits, while healthy, weren’t as great as their less-conscientious competitors’.
Do you think that management team survives? I don’t.
So what we have here is a system in which responsible corporate behavior is not only unusual, but practically impossible. The shareholders demand dividends. Executives that fail to put the dividends above all else are summarily fired. This is the way our system is designed to operate. And we’re going to take this out on BP? They’re just playing the game by the rules we’ve made. Right?
An argument can be made, with some justification, that much of the blame here falls on government for being ineffective or even complicit in its role as referee and watchdog. The point is correct, government has been those things. We’d like to think that Democratic governance will change much, most, or even all of that. But the sad fact is that the Republicans are going to have their turns in the White House, too. That is also, at this point, designed into the system, which means that government nonfeasance is essentially designed into the system as well. We can’t rely on government to mitigate the structural incentives that demand that large corporations work the very margins of the law without rest to maximize their profits. The only solution is to remove those incentives.
Another argument can be made that corporations are merely collections of people — that it is people making these irresponsible decisions, and those people should be regarded as moral lepers who would make those same decisions even without the umbrella of corporate shielding of liability protecting them. This argument ignores the lessons of the Milgram Experiment — that people will do unconscionable things to each other when an authority figure assures them that it is quite alright. Groupthink is the human race’s most destructive tendency, just as dangerous in the hands of greedy corporatists as it is in those of megalomaniacal militarists. That we have constructed these monstrous legal entities that feed on money and labor, destroying our environment, economy, and way of life in the process — and given them equal legal footing with us even — explains every outrageous corporate misdeed in the long history of corporate misdeeds. The problem here is systemic. These accidents are not accidents. They are the collateral damage we choose to accept by granting corporations such special place in our society.
I’m not sure yet exactly what kind of reforms to propose. I personally am fond of the idea of abolishing corporations outright, but I also recognize that some legal shielding is necessary to make entrepreneurism feasible. I also think that setting a legal limit on market cap, to prevent megacorporations from even forming, would by itself prevent disasters of the scale of the Deepwater Horizon. I do know that capitalism does best for everyone when we have large numbers of small companies, not the inverse situation we have today, but that’s an economics debate for another day. Still, I would rather be faced with solving the relatively minor misdeeds of smaller companies than the catastrophic disasters that megacorporations routinely leave in their wake. If we can’t eliminate business playing by the margins of the rules, we can at least mitigate the risks inherent in living by such a system.
So, excuse me if I’m not gung ho about boycotting BP. BP is just the symptom. The disease runs far deeper. It’s going to take us years, maybe decades, to cure it… but I think our moral obligation to take on that fight is crystal clear. The time to reign in the corporate plutarchy has come. Without fear of hyperbole, I say that the alternative will be extinction. The law of averages will eventually make that inevitable.
Somehow I have a press pass to the Obama rally tonight at the Fort Worth Convention Center. I could liveblog it at Daily Kos but then I’d surely get troll-rated. I may get troll-rated here but at least if so I’ll deserve it. So here you go.
7:19 p.m. The Fort Worth Convention Center arena is nearly full already and we’re still 40 minutes before the program starts. That puts us at 11,000 people in attendance in a town that probably couldn’t turn out more than 10,000 to see John and George come back from the dead to play a reunion Beatles show. I love my hometown but it really is that sleepy. The Wave has started. From the press area this already seems more boisterous a crowd than the one in Dallas last week. The evening post-happy-hour start may have something to do with it.
7:31 p.m. OK. This arena is now full. They’re directing overflow to watch video feeds in the adjacent meeting rooms. Somewhere, the local Republican Party county chair is shitting his pants.
More below the fold…
7:45 p.m. Someone, not the Obama county campaign chair, but someone, has taken the stage. The audience helpfully punctuates his every sentence with wild cheering. I’ve lived in this town all 42 years of my life and I’ve never heard this loud in this room. People are cheering the explanation of the primacaucus “Texas Two Step” process! Only one person in a generation has the power to motivate people in this way. I think his name this time around is “George W. Bush.” Just kidding. Sorta.
7:50 p.m. National anthem. Ends with “God bless Barack Obama!” I guess the guy didn’t hear that Obama is a top secret Muslim superspy. I give a nod to Allah just to be safe, even if He and Yhwh are the same dude. Perception is 90% of reality or something. Now the “Yes, We Can” video has cranked up. The crowd chants along enthusiastically. I notice that 75% of the laptops on press row are Macs. TBogg will be so relieved!
8:10 p.m. The lull. Music plays while people wait. Nobody’s leaving, I notice. Pretty good discipline for a Fort Worth event with no beer. They should have free beer on press row. I like beer. Did I mention that we’re in a lull?
8:11 p.m. Return of The Wave. “Shining Star” now playing on the sound system. I look around for Elaine Benes but apparently she’s not here. Too bad.
8:15 p.m. Now we have Sharon, “Rock Star Precinct Captain” speaking. “We don’t win until we win.” Uh oh, here comes the star himself. The crowd goes insane. My ears hurt. I don’t mind.
8:21 p.m. Obama thanks local organizers by name. This is weird because I actually know these people personally. I have never backed a primary candidate who actually made it this deep into a nomination battle before, so this is truly new territory for me. Now he launches into the standard stump speech. “About a year ago, on the steps of the state capitol in Springfield, Illinois…” From here I expect I’ll be covering the crowd more than I do him, though I’ll try to stay alert for deviations from the script…
8:30 p.m. This is new. Obama notes how taken aback the media is by the popular groundswell, how eager they are to dismiss it. He understands that the beltway media aren’t neutral. Says he can’t take credit for it, that this comes from the people, not from him. Straight from the Howard Dean playbook and very astute of him to use it. Now on to the “we’re sending Bush back to Texas” bit with the requisite boos. “It’s up to you to figure out what to do with him.” The crowd laughs. This guy is GOOD.
8:35 p.m. A personal note. I’m on press row but my 12 year-old son is in the front row of the upper bowl. Well, this arena really has only one bowl, so I guess he’s in the front row of the upper section. From down here we can see each other clearly, and I see that he is absolutely rapt. He’ll remember this the rest of his life. I’m not the best dad in the world but tonight I think I done pretty good. With a little help from Barack Obama and 11,000 friends, at least.
8:50 p.m. Pretty much back to the script now. Well, except for the fainting spell somewhere in the crowd. Obama calls for water and an EMT. Then gets back to the stump. I’m reminded of how lost John Kerry seemed during the “don’t taze me bro” imbroglio and it occurs to me what an active and constantly aware intellect Obama possesses. This isn’t somebody merely reciting from a script. He knows exactly what he means to communicate, why, and how, and at the same time knows exactly what’s happening around him. These are the echoes of JFK.
8:55 p.m. “People wonder if I’m tough enough to stand up to the Republicans. Well… I’m from Chicago. The south side.” In John Kerry’s hands, if he were a Boston south sider, this wouldn’t have worked. And I’m not yet completely convinced it’ll work for Obama. He does have the instinct to take the fight to them, though. Lady in the audience: “Do you believe?” Obama replies, echoes to the crowd: “Do you believe?” The crowd roars, “Maybe! It depends if you mean empirical belief or some sort of mystical belief in that which is unknowable!” This is a very educated town. Not to mention organized in its verbal reactions.
9:00 p.m. “People think I’m naive — that you’re naive — because we talk about hope.” Adroitly and appropriately redirects the Clinton/GOP elitist distaste for this rhetoric at the voters themselves. They’re not so much criticizing him as they are his supporters. “I’m inspired by you! I’m infatuated by you!” This guy is really really good. I can’t wait to get this nomination settled.
9:10 p.m. It’s over. He’s glad-handing the volunteers up front now. People are taking their time getting out, hanging around for one more glimpse of this phenomenon. And that’s what he is, truly a phenomenon. I’ve been involved in politics long enough to take a jaded view of just about everything, and to some extent I still maintain one about Obama. There’s no denying, though, that his is a confluence of message, charisma and timing that one doesn’t witness more than once or twice in a lifetime. Maybe that’s not a reason by itself to support him over Hillary. Maybe it is. Either way, it’s damned good reason to get excited if and when he wins the Democratic nomination. This guy really does have what it takes to realign the electorate for a generation. FINALLY.