Democracy In Chains

[Ron Bulman]

On ‎8‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 10:28 PM, Ron Bulman said:

It's somewhat of a minor miracle this book was written.  She's a social historian studying the effects of policy on society.  In this case the role of school privatization/vouchers the leading proponent of which at the time was Milton Friedman.  In researching his views she came across James Buchanan's name a couple of times and began to investigate.  This led her to George Mason University in Washington and his archive in the "Buchanan House", a pretty well abandoned place.  They just let her dig on her own.  Buchanan had died a year before.

He began his real climb in 1956 at the University of Virginia establishing an economic policy center, as a direct result of roe vs wade. 

Roe vs Wade?  Nobody called me on this?  Brown vs Board of Education.

[Ron Bulman]

I never knew that in my lifetime a state of the United States had shut down their public schools rather than submit to segregation.  No education for anyone's kids. Virginia did in the fall of 1958.  "Norfolk Virginia where nearly 10,000 white youth found themselves shut out of high school on September 24'", protesting 2-4-6-8 when do we graduate?"  "The grassroots organizations to reopen the schools and save public education continued through the fall..."  "In January 1959 the courts put an end to the uncertainty.  Two sets of Judges -state and federal- ruled the school closures unconstitutional."  pgs. 64-65.

All this under the under the guise of the old standby of "States Rights", that the Federal government couldn't tell them what to do.  But actually the tip of the iceberg that they can't force us to pay taxes to support programs we don't care about (public education, social security, Medicare, etc.).  So they began working on ways to educate a base to educate conservatives further right and change the laws that allowed such things to happen.  Stealthily, for they knew they could never do it with popular appeal.

"The social scientists who have led scholars in researching the Koch network write that it "operates on the scale of a national U.S. political party." and employs more than three times as many people as the Republican committees had on their payrolls in 2015."  pg. xxxiii.

And JFK planned to openly support Brown vs Board.  I'd bet my bottom dollar they didn't care for him. 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

Bobby Kennedy had to start his Free Schools for black students in Virginia while suing the state.

 

The other time it happened was when the Arkansas schools shut down completely after Ike sent in troops.  That is how cry the south was back then.

[James DiEugenio]

W. N. In January of 2001, Bill Clinton left Bush and Cheney with very realistic prospects of paying off the $5 trillion dollar national debt-- as even Alan Greenspan said in his memoir, A Time of Turbulence

I did not know that Greenspan said this.

If you could have done that, I mean that would give such a great boost to the economy.  Because just to name one thing, that means none of the budget is used for interest payments on the national debt. Today, about 300 billion is used on that.  Also, no borrowing from Social Security.

It has always ticked me off that the Dems do not make more of this issue, how W screwed up the budget process and federal outlays for about 15 years, and counting. 

[Kirk Gallaway]

Whew! that was quite a whirlwind of facts there Jim. Some relevant to the question,some not. The question wasn't: What was the most disastrous presidency of our time? That question sounds like most of us here might  be in agreement. The real  catastrophe of the current debt has a small part with to do with Bush tax cuts, a big part with the Iraq War but the bulk of it was the lax regulation of the financial industry that was allowed to balloon and get out of control causing a great recession necessitating great government counter spending measures.

Niederhut's observation had to do with political ideology, you seemed to be confusing profligate spending (Bush) with being further to the "Right". I'm not sure where you got that notion but that's just completely ass backwards. Since the Koch's are on the rise, I'm telling you  what would happen with discretionary spending under the Koch blueprint would be much more draconian than under big spender Bush. Period. -There's more to this than Left-Good!- Right Bad!

Since you are  a voluminous writer and the topic is "The Betrayal of Democracy," one thing I've found noticeably absent in your writing, other than loving Trump's affection for Putin: (which I know was a no brainer for you) 

Are you at all experiencing the present, that is the Trump Presidency in any thoughtful way, like the rest of us?, or are you just waiting to tabulate the aggregate collective response to the Mueller probe?

[Kirk Gallaway]

18 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

 1958.  "Norfolk Virginia where nearly 10,000 white youth found themselves shut out of high school on September 24'", protesting 2-4-6-8 when do we graduate?"  "The grassroots organizations to reopen the schools and save public education continued through the fall..."  "In January 1959 the courts put an end to the uncertainty.  Two sets of Judges -state and federal- ruled the school closures unconstitutional."  pgs. 64-65.

All this under the under the guise of the old standby of "States Rights", that the Federal government couldn't tell them what to do.  But actually the tip of the iceberg that they can't force us to pay taxes to support programs we don't care about (public education, social security, Medicare, etc.).  So they began working on ways to educate a base to educate conservatives further right and change the laws that allowed such things to happen.  Stealthily, for they knew they could never do it with popular appeal.

"The social scientists who have led scholars in researching the Koch network write that it "operates on the scale of a national U.S. political party." and employs more than three times as many people as the Republican committees had on their payrolls in 2015."  pg. xxxiii.

And JFK planned to openly support Brown vs Board.  I'd bet my bottom dollar they didn't care for him. 

 

 

Re Virginia schools: Wow! I didn't know that Ron.

Ron says:

Koch network write that it "operates on the scale of a national U.S. political party." and employs more than three times as many people as the Republican committees had on their payrolls in 2015

That's pretty stunning.That's the point I was trying to make with Jim.

[Kirk Gallaway]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

W. N. In January of 2001, Bill Clinton left Bush and Cheney with very realistic prospects of paying off the $5 trillion dollar national debt-- as even Alan Greenspan said in his memoir, A Time of Turbulence

I did not know that Greenspan said this.

If you could have done that, I mean that would give such a great boost to the economy.  Because just to name one thing, that means none of the budget is used for interest payments on the national debt. Today, about 300 billion is used on that.  Also, no borrowing from Social Security.

It has always ticked me off that the Dems do not make more of this issue, how W screwed up the budget process and federal outlays for about 15 years, and counting. 

I'm with your sentiments on this, Jim. Unfortunately the Clinton boom was largely because of the dot.com boom that went bust as he left office. But still, the reason the Democrats can't make hay about about how Bush screwed up the deficit process is because the opposition will always be able to say that it was Obama that doubled the debt, but that was because he was left a debt problem problem by Bush that was only going to get worse unless the government took some action.

That and the right wing demagogues will always be able to get points shaming Obama for "bailing out the banks." To the average voter this stuff is just too mind boggling to make any judgment about, and so they retreat into a position that they don't want to hear either of the parties playing the "blame game", and even though it's  the truth, it can't be exploited by the Democrats, which unfortunately is pretty pathetic.  

Edited August 13, 2018 by Kirk Gallaway

[W. Niederhut]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

W. N. In January of 2001, Bill Clinton left Bush and Cheney with very realistic prospects of paying off the $5 trillion dollar national debt-- as even Alan Greenspan said in his memoir, A Time of Turbulence

I did not know that Greenspan said this.

If you could have done that, I mean that would give such a great boost to the economy.  Because just to name one thing, that means none of the budget is used for interest payments on the national debt. Today, about 300 billion is used on that.  Also, no borrowing from Social Security.

It has always ticked me off that the Dems do not make more of this issue, how W screwed up the budget process and federal outlays for about 15 years, and counting. 

The growth rate of the U.S. national debt fell dramatically during the Clinton years, partly as a result of the Democrats increasing the top income tax rate in 1993-- by a 51-50 Senate vote, with Vice President Al Gore casting the tie breaking vote.

In the 2000 Bush-Gore Presidential debates, the subject of what to do with the Clinton budgetary surplus (of 2000) was raised.  Gore said that he would use the money to stabilize Social Security.  Dubya said that he would "give the money back to the taxpayers."

And we all know how that story ended-- a doubling of the national debt by 2009, and two expensive, unfunded wars, along with the worst recession since the Great Depression.  As for the bank bailouts, as I recall, the first $800 billion dollar bank  bailout was enacted by Bush and Paulson in late 2008.

[Andrew Prutsok]

23 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Roe vs Wade?  Nobody called me on this?  Brown vs Board of Education.

In all fairness, I was ready to reply but then saw you had caught it.

[Ron Bulman]

On ‎8‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 1:57 PM, Kirk Gallaway said:

Re Virginia schools: Wow! I didn't know that Ron.

Ron says:

Koch network write that it "operates on the scale of a national U.S. political party." and employs more than three times as many people as the Republican committees had on their payrolls in 2015

That's pretty stunning.That's the point I was trying to make with Jim.

That's not Ron that says this, I'm just quoting.  The social scientists are much better educated on the subject and study it on a regular basis.  But yes it's stunning, and unknown by most of the populace or maybe they'd vote if they knew the potential consequences.  Libertarian objectives are in direct contradiction to those of JFK and RFK regarding the function of Government.  The latter two believed the Government should serve the needs of the people it represents.  The Libertarians want a Plutocracy.  They have purposefully, stealthily, subversively taken over the Republican party.  Read the book.  Is it too late?  If not, how?  

[James DiEugenio]

What I was a trying to say was pretty simple, but with Kirk it gets lost.

The goal of the radical right, which I consider the Kochs to be a part of, has always been to bankrupt the government so that there can be no funds to do some of the good things that the government is capable of doing.  For example, the national highway system, which was actually finished under Eisenhower.  Another example would be federal aid to higher education and also secondary education.  As I have said, when I went to college, I never saw a tuition bill.  Today, its a disgrace what happens to a college graduate, I mean he is usually a hundred K in debt once he gets out.

This has extended downward through the proliferation of what the GOP calls "unfunded entitlements".  This was another way of the radical right to bankrupt all forms of government by passing on formerly federal government programs to the states, but not including the funding basis for them.  What that did was bankrupt the states also.

Grover Norquist has a weekly meeting in Washington of all segments of the power structure of the GOP, including the Koch apparatus and the media.  This stuff does not happen by accident.  Its all done as a product of networking.  And they have achieved many of their goals.

Kirk, It does not matter who makes you say ouch the loudest.  Its the fact that you are saying ouch.  What the Bush presidency did was it achieved one of the Koch aims--it bankrupted the government.  To the point that nothing positive of consequence can come of  it.  But a lot of negative can, like further privatization.  W. N. understood that point.  He is a bright guy.

 

BTW, I got Democracy in Chains today.

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Ron Bulman]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

What I was a trying to say was pretty simple, but with Kirk it gets lost.

The goal of the radical right, which I consider the Kochs to be a part of, has always been to bankrupt the government so that there can be no funds to do some of the good things that the government is capable of doing.  For example, the national highway system, which was actually finished under Eisenhower.  Another example would be federal aid to higher education and also secondary education.  As I have said, when I went to college, I never saw a tuition bill.  Today, its a disgrace what happens to a college graduate, I mean he is usually a hundred K in debt once he gets out.

This has extended downward through the proliferation of what the GOP calls "unfunded entitlements".  This was another way of the radical right to bankrupt all forms of government by passing on formerly federal government programs to the states, but not including the funding basis for them.  What that did was bankrupt the states also.

Grover Norquist has a weekly meeting in Washington of all segments of the power structure of the GOP, including the Koch apparatus and the media.  This stuff does not happen by accident.  Its all done as a product of networking.  And they have achieved many of their goals.

Kirk, It does not matter who makes you say ouch the loudest.  Its the fact that you are saying ouch.  What the Bush presidency did was it achieved one of the Koch aims--it bankrupted the government.  To the point that nothing positive of consequence can come of  it.  But a lot of negative can, like further privatization.  W. N. understood that point.  He is a bright guy.

 

BTW, I got Democracy in Chains today.

 

Congratulations, as a Historian and Educator I think you may find it worthy of consideration though I am neither one and cannot predict what you or anyone else may think.  I found Dr. McLean concise and to the point throughout.