You Say You Want A Revolution. Well, We'd All Like It If You Tried Evolution ... To Big Boy Pants Instead.

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I.  YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION.  WELL, YOU KNOW, WE'D ALL LIKE TO CHANGE THE WORLD.

On Thursday, 17 November 2011, the OWStreeters marked a national "Day of Action."  Urban areas across the country saw various levels of protests, rioting, and lawbreaking.  In addition to "celebrating" the second month anniversary of the movement, the day was to be a response to the alleged usurpation of the First Amendment rights of protesters from Zuccotti Park to Frank Ogawa Park and city squares and parkways in between.   The primary objective of the OWStreeters here was to shut down the New York Stock Exchange, in particular, and Wall Street, in general.  That was NEVER going to happen and, if it did, there would have been massive casualties.  While some on the Left hate capitalism, 70% of Americans participate in the stock market either through direct purchases or through their pension and/or retirement funds.  

Americans may still be rightfully irate that they were forced to bailout the banks, some of whom did not want to be bailed out, but, um, they haven't traded in their SUVs and soon-to-be-banned "FU" lightbulbs for Mao jackets and Che berets.  My bet is that they won't anytime soon either.   Think about it for a sec:  In the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Crash of 1929 - and much to the shock & chagrin of the Left, one country saw millions of people take to the street to demand that their government NOT do anything more for them.

Was it Spain?  No, there were massive protests for MORE government bennies.   Los Indignados - no, it is not the name of some Tejano band - or the M-15 Movement has become Spain's greatest export.  Unfortunately, Los Indignados add nothing to the GDP of a country in desperate need of economic growth.  While there are certainly some legitimate outrages vocalised, the movement is suffering from the same delusions that afflict nearly all Progs:  "We aren't broke.  If we just tax the rich some more, we can have everything one wants...paid for, of course, by someone else."   The problem is simple and, yet, too difficult for most Progs to comprehend:   

There aren't enough rich people to pay for the Progs' utopia...even if every penny of wealth owned by the 1% was confiscated. 

How successful have the Los Indignados been?  I suppose it depends on how you define "success."  They have brought down the corrupt Socialist government.  The Socialist government nearly destroyed the country during its seven years in power.  So, that's a good thing.  They have not nor will they be able to prevail over the absolutely required, but also devastating, austerity cuts that will be implemented.  The Conservatives won in a landslide yesterday, but how the new government can possibly be successful in such a dire economic situation remains to be seen.   Spanish social and political scientists will have to tell us in the future what, if any, role Los Indignados played in bringing about the election of Conservatives, who will make - they have no choice as the alternative is a Grecian Debt Spiral - the very cuts the movement rejects. 

"Fund your utopia without me."

- Moi (Yes, I admit it is a little creepy to quote one's self, but I am really loving this phrase). 

Could it have been Greece?  'Course not, Silly.   In Greece, a 20 year-old man looks forward to being a 65 year-old man in a too small Speedo tanning on his boat while living off the labour of younger Greeks...Oops!  Scratch that....and make it more industrious and thrifty Germans.  Um, why would the Greeks, Portuguese, French, Italians, Belgians, Irish, and Spaniards think that the typical German, who works longer, retires later, and saves more than the aforementioned think that the Germans will continue to fund the "Große Geld Kommen," especially when their leaders act contrary to the will of their citizens?  Why would the "Große Geld Kommen" clubbers think for a moment that Germans might turn inward and start demanding charity begin at home and 45 year-old talking heads on Greek television retire in their 60s like the rest of us do?

It isn't like Germany has ever come down with Nationalist Fever or said, "Enough!" - not that I am defending Nazi Germany, but the French, cheese-eating surrender monkeys, who would have been singing "Edelweiss" rather than "La Marseillaise," but for the Americans and British, did its best to provoke a wounded beast by invading and occupying and then humiliating the already proud, humiliated Germans in the Ruhr Valley over war reparations.  Yes, the Versailles Treaty commanded Germany to pay war reparations, but the country was in no economic position to do so.   While it is doubtful that the German Wehrmacht is going to move across various national boundaries, it is not out of the realm of possibility that Germans will lash out in other ways if provoked too much.  Remember, essentially, we are talking about asking what is, basically, one of Europe's 1% to bailout Europe's 99% while being insulted in the process.

"At this moment of crisis, it is obvious how little moral solidarity undergirds the European pseudostate. Americans in Oregon are barely aware when their tax dollars go to Americans in Arizona. We are one people with one shared destiny. West Germans were willing to pay enormous subsidies to build the former East Germany. They, too, are one people...But that shared identity doesn’t exist between Germans and Greeks, or even between French and Germans. It was easy to be European when it didn’t cost anything. When sacrifices are necessary, the European identity dissolves away."

- David Brooks, New York Times, 18 November 2011

How would 20 year-old Olga Stefou solve her country's historic debt crisis (deficit-to-GDP of 10.6% and debt-to-GDP of 144.9%) and unsustainable welfare state?  By simply recalling the 122 Greek troops in Afghanistan and taxing the Greek Orthodox Church.  That's it.  All of the hair-pulling in Brussels, Paris, Berlin, London and elsewhere over the Greek Tragedy for the last 18 months has been mere histrionics by world leaders, the IMF, the World Bank, etc.  

 Alliduncism:  Sadly, an affliction affecting millions of young Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, Progressives, Liberals, and Whatever-We-Are-Going-To-Call-Ourselves-This-Year-Because-Our-Former-Label-Is-Now-Toxic-With-The-Public worldwide.   At first, it appeared to be reversible through intense restorative applications of reality; however, it now appears that the majority of those suffering from the condition are beyond help...for the most part.

According to Greece's very own version of Allidunce - an American Progressive version of extreme idiocy, idealism, utopianism, otherworldism, and narcissism known to roam the streets of Chicago, Greece's public debt of approximately €329.351 billion, Ms Stefou's cushy life and her father's teeny Speedo can all be paid for by taxing the Greek Orthodox Church, whose assets are valued at about €1 billion, and not paying the €35,803.34 Greece pays its 122 troops in Afghanistan per month.  Of course, she overlooks the fact that Greece has a mandatory military service requirement of 9 months for male citizens between the ages of 18 and 45.   As a result, each of the 122 soldiers would collect their €293.47 per month whether they were in Afghanistan or Athens.

Ms Stefou may be a leftist, but the left side of her brain has atrophied.  She must have had panic attacks prior to every mathematics class she ever entered.

Could it have been Italy?  No way, Signor.  In Italy, 32 year-old Marina Casagrande of Bergamo, who has sued and won the right to collect an allowance (approximately $525 per month) from her 60 year-old father, is likely protesting "austerity" while on her way to cash her monthly stipend that she will be entitled to until she completes her philosophy thesis on the Holy Grail, which she started 8 years ago, is arrested at age 60 for spiking the drinks of Frat Boys oozing machismo, or Signor Casagrande (who is probably contemplating changing his name to Signor CasaTeenyTinyIttyBittyTeatSuckedDryByBambocciona) dies...leaving her more than a monthly allowance.

Better yet, Marina could just stay in college until it is time to retire at age 50.  Why not?  Socialism means never having to grow up or say you're sorry.  Eggs get broken.  Omelets get made.  One death is a tragedy; the death of millions is just a statistic.  C'est la vie!  Yada, yada, yada.

 

Marina Casagrande, La Bambocciona

And, we know that it couldn't be France or the UK for we have watched the riots and nightly car burning rituals.  It would be easy for some to say, "Well, those are just the Muslim immigrants, yardies in North London, yobbos or the Moaning Minnies!"  Of course, it isn't that easy when the rioters are a smorgasbord of drunken, dole daughters of drunken, dole daughters, who believe that rioting and stealing are a legitimate way of "showing the rich we do what we want and getting our taxes back (taxes that they have never paid)," feral children, who were born to feral children, sons of multimillionaire rockstars hanging by the Union Jack from the Cenotaph, and Trustifarians calling for the heads of the Royal Family because they might have to pay £8,500 (~$13,500) in tuition to attend Cambridge or Oxford or, in other words, what an undergraduate from out-of-state would pay to attend Delaware State University.  No offence, Hornets, but you aren't Magdalen College, Oxford.

What we have witnessed in Europe since the music ended on the "Easy Money-Cheap Credit, Buy Now-Pay Later, There's No Way But Up" world merry-go-round in 2008 is simply Europeans being Europeans and Brits being Brits.   When the music stopped in the life game of Socialist Musical Chairs, people, who had lived way beyond their means for years and decades, took to the streets to demand that Life-Not-Be-Interrupted-By-Reality from governments, who had lived way beyond their means for years and decades.  Millions of people and many governments attempted to collectively hit the snooze button, take a Bobby Ewing shower, and pretend that the world wasn't really broke.  If we wished all of the badness away, it would surely go away and we could all go back to Par-tay Time.

When times turn bad, Europeans demand that their government do more things for them and give them more goodies.  Oh, and by all means, don't ask that everyone take a haircut ... only the evil person or persons du jour.  This is the default mode of both the European Left and European Right.

Once again, this illustrates the American Left's deception about the American Right and its lie that the American Right is somehow akin to Fascism.  Only liars and ignorants make such a comparison.  In Europe, everything is played to the left of the centre-line on the pitch when it comes to politics.  "Real Righties" like Daniel Hannan and Nigel Farage are rarities and neither has anything in common with Hitler or Mussolini.

For example, if you believed the picture painted by the American and European Left, then Geert Wilders should be some sort of European Father Coughlin.  The following are some of the positions of this "Hitler-wannabe": Introduction of a direct democracy, hard punishment for those convicted of violence against homosexuals and Jews (p. 13), bans on Islamic gender apartheid (p. 15), a general pension age that remains at 65 (p. 21), constitutional protection of the humanistic culture of the Netherlands (p. 35), defence the essential elements of Dutch culture: freedom of homosexuals and equality of men and women (p. 33), and investment in green energy to protect against global warming and to decrease the need for oil importation (p. 47).  Yikes, this unevangelical agnostic is a danger to humanists and lovers of democracy everywhere!

"This is stupidity writ large...The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are: highly-paid, highly-pensioned officials worrying about the obvious qualities of water and trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true...If ever there were an episode which demonstrates the folly of the great European project then this is it.” 

- Roger Helmer, MEP

For the last time, Europe is very different from the United States.  Europeans have never really been free.  They have been serfs, pawns, indentured servants, slaves, the conquered, the vanquished, subjects, meat for grinding war machines, prisoners, concentration camp victims, comrades behind a wall built to keep them from leaving their countries (as opposed to a fence designed to keep out people, who lack the host country's permission to enter,  which the illegal immigration lobby odiously compares to the Berlin Wall), and dependents.  For most of the history of Europe, its residents have been ruled by monarchs or dictators.  For brief, fleeting moments, they have had elected leadership that may or may not have governed according to the will of the people.   Now, against the will of the majority of Europeans, the continent is reverting to type.  Instead of several monarchs or dictators, we see darkening clouds on the horizon and the curtain of iron once again rising in the form of the Dictatorship of the European Union.  (If you think that I am being hysterical, ask the people of Greece, Italy, Ireland, and the UK, for example, whether they feel as though the EU has brought more freedom and democracy or read some of the tempered editorials from both sides of the Pond, especially on the Frankfurt Group.   A few examples here, here, here, here, here, and even this extremely impressive piece by a journalistic group associated with the Occupy Movement -- they are dead on, but they really need to understand that architects of the EU going back decades planned for this.  You may rightfully hate the bankers, but they never could have done what they did without Apparatchia).

“Democracy is viewed with caution — even distaste — by the Frankfurt Group, as are the markets. Juncker’s own views on pesky voters are famous since he phrased the problem of government thus: 'We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.’  Junker is the omnipresent Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and head of the 17-nation EuroZone group."

There is not a tradition of individualism in Europe and the class system is deeply ingrained even amongst the Socialist Left.  Upward mobility through hard work does not have a history of being a fundamental foundation in Europe.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...and everyone knew their place."

- Unofficial motto of Europe for thousands of years

Now, the 500 million peoples of Europa, which is quickly becoming Eurabia, are governed by unelected bureaucrats and apparatchiks in Apparatchia, EUrotopia.  Apparatchia.  Kind of rolls off one's tongue like Stalin's 4th and 5th (of 13) Five-Year Plans for the National Economy of the Soviet Union.  It should surprise absolutely no one that the European Left's idea of a rehabilitated God, Mikhail Gorbachev, would liken the European Union to the Soviet Politburo.

"So the Frankfurt Group is, in effect, a merger between the EU hierarchy and German financial power: a kind of Brussels on the Rhine. It would not have been possible in the pre-crisis era when there were qualms about German might. Now the Germans are no longer apologetic. ‘The question of who could accept a German model has been settled by the market,’ said a German government spokesman recently. ‘We are really only talking about the details and the extent of the measures, not about their nature.’ This new, pugilistic tone is felt everywhere. Anonymous EU officials are now being quoted as saying things like: ‘Yes, wake up and smell the coffee. This is what you all signed up for.’

- Fraser Nelson, Europe's Hit Squad, Spectator.Co.UK, 12 November 2011

But, recall Marxism was "perverted" in the USSR so the colossal failure doesn't make a dint in the utopian dreams of EUrophiles.   Utopia doesn't exist.  It cannot exist.  Yet, don't let that stop anyone from building and ruling it.  At least, in the "perverted" Soviet Union, the landmarks that they might have chosen to put on their currency actually existed ... unlike in the EuroZone where:

"Owing to the ubiquity of countless historic bridges, arches, and gateways throughout the continent, all the structures represented on the banknotes are entirely fictional syntheses of the relevant architectural styles, merely designed to evoke the landmarks within the European Union, representing various European ages and styles."

Fake landmarks for a fake "utopia" where the laws of economics, history, and reality were suspended in the ridiculous belief that Greece was the same as Germany in a faux union where national identity was to be made irrelevant and the Tower of Babel nature of said union was sold as an advantage in the form of "multiculturalism."  

What better way to describe the lunacy of the architects and cheerleaders of the European Union, whose quest has been to build a United States of EUrotopia, where everything is peaceful, children can't blow up balloons, and water doesn't hydrate the body, than having apparatchiks meet with administrators, who meet with faceless bureaucrats, to determine which facsimiles of non-existent landmarks should appear on a currency representing the non-existent utopia that they are building? 

"A meeting of 21 scientists in Parma, Italy, concluded that reduced water content in the body was a symptom of dehydration and not something that drinking water could subsequently control."

  - "EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration," The Telegraph, 19 November 2011

Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "Tower of Babel" morphing - seamlessly - into the European Union Parliament in Strasbourg, Germany

Europeans have never been truly free.  They have never had the kind of individual-based freedom upon which the United States was founded.  When Louis XIV of France said, "L'État, c'est moi" ("The state, it is I" or "I am the state"), he was speaking for himself, but could have spoken for many from the Catholic Church to Napoleon to Mussolini to Hitler to the Soviet Union to the European Union.  In Europe, the State (or State and Catholic Church pre-Reformation in England and through Charles V of Spain, as Holy Roman Emperor, which marked the decline) has always been more important than any individual.  Every individual in Europe has always been a cog in the Wheel of State.  Whether it was the Medieval Nobility or is the current European Elite, which is generally of the leftist persuasion, the state operated for them and the citizenry worked for the state.  Only in the last century did "working for the state" grow to include "being dependent upon the state for your livelihood."  There is "The State Class," which includes politicians, bureaucrats, academe literati, industrialists, old-monied interests, glitterati of the arts, etc., and then there is "The Everyone Else Class."
 

Before we move on, let's just make a few things perfectly clear.  

1.  European Socialists are certainly class warriors, but not in the sense that many rank-and-file troops would recognise.  They will fight for their right to remain in their strata and for the hoi polloi to remain in their class or various castes for the most part with exceptions being made on occasion.  You are much more likely to find a Richard Branson or JK Rowling in the United States than in Europe.  Both are black swans in the history of Britain, for example.

2.  The European Left and even some on the European Right - remember we are playing on the left side of the pitch - still believe that Socialism can succeed despite the hundred-plus failures.  As the brilliant French, 20th century philosopher, Jean-François Revel, recognised  and argued often:  Where most people would see the demise of the Soviet Union as conclusive and colossal evidence of the failure of Socialism as an economic and political model, Eurotopians believe that the collapse of the Soviet Union proves exactly the opposite...for "true" Socialism was never implemented in the USSR nor was "communism" (although Marx used the terms interchangeably) for that matter.  Stalin "perverted" Marxism, which is why we have to have a School of Marxist-Leninism.  It's the real deal.  Everything else has just been a perversion of the works of St. Karl  and anti-Communist mind-control.

In many ways, the argument is the same that one will hear in the States:  Liberalism/Progressivism will succeed beautifully once we have the right people and spend enough money.

3.  The Left refuses to examine whether or not Socialism, itself, is a fundamentally sound concept, fearing that such an inquiry will reveal that the essence of Socialism is totalitarian--and that it will be forced to concede this reality.  Socialist parties, and their brethren who call themselves, ironically, "Progressives," are democratic in an inverse proportion to their degree of Socialism.

4.  A large part of the Anti-Americanism exhibited by Europeans of various persuasions is based on the emphasis that is put on individuals and individualism in the United States.  In addition to being "gauche" and supposedly "selfish," it smacks of airs of exceptionalism in their eyes.  Boring down, you will find envy and a fear that America's economic mobility model might take root in Europe and affect their social standing.  Those are the real bases for the anti-Americanism of frou-frou Europeans.  

What these same Europeans will only tell you far-far-far-off-the-record-and-on-background is that they secretly fear a world where the United States is weak.  All that stands between a warring Russia, China or Iran is the United States.  Even they know that the United Nations is worthless...deep down inside on some internal, intuitive level.  

When countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and Libya are put on international human rights commissions and Western elites are prone to thinking along the lines of "everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you'd find those potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva" when it comes to leaders from Africa and elsewhere in the undeveloped and developing world, it does reveal that, on some level, even they don't have much faith in international organisations and NGOs.

5.  Political correctness is only the weapon that the Left uses to redefine words, enforce regimentation, curtail free speech and thought, and create strawmen, in which "The Socialist/Liberal/Progressive View" is the default and only correct position.  "All economists, philosophers, anthropologists, social workers, etc., agree, yada, yada."  Any contrary view is based on bigotry, racism, xenophobia, fear, greed, selfishness, cruelty, intolerance, indifference, hatred, etc.   If you are against Progressive Idea A, then you obviously want babies to starve, women to die, the planet to spontaneously combust, etc.  Unlike the realities of their Socialist dystopias, there are no shades of gray.

They have "Romanticised the Revolution" into faerie tales with the Cinderella rather than Lenin-Stalin-Mao ending.

Anti-Anti-Islamophobia is an example of this.  Many people may have legitimate concerns about the growing problems posed by Islamism, which is different from the religion of Islam, but while they may not be afraid of Islam, they are afraid of being called "bigots, racists, etc."

6.  The hoi polloi are incapable of making the correct choices and will always vote against what the Left believes to be the self-interests of the former.   All forms of democracy are dangerous as too strong of weapons may be placed into the hands of too big an idiocracy.   Quite naturally, the Left believes that they...alone...are sufficiently educated, experienced, matriculated, traveled, etc...to make the decisions for everyone else.

II.  YOU TELL ME THAT IT'S EVOLUTION.  WELL, YOU KNOW.   WE ALL WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD.

There is one exception that should be glaring, but is coincidentally missing from the coverage of the student-labour-socialist-anarchist-indignant-spoiled brat coverage of Europe's social turmoil over the last nearly 2 years.  The strikes, riots, yoga-ins, etc., that have occurred are well-documented.  One would think that the upheaval in the PIIGS, the strikes in France, and the riots in the United Kingdom would be indicative of all of Europe, but from the beginning, there has been an interesting fact of which no one on the Left, especially, dares speak its name.  See if you can figure it out through one question:

What do a great many of the countries where the social unrest and protestations affiliated with Los Indingnados, Austerity, and the Occupy, M-15 and N-17 Movements have been minimal have in common that the PIIGS, France, and Britain do not?

Take a look at these maps from various eras:

Warsaw Pact countries to the east of the Iron Curtain appear shaded red; NATO members to the west of it shaded blue; militarily neutral countries shaded grey.*

Countries of the Warsaw Pact

 Eastern Bloc Countries

Members of the European Union

Members of the EMU ( Euro Monetary Union) 

Predicted Model of Europe in 2021

Exactly!  The protests have been the smallest and least vocal in countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union or Eastern Bloc.  In other words, the protests have been most violent and loud in countries without a history of Communism where many of the theories of the intelligentsia have yet to face reality.  While the European and American Left may believe that the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the USSR are meaningless because "true Marxism" hadn't been in place in any of these countries; but, rather, a perversion of the sure-fire model of Utopia designed by Karl Marx was,  for the survivors of Communism, the LAST thing that they want is a return to collectivism.  It is their pampered, welfare-to-cradle entitled Western neighbours, who are bitching and crying out for an utopia-cum-dystopia under which they have never lived.   Rather, they have "Romanticised the Revolution."

The Eastern Bloc knows the reality of what the European and American Left claim never really existed -- thus could not have failed -- and is not an example of the Utopia on Earth that could surely be created with the "right" people -- the European and American Left -- and more money -- OPM, natch. 

Neither the Soviet Union nor its Satellites in the Eastern Bloc had cradle-to-grave welfare states, generous compensation and pension packages, access to quality healthcare when needed, etc., and the people behind the Iron Curtain knew that there was very little they could do to change the plight of their class while the Dacha Class enjoyed the privileges that only the "Less Than 1%" were permitted to enjoy. 

Former European Bloc countries have seen the future, as envisioned by the European and American Left, and it does not work!  I have seen the future, i.e. the European Social Model, as envisioned by the American Left, and it leads to bankruptcy! 

- Paraphrasing the egregious lie and propaganda Lincoln Steffens  

Contrary to the collective wisdom of the Ivy League faculty lounges, the overwhelming majority of those that have lived under Socialism/Communism do NOT wish to return to such an economic and political state.  The freest economic countries in the European Union -- and those doing best economically -- are FORMER Communist countries.  Even in what-is-regarded-by-academe as the Socialist Nirvana of Sweden, the trend is toward more capitalism and less central planning, more free market principles and less socialism.   As I have shown on prior occasions, Sweden has a 0% inheritance tax, as do many European countries.  It has begun to implement more-and-more free market principles even in healthcare, utilities, and transportation.

The Georgian President, Mikhail Saakashvili, praised Ronald Reagan, the 40th U.S. president, for "destroying the Soviet Empire" and said that the new, bronze statue that depicts Reagan sitting on a bench "deserves a place in the heart of Tbilisi, the heart of Georgia."

Recently, I spent some time in Poland and, when asked about the "Occupy" Movement, it was quite common for someone to respond with a statement about the occupation under the Germans or the de facto occupation under the Soviet Union.   The movement has not enjoyed even the level of support shown in other EU countries.  While losing someone like me, who has never supported the OWS Movement although I shared some common cause with it at the beginning, is no big loss for the Occupy Movement, the loss of the potential support of Lech Walesa is great.  The Nobel Laureate had considered appearing at Zuccotti Park and making a speech of solidarity.  When he learned the types of groups and organisations behind the OWS Movement - socialists, communists, anarchists, hard left labour, extreme environmentalists, anti-Semites, etc.  -  he quickly withdrew his support.  

Interesting, but irrelevant.  Who cares? What does Europe have to do with anything, especially the Occupy Movement?  The realities, traditions, characters, and national beliefs are the game.  Americans aren't Europeans ... yet.

* Warsaw Pact countries to the east of the Iron Curtain appear shaded red; NATO members to the west of it shaded blue; militarily neutral countries shaded grey. Yugoslavia, although communist-run, was independent of the Eastern Bloc and is shaded green. Similarly, communist Albania broke with the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, aligning itself with the People's Republic of China after the Sino-Soviet split and is therefore stripe-hatched by grey.

III.  YOU SAY YOU'VE GOT A REAL SOLUTION. WELL, YOU KNOW.  WE'D ALL LOVE TO SEE THE PLAN.

 Now, in further news at 11, the Federal government also decided at about the same time that the United States wasn't really broke either.  We had to borrow money from China or newly-printed fiat currency from the Federal Reserve to "spend our way to prosperity."   

With an upward-turned nose and condescending sniff, the 1% in Washington and the Upper West Side said, "All economists agree that we must spend more money.  All economists will tell you Keynesianism has never failed and other economic theories, especially those associated with the Austrian School, have never succeeded.  Not once.   You are just not educated in these things, as are we lawmakers, bureaucrats, opinion makers, journalists, etc.; thus, you must really just shut up and do as told."

But, a phunny thing happened on the triumphant 2008 Progressives' March to A New Glorious Revolution a/k/a various forms of Social Democracy, Socialism, Marxism, and Communism.

In all of the world, only the United States of America saw millions take to the street to demand that their government NOT TO DO ANYMORE FOR THEM and to STOP SPENDING MONEY the country doesn't have.   

The rugged individualism of the United States, which has existed since before the country's founding and has always been a bane in the side of the Left, actually reasserted itself in a staggering fashion at a time when most academics and the entirety of the intelligentsia would have predicted a new period where the demand for government services and programmes would increase and the approval/respect of government would grow -- after all, that's what happened in the Great Depression.  This is the fundamental difference between America and the rest of the world, especially Europe - and it royally pisses off the Left in America and is one of the main reasons for anti-Americanism amongst Leftist intellectuals. 

Nothing Commie-looking About This!  Typical Middle Class American Art.

For two and one-half years, the TEA Party has demanded that the American government get its fiscal house in order.   As usual, the Left's envy was on display, as were its hypocrisy, contempt, disdain, condescension, hysteria, and willingness to lie.  The TEA Party was "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, bigoted, greedy, theocratic, Islamophobic," etc., etc., etc.    Two months ago, the Left was finally able to mount a feeble challenge to the TEA Party.  Of course, the OWS Movement was given glowing press and, when mentioned at all, the Left has claimed that "the OWS Movement is just like the TEA Party."  Really?  I thought that the TEA Party was a BAD thing?

On 2 March 1930, the Governor of a very large state, gave a speech.  The oration was replete with priceless gems that would seem dated today save for the arguments and philosophies of the TEA Party and Libertarians: 

"The preservation of this home rule by the states is not a cry of jealous commonwealths seeking their own aggrandizement at the expense of sister states. It is a fundamental necessity if we are to remain a truly united country. The whole success of our democracy has not been that it is a democracy wherein the will of a bare majority of the total inhabitants is imposed upon the minority, but because it has been a democracy where, through a dividing of government into units called states, the rights and interests of the minority have been respected and have always been given a voice in the control of our affairs ... Now, to bring about government by oligarchy masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our national government. The individual sovereignty of our states must first be destroyed, except in mere minor matters of legislation. We are safe from the dangers of any such departure from the principles on which this country is founded just so long as the individual home rule of the states is scrupulously preserved and fought for whenever they seem in danger."

The name of this Governor was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who would be sworn in as the 32nd President of the United States of America three years later ... and he went on to repudiate the entirety of his previous positions on Federalism, along with a near complete dismissal of the doctrine of separation of powers between the three branches of the Federal government.

[The Roosevelt administration is] trying out the economics of Fascism.” 

- New Republic editor George Soule, who avidly supported FDR, noted approvingly

During the Great Depression, Progressives, as in other eras, believed that society could be guided to enlightenment by an intellectual elite – a cast of “social engineers” whose “beneficent activities” could bring about a “better future."  Herbert Croly, the founder of the New Republic magasine, spoke for many Progressives when he opined that individualism must be muted and rejected with the collective society being made the primary focus.  He said, "An individual has no meaning apart from the society in which his individuality has been formed.”  Interestingly, Croly said -- unequivocally, as one of the nation's foremost leaders of Progressivism -- that these ideals were, by definition, both Fascist and Progressive.

As one-time Roosevelt supporter, one of the principle architects of the New Deal, and FDR adviser, Paul Warburg, demonstrated in his impeccably-sourced book, "Hell-Bent for Election," Roosevelt had come to believe that, not only should the Federal government defend the nation against enemies, foreign and domestic, and centrally command-and-control the nation's economy, but to also redistribute wealth and promise a certain amount of "security and happiness" for each and every American ... as a fundamental right.  (Of possible interest to the reader,  "A 'Right' Doesn't Cost Someone Else Anything.")

 
President Roosevelt defined the "social objective" of government on 7 June 1935, as follows:

"To try to increase the security and happiness of a larger number of people in all occupations of life and in all parts of the country; to give them more of the good things of life; to give them a greater distribution, not only of wealth in the narrow terms, but of wealth in the wider terms; to give them places to go in the summertime-recreation; to give them assurance that they are not going to starve in their old age; to give honest business a chance to go ahead and make a reasonable profit, and to give everyone a chance to earn a living." 

 

"If this definition means anything it means that Mr Roosevelt's objective is precisely the same as that of any other government. What government would not, if it could do these things, be glad to do them? What statesman, whether radical or reactionary, would not subscribe to this doctrine as a pious hope? How else could Mussolini, or Hitler, or Stalin, or the Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia define his social objective? But there is more than a mere naive benevolence behind this general purpose.

"There is the conviction that Franklin Delano Roosevelt knows how to do these things, and that the way to do them is "to be clever" and not let the people in on what is really going on.

"There is the conviction that, given the widest possible range of "permissive powers"—the Rooseveltian synonym for dictatorial powers—Franklin Delano Roosevelt will be the Moses that leads his people out of the wilderness.

"Behind this apparently vague and harmless statement of purpose, there lurks the conviction that it is the proper function of the federal government at Washington to manage every detail of the economic life of the nation in such a way as to give everyone his or her proper share of "the good things of life."

"Do you see where this leads? It leads inevitably to the conclusion that "the good things of life" do not include freedom of speech and thought and action—do not, in fact, include any of the liberties which are so carefully guaranteed to us under the Constitution.

"Mr Roosevelt would indignantly deny this implication. Mr Roosevelt’s enemies would indignantly affirm it and add that of course Mr. Roosevelt wants to be a dictator. My own view is that Mr. Roosevelt's mind -- which Mr. (Walter) Lippmann says is "not very clear" -- is so exceedingly unclear that he does not realize that the only way he can possibly do what he wants to do is by being a dictator. And that then he can only do it if, in addition to making himself omnipotent, he can also make himself omniscient." 

As I have written previously and often, the OWS Movement is correct about crony capitalism and corruption.  It is a few years late, however, in timing.  Libertarians, the TEA Party, and one of the Left's most hated people have been protesting against both for quite a while now.  Even before George W Bush left office, there was already a movement against Washington and its crony capitalists on Wall Street in the early stages of development.  There had been increasing anger against Washington by the American people, who were incensed by the Republican spending under Bush, the growth in the size and scope of government, and a foreign policy that seemed ready to engulf future generations into paying in perpetuity for the follies of nation-building and the imposition of "Democracy-in-a-box" in regions where both were likely to return negative dividends.   This quiet anger, which had resulted in the Democratic control of Congress and enormous spending that made the profligate spending only a few years earlier appear to be the very example of frugal thriftiness, went viral and virulent in the Autumn of 2008. 

  

When the financial crisis hit and even though Americans were told that the financial system had been "mere trades away from complete collapse," the people did not respond as they had during the Great Depression when Hoover increased spending by 88% to reflect deflation, ramped up massive infrastructure programmes and raised taxes by 152% on the wealthy nor as many had when FDR came to office.  In 1933, a great many American people beseeched, pleaded, and implored their new President, Roosevelt, to take dictatorial powers over the economy for himself.  It was an entreat that he could not refuse.

“It is to be hoped that the normal balance of Executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.  I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken Nation in the midst of a stricken world may require.  But in the event that Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me.   I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”

 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, 4 March 1933

Against this background and rather remarkably, the American people took to the streets, fax machine, Congressional and White House switchboards and the email accounts of hundreds, if not thousands, of politicians and bureaucrats and said, "No" to the bailouts for banks, insurance companies, and auto companies and unions.  They also said "No" to Keynesian economics, healthcare reform, cap-n-trade, card check, etc.  That their wishes were rebuffed, demeaned and, ultimately, ignored by Washington politicians, crony capitalists, and the media merely assured that cataclysmic results would occur at the ballot box.

One almost feels sorry for the Governing/Opinion-Making Class.   How could they have been so wrong in predicting how the public would react to the government's actions during the "worst economic conditions and greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression" when Americans clamored for more government and more assistance during the Great Depression?  In part, their failures can be explained away by the title of this blog.  Winston Churchill once said that, "Russia is a country with an unpredictable past."   The Great Churchill could just as easily say today that, "The Democratic Party is a party with an unpredictable past, but a predictable history."

While I don't mean to lay all of the blame or focus at the feet of the Democratic Party -- given the Republican Party has behaved atrociously and grossly irresponsible for years --  more historians are Progressive-leaning than otherwise.

Since a great deal of the "history" of the Great Depression has been written by the Left, it is predictable that Herbert Hoover is described as a "fiscal conservative," even though the facts disprove this claim, and Franklin the Great's spending "got us out of the Depression," when in reality his spending extended the Depression.   The history of the roles of the parties during the Depression is predictable.  The past of the Great Depression is anything but. 

Long before she was named chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer wrote a short paper for the Journal of Economic History titled "What Ended the Great Depression?"  In it Ms Romer wrote that the New Deal data provides empirical evidence that FDR’s fiscal policy provided little stimulus during the Great Depression. As shown in the figure below (reproduced from Romer’s article), the results of the New Deal’s fiscal stimulus (solid line) were little different from what she projects would have resulted from “normal fiscal policy” (dotted line).  

Contrary to the arguments made by Paul Krugman and his ilk wherein they claim that FDR’s fiscal stimulus helped to remedy the Depression and that only the large fiscal stimulus of WWII ended the Depression — in fact, GDP had returned to pre-Crash trend (as calculated by Romer) by 1940.  Yet, if you ask Krugman or any other Keynesian, they will tell you that Republican tax policy during the 1920s caused the Great Depression, Hoover was a Conservative, and FDR's "bold spending" ended the Great Depression.  Romer’s research and analysis provides evidence to the contrary.  Her research dovetails perfectly with Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s work on the root cause of the Depression: the Federal Reserve’s sharp reduction of the money supply in the late 1920s, as well as the failure of fiscal stimulus in the 1930s and success of an expansionist monetary policy, which provided the means to moderate the stock market boom and return the United States to the pre-WWI dollar-gold exchange rate.

So it was FDR’s monetary policy that ended the Great Depression, not such New Deal initiatives as the WPA, the CCC, NIRA, and the rest of the alphabet soup. This follows the findings of a later paper that Romer co-authored with husband David Romer on U.S. recessions in the post-WWII era, which found that monetary stimulus proved superior to discretionary fiscal stimulus in restoring the economy.  Nevertheless, according to Progressives, Hoover was a Conservative, the Harding/Coolidge low tax rates caused the stock market crash and the Great Depression, and FDR's deficit spending ended, rather than prolonged the economic period.

"FDR's deficit spending ended the Great Depression...because we say so."

- Democrats and a certain Progressive economist

If you want another example of "Predictable History, Unpredictable Past," then look no further than Barney Frank.  While everyone knows that his fingerprints are all over the sub-prime and financial crises, he now argues that, against the wishes of the Bush administration, he championed reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.   He will tell you -- with a straight face -- that he warned of the impending implosion of both for years even though one can watch youtube.com clips of him arguing that both were fiscally sound as late as the Summer of 2008.

It was, thus, an event of orgasmic proportion for the Left when the OccupyWallStreet Movement started after years of suffering TEA Party envy.  Here was a movement that could really get behind in order to galvanise the American people for bigger government, less freedom and higher taxes!

Higher Taxes Alone Will NOT Solve These Problems

YOU SAY YOU'VE GOT A REAL SOLUTION.  

WELL, YOU KNOW.  

WE'D ALL LOVE TO SEE THE PLAN.

What's The Plan?  

Socialism?  Abject Failure. 

Communism?  Abject Failure.

Fascism?  More of the same until it, too, ends in Abject Failure.

"The myth of the well-intentioned founders—the good czar Lenin betrayed by his evil heirs—has been laid to rest for good. No one will any longer be able to claim ignorance or uncertainty about the criminal nature of Communism."

- Tony Judt, Historian, The New York Times review of "Harvard University Press: The Black Book of Communism : Crimes, Terror, Repression by Stéphane Courtois"

Capitalism hasn't failed.  It hasn't been in practise in the US or the West for nearly a century.

Lesson #1:  You cannot have free market capitalism when central banks set artificial interest rates disturbing the natural play between supply and demand.  Period.

Where's your plan?

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