Sunday Chelsea Blues

Now that Venezuela has larger oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, does that mean CITGO is going to fund American elections? CITGO for Dennis Kucinich. I can see Hugo Chavez make the case.

Bloggers have been writing about the SCOTUS decision favorably, taking an absolutist position on the First Amendment, something I have always done until recently. But we know from the Founders views about corporations--they are only to exist with the permission of the state and for a limited time--the 1st Amendment wasn't considered for our corporate overlords. We have our own history to rely on for periods when corporations could virtually dictate politics. The stench got so bad that both parties realized something had to be done. Others claim let the voters decide. Preliminary polls are favorable to the ruling. Yet the same polls show the public believes Washington is a cesspool of special interests and lobbyists.

What's curious about all this is that the Supreme Court has always preserved its integrity but refuses to preserve that of other government institutions and seems to be oblivious of the real world harm all of this will do. The House is readying a sheaf of laws to regulate corporate involvement in politics but I'm doubtful they can pass both chambers. Allan Grayson and Barney Frank claim they can neutralize the effects of the bill through corporate regulation. I again am doubtful.

The more I read the decision and the background to the case the more infuriated I become. The Rehnquist Court, which I was no fan of, repeatedly handed down decisions stating that the Court had to defer to Congress on the means it chose to regulate its affairs. It made several rulings upholding the rights of states and Congress to curtail abusive corporate practices in campaigns. So not only did the Court blow away the early laws against corporate financing but they also dismiss out of hand (and without mention) all the recent cases some of their conservative colleagues had decided. The plaintiffs in this case did not ask for such a sweeping ruling. In fact, the Court asked them to come back with their opinion on a Michigan state law regulating corporate contributions, a case which had nothing to do with the circumstances of their complaint. In short, it was a rigged game. Conservative bloggers disingenuously argue that the case was about Citzens United attempting to screen their Hillary Clinton film thirty days before the election. In fact, the Court asked them to come back on something totally different so they could blow away all laws on the issue. The rapid scheduling of the case--each side only had 30 days--makes one suspicious of the motive of the majority. They found a convenient patsy in Judge Kennedy, the only one of the majority who believes in the First Amendment, as Judge Stevens showed when he eviscerated Roberts with all the cases where he restricted whole categories of speech.

This is why I'm skeptical about the Olson-Boies case for same sex marriage. Final statements will occur in March. But the last two days of the trial raised some concerns. the anti-gay proponents tried to mount their case and they were eviscerated by the Olson team. But they in offhand comments raised the prospects they would put forward studies showing the usual litany of complaints about gays being sexual predators,etc. , all of which the expert witnesses destroyed to the satisfaction of reasonable thinking people. But what they are going to do is to try to raise the some say-others say argument and in case of doubt you can't allow same sex marriage. The other line of argument they have been coming back to is to argue that since Houston elected a lesbian Mayor and there are now Hate Crime statutes on the book that gays and lesbians do not suffer discrimination as a "class" of people and therefore one can't rule on the grounds of discrimination.

I doubt the current Judge will fall for this. He has been so engaged and questioning of witnesses that I suspect he will rule for Olson-Boies. But conservative columnist and Prop 8 activist Maggie Gallagher wrote a column calling it a kangaroo court and the Wall Street Journal published extensively excerpts of all the anti-gay witnesses. By the time it reaches this Supreme Court, the bogus scholarship will be accepted as evidence and the Roberts Court will figure out a way to decide the case not on its merits. Here they are liable to write an opinion that it is society at large to decide these matters and therefore the people must decide through the ballot box. That's why I have believed from the beginning that Olson, the last respected conservative lawyer in the country, doesn't realize how radical right conservatives have become and has underestimated the corruption to the law this has done.

This week will be Barack Obama's State of the Union address. Bets on who heckles him. Obama will support a deficit reduction commission to appease the deficit hawks and may call for a freeze on discretionary spending. At the same time expect a full-throated defense of the stimulus package,the auto bailout,the health care bill and calls for stronger regulation of the banking industry and the creation of a Consumer Protection agency. An we will hear about North Korea,Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan and terrorism. Democrats are disappointed in Obama because he is not more FDR. But FDR did not have the Saudis, Chinese and Japan owning America. FDR did face an entrenched reactionary opposition with almost the identical economic theories and beliefs as today's Republicans. But the situation FDR faced was more dire. The remnants of FDR's reforms, which were allowed to survive the Bush-Cheney years, stopped the full impact of a financial collapse. Add to that Obama's stimulus package and the brakes have been put on without the benefit of a recovery.

But the U6 unemployment rate is still 17.5%--in short we are a couple points away from Depression. African-Americans and Hispanics are already in a Depression with unemployment rates in the high twenties. Also, unlike in the Great Depression you have a sizeable portion of the population which still receives social security, medicare and medicaid as well as government and military pensions. A good bunch of these people are the teabaggers and the base of the Republican Party. Even with $14 trillion of private assets wiped out by the Bush-Cheney great Recession, this portion of the population are and will be relatively immune to the total financial devastation done to others. If White unemployment dips below 9% again, then don't expect any sustained enthusiasm for necessary economic or financial reform.

Barack Obama faces the situation FDR did in 1937 when FDR felt the Great Depression was essentially over. He started deficit reduction and tax cuts only to see the situation worsen. President Obama has to walk a tight-line on this while facing resistance among the public and on the Hill. But there are other problems. The American economy can never recover on its old foundation. Western Europe, Korea and China are all leading now in Green technologies and ending their dependence on oil. While Obama has put this in motion with some aspects of the stimulus package, the forces arrayed against any Energy Bill or Climate Change legislation dwarf the resistance to health care reform. With the new Supreme Court ruling expect the oil industry to make a full-court press on this issue. Unfortunately,this may doom us to an economy which has no future viability.

The inability of the American system to make critical choices for its own survival is quite amazing. The Health Care Reform argument is no longer about protecting those less fortunate then ourselves--a good argument anyway--but it's about an economic necessity. You can not have a modern society where a major illness automatically brings bankruptcy to individuals and families. You can not have a modern economy when one-quarter of it is spent on health care costs. You also can not continue to have a modern economy if you are almost exclusively dependent on oil. From my oil friends, we can expect a $200 barrel of oil very soon in our future.

But Gov. Pawlenty's favorite business Sam's Club is laying of 125,000 workers. Now even the WalMarts of America will not hire. Rep. Boehner can taunt Obama "Where are the jobs?" But he knows. The Republicans with their Blue Dog allies are making a bid to save the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and will make a bid to cut tax rates for large corporations. None of which will create a single job.

Maybe our role in the world has already been decided for us. We are to be the policemen of the world with a $1 trillion military-terrorism budget, while other countries such as China benefit from our military actions without taking any of the consequences. But the American people be damned. If you got a job be grateful, you can always be replaced. If you were thinking about retirement, forget about it. If you want to get educated, then make sure you're rich. You, my friends, are on your own. And your young, eloquent, smart President, we have him boxed in at every turn.

If Obama is slightly successful, the United States will enter into a prolonged period of 8% unemployment and will start to cut entitlement programs. If he doesn't succeed in his programs, we could de-develop in a short time.