How The Virus Of Neoliberalism Infected The Democratic Party

                                                                               

Neoliberalism is the economic bane of the planet and the primary reason that rightist nationalist populism is now spreading - from Trump in the U.S. to Modi in India, to Victor Orban in Hungary.  How did this economic virus acquire such jet fuel to spread to every nook of the globe in barely 40 years?  I suspect it began with the U.S. in the Reagan era and metastasized from there.

Anyone who's been paying attention for the last 40 years can tell you that the marginalization of lower socio-economic classes actually commenced with  the Reagan tax cuts in the early 80s. Robert McChesney in his excellent book, The Problem of the Media, Monthly Review Press, 2004, p. 49, writes:

"With the election of Ronald Reagan, the neoliberal movement had commenced. Neoliberal ideology became hegemonic not only among Republicans but also in the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Joseph Liebermann. Differences remained on timing and specifics, but on core issues both parties agreed that business was the rightful ruler over society"

Economic scholar Matt Stoller - building on this theme - notes that by the 1980s Democrats altered abandoned New Deal and Great Society liberalism in favor of the  new dogma that came to be known as neoliberalism — a view of society in which markets and financial instruments, rather than government policy and direct intervention, are seen as the best way to achieve social ends.

For his part, McChesney showed the Democrats had become their own worst enemies - seeking to advance a misbegotten, pro-business agenda even at the expense of losing many of their base, the working class. One can understand it with the naturally business-friendly Republicans, but not with the Dems who grew their original political DNA with FDR and the New Deal.

The problem with the Neoliberal, pro -free market idiom is that it denies the most basic security for the majority of citizens. In this way it feeds economic inequality while it rewards the speculator and banker class. It also helps to corrupt the political class via unregulated campaign contributions.

Jay Bookman aptly noted('The New World Disorder Evident Here, Abroad', in The Baltimore Sun, December 15, 1997):

"The global economy has been constructed on the premise that government guarantees of security and protection must be avoided at all costs, because they discourage personal initiative. In times of crisis, however, that premise cannot be sustained politically. In times of trouble it is human nature to seek security and protection and to be drawn toward those who promise to provide it. That is how men such as Adolf Hitler, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin came to power, with disastrous consequences."

It's also how men such as Donald Trump came to unearned power - in the U.S. - especially by promising those undermined by Neoliberalism how he'd save them.  So he made enormous promises like the con man he is, including: bringing back jobs to rust belt states, resurrecting King Coal as an energy source, cleaning out the D.C. "swamp" - which he's only added to, and oh yeah, making Mexico pay for that stupid wall.

But these vapid promises existed before Trump came along, and Obama  - bless his heart - had been one of the prime Neoliberal pushers.  As a recent NY Times piece ('Barack Obama Biggest Mistake')  by Farhad Manjoo notes:

"Obama’s biggest ideas were neoliberal: The Affordable Care Act, his greatest domestic policy achievement, improved access to health care by altering private health-insurance markets. Obama aimed to address the climate crisis by setting up a market for carbon, and his plan for improving education focused on technocratic, standards-based reform. Even Obama’s historical icons were neoliberal — the neoliberals’ patron saint being Alexander Hamilton, the elitist, banker-friendly founding father who would be transformed, in Obama’s neoliberal Camelot, into a beloved immigrant striver with very good flow."

Let's also recall Obama's admiration for Reagan himself.

 Then there was also his ill-advised "Deficit commission" - which aim was to basically cut benefits from those who needed it the most, including paring down Social Security using a "Chained CPI"scheme. See e.g.

• Time to Kick Alan Simpson to the Curb!

 All of which was designed to undermine citizen security.  Then there was his refusal to veto the extension of the Bush tax cuts - another form of Neoliberal meme - given the belief that such cuts spur economic activity - e.g.

• Why Have the Dems Turned into Weak Wusses?

Sadly, most citizens today only know Dem Neoliberalism - they've no clue about actual liberal economic policies such as pursued by FDR, and JFK.  As Manjoo observes (ibid.)

"The long history of Democratic populism is unknown to most liberals today. Only now, in the age of Sanders and Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are we beginning to relearn the lessons of the past. For at least three decades, neoliberalism has brought the left economic half-measures and political despair."

And with that despair brought an unqualified grifter, con man, mutt and traitor like Trump into power as well. The question now is whether enough dumb voters will compound their misery by giving Donnie Dotard another four years to destroy what is left of the country.

Social Investment Stipend or UBI - One of Them Is Needed In The Age of AI

In his recent major article in the WSJ Review section by  Kai-Fu Lee:
The Human Promise of the AI Revolution - WSJ

We are informed that :

"Recent history has shown us just how fragile out political institutions and social fabric can be in the face of disruptive change.  If we allow AI economics to run their natural course, the geopolitical tumult of recent years will look like child's play"

He is referring here to the rise of reactionary, authoritative governments - not only here in the U.S. with the Trumpite Cabal, but in Hungary, Poland, and Italy as well as Germany.  For sure, no one in his or her right mind wants to see the ascendance of powerful and aggressive fascist dictators a la Mussolini and Hitler.   But as Jay Bookman aptly noted('The New World Disorder Evident Here, Abroad', in The Baltimore Sun, December 15, 1997):

"The global economy has been constructed on the premise that government guarantees of security and protection must be avoided at all costs, because they discourage personal initiative. In times of crisis, however, that premise cannot be sustained politically. In times of trouble it is human nature to seek security and protection and to be drawn toward those who promise to provide it. That is how men such as Adolf Hitler, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin came to power, with disastrous consequences."

Those are tough words to process but they are invaluable as a lesson in not forgetting the past, or how certain catastrophes arose.  Lee and other authors, most notably Andrew Yang in his book 'The War On Normal People' make that case cogently and that the rise of AI in human job displacement would well and truly mark catastrophe . Or it might mark promise, if we get our economic heads screwed on straight.

Regarding the approaching  economic cataclysm, Lee writes (ibid.):

"In the coming years people will watch as algorithms and robots easily outmaneuver them at tasks they've spent a lifetime mastering. I fear that this will lead to a crushing feeling of futility and obsolescence. At worst, it will lead people to question their own worth and what it means to be human."

Lee is referring to the fact too many people, especially Americans - but also likely many Germans- see our personal worth tied to the pursuit of money and success. This is how a capitalist, consumption society has programmed us and admittedly it is difficult to break that programming.

Lee's thesis in effect, comports very much with Yang's and we already know the major inroads AI is making to displace humans even now.  Barely a year ago, for example, I cited a WSJ  report ('Firms Leave The Bean Counting To The Robots')  warning that AI -based robots would soon be taking over CFO and accounting work across the land. That would essentially displace all those humans currently holding such jobs and likely pulling down big bucks in salary.  The article noted:

"One of Statoil ASA's newest employees, Roberta, spends her days in the energy firm's treasury department searching for missing payment information and sending out reminders.  Her boss, Tor Stian Kjoolesdal, said  Roberta's heavy orkload would improve overall efficiency in the group."

We then learned "Roberta doesn't have a last name, a face or arms. She is the first piece of robotic software to work in the Norwegian company's treasury department - part of Statoil's push to automation, robotics and artificial intelligence."

The piece went on to note that finance execs at Nokia Corp., Royal Dutch Shell and Orange SA were developing their own Robertas. Also:

"Two thirds of large global companies  expect to automate some or all of their finance department tasks over the next two or three years, according to new research by Hackett Group Inc. Hacket's report is based on benchmark and performance studies at hundreds of  large global companies."

The reason offered for the changes  in the WSJ piece was straightforward , direct:
"The new technologies are designed to cut costs, liberate workers from time consuming repetitive tasks and - in many cases - reduce finance and treasury department employee numbers."

I cited Jim Hightower  in the same blog post, who provided more inisght:

"With corporations socking away massive profits and the labor market still tight why are worker's wages stuck at miserly levels? One big reason is that corporate boards and CEOs have their heads stuck in a dreamy future. Nearly every economic sector is spending vast sums of money on workers p just not on human workers.

While few Americans are aware of it, bosses are investing in hordes of sophisticated autonomous robots powered by a cognitive technology called artificial intelligence. Instead of paying a decent wage to you, corporations are buying millions of these cheap, human-esque thinking machines in order to take a shocking number of jobs away - well, from you!"

So at the very least we can agree the AI specter is real and happening now.  There are, of course, differences on what the scale of displacement will be. But on discussing the changes (during a 2016 visit to Barbados)   with Alan Emtage - creator of the Archie search engine, which preceded Google -  he made it clear that by 2032 there would be virtually no jobs left that were exclusively human -conducted.  "Possibly with the exception of plumbers!" he mused.

So the question, as Lee frames it, is: What can be done?   He cites the "founders of the AI age" and how they feel "a mix of genuine social responsibility and fear of being targeted when the pitchforks come out."   Also, that many have seized on the idea of UBI or a universal basic income.   Andrew Yang agrees these techies for a UBI solution and that it is a sensible solution to mass joblessness.

However, Lee doesn't necessarily buy it nor does Edward Glaeser who reviewed Yang's book ('The Cure For Poverty?' July 10, p. A13).  Glaeser takes the  über  'Debbie Downer' position  that UBI will be no great "catalyst to human creativity" as Yang claims.   He offers this bit of history instead as a cautionary note and a pessimistic check on any rank optimists:

"50 years of evidence about labor supply in the U.S. suggests that giving people money will lead them to work less."

To which I would reply, 'So what?'    If that's what they choose to do with their time, work less or not at all, that is their choice. The purpose of UBI ultimately is not to produce a next generations of Picassos or Einsteins, but for people permanently displaced from their work to keep body and soul (figuratively speaking) together.  To keep food and shelter available.  Thus, all the labor reduction citations Glaeser makes are really irrelevant because they dodge the central pout.  He also appears to forget - or maybe he never learned - the famous words of FDR:

"Necessitous men cannot be free men"

In other words, it is NEED or want (for shelter, clothing, food etc.) that defines limits to liberty not work per se. UBI then addresses the issue of need first and foremost, so as to prevent the multiplication of men who perceive they are not free - and so reach for the nearest strongman who promise them that.  Give them UBI - say the usually cited stipend of $12,000 per annum, and they won't resort to strongman,  fascist populists. Doh!

Kai-Fu Lee's Review article is much more practical in terms of solutions, offering the annual stipend - but with the small  volitional aspect ("participation requirements wouldn't dictate the lives of citizens") to actively engage in assorted civic contributions.   So instead of "UBI" he calls it a Social Investment Stipend.

In terms of citizen contributions, he defines three general areas: care work community service and education.  Adding:

"These activities would form the pillars of a new social contract, rewarding socially beneficial activities just as we now reward economically productive activities."

Indeed, the former are clearly more important now in a world that can hardly tolerate further growth which translates into more pollution, more resource depletion (including of water) and more global warming.

In terms of the details for each:

"Care work would include parenting or home schooling of young children, assisting aging parents or helping a friend with mental or physical disabilities.  Service work would focus on much of the nonprofit and volunteer groups - leading after school activities, guiding tours at parks or collecting oral histories from elders in their communities,

Education activities could range from professional training for the jobs of the AI age to giving classes that turn a hobby into a career."

The beauty of Lee's solution is that there is no pretense of generating an explosion in. creativity in the displaced populace. Rather, the same old service skills that have always been used (and needed in human society)  will also be in the age of AI. 

More cogently, Lee's solution puts  the kibosh on Glaeser's Neoliberalish- ranting about how such UBI-type stipends would trigger a "dystopian jobless future", i.e. of millions of wastrels, alcoholics and layabouts.

Whichever way we roll, we need to seriously consider implementing one of these solutions, and probably  before 2025 - if not sooner.

Did Dem Neoliberalism Contribute To The Rout?

"For the Democratic Party is not a collection of diverse interests brought together only to win elections. We are united instead by a common history and heritage--by a respect for the deeds of the past and a recognition of the needs of the future."   -- John F. Kennedy

This header embodies  the central question put forward in a provocative blog post by Arun Gupta on www.smirkingchimp.com, actually written a day before the mid-term election. It is something we may all need to consider - those left of center - especially since 63% of voters in exit polls asserted the "system is rigged in favor of the richest" (which begs the question of why so many voted in the party of the rich and business class). This is also why we must not avoid the painful history Gupta recalls. It is also something I have discussed a number of time on this blog: how the insidious poison of Neoliberalism is poisoning both parties.

See, for example, my April 14 blog post wherein I observed:

The problem with the Neoliberal, pro -free market idiom is that it denies the most basic security for the majority of citizens. In this way it feeds economic inequality while it rewards the speculator and banker class. It also helps to corrupt the political class via unregulated campaign contributions.

I then cited a segment of a 1997 piece on Neoliberalism by Jay Bookman aptly entitled 'The New World Disorder Evident Here, Abroad', in The Baltimore Sun, December 15, 1997):

"The global economy has been constructed on the premise that government guarantees of security and protection must be avoided at all costs, because they discourage personal initiative. In times of crisis, however, that premise cannot be sustained politically. In times of trouble it is human nature to seek security and protection and to be drawn toward those who promise to provide it. That is how men such as Adolf Hitler, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin came to power, with disastrous consequences."

In other posts I referenced the invasion of many Democratic policies by Neoliberal ideology, priorities and memes , for example as referenced by SC blogger Richard Eskow, e.g.:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/54446/yes-the-left-killed-the-chained-cpi

Excerpt:

“As for the president and his supporters, it is clear that the chained CPI is well-liked by both the White House's key economic players -- and by many of the commentators who support them. That's unfortunate, because it is inaccurate, unjust, and economically unwise. But like it, they do.

It appears that both the Republicans and the White House like it, but neither wants such a politically unpopular measure hung around their neck -- especially in an election year.”

Does that mean they might cooperate on resurrecting this abomination as a sign of "mutual cooperation" like they did after the 2010 Dem drubbing? Possibly!  Further perspective is provided by Robert McChesney in his excellent book, The Problem of the Media, Monthly Review Press, 2004, p. 49:

"With the election of Ronald Reagan, the neoliberal movement had commenced. Neoliberal ideology became hegemonic not only among Republicans but also in the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Joseph Liebermann. Differences remained on timing and specifics, but on core issues both parties agreed that business was the rightful ruler over society"

If all this is true, and all the authors present plenty of facts to support it, then it would seem the Democrats are their own worst enemies - seeking to advance a misbegotten, pro-business agenda even at the expense of losing many of their base - or at least turning them off to come out in mid-term elections (though I still believe political immaturity is at least a partial factor). 

What about Gupta's claims? He writes:

"Now, neoliberalism is often thought of as synonymous with privatization, deregulation, and trade and capital liberalization, but the state will discard these policies for corporate handouts the instant elites get into a self-inflicted mess, as with the Wall Street crash.

This has left the Democratic Party in a bind. It relies on votes from social groups like women, union members, Blacks, Latinos, and environmentalists who favor redistributive policies like gender equity in income, a higher minimum wage, lower healthcare costs, more environmental protection, and stronger immigrant rights. 

At the same time, Democrats need billions of dollars to run elections and their party machinery. They go hat in hand to corporations and promise more tax breaks and corporate welfare in return. But Democrats can never be as committed to the free-market ideology as Republicans. Democrats need to satisfy some needs of their social base while Republicans can move the goalposts further right and wait for the Democrats to play catch up."

This is born out by the corporate funding disparity relative to each party, and the fact the Rs always grab slightly more, because - well-  they aren't as dependent on the social groups that rely on redistributive policies. So the Ds can't be as committed to free market nonsense else they'd be the same as the Repubs. 

Gupta goes on:

"Obama and likely 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton say we will manage trickle-down economics more efficiently. This will increase taxes for modest market-based redistribution in the form of healthcare, housing and higher education subsidies, and tax breaks for the working poor. It’s the same role many traditional left parties play in other countries. Democrats offer a bit more funding, miniscule compared to military spending and corporate welfare, for food stamps, homelessness, and energy assistance. But the commitment to neoliberalism leaves the programs vulnerable. Obama readily cut tens of billions of dollars in social welfare to appease Republicans complaining about a $17.9 tillion national debt. Obamacare is part of this framework. While it did extend coverage to uninsured millions, the goal was to reduce costs through intensified neoliberal restructuring, which is reducing overall quality of healthcare."

Which also makes sense and is all verifiable. I have written before about the cuts - including to food stamp programs - back in December, 2013. Again, Democratic Neoliberalism emerges as a malignant cancer eating away at the parties innards. 

Gupta cites the historical background of the Clinton years in embracing Neoliberal policies:

"Lacking a progressive vision, Democrats follow the GOP on economic policy, pushing the center rightward. Most media outlets have little interest in unpacking historical conditions that shape politics, preferring gossip about the personality, values, tastes and lineages of candidates. Yet it’s the historical contradiction Democrats are trapped in that explains how and why Bill Clinton and Obama pursued a neoliberal agenda that dashed the hopes of their supporters, resulting in the biggest midterm losses in Congress of any president in the modern era. It also explains why the Democrats will likely lose the U.S. Senate in November 2014.

Bill Clinton campaigned as a “New Democrat”: tough on crime, fiscally responsible, and stern with welfare recipients. Clinton effectively fulfilled the Reagan Revolution by gutting welfare, passing NAFTA, deregulating telecommunications and the finance sector, and ramping up government spying, policing, and immigrant detention. Clinton could grant the right-wing’s wish list because the Democratic base was conditioned to supporting any deal no matter how bad because the Republicans would supposedly be worse. Yet Clinton needed Republicans to pass NAFTA because the Democrats controlled Congress. He threw millions of poor women and children off welfare to shore up his right flank in advance of the 1996 election. But that cynical calculation was unnecessary Clinton trounced the feeble Republican nominee, Bob Dole in a race that was never in doubt. And deregulation happened in Clinton’s second term when he was freed from election concerns."

The last paragraph, especially, speaks to the perils of 'lesser of two evils'  thinking- thus the base accepting Clinton's travesties because the Repukes under Dole would be worse. (In fact, the odds of Dole getting elected were slim and none but most of the base didn't know that at the time).

So there we are. The Demos have moved progressively rightward economically under the lash of the Neoliberal global imperative. Voters either keep putting them in because  there is no compelling third party alternative, or they reactively toss them out  in droves (including by apathy)  - as the case Tuesday night - to vent their frustrations.

At root, the reason for this perversion is the influx of money into our political system - to buy politicians and parties. The abominable meme of "money as speech", validated by the atrocity of 'Citizens United',  has only reinforced the corrupted landscape - so no wonder so many voters see the system as rigged. Of course it is, for those with the money to buy Senators and whole parties! 

Justice Stephen Brier pointed out that along with the Citizens United decision, the more recent one (last year)  "eviscerates our nation's campaign finance laws leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve."

Sen. Bernie Sanders has it exactly correct when he said, in response to the ruling:

“Freedom of speech, in my view, does not mean the freedom to buy the United States government,” 

Alas, that is what has happened and why citizens, many voters, are willing now to say more often than not, "A pox on both their houses!"

In effect, Neoliberalism and its attendant cancer of campaign cash  has engendered an inherent instability in our political system - also fed by polarization-  which is unlikely to abate soon. Perhaps the Dems, as they puzzle over these recent losses, need to take a long, hard look at JFK's quoted words at the top of this post.

Plutocrats Plus - Why Neoliberalism Is Bad For Us All

Author Thomas Frank in a recent essay ('Plutocracy Without End: Why the 1 Percent Always Defeats the Middle Class') wrote:

"The One Percent have already broken every record for wealth-hogging set by their ancestors, going back to the dawn of record-keeping in 1913. But what if it all just keeps going? How much fatter can the fat cats get before they hit some kind of natural limit? Before the invisible thumb of history presses down on the other side of the scale and restores balance?"

How much fatter can the fat cats get? Much fatter indeed! We've already seen the Gini coefficient, one of the best measures of inequality, rise to its highest level in decades - accelerating most since the Reagan era and the massive cut in the top income tax rates. People bitch and moan about paying taxes, but don't understand that they are what keeps our society afloat. No taxes, then no roads, no schools, no benefits......and no armies! The problem with the myopic Right is that they want all the taxes to go for armies and weapons and none for the domestic foundation. But this is a fool's thinking because without domestic security at its basic level, in terms of providing roads, bridges, water mains, sewer lines and means for people to not only subsist but thrive, you are looking at a banana republic.

The problem with the Neoliberal, pro -free market idiom is that it denies the most basic security for the majority of citizens. In this way it feeds economic inequality while it rewards the speculator and banker class. It also helps to corrupt the political class via unregulated campaign contributions.

Jay Bookman aptly noted('The New World Disorder Evident Here, Abroad', in The Baltimore Sun, December 15, 1997):

"The global economy has been constructed on the premise that government guarantees of security and protection must be avoided at all costs, because they discourage personal initiative. In times of crisis, however, that premise cannot be sustained politically. In times of trouble it is human nature to seek security and protection and to be drawn toward those who promise to provide it. That is how men such as Adolf Hitler, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin came to power, with disastrous consequences."

This description of the New World Neoliberal Order is exactly why the seeds of its own destruction are built into it, have been built into it.  Even as I read (in the New York Times) yesterday of the collapse of multi-employer Pension benefits funds, and how many union workers can no longer receive pensions, it occurred to me that if congress doesn't act, this is a situation that can rapidly destabilize.  There's only a small critical threshold between mass suffering and mass unrest- as we've seen all over, from the Arab Spring, to the Ukraine.

 But in the case of the Ukraine, the unrest was fomented by U.S. Neoliberals and their neocon sidekicks,  driving NATO expansion to the east. The cover story sold is that the people wanted "freedom" and being aligned with the EU and the West. The truth is that if they go that route they will become economic slaves to the Neoliberal  Economic Order. Indeed, once the IMF and EU funds go through one of the first offsets will be cutting public pensions and abolition of all rigid price controls, as well as painful cuts to public subsidies. Those Ukrainians pining for "freedom" would have been better served to have pondered FDR's famous words:

"Necessitous men cannot be free men."

And looked before they leaped into the Neoliberal Abyss (which they might have asked EU Sovereign debt victim Greece about).

Meanwhile, Thomas Frank goes on to observe (ibid.):

"That we are very close to such a limit—that the contradictions inherent in the system will automatically be its undoing—is an idea much in the air of late. Not many still subscribe to Marx’s dialectical vision of history, in which inevitable worker immiseration would be followed, also inevitably, by a revolutionary explosion, but there are other inevitabilities that seem equally persuasive today. We hear much, for example, about how inequality contributed to the housing bubble and the financial crisis, how it has brought us an imbalanced economy that cannot survive."


Marx's dialectic theory of history is one thing, but a more germane or relevant destabilizer is that without adequate income, with only debt to purchase the capitalist goods manufactured - the whole edifice of the consumer economy (and our GDP) collapses.  The reason is simple, and one evident to anyone with basic math skills: it is consumption that supports 70 percent of our GDP. Take away that consumption, and kaput! The economy dives into depression, irrespective of what the Fed, Obama, congress or anyone does.

Thus, once the Neoliberal Order of Globalized capital was established, the seeds for its future destruction were sown. Recall that it was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ( 'Imperialism, the Highest Form of Capitalism', 1916) who first sounded the warning that mobile finance capital was designed to continually leverage labor to the lowest common denominator. Lenin clearly showed in his treatise how the Political and Economic Elite, simply by the expedient of export capital, could indirectly exploit raw materials from poor nations, or use the latter as captive labor markets. Meanwhile, that same exported capital would ensure working conditions degraded at home. Under such a scheme, financiers would continually divert capital to foreign locales where it would generate the highest return and refrain from aiding industry in their own countries.

That working conditions have degraded at home is self evident to the most cursory reader who follows economic conditions. We still have more than 24 million people under-employed or unemployed and we have a Middle Class losing more ground every day, even as the Elites talk wildly of cutting their Social Security and Medicare benefits - the last barriers between them and penury ...

Then there are the millions trapped in minimum wage jobs with no chance of advancement. Nor is there any motivation in our congress to help them by increasing their wage to a living wage, despite the fact that such a move could actually extend the life of their market Neoliberalism - since it would permit workers to purchase the goods that prop up the GDP without going into debt.

Finally, there are the tens of thousands of recently graduated college students mired in debts accrued that they now must pay off, but with no decent job prospects by which to do so. Do the Neoliberals care at all about the plight of these students or their families? Not at all! Their message is basically, "Sink or swim!" 


Will the Neoliberals quit while they're (relatively ) ahead? Not on your life! They want to add the Ukraine to their potpourri of misery, saddle them with endless debt and poverty like they did the Russians post-1990,. They also want to double down on the global Neoliberal order itself - this time using TPP or Trans-Pacific Partnership, another way to screw with us like the earlier GATT and NAFTA.

Are people paying attention? Maybe, maybe not. It is painful to watch as many of our citizens simply hunker down with their TVs, DVDs, notebooks, Twitter, Facebook or other entertainment and refuse to understand that the active citizen must come to the fore if the Neoliberals are not to send our nation into a plutocracy.

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks has released the draft text of a chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, currently being negotiated in secret by 12 Pacific Rim nations.   It would be well for every citizen who thinks of him (or her-)self as more that than consumer to read it, and do so carefully.

Your future, and especially that of your offspring, may well depend on it. You need to know of the massive collision coming - heading right toward you - before it happens.  If an informed citizenry is the basis for democracy, why are we being kept in the dark? Perhaps because we no longer have a democracy  but a corporatocracy!

But that is the other prop the Neoliberals depend upon: citizen inertia, stupidity or belief in impotence, i.e. that they only have "opinions" - which carry no weight.  Also, they don't want citizens pursuing truth - information outside the media they promote, which is more invested in propaganda.

If we each do our part, as opposed to retreating, we may yet wake the Neoliberal New World Order up to the fact that poverty stricken indigents (replacing well paid, economically secure citizens) is the last thing it needs.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-boardman/55716/msnbc-can-be-trusted-by-the-established-order-thats-a-problem