No Social Justice, without Economic Justice

No Social Justice, without Economic Justice

“It’s when the tide goes out that you see who’s swimming naked.”

 - Matthias Matthijs, a professor at Johns Hopkins University SAIS.

J.M. Hamilton (7-9-2015)

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Republicans, and in particular, social conservatives.  The looks of dismay, pain, and the classic signs of insomnia were all there, painted across sad right-wing faces.  That so much misery was heaped upon the GOP- faithful, by a Republican packed SCOTUS, struck some as poignant.

Given the doom and gloom surrounding the GOP, had there been a futures market, or ETF, in duct tape, I suspect speculators would have bet in advance of SCOTUS’ recent rulings, that this product would have flown off local hardware store shelves, and subsequently, would be wrapped around Evangelical and Baptist wrists (to prevent them from harming themselves).

This isn’t funny, and it’s serious business.  Runs on duct tape were widely reported in the news media, post SCOTUS rulings; and there were long lines filmed at various well-known box retailers, and home improvement centers, and posted on You Tube (not unlike Greeks lining up at an ATM).  It was a classic duct tape run, not unlike the infamous duct tape, and plastic sheeting, run of 2001 - 2002, post 9-11.

For religious conservatives, in addition to the Obama Presidency, the SCOTUS rulings were just another mile marker on the road to Hell, Armageddon, and the End Times, albeit not necessarily in that order.  Predictably, gays went on a post-ruling rampage and made straight couples renounce their hetero-vows and beliefs, and engage in homosexual love making. 

And several notable social conservatives were found on the floors of either 1950’s style bomb shelters, or the more modern equivalent, safe rooms: naked, curled up in the fetal position, and within the fog of a complete psychological break from reality.

What did it all mean?  Blank stares from the GOP faithful, and faux righteous indignation.  And finally, a collective blast of anger and denial from the two dozen, or more, GOP Presidential contenders, pandering to their base, the American Taliban.  Shucks, can’t the GOP buy off a perfectly good SCOTUS anymore, to execute and enforce the social laws of the land, as dictated for nearly two and a half centuries by old white men?  White males, of course, possess special magical powers, that no other humans, sex, or race possess… the ability to read the Creatress’ mind.

Arguably, the GOP faithful should have seen this coming a mile away.  If only they had read J.M.H.

The GOP, and Evangelicals, have made a deal with the devil for a long time, and the chickens not only came home to roost; but for social conservatives, their fine feathered friends were carrying Avian Flu.  

The trade off or deal, made down at the cross-roads, was this:  White Social Conservatives (WSC), you vote the GOP into office.  The GOP will support your version of Sharia-law, vigilante justice, and white supremacy in the social hierarchy.  And in return WSC, you turn a blind eye as the GOP advocates and engages in: laissez faire economics, trickle down tax policies, ship WSC jobs offshore via free trade agreements, contaminate and pollute the Goddess' creation, and allow corporations to metastasize into cartels and monopolies (so powerful that they will take over U.S. and Western democracies, and establish their own global, extrajudicial world court (ICSID)--- not to mention their own religion, a/k/a crony capitalism).  Just turn the other cheek WSC, when said corporations own and operate a highly volatile global economy, based upon: financial speculation, Wall Street gambling (backstopped by the taxpayer), debt, regulatory and government capture, private equity chop shops, and exploiting third world resources, labor, and children.

Oops.  The second part of the GOP alliance doesn’t sound very “Judeo or Christian.”  Never, that I can recall, has there been a political party that is more bipolar than today's GOP: on one hand, you have an, alleged, highly "moral" evangelical base; while on the other hand, this same political party is financed, owned, and operated by highly amoral, secular, and money loving cartels and monopolies, like Wall Street.

I guess the WSC didn’t read the fine print on the GOP’s Faustian contract, written in blood; which states that in the event that WSC social values and beliefs conflict with the Corpocracy’s bottom line, we, the Multinationals of the World, shall prevail.

You see, SCOTUS didn’t go rogue after all, and neither did Justice Roberts.  A GOP packed SCOTUS just did its master’s bidding.  The Star Chamber (i.e. the Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce) could no longer afford boycotts, or to be labeled racist or homophobic, in what was essentially the latest and greatest drive for civil rights and equality seen in America since the sixties.  Not only was the Bankocracy and Corpocracy worried about their bottom line, but SCOTUS, by making their recent decisions, essentially opened the door to removing the “homophobic monkey” off the GOP leadership’s back.  Hence, possibly making Republican candidates eligible for the Presidency, oh, in say, about another generation or two – that’s if the GOP still exists (Predictably, the GOP, who has no base other than the Business Roundtable, the plutocracy, and the WSC, has opted not to walk through the door that SCOTUS held open for them, at least not yet). 

In short, the WSC Party, the GOP, just in case anybody missed it, was affirmed to be, once again, the Plutocracy’s Party (and the Star Chamber can ill afford to have the American Taliban harming the Fortune 500’s bottom line, or the next quarterly statement, with rants against gays and gay marriage).

Romneycare… same thing.  Corporations love Romneycare.  President Obama, like Mr. George W. Bush before him, when both the Healthcare Reform Act and Medicare - Part D were negotiated, respectively, protected Big Healthcare’s/Big Pharma’s profits, first and foremost.  Both Presidents pledged to the major healthcare providers, doctors, and Big Pharma – in particular, behind closed doors, that the awesome power of the Federal government would not be used to negotiate lower drug/medical rates, on behalf of healthcare consumers and the taxpayer (unlike every other Western Democracy on the planet).   Not that they weren’t before - but thanks to Romneycare and Medicare, Part D - Healthcare and Big Pharma are now rolling in green grass with fat cows, and ultra-plush bottom lines (just ripe for further industry consolidation, leading to hegemonic cartel and monopsony powers over the nation's healthcare). 

Isn’t that special?

So in upholding Romneycare, once again, SCOTUS did what their masters told them.  Moreover, if you review most, if not all, of SCOTUS’ decisions in the last thirty days, here too, you can see corporate oversight and control, or the not so invisible hand.  We like to think of SCOTUS and The Fed as highly independent branches of government (just like they taught us is school), but that’s simply not true.

The moral of the story:  Be careful of a political party, and politicians, that services an ultra-powerful plutocracy.  That goes for Clinton loving Dems, too.  Republicans and Democrats are not exactly the same, but they are closer than you think, in terms of economic policy - especially, when it comes to servicing the plutocracy’s economic agenda.  Witness the recent love-fest between President Obama (the latest incarnation of Clintonian politics) and Congressional Republicans over TPP fast track authority.

Witness too, Mr. Blankfein’s support for Hillary and Jeb.

It seems unfair to play down, or celebrate, the corporate juggernaut’s role, entirely, for the passage of marriage equality and Obamacare; and yet, that’s what some opinion pieces did, here and here.  In the case of marriage equality, in particular, we can see what a politically motivated minority can achieve with a grass roots campaign, decades/centuries of patience and resistance against well established prejudice and oppression, and the rapid evolution of public thinking, not to mention a whole generation of WSC/Republicans dying off in large numbers.  Honestly, if some homophobic corporate management teams could have held out a little longer, w/out it impacting their bottom line, they would have; and many corporates will still tacitly sanction homophobia, directly and indirectly, in the workplace, despite all public disavowal and written H.R. guidelines to the contrary.  Like racism, homophobia will just be more subtle going forward.

Nevertheless, all circuitous machinations and motives aside, these SCOTUS rulings were a major win for the American people, tolerance, civil rights, and the long march towards social justice. 

As for the Goddess above, she does indeed work in mysterious ways. 

I must confess, mea culpa, to the best of my knowledge, there was no duct tape run, and no, gay citizens did not force born again Christians to engage in homosexual lust or love.  Nor did the heavens come crashing down, or the gates of hell open wide. The fact that none of these events took place is instructive.  No?

But I digress, because we need to eventually make it to the primary point of this piece; that is to say, ultimately, there can be no social evolution and justice, w/out economic evolution and justice.

The Greeks showed us that, today (Sunday 7-5-2015), as I write this post.  The Greeks, via Democracy and plebiscite, told their masters, the Troika/Banksters, to shove it Sunday, and that they had enough of the financial oppression dealt out by the international banking cartel.  Oppression led by the EU (headed up by Germany), the IMF (headed up by the U.S.), and the ECB (headed up by Goldman Sach's own, Mario Draghi).

Yes, Greeks made mistakes over the decades in electing leadership, who were owned by banks, and over committed on patronage and social spending.  But that was no reason, in the name of bank solvency and politics, to hold future generations of Greeks, and their economy, captive to the international banking cartel.

Here’s a big hint, and you don’t have to be an expert on bankruptcy, or hold a law degree to figure it out…. When you are borrowing money, as an individual, nation or corporation, to pay interest on your debt, it’s game over.  You are effectively insolvent.  But the Germans and the Troika couldn’t buy off Syriza, and neither Messrs. Tsipras or Varoufakis had plans to enter banking or corporate life after their political career, as a reward for playing Troika ball.  No this crew would not sacrifice Greek citizens to “extend and pretend” financial games (w/ a nod to Mr. Varoufakis), and leave the Greeks hostage to Troika blackmail.

In short, it’s time for debt restructuring, or better yet, debt forgiveness, or barring that, anarchy and default.  Ironically, the often technical, logical, and business savvy Germans, should have seen this coming a mile away, but instead, continued to dump money into a bankrupt country, in an effort to kick "the can" further down the road.  How smart was that?  It’s easy to blame the Greeks, but how about the private bank underwriters, who loaned the money to the Greeks in the first place?  Bankers also sold Greece the derivative and repo products used to obscure their national debt, in order to gain E.U. admittance.  Bankster moral hazard affirmed once again: a great deal of Greek debt has already been transferred to governments or government banks (a/k/a the Troika), and taken off private bank balance sheets. 

The Germans, of course, want their cake and to eat it too:  They want the benefits of an integrated E.U., complete with a depressed currency – to aid Germany’s export driven economy; and they want bankrupt nations, like Greece (who hold back the Euro from appreciating), to continue to “extend and pretend,” and pay back German banks, in perpetuity.  If you get the feeling that the Troika is just another payday lender, living off usury and the misery of others, you nailed it.  Conveniently, the present German government forgets the massive debt forgiveness that their country received, post WWII.

But heh, German politicians, like U.S. politicians, are owned by corporations and the plutocracy, and in particular bankers.  The private German banks, long since bailed out, still had some skin in the game, and did not want to take the financial hit for the inevitable.  And now, Sunday's plebiscite breathed new life into Syriza, the so-called "radical left government," and strengthened their hand, in what appears to be a land slide victory.  

You want to see "radical left?"  Take a look at the Bush Administration and its bailout of Wall Street banks, post 2008 Crash.

Last Sunday, all citizens of the world were Greeks.

Greeks are willing to accept a new currency; or debt restructuring; or even debt forgiveness and staying in the Euro; but they will no longer pretend that they are something that they are not: solvent.

And there is no shame in that.  Just ask, sometimes, Republican frontrunner, Mr. Donald Trump (w/ four business failures to his credit).  Mr. Trump has been richly rewarded for his bankruptcies (both financial and moral).  For the plutocracy, bankruptcy is an effective business strategy; for everyone else, the plutocracy would have us believe bankruptcy is shameful.  It’s just another double-standard the elite foist upon the 99%, daily.

In sum, Greek citizens took hold of their economic future and destiny Sunday evening.  Who knows, perhaps other oppressed nations, along the Southern periphery of Europe, will do the same?  Maybe Puerto Rico is next?  Which is the very reason that the Troika will do everything w/in its power to make Grexit a living nightmare for Greek citizens.  How shameful is that?

As an unreconstructed and unrepentant Liberal, I believe corporations are capable of doing great things, and committing great wrongs; but our Corporate Masters sometimes have to be led by market forces, the fourth estate, social media, consumers/employees, and the citizen’s of the world into doing the right thing. 

Like business advocacy and support for gay marriage, and Romneycare, who knows what economic, public policy, and governmental changes corporations might achieve?  With a little pressure from their clients and stockholders (if publicly traded), will Corporates soon demand: a fair an equitable tax code that eliminates corporate tax dodges, so that the middle class tax burden is reduced; a separation between money and state, so that our plutocracy becomes a democracy again; the break up of predatory monopolies and cartels, for a more healthier and saner mixed economy (in lieu of our crony economy); and terms limits for corrupt politicians, who make up the judiciary and the legislative bodies, in Washington and the states?

After all, the customer is always right.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2015