Take it to the square

I'm not sure why I did not get a paper version of The Washington Spectator this month. It's only now, half way through the month, that I've gotten around to reading it online. The article that caught my attention is a review of the book The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right by Lee Fang. The review is written by Samir Chopra so most of the quotes are of Chopra's words. This book is a thorough review of the relentless takeover of American society and politics by the Koch brothers.

Chopra starts off by confirming the actions of the Koch brothers and their puppet GOP are all about Power.

The modern Republican Party supposedly suffers from ideological confusion. It is for the regulation of gay marriage and reproductive rights; it is against the regulation of industrial pollution, healthcare insurance, and workplace safety. It is for the reduced power of the executive branch, except when it comes to spying on Americans and declaring war. It is for the religious freedom of Christian evangelicals but not Muslim Americans. These seemingly disparate platforms actually display a coherent unity: the American Right is committed to preserving all hierarchy and imposed order: men over women, white over black, rich over poor, bosses over workers, Christian majorities over Muslim minorities. This love of hierarchy, of entrenched power, is manifest in the most visible face of opposition to the Obama Presidency: the Tea Party and the new crop of Republican representatives it has sent to Congress.

The rest of the review -- and the whole of the book -- delve into how the Koch brothers have thoroughly derailed Obama's agenda and voter mandate. Distressing reading, and perhaps a guidebook on how they might be resisted. I'll only mention one more item.

Fang shows how the Tea Party never was, or is, a grassroots phenomenon; its birth is found in the tobacco industry’s resistance to government regulation, packaged in a verbal and visual co-optation of the language and symbols of the Boston Tea Party. Indeed, every instance of supposed bottoms-up Tea Party activism is shown to be corporate funded and organized to advance a corporate agenda, whether in pursuing tax breaks or derailing climate change legislation.

Yes, distressing. Add to that Nate Silver's prediction that the Senate will likely flip to GOP this November and I'm feeling glum. I'm also thinking about how this might play out. So a prediction -- with the warning that you have no reason to trust my fractured and cloudy crystal ball, especially since I fear I'm right yet hope I'm wrong.

So, the Senate flips to GOP. That means at the national level absolutely nothing gets done in the next two years. Anything Congress gets past a Dem filibuster and passes Obama vetoes and Congress won't have the votes to override. Anything Obama proposes is severely criticized and ignored. I know this isn't all that different than what is happening now (though there was that bipartisan budget deal not long ago).

Which leads us to what comes after the 2016 election. The House will stay GOP -- it is too gerrymandered to change. Will enough Dem voters (the ones who tend not to vote in midterm elections) be enough to flip the Senate back to Dem? We're likely to get a Dem president. Will he or she be as hobbled as Obama? Will the takeover be so complete that it won't matter? Strange that this prediction has more questions than answers.

A second Washington Spectator article is about Art Pope, North Carolina's local equivalent to the Koch brothers. Pope sprinkled enough money around politicians that he got himself appointed as the state budget director. Which means if you annoy him he defunds you. That is what is happening to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill because they are teaching economic theories that Pope disapproves of. Yup, another Power. As expected, Pope is working to discredit the Moral Monday protests. Thankfully, that work is backfiring.

A third Washington Spectator article is written by Gigi Ibrahim and is about the new documentary The Square by Jehane Noujaim. It is about Egypt's rough road after the Tahrir Square protests that ousted Hosni Mubarak three years ago. Ibrahim reminds us:

The Square returns us to Tahrir and the beginning of a revolution that not only inspired other revolutions in the Arab world in Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, and Syria, but the entire world: Wisconsin, Trafalgar Square, Catalonia Square, Syntagma Square, Zuccotti Park and most recently the Maidan in Kiev.

Ibrahim concludes by saying:

Squares are not just physical places. They are an idea that becomes a state of mind. One of the lessons we must learn is that unless Tahrir is taken to our cities, councils, factories, universities, where alternative systems of democratic power can be organized and nurtured, then the idea of a revolution in a public square may become our very own limitation to freedom.

Will Americans take to the Square? We did in Wisconsin and Occupy Wall Street. Though we now talk about the 1% those protests didn't accomplish much.

Another prediction: If we take it to the Square it will be because too many Americans have so little prospect and hope they have nothing to lose. It will likely get bloody. It certainly won't end well.

Will you see me in the Square? Right now I’m sitting pretty good with a comfortable retirement. But I can see the squeeze on the middle class could get to the point where it affects me. The last economic mess sucked a lot of value out of the poor and handed it to the rich. Another such downturn could possibly wipe out my pension and savings, leaving me with nothing to lose.

If the Square becomes a big part of American life, I plan to be there, whether or not my savings crashed. I have much more empathy with the poor and with justice than I would have with the 1%.