January 24: Journalists Roundtable

The issue of ”philosophical” “what ifs” came up during this program meaning “what if” we are getting privatization wrong. It is an important philosophical issue that no one is really willing to talk about. If you read the story of the Tower of Babel, God did not destroy the Tower of Babel because he feared that Man would become greater than Him but that by the unification in the work supporting the Tower of Babel Man would destroy himself. It is an important lesson that we fail to recognize. The Tower of Babel story is that while Mankind is good (and most serve the good), that the most rapacious and selfish among us always rise to the top to exploit the good. This is why privatization is philosophically bad because it concentrates power in the few. And, this may mean nothing now, but what happens in the next generations if those with more sinister or greedier motives would rise to the top as these global corporations merge into one- it is essentially the beginning of the concentration of power all serving one world order. (Not the Rise of the Machine as in the Terminator, but the rise of the Corporations.)

This is what men like Theodore Roosevelt railed about in the Bull Moose Splinter Party and FDR in his New Deal regulation of banks &c. and the promotion of public works projects attempted to diffuse. These were inspired American patriots who were advancing a theory of Social Democray. Now we have Obama’s disturbing Communitarianism philosophy.

In a nutshell, Communitarianism is a hokey social philosophy that the interests of society take precedence over the interests of the individual. This is not democracy. The Stanford Encyclopedia uses Communitarianism in a sentence as follows: “As Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew put it, Asians have little doubt that a society with communitarian values where the interests of society take precedence over that of the individual suits them better than the individualism of America.” 

You have to understand though that since ”Communitarianism” as a philosophy was developed by a Harvard man (just like the Salem Witch Trials of old) this gives it tremendous currency among misguided intellectuals (both Republicans & Democrats) and allows them to philosophically apply this social theory in contrapostion to Constitutional Democracy. And, when applying Communitarian theory to Free Market Capitalism, it is then easy to take the next step and say that the interests of the corporations in privatization take precedence over the interests of the individuals in regulating corporate activity and funding public works.

And, this is what is happening. The day after the inauguration NPR or PBS ran a story about the “Radicalization of Teddy Roosevelt” that then segued in to a discussion of American Communitarian Philosophy. Do you know what upsets the Communitarians about Teddy Roosevelt? He warned Americans about trading our freedom for dependence on large allied capitalists and he believed that we, all of us, stand on the plain of Armageddon and battle for the Lord. It may sound like dramatic stuff, but what if it is true? T.R. was one of our nation’s greatest statesman, why do the large allied capitalists behind NPR or PBS or privatization (Republican and Democrat) have to demonize Teddy Roosevelt, if not because he makes too much sense and is dangerous to their ends?

I was watching Larry Kudlow last night and he had a woman on complaining (as usual) about the rising Senior population and Medicare costs — but she (and no one else) never ever ever ever never mentioned the possibilty of regulation of out of control medical costs ($8000.00 per mo. for a nursing home stay) or requiring that our Nation’s Healthcare providers either become non-profits or that a non-profit healthcare alternative should be provided to employers who are now going to have to pay huge insurance bills to out of control For Profit Healthcare providers. Why becaus ethis is a corporae controlled media and political structure. I’ll bet that years from now it will come out that the Tea Party was stirred-up by corporate organizers and money to pressure democrats to not provide a “public option” becaus ethis would be the death knell of the out of control for profit Healthcare Insurance industry. After that, we never even looked at regulation or a public works way out of this Recession – and why is that, because the corporations were burned once by FDR’s New Deal and they won’t let the debate go that way again. They now have the lobbies sewn up. And, with the US Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United, they can control our politics anonymously — so, the only way is their way, which is the privatization way.

It doesn’t matter if you are Tom Corbett at his Mountain Retreat with his special donors or Obama at his $50,000+ per plate pre-inaugural ball. They are both inordinately influenced by the money –face it, the people don’t have the same access as these donors – so they get their questionable programs like Prison Privatization (which incentivizes lobbiests lobbying legislatues to keep folks in prison longer) instead of rehabilitation; they get costly and dangerous publicly subsidized but For-Profit nuclear power or inefficient publicly subsidized but For-Profit wind power instead of harnessing the incredible power of the ocean through cheaper tidal ocean fabridam power; they get things like the DRPA bridges going broke in Southeastern PA because their public tolls publicly subsidized non-core pet projects of our For-Profit corporate masters and thereby they have no money to build new bridges, so corporations have to be brought in on new publicly subsidized or at least publicly exploitive P3 private bridge projects. The list goes on and on. 

So, we are already in a corporate controlled anything goes as long as it is pro-corporation environment. Do I think that Obama or Corbett really know what is going on, no, I don’t. I do think that, nowadays, the essence of the politics of a Reagan Republican like Corbett and a Clintonian Democrat like Obama are the same because they both serve corporate ends without having the political will to regulate anything for the benefit of the public without the blessing of corporations including the specter of healthcare costs that they keep raising before us. I don’t think that they or we think generationally anymore in the same manner that folks like Teddy Roosevelt (a Republican) and FDR (a Democrat) did.

So, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Bob Dylan just wrote a new song called ”Early Roman Kings” – maybe he’s right. I believe that with privatization it will be the rise of corporate as opposed to public power and we will be dependent on these new kings ”in their sharkskin suits” “coming down the mountain – distributing the corn – each of them bigger than all of them put together” - - pure greed, pure ambition pure selfishness – - the decline of public power, the end of the public social democratic ideal and the end of modern American Constitutional Democracy as we know it.

This would be consistent with some of the other things that we have seen even the supernatural ones for all of you in the “Know Generation.” Do you really want to know? In 1894 Satan and Christ appeared to Pope Leo XIII and Satan challenged Christ that he could destroy His Church on Earth if given more time and more power over those who would be susceptible to his will. Christ agreed said to Satan ”Go, ahead and try.”  If this is true, Privatization may be that lethal dose to democracy and if so Satan would be laughing with delight the day the music of George Washington’s precious “Miracle at Philadelphia” died. (Bob Dylan talks a little more about gambling for all you lotto privatization junkies – “In a little hillside village they gambled for my clothes, I asked her for salvation and she gave me a lethal dose.” Shelter From The Storm). So there it is. That’s the Long View. 

P.S. To PCN – please stop advertising that you are about “all things Pennsylvania” because you never had the guts to promote my book “Barnes Rune 2012 – Decoding the mysteries of Pennsylvania’s Barnes Foundation a special American place.”