THEWATCHER

The Beginning Of The Beginning
November 10, 2011 By Aubrey El, aubrey_el@yahoo.com

The catastrophes of the past decade whether natural or man-made should make clear to anyone paying attention that ignorance of what’s going on around you is not bliss. The signs are, that people around the world increasingly see the necessity for environmental awareness whether that environment is physical or political. From the Tea Party to the so-called Arab Spring to the Occupy movements, people are demanding government that is responsive to the general welfare than to the wants of privileged special interests. Still, the problem of general ignorance of how things work remains.
Just as one doesn’t need to be a physician to know that another is sick, any jackass can figure out that American governance whether federal, state or local has only exacerbated this country’s problems from education, to economics to infrastructure. This state of affairs has come about because WE the American People have passively allowed our elected officials to pass off superficial actions to public problems as substantive solutions. Beguiled by our own ignorance we continued to eat the bovine scat fed to us by our elected officials without doing the difficult work of our own investigation and education as to the problems and their real solutions. In this context the so-called “Occupy” movement has been criticized for it lack of a coherent message. It seems that the message is obvious---education and reform.
The American people have refused to their homework of learning how the machinery of government works both in theory and in practice. As a habitual viewer of C-SPAN I am amazed at the number of people who call in to Washington Journal who repeat the Republican talking point of how the Democrat controlled Senate cannot get anything passed. This and similar statements only serve to illustrate the general ignorance of how the Senate specifically and government in general actually works. This should be the first mission statement of the Occupy movement. Educating the public as to how the government works from the federal to the local levels, both in theory and in practice. The theory is what is or use to be taught in civics classes around the country. The practice is the special interests and processes that have injected themselves into the theory since the country’s founding.
In the past, like most people that participate in this democracy, I thought that I had done my duty by voting. What I eventually came to understand is that it is just not that simple. As with consumption of commercial products caveat emptor or buyer beware applies to politics also. If there is any lesson to be garnered from the past ten years it is that not being an educated consumer of our politics can have disastrous consequences on individuals as well as the country at large. From the war in Iraq to health care to the economy—the failure of Americans to distinguish the short-term political pacifiers from long-term solutions is what has brought about the current state of affairs. It has always been in the interest of the American people to be more systematic and scientific in their approach to politics. But it is generally not until they are forced, that it becomes so or even close. This leads to the next mission statement of the Occupy movement: Creating an educated electorate based on objective facts not ideology.
Using understanding of our federated political system and being a savvy political consumer as a basis, what is the practical translation to policy in the present political and economic reality? Reform must begin with economic and political stability. Part of our present problem stems from politicians selling the public on the idea that they can get government for free. Whether the “trickle down” policies of the Regan era to the neo-conservative “growth” policies of the George W. Bush years, tax cuts were sold as the solution to public concerns. What was neglected in the discussion were those government services that those taxes paid for and what sacrifices the public going to be forced to make for those tax cuts. One notorious example in modern times was how California politicians sold their constituents on a constitutional amendment requiring supermajorities for passage of laws increasing taxes. This has brought California to the brink of bankruptcy.
The reality is that taxes fund the American way of life--like it or not. From highways to Social Security, American tax dollars fund the infrastructure of this country. The so-called “job creators” are only able to make their profits as a result of tax expenditures on various aspects of infrastructure. In this context the payment of taxes should be as much a matter of patriotic duty as military service. Yet the use of these tax dollars is a public trust taken for granted by politicians and the politically connected, with the result being what is commonly called “waste, fraud and abuse.” Americans should demand, not tax cuts for the sake of tax cuts, but that taxes be paid equitably and used efficiently by government. For the moment this means an increase in taxes for individuals both corporate and natural in the higher tiers of the American economic strata as well as elimination of some or all statutory tax benefits.
It should not come as a surprise to anyone that the policies of the George W. Bush administration brought about the sequence of events that has brought us to the current state of economic affairs with varying degrees of cooperation from congress. Many commentators on the right in defense of the Bush administration argue that the overwhelming mass of deficit and debt increase occurred during the Obama administration. What they choose to ignore is that the Obama administration restored war spending for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars to the budget while the Bush administration excluded these expenditures. But we are where we are and the policy in question is how much pain are we will to endure in order to set things right? Polls seem to indicate that Americans overwhelmingly want the pain to be equitably distributed. In terms of policy this means along with the tax reforms previously cited also broadening of the social safety nets such as what used be called food stamps or SNAP as its is now called and extension of unemployment benefits. The equitable and efficient broadening of social safety nets must also include means testing for the same as well as eliminating wage thresholds for upper income earners for Medicare and Social Security taxes. In association with these changes to the Social Security Act, the Affordable Health Care Act aka Obama Care must continue to be refined to eliminate the poison pills inserted to it by some members of congress some of who were Democrats. The increased efficiency of American health care will result in the decreased spending for health care generally as well as individually with the corresponding decrease in the deficit and national debt.
Ultimately none of these reforms will mean anything unless the United States economy is put on a healthy and long term growth trend. This does not mean restoration of the pervious state of affairs by elimination of regulation. What it does mean is finding the balance between the greater good and laissez-faire capitalism. Just as it was short sighted for the Bush administration to restrain regulation of financial institutions it will be equally short cited to use “job killing” as an excuse to double down on those errors with failures to protect the environment that we currently live in and that our descendants will be left to inhabit. Therefore any economic stimulus to create jobs must put us on a tract to a new economic paradigm of sustainability both ecologically as well as economic. This is not going to happen overnight but it must start now.
In summary the Occupy movement should advocate for passage of a short and long term jobs bill, extension of social safety nets as well as perfection of current policies in education and the environment by conducting a campaign of deliberate education of the electorate based upon objective facts rather than ideology.
This is by no means a comprehensive and final prescription of policies but a long-term effort to be advanced by the Occupy movement and its supporters or as Winston Churchill put it “…the beginning of the beginning.”

Joined Nov. 10, 2011