Musings About This American Presidential Election

These are the sociopolitical musings of a Canadian who really and truly cares about civil society in the United States of America.

Some of my friends, all of them progressives to varying degrees and all of them intelligent, would like to see Mitt Romney win the US Presidential election next week. They want to see this Romney-Ryan ticket take the White House so that the economic chaos that will undoubtedly ensue wakes up all but the most myopic and narrow minded conservative. This economic calamity, so their thinking goes, will convince Americans to rebel, throw out the Republicans once and for all, and get back to working on creating a civil society.

I disagree with them! The main reason I disagree is that I am worried that one more term of a Republican presidency, especially in this era of Tea Party Madness, will take their once proud and mighty country over the edge and into the abyss! (If pressed about what I mean by the “abyss,” I may have trouble answering. But somehow the success of the NRA comes to mind as being an influential aspect of what I am calling the abyss.)

No, I am a typical Canadian on this front: six out of seven of us want to see Obama win a second term. Call me naïve, but I really do think that given a second term with no chance at a third, Barack Obama will show progressive Americans and others that the inspiration he offered back in 2008 was for real, that he will realize that he needs to do more, especially around economic issues. Let’s face it, the Occupy Movement of 2011 was surprisingly massive, but it would have been even much larger in scope had there not been such a likeable figure as Obama in the White House. If the gap between the Top 1% and everyone else continues to unabatedly grow, the next social movement is unlikely to be so peaceful.

I believe that Obama understands this.

But let’s move the discussion away from Obama’s assumed political consciousness and over to what seems to be a false political consciousness among many American voters. And I use this phrase with confidence because outside of Warren Buffet and a few others, most of the 1% want to see the Republicans back in the White House, what with that party’s penchant for giving the wealthiest citizens large tax cuts.

If the polls are to be believed that it really is a close race, then I think it is fair to say that there are a lot of regular American commoners who are also supporting Romney and Ryan. This is where I want to spend the rest of this space for my sociopolitical musings.

More specifically, I want to look at the possible economic reasons as to why so many members of the 99% might vote for the man known as Mitt.

(As a brief aside, I realize that many conservative commoners vote solely for social reasons, but I just cannot bring myself to even discuss the recent Republican obsession with rape and the control of women. For those of you interested in this topic, check out this article in the UK's Guardian newspaper:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/real-republican-party-rape-platform?fb=optOut       Nor am I going to address the fact that the Democratic candidate is a Black man. For this space, let’s keep the discussion on the economic side of things.)

In early September, as most of you will recall, the Mittster was caught on videotape telling a group of one per centers (who paid $50 grand just to hear the guy) that 47% of Americans feel the government should help them get housing, food, education and healthcare, and that he has nothing to offer this group except creating conditions to get them to feel a sense of responsibility to take care of themselves. Predictably, the polls showed a profound disgust for Romney telling it like it really is among corporate conservatives – Obama built up a seemingly insurmountable 10 to 12 point lead!

I really do want to thank Mitt Romney for so clearly demonstrating just how conservatism has evolved since the 1970s. Yes, for a long time conservatives in all western nations (including the U.S. and Canada) have called for a stable group of privileged people to lead their respective countries, to maintain tradition and social hierarchies based on race, gender and especially class. But the old conservatives would think about how best to move things along so that all of society, in their view at least, would benefit. (Yes, I do see problems with this theory, but they thought they were taking care of everyone.)

The Romney 47% Speech demonstrated what many of us had already figured out, namely, that contemporary wealthy conservatives no longer want to consider the whole of society. They are now completely concerned with entrenching their own power and increasing their bank accounts, even if it means the dismantling of the entire social welfare state and civil society.

So considering this, how the heck did Romney come back from 10-points down to bring the election polls to a virtual tie??

Apparently, Obama put in a poor performance during the first debate. Okay, sure. But could that possibly be the reason why so many Americans forgave Romney for the disparaging remarks about almost half the American population? Hardly. This is even more suspicious when one realizes that the vast majority of people who watch presidential debates are politically conscious people who have already made up their minds no matter what happens in the debates.

Methinks that the media coverage had something to do with the quick obliteration of Obama’s commanding lead.

But I do not want to dwell on the obvious fact that corporate media have corporate interests. I want to speculate on the political consciousness of those American commoners who will support the Republican ticket on November 6^th.

Let’s do a quick recap. The American economy went into a serious recession in late 2007 and 2008, with many Americans losing their jobs and their homes. Most economists rightly point to the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans passed by Republican George W Bush (remember him?) and those two unbelievably expensive wars for the huge economic crisis. (I would like to add the corporate desire for deregulation as a major factor, as well, but then we are also bringing Democrat Bill Clinton into the story. Both parties deregulated the financial industry to the point that the subprime mortgage debacle was a tragedy waiting to happen.)

So in 2008 Obama was elected on a message of hope, and now after four years a possible majority of Americans want to bring the Republicans back into power?? I mean, what gives??

A little more recap. Out of the ashes of the 2007-2009 economic recession arose a group calling themselves the Tea Party. They presented as a populist grassroots movement, but a quick study showed them to be nothing more than an astroturf  movement. How else can it be explained that Tea Party rallies and their successful election campaigns were entirely paid for by the billionaire Koch Brothers and groups the Koch Boys created like Americans for Prosperity? (Yes, this is the same group that sent thugs to break up Obama’s town hall meetings about his healthcare plans.)

All of a sudden political watchers heard a lot of loud and angry shouts for the economic system to be made even more brutal for the victims of the recession! We were shocked to see so much support for policies that would result in even more wealth being transferred from the 99% to the 1%!! I mean, seriously? Let's make sure the wealthy get an even greater percentage of the money??

The U.S. is currently experiencing the worst poverty rates since the Great Depression. Its environment is stressed beyond anything ever before. Its citizens are being incarcerated at higher rates than in any other country. Its public education system is falling behind most other western nations. And any young American from a regular background wishing to pursue a post-secondary education can expect a life of indentured servitude because of overwhelming student debt.

And still Romney might win the election? Maybe we should take a quick look at this guy and how he got to be so rich. Yes, he was born with a silver spoon, but some people still think he has a savvy business acumen to be able to get the American economy up and running much faster than what Obama has accomplished.

But does Romney really have an outstanding business acumen?

When I think of incredible business savvy and innovation I think of Henry Ford and the Model-T. I think of Walt Disney and his cartoons. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and the apple computer. So what is it about Romney and the way he made his fortunes that irks me?

Well, we have learned that Mitt was the CEO of some sort of venture capitalist operation called Bain Capital. We now know that Bain Capital is an outfit that looks for wounded companies, buys them up, guts what is useable and moves it out, leaving a shell of a company, many unemployed workers, and a string of bankruptcies. In short, Romney is what is known as a predatory capitalist. Is this really the kind of guy that a majority of American voters want to see in the White House?

I sure hope no one is going to trot out that pathetic trickle-down nonsense. We have been forced to listen to that discourse ever since the 1980s with the Reagan-Thatcher-Mulroney Triumvirate! All we have experienced from it is an incredible transfer of wealth to the wealthiest among us. Research has clearly shown that trickle-down economics is a hollow shell game, just like what Romney’s Bain Capital is all about. It does absolutely nothing to help civil society.

In this context, will Romney actually win the election next week?

If he does, we can only assume that there are myriad forces working against civil society. On this point, I would also like to highlight the influence of policies such as Citizens United, Super PACs, the role of fundamentalist churches, and strategies like destabilizing voter registration lists among groups who traditionally vote for the Democrats as reasons why the Republicans might come roaring back into power. Lest we forget, it has only been four short years since the complete and total disaster of the Bush-Cheney years.

But I would also like to highlight the incredible degree to which a false political consciousness has colonized the minds of far too many regular Americans. And for this we can thank a few select powerful conservatives.

The Koch Brothers. Remember them. And remember Rupert Murdoch and his nefarious minions at Fox News. They are the true enemies of American civil society.

There are many others, to be sure - some of them have the surname Walton. But I think it wise to focus on what Murdoch and the Koch Bros are up to behind the scenes.

I recall the old song by The Who with its angry chorus, “We Won’t Get Fooled Again!!” We can only hope that they were right, for the sake of American commoners, and for the sake of commoners the world over.

These are the sociopolitical musings of a Canadian who really and truly cares about civil society in the United States of America.

Go Obama !! Go Elizabeth Warren !!

XL Foods – Poster Child For ALL That Is Wrong With the Corporate Agenda!

Well, it is easy to attack a corporate giant like XL Foods when it is obviously down and almost out. And in general, I do not engage in doing that sort of thing with anybody or anything, no matter how much I disagree with them. But given the seriousness of the food safety issue, coupled with this uncertain stage of corporate capitalism that we happen to be living in, I think a discussion about this company’s policies is in order.

Let’s face it, ever since the first signs of trouble at their massive meat packing plant in southeastern Alberta appeared on September 4^th of this year, the owners of XL Foods have engaged in some mighty strange behaviour. Let’s recap.

Once the source of the recent E. coli breakout was determined to be the XL Foods plant in Brooks, the owners of the plant, Brian and Lee Nilsson, were deafeningly absent. When they did start to make some public statements about the biggest meat product recall in the history of Canada, the ambiguity of their words seemed to suggest that the problem lay with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). Their statements implied that XL Foods was completely blameless in the fiasco.

According to Lee Nilsson, “I know it’s caused a great amount of turmoil in the beef community. I’d just like to say hang on because all things will pass, but at this point there seems to be an uncertainty as to which direction CFIA is going with regard to E. coli at my plant, or any other plant in the country.”

Nice try, Lee. Attempting to obfuscate the issue by invoking the acronym CFIA really is not going to cut it. The facts give a much clearer picture. In fact, they suggest that XL Foods may have been complicit in their own downfall, however unwittingly.

For one thing the CFIA food inspectors were unable to complete the plant inspections because XL Foods decided to lay off 2,000 workers. Amid the public outcry over this blatant attack on its workers, the company did in fact bring back 40% or 800 of the laid off employees apparently so the inspections could continue. What about the other 1200 workers? The first thing that occurred to me is that the Nilsson brothers were convinced that the plant will not be allowed to re-open. I have to wonder why.

XL Foods bought the beef-processing plant in Brooks only three years ago. The original owners, the U.S.-based Tyson Foods, sold it to the Nilssons after their workers unionized following a bitter strike. Since then, XL Foods has hired an increasing number of temporary foreign workers from countries in Africa and the Middle East. Obviously, foreign workers on temporary work permits do not have any job security. Yet, front line workers are in the best position to tell us when standards are deteriorating.

Even more pathetic, this very company took a position against whistle blower protection. I think that the public should think a little bit more about companies that work behind the scenes to block whistle-blower legislation. I think this is especially so when the company provides about a third of the beef produced in Canada! Food safety is an important concern for all Canadians – after all, even pro-corporate conservatives want to eat clean and healthy food!

Another issue at the plant that we have learned about in recent days is that prior to the E. coli break out the company had demanded that the speed of processing carcasses be increased. This left even less time to ensure that the meat and the equipment were clean. It was a case of increasing beef quantity at the cost of decreasing beef quality, and by corollary, the safety of everyone who ate their meat.

I for one do not believe for an instant that the owners of XL Foods are completely innocent in this massive beef recall fiasco.

This is not to completely let Conservative Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz totally off the hook. I mean the guy does not inspire any confidence in his knowledge or lack thereof on the file of food safety. That said, it will be up to the citizens of his Saskatchewan riding (Battlefords-Lloydminster) to either choose another candidate to run for the Conservatives, or for them to vote for a party other than Harper’s team. I would not hold my breath for either of these options – after all, they voted Ritz back in after his embarrassing performance over the 20 deaths from listeriosis in 2008. But perhaps this is a moot point. Perhaps the problem is not a political one per se, but rather a structural one.

We live in an era dominated by what some academics refer to as neoliberalism. In layperson’s terms, it is called the corporate agenda. Historians may see the similarities between neoliberalism and the laissez faire economics of the Industrial Revolution. It is pertinent to this discussion that pretty well anyone who finished high school understands that laissez faire economics is antithetical to civil society.

Ever since the 1980s, Americans and Canadians have been inundated with hegemonic discourses trumpeting the merits of this economic doctrine.  Here are its main tenets:

-       tax cuts, especially for large corporations and mega-wealthy

-       deregulating industry (or allowing self-regulation)

-       attacking the collective bargaining rights of workers

-       privatizing the commons (such as public healthcare)

From the discussion above, it is clear that XL Foods was the direct benefit of at least the first three of these four tenets of neoliberalism. In this respect, an argument can be made that XL Foods is the poster child for all that is wrong with the current stage of capitalism we find ourselves experiencing.

It may take a while before Canadians wake up to the damages wrought by the corporate agenda to civil society in our country. It is clear to anyone living on the prairies that the neoliberal ideologues in the Harper Conservatives still have a lot of support out this way. Thankfully, their support appears to be dropping in most other parts of Canada.

In the meantime, I would like to say one more thing about XL Foods and food safety: as long as this Ritz guy is our Agriculture Minister, I for one do not want to see the CFIA food inspectors be under his purview. Is it a question of his honesty or of his competence? I am unsure, but food safety is too important an issue to be left to this guy.

Note #1: Three days ago, it was announced that the Nilsson brothers sold XL Foods to a company called JBS USA, a subsidiary of a Brazilian Company. Apparently, this foreign company has immediately taken over managing the plant at Brooks, Alberta. I have no idea what this means for the quality of the beef produced there. But while we have a federal government ideologically bent toward allowing industry to regulate itself, I'll wager that things are not going to get much better.

Note #2: On Sunday October 21st, Alberta Opposition Leader Danielle Smith, of the far right wing Wildrose Party, suggested via twitter that the tainted beef from the XL Foods plant should be cooked sufficiently enough and then fed to Alberta's homeless. I would just like to take this opportunity to thank Alberta voters for not voting in this person as premier. This is the kind of conservatism that no society needs.

To Regulate, De-Regulate, or Self-Regulate? THAT is the Question

Many Canadians are not surprised to learn that industry does not really know what is in the best interests of civil society.

But does industry even know what's in its own best interests? Let's muse on that a little.

Canada is now in the middle of the largest meat recall in its history. Apparently, the source of this major breakout of E. coli is a meat-packing plant in Brooks, Alberta. The owners of the plant, XL Foods, have sure taken their sweet time in addressing the public about what may have led to this situation. Similarly, even though the E. coli scare was first brought to his attention back on September 4^th, our federal Agriculture Minister was nowhere to be found.

Unlike the XL owners, however, people know the name of this minister in charge of food safety.

Gerry Ritz. The first time I had ever heard of this guy was when the listeriosis outbreak of 2008 led to the deaths of 20 people. At the time, I learned that Ritz was the Agriculture Minister in the first Harper government. I also learned that he had a most pathetic sense of humour. (Readers may remember this minister’s statement included the since oft-repeated “death by a thousand cuts, that’s a thousand cold cuts,” as he chuckled about the loss of life.)

If anyone thinks that our Agriculture Minister may have learned from that experience to take these food crises seriously, think again. Only a few days ago, and with the recall expanding by the day, here is what Ritz said at a Rotary Club luncheon:

“We had some great Canadian beef for lunch. I don’t know where it came from; I don’t care. I know it’s good, I know it’s safe. You have to handle it and cook it properly.”

I know that conservatives have never been known to have a good sense of humour, but this Ritz fellow sets the bar much lower than their usual fare.

Ritz has been the MP for the Saskatchewan riding of  Battlefords-Lloydminister since 1997. His constituents voted him back into office shortly after the listeriosis tragedy and there is no reason to believe they will vote him out after this latest fiasco. I know I wouldn't vote for a guy like this, but I don't live in his riding.

But I think a case can be made that if nothing else, Gerry Ritz is an unwitting lobbyist par excellence for the tofu industry!

Perhaps having Ritz in the House of Commons, however, is not the main problem here. After all, he is but one of 165 Conservative MPs who all seem to think along the same ideological lines on most things, including the deregulation of industry.

The Harper Conservatives are a political entity bent on pushing through a corporate agenda, an agenda that is sometimes referred to as neoliberalism. Sure, they pay some lip service to their base, the social conservatives of rural English-speaking Canada. Supporting the corporate agenda, however, is the main priority of the Conservatives.

Neoliberal governments all seem to agree on four main tenets: corporate tax cuts, privatizing the commons, union busting, and deregulation. It is this last point that I want to talk about here.

Neoliberal governments are ideologically driven to forego government regulation and allow industry to self-regulate their operations. In the case of the XL E. coli outbreak, Minister Ritz pushed for this very company to regulate their own operations. To say that XL Foods failed to properly self-regulate their operations is a gross understatement.

I can recall the first time I had ever heard of a government washing their hands of regulating the meat industry in favour of self-regulation.

It was in the early 1980s and the Thatcher Conservatives were the government of Britain, having come to power on a platform of you guessed it … small government. One of Thatcher’s first moves was to shelve the outgoing Labour Government’s unannounced government inspection of the meat industry. She claimed that the meat industry should regulate itself. (With this move, the Conservatives gained a lot of farmer votes.)

Shortly afterward, the farmers discovered that many of their sheep had a strange protein virus. Ever the prudent cost-cutters, the farmers fed the infected sheep to their cows. Et voila! Mad cow disease appeared!

But there is so much more to this sordid tale of industry being allowed to self-regulate.

In 1995, the Mike Harris Conservatives were elected to government in Ontario. Harris’ “Common Sense” Revolution promised smaller government including … you got it – cut backs on water inspections. Before too long, as many readers will recall, tragedy struck a village named Walkerton. The dreaded E. coli virus had entered the town’s drinking water supply from farm run-off. This resulted in over half the town’s 5,000 people getting very sick, and even worse, seven people dying.

The Walkerton Public Utilities Commission blamed the Conservative government for not regulating water quality, for not enforcing existing legislation, and, if you can believe this, for privatizing water testing. The Walkerton tragedy cost Ontario taxpayers over $64 million! So much for the idea of small government saving money.

Okay, I think you get the picture. Allowing industry to self-regulate is a bad idea. In fact, when public health and safety is at risk, it is at best a moronic idea. With so much evidence, a case can be made that it is a criminal act.

And lest we forget about stripping away the regulations for the financial industry, let’s take a quick look at the recent economic crisis that began in the United States. Ronald Reagan chose a self-proclaimed Ayn Rand devotee, Alan Greenspan, to replace the pro-regulation Paul Volcker as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Greenspan got rid of regulations and government oversight of banking transactions, (Republican Phil Gramm finished this process off by leading the fight to repeal FDR’s Glass-Steagall Act of 1933.)

These Republican moves resulted in the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Remember that story in the news?

Greenspan claimed that the banking industry could self-regulate itself.  He was obviously wrong. Greenspan’s mistake has cost the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars!

I kind of think that this is a big deal. Heck, I am guessing that even some conservative voters are at least a little concerned. Of course, I could be wrong because this group, especially in its contemporary "head space," never ceases to amaze me. I guess we will all see how concerned they are with the November election. If the de-regulating twins named Romney and Ryan win, then we will have our answer!

(As an aside, I am amused and also greatly concerned that the main proponents for deregulation, such as Greenspan and this Paul Ryan guy, are self-avowed disciples of Ayn Rand. But I digress!)

I cannot claim to be a big fan of Liberal PMs Chretien and Martin, but I am extremely happy that they withstood the calls from then Leader of the Opposition Stephen Harper to let the banks regulate themselves. All Canadians should be happy. Had Harper gotten his way, we would very likely be in a similar economic position as many Americans find themselves in today.

By the way, I am not putting Ritz and the XL Foods crisis in the same category as the UK’s Mad Cow crisis or Ontario’s Walkerton crisis. After all, no one has died. But this story is still far from over. Hopefully, Agriculture Minister Ritz has learned not to crack any more of those lame jokes.

Hopefully, the Canadian electorate will vote against any political party claiming that self-regulation is the way to go because industry knows best. Obviously, industry does not always know best.

To allow industry to self-regulate is to put our health, safety and economic security at risk.

I know one thing: even the tax cut lovin' crowd may want to tell their conservative politicians to save money elsewhere and not make cuts to the government meat inspectors and food regulators. Besides putting all Canadians at risk, it never really seems to save money in the long run anyway.