The primary causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980′s were political and economic. Another factor was the lack of that government’s honesty with the people. Secrecy and propaganda were operational–themes, at any time and at any place, common to the culture of war.

John Boehner ‘s response to the loss of 200,000* public sector jobs, “So be it!“, resonated along with Khrushchev’s admonition, ‘We will bury you’. The Speaker’s words took me back to an ominous time when Khrushchev banged his shoe at the UN General Assembly in an act of intimidation. That outburst was in response to a Philippine delegate having proclaimed that the Soviet government was depriving its population of “the free exercise of their civil and political rights”. What a coincidence! So be it!

Boehner and his ultra-conservative comrades are presently joined in an unforgivable attack on American workers. Aligning with him are the governors of Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Jersey (among others), conservatives in Congress, lobbyists headed up by the likes of the Koch brothers, and those who directly benefit from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

We realize that Boehner’s off-handed comment is not a reaction to a budget crisis–although budget crises continue to staged by conservative electeds in order to grow assaults upon the working/middle class of America. This is part of a perverse plan to undermine a critical segment the American economy. These are actions designed to set neighbor against neighbor for the purpose of removing the spotlight from the escalating gap between the working/middle class and the super wealthy. Collectively, these are actions of people intent on harming a president whose goals remain in conflict with theirs.

The provocateurs believe that it is easier to set people off against others who are doing marginally better because the common folk–our neighbors, our kids’ teachers, our parent pensioners, are real to people. The lifestyles of the super-wealthy are so far out of reach that the average person tends to perceive them as fictitious characters in a novel. The tangible vs. the intangible. And foolishly we too often turn on each other because we are within reach. No tilting at windmills here.

Such, then, was the behavior of the dictators of the Soviet Union. Such, now, as Boehner makes us realize, is the behavior of a SoBeIt Union.

As the turnout in cities across the nation portrays, Americans are increasingly cynical about the propaganda and venom spread by the SoBeIt Union. In the largest protest rally at Wisconsin’s state capitol since the Vietnam War, union members and their supporters continue to brave frigid temperatures to voice their anger against a provocative and intimidating governor. The tide is turning and it is now clear that Americans increasingly support union workers’ –public and private–rights to bargain collectively. This human right is the centerpiece of the working/middle class’ ability to succeed in a capitalist, and unfortunately, increasingly corporatist, society.

Almost by definition the phrase ‘So Be It‘ is an expression of acceptance, particularly of an unfavorable situation. The man says, So Be It! It resonates with me. It infuriates me. He shows not the slightest sense of remorse. No hint of regret as he takes aim at cutting jobs at a time that unemployment devastates families, local and state governments, and the national economy.

2011′s version of ‘Let ‘em eat cake.’

Outrageous! So Be It!

On the other hand, Joe Beaudoin, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association gets it:

America’s federal workforce understands the importance of fiscal responsibility – federal employees are already doing their part to reduce the deficit by undergoing a two-year pay freeze . . . On behalf of the 4.6 million active and retired federal workers, we must make sure that federal employees who are doing their jobs for our country don’t get caught unfairly in the middle of these consequences.

Wisconsin public employees get it. They agreed to givebacks, painstaking compromises that will impact their families for years to come. However, making the concessions the governor requested is not good enough. That , after all, is not the game plan

Having staged a budget crisis by giving huge and unnecessary corporate tax cuts, he has positioned himself to demand the end of collective bargaining. So Be It.

Collateral damage they say. Again, returning to recent history, the term “collateral damage” originated as a euphemism during the Vietnam War, referring to friendly fire and the killing of non-combatants.

Friendly fire. So Be It.

*************************

* Boehner has refused to cite his source for this number. It was stated cavalierly-a Beckovian misstatement, his intention designed to intimidate workers and rally those who blindly accept his pernicious exaggerations. When pressed, he admitted not knowing an estimate of the number of jobs lost due to the Republican budget cuts.
Ed O’Keefe of the Washington Post reported a few months ago that there were only 20,000 more federal employees under Obama in 2010 than under George W. Bush in 2002 — and that, on a per capita basis (federal employees per 1,000 Americans), it’s at the lowest level at least since 1962.

So Be it? Damn it!

Wisconsin is to union-busting what Arizona is to anti-health care reform, anti-gun control, and anti-immigration policy.

The number of groups targeted by conservatives continues to grow. This should provide progressives, liberals, independents, working/middle-class Americans, moderate conservatives, and rational people of most persuasions the impetus to fight back in a focused, organized, and powerful manner.

Each group fighting for and/or against specific issues will not bring anywhere near the force that a collective, shared coalition will. Given the seemingly bottomless resources and endless venom of the Coke Brothers (as just one example) and a far right-activist Supreme Court, the real battle can only be won by Americans coming together around a common agenda and strategy, beginning now and extending through GOTV efforts for the 2012 elections.

I am initiating a list and am prompting you to extend it. It will be helpful to creating common ground if you were to cite one particular event or (proposed) legislation that illustrates your point. I’ll aggregate these and share them for the purpose of forming an American Coalition against Greed and Ignorance. The goal of our initial exercise will be to create a centerpiece that unites all of those who are experiencing alienation as a result of an agenda built upon a foundation of greed and ignorance.

Send your suggestions and insights to mkyankee – at – gmail.com.

My list is arranged alphabetically for the purpose of giving all constituencies equal footing as we begin to coalesce.

African-Americans
Educators
Environmentalists
Gay Americans
Immigrants
Latino-Americans
Mothers
Muslim Americans
Republican Intellectuals
Senior Citizens
The Underemployed
The Unemployed
Those Who Favor ‘Single-Payer’
Union members
Urban residents
Well-Educated Americans

Consider:

What percent of all voters do these groups represent (without replication)?

How might these groups coalesce to galvanize the potential of Alienated Americans?

What person(s) and/or groups may be best positioned to spearhead such a national movement?

Bottom line, nothing changed. Those true to their liberal/progressive DNA clung to the same values to which they had been long-term committed. After all, a leopard can’t change its spots. We simply exchanged labels.

More recently the unutterable word has become COMPROMISE. Not fashionable. Not ethical. The label serves to further POLARIZE. Now, there’s a useful tag: ‘I’m not a moderate; I’m a polarizer. And proud of it.’

And who does the compromise cloak fit best? President Barack Obama. Yeah, sure. Now he is getting it from both ends of the spectrum. In the short term, the C-label is unfair, counterproductive. Too close to words such as pragmatic, practical, thoughtful. In the long term, “Compromise, like smoking, may be hazardous to your health.”

Recall what Obama’s presidency has managed to accomplish during the past copule of months:

• Most recently, his foreign policy team refortified critical alliances from NATO to East Asia. Following the NOvember (not a typo) election, there were whispers of how American power had eroded and the president had become unfocused and weakened. He now has a stronger, better aligned team. Tom Donilon, the new National Security Adviser, flies below the media radar but is a proven policy guy. Rahm Emauel is busy running for governor and that will make foreign policy goals somewhat easier to accomplish. It already has.
• Obama’s backbone is evident once again. He has strengthened ties with India without upsetting Pakistan! No easy accomplishment, for sure.
• An important free trade agreement–without making key concessions to South Korea. Bi-partisan support at home. Impressive.
• Holbrooke (he will be missed) got NATO to support a timetable for Afghanistan’s transition. Maybe not all we had hoped for, but nonetheless a neat trick.
• The Afghanistan-Pakistan Review avoided a political land mine. Fragile? Sure. Reversible? All too likely. Nevertheless an achievement in the short term.
• Repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’. Anyone think that was not acrobatic?
• Ratification of the New START Treaty with Russia. You have to bow to this one. Almost every conservative politician who recognized that this was a major accomplishment had outwardly condemned it. Amazing. Yet, not surprising.
• Formation of an Iraqi government. This may be a house of cards. But for now, we’ll take it.
• Korea. We were about to prepare to mobilize for war. All it would take would be a tad more provocation by North Korea. Its nuclear capability was a threat to America. Obama got the Chinese to intervene on our behalf. North Korea got the message.

Those who do not not believe that each of these achievements involved COMPROMISE are mistaken.

Those unwilling to accept that COMPROMISE will be a recurring path as we move ahead (in terms of time and in terms of PROGRESS) can’t get past the perfect.

At the start of Obama’s presidency the phrase, “Don’t let the prerfect be the enemy of the good” was fashionable. It remained the mantra. Until it didn’t. It didn’t because COMPROMISE became a dirty word.

It seems the L-word is back as an acceptable adjective. I am noticing that progressives are more often referring to themselves as liberals once again. It took a bit of time to get there. Too long in my opinion. But it is happening, as in ‘I’m a LIBERAL’.

Repeat after me. ‘I’m a LIBERAL and I’m proud to say it.”

Good. Now say it again with conviction.

Great. Three more times.–loud.

Even greater: Go say it where someone can hear you.

Best: Say it straight to a conservative who spends his/her days bitching about Obama-Care or saving the auto companies and hundreds of thousands of jobs or financial reform or . . . (see above).

Soon, the C-word will regain acceptance as a verb, an action word, that can be said in public without having to run for cover. ‘COMPROMISE’ will once again be permissible for use in mixed company–liberals and conservatives working toward some areasonable goal. It will be like the ’90s. In hindsight, Bob Dole does not appear to have been so bad.

Most important, if we are to declaw Issa, Palin, Kantor, and their ill ilk, we must return to being a culture of reasonableness. Might that then become the R-word? People will only converse across political lines in the shadows, in locked rooms, after checking for transimtters?

Compromise is too often viewed as the enemy of reason, rather than being somewhat synonymous.

I just returned from a stay in Florida. So, believe me, I know.

The New Voodoo

By Paul Krugman

Published: December 30, 2010

Hypocrisy never goes out of style, but, even so, 2010 was something special. For it was the year of budget doubletalk — the year of arsonists posing as firemen, of people railing against deficits while doing everything they could to make those deficits bigger.

Read the full column here – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/opinion/31krugman.html

How will this all end? I have seen the future, and it’s on Long Island, where I grew up.

Nassau County — the part of Long Island that directly abuts New York City — is one of the wealthiest counties in America and has an unemployment rate well below the national average. So it should be weathering the economic storm better than most places.

But a year ago, in one of the first major Tea Party victories, the county elected a new executive who railed against budget deficits and promised both to cut taxes and to balance the budget. The tax cuts happened; the promised spending cuts didn’t. And now the county is in fiscal crisis.

Now the federal government has a lot more flexibility than a county government: it needn’t, and shouldn’t, balance its budget each year. The deficits of the past two years have actually been a good thing, helping to support the economy in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

But Nassau County shows how easily responsible government can collapse in this country, now that one of our major parties believes in budget magic. All it takes is disgruntled voters who don’t know what’s at stake — and we have plenty of those. Banana republic, here we come.

Perhaps 2011 will be a year we start looking at the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. Is it a rational opinion to argue for policies that are hypocritical or are those folks just working on degrading our government and society? I’ll let you decide, but we can clearly do better. With some fundamental logic, these lies can be exposed for what they are, lies. Hypocrisy shouldn’t be a quality needed to be a politician in the 21st century. We can do better than this.

After the Democratic “shellacking” in the midterm elections, everyone wondered how President Obama would respond. Would he show what he was made of? Would he stand firm for the values he believes in, even in the face of political adversity?
[....]
Whatever is going on inside the White House, from the outside it looks like moral collapse — a complete failure of purpose and loss of direction.
[...]
So what are Democrats to do? The answer, increasingly, seems to be that they’ll have to strike out on their own. In particular, Democrats in Congress still have the ability to put their opponents on the spot — as they did on Thursday when they forced a vote on extending middle-class tax cuts, putting Republicans in the awkward position of voting against the middle class to safeguard tax cuts for the rich.

It would be much easier, of course, for Democrats to draw a line if Mr. Obama would do his part. But all indications are that the party will have to look elsewhere for the leadership it needs.

Read the full column @ NYTimes.com.
Some Yes We Can! Long Island Board Members expressed their opinions on this column.

Marvin had the following comment:

Agreed. I made this point over and over at yesterday’s meetings. I am at
my most conflicted level since the 2008 election. Hopefully, backbone will
persist and the State of the Nation speech will bring honor and conviction
back to where it had been no so long ago.

Susan said:

I’m really sad to say that I agree with Krugman

Phil said:

I think Mr. Krugman badly misses the mark with today’s column ” Freezing Out Hope”. To begin, the freeze on Federal pay, although small in the overall picture, is important symbolically. The public’s perception is to a certain degree correct, government employees have not suffered nearly as much as the general public who have experienced near depression level unemployment, many out of work for years or otherwise underemployed just to keep food on the table. Seniors didn’t get a COLA this year, rightly so because the cost of living has not gone up. Why should Federal employees get cost of living increase? Furthermore “a freeze” is somewhat the equivalent of the unilateral ban on “ear marks” by Republicans. The “ban” was also symbolic, welcomed by not only tea party type but also by independents. I think both the “freeze” and the ‘ban” are good unilateral politics.

As far as the bigger issue of the Bush tax cuts we have to ask ourselves who will be hurt more if the cuts expire for everyone including the middle class taxes? Who will be blamed when a family earning on $60,000 per year has to pay almost $3000 more in taxes or almost $6,000 for a family earning $120,000. Who will be blamed the President or the Republicans? Is it a bigger risk for politicians or the middle class?

To a large degree this problem of communication and symbolism was almost two years in the making. As President Obama has admitted they did a poor job of explaining successful legislation. For example: one third the “stimulus” was a tax cut but almost no one realizes it? The Health reform debate dragged on for a year and showed the worst part of making the legislative “sausage”.

Much of it to placate democrats and independents such as Senators Nelson and Lieberman, not republicans. Finally the bail-out of Wall Street was done without caps on bonuses. As a result Wall Street will give out a record $20 billion in 2010 in bonuses, while the middle class is suffering.

The President can’t make the same symbolic mistakes again. I fear he will be blamed for gridlock if he loses this “game of chicken” but the tax cuts expire and the middle class ends up paying thousands of dollars per year in additional taxes. Since the president won election partially on the basis of post-partisanship, and if he loses the battle of chicken, I think the President should instead extend the tax cuts temporarily (for all) but not for more than 2 years and live to fight in 2012 for his re-election? But certainly I don’t think it an easy answer.

Ben Brodsky posted a comment on the comment section of the column:

Hope is more than just a pay raise.

While I agree with your premise – freezing federal workers salaries will do very little to effect the deficit – and these actions will not help President Obama in finding support from the Republicans, it should not be looked at as an attack on liberal values. A two year pay freeze, while inflation is very low, at a time of such economic upheaval and uncertainty isn’t the end of the world.

A temporary freeze, while possibly misguided, can have some positive benefits, such as giving these agencies more money to hire new employees or improve the efficiency of their department. At least the employees know they have a job that isn’t going anywhere, and right now, that is probably has more value than a pay raise. Stability.

As for your assertion that President Obama is in some way attacking his liberal supporters with this and other policies, I can’t help but question the basis for this assessment. President Obama was not the liberal/progressive candidate some labeled him. Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel were the only two true liberal Democratic candidates in 2008. Though he had many liberal values and views, many assumed he was far more consistently progressive then he ever claimed to be.

President Obama spoke of admiration for Ronal Reagan, of his opposition to legalization of cannabis, of his support of the Afghanistan War – clear examples of his not-so-liberal tendencies. He spoke more of pragmatism and compromise — remember his Red State/Blue State speech?

His focus since his inauguration appears to be a longterm plan to gain support amongst a wide cross-section of America, not based on traditional dividing points in American society, but a better tomorrow achieved through common sense.

In 2 years time, will a Tea Party activist who sees better Health Care for a dying parent realize that President Obama might have done some good with health care reform? Will the Wall Street banker appreciate the booming economy that is based on real small business growth, putting the days of financial wizardry behind them? Will the middle-class family be better off when their child, who was able to get reasonable student loans from the government, can stay on the family health care until 26? Will the soldier appreciate not being sent to war in a nation that we had no business fighting in? When the soldier can also discuss his sexual orientation without fear of reprimand? Will the bloggers appreciate the trove of government information now in the public domain?

Those expecting a liberal, progressive dawning of America with the election of Barack Obama were only fooling themselves with their own hopes. The fact is President Obama has been doing great things for the future of America while focusing very little on the short-term political benefits of his actions. I wonder how many of his supporters actually check out the White House website and blog on a regular basis or if the majority of them just find out about his presidency through watching MSNBC and reading liberal blogs?

We are a fickle people in America, not because we change our minds, but because we refuse to evolve our thinking and reconsider our actions. So many supported President Obama so vehemently during the campaign in 2008, yet today are so often disappointed because they found out he wasn’t exactly what they hoped he would be.

Well, it is time to wise up and support our President and country at this time of great challenge. We should not be looking for “hope” and “change” in our personal hopes and dreams, but we must have hope in a better future for ourselves, our nation, and our planet, even if it ends up being more than two years away.

These times might not be as dire as the times that try men’s souls in 1776, but a great deal of similarities exhaust between then and now. I suppose we shall see if we as a nation are better or worse at being patriots than we were at the founding of the nation.

“I see no real cause for fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it.”