The good, not so good, bad, and ugly of Biden's speech to the nation

We did not have Internet from 2:30 pm yesterday through late in the evening, which was after we went to bed. I went to the folks around dinnertime to watch part of the Lakers' game on their cable for awhile (the Lakers lost), and, with Biden already giving his speech, I figured I'd read the Biden speech transcript this morning, which I did.

When it comes to major presidential speeches, the bar has gotten lower and lower throughout my entire adult life (age disclosure, going on 64 this year). In that context, Biden's speech was a welcome pivot in the correct direction after a half century of mendacity, willful ignorance, and ultimately an abject rejection of the best New Deal values. Biden's speech may be the best presidential speech since I can remember as a functioning adult in his pivot back towards the New Deal. However, the speech is still woefully inadequate considering the last five decade's national statesmanship malpractice, the beggaring of the majority of Americans with the trade deals and automation, our nation's crumbling infrastructure, and the continued expansion of the US war machine which has murdered so many over so many decades--all of which bad things Biden was a leader in shaping. Here, then, are the good, the not-so-good, the bad, and the ugly from my read of Biden's speech:

The good: A solid majority of Americans support increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations, though corporate media commentators often do their job for their corporate masters in obscuring that singular fact. I admit I was whooping and hollering to myself as I read Biden's express mention of the PRO Act (labor law reform), and how he gave that shout-out in the context of the infrastructure package he proposes. I was also pleased by his proposing an American Families Act. However, I was disappointed in the lack of details. 

The not-so-good: I am convinced Biden did not go into details regarding his American Families Act because there is much less there than meets the ears and eyes. We know Biden will not be helping many  who are in their 20s through 40s get their college/grad school debt off their backs. He then did a mislead with regard to so-called "free" college education. Biden initially said his AFP "guarantees four additional years of public eduction for every American..." But, then, a few sentences later he said that would only be true for community college. Then he reverted to the usual Clinton/Obama garbage about "increasing" (not saying anything specific) Pell Grants. If anything, Biden was instead focused on pre-school, which I suppose is okay. However, news flash: we are in a Birth Dearth, largely from our nation beggaring those of child bearing age with low paying jobs and high debt loads. Neo-libs still have a lot to learn, and it makes me wonder whether they are just bullshitting and don't give a damn. Worse, Biden's discussion of the ACA/Obamacare was vague, and it sounds as if he is merely proposing more subsidies which directly benefit rich Pharma and medical insurance companies. That is what subsidies for premiums and deductibles means. Biden was again pretty sparse in explaining what he means by strengthening the ACA/Obamacare.  

The bad: Biden's quick mention of the $15 minimum wage was so cynical I almost stopped reading. He knew he did nothing to stop Manchin's destruction, when 63% of Manchin's constituents supported raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. So, it is not as if Manchin was listening to people in his own state.  FDR and LBJ would have known what to do with that singular fact, too. Instead, Biden simply let  Manchin act as if Manchin was president. Worse, Biden did not a mention anything in his speech last night about lowering Medicare eligibility to 60 or regulating prescription medication prices, things he literally campaigned on. Biden also made no mention of a public option, so beloved of the neo-libs like him and Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar when they were running for president. Also, "Cold War" Joe continues to put himself and the nation in a place where military contractors will be able to scream for more military expenditures against China and Russia, though we outspend both of those major sized nations combined by a significant amount. Nobody ever comes to grips with the fact our nation already spends more on our military than the next eight to ten nations combined (some years it is more than the rest of the world combined). Also in the bad category were Biden's statements about immigration, as they were too vague to merit more than a cynical nod. Biden basically said he is proposing something for everyone--without saying what that something is. He had an opportunity to tell people about the birth dearth, and say he is committed to getting every single American employed in the infrastructure and child care work, and we may then find we will need to put up help wanted signs, like we did when we built up our nation when our grandparents arrived from foreign shores.

The ugly: The immigration discussion was ugly when Biden spoke about Central America, as if the people and governments there were the source of the problem we have with immigration. The reason that is disgusting is it has been our nation which, since the 1970s, at least, created and has maintained support for the leaders who did so much killing there (see also the late Penny Lernoux's courageous journalism work, Cry of the People). In Central America, our leaders actively and knowingly supported priest and nun killers, labor organizer killers, doctor and nurse killers, which actively undermined whatever civil society those nations had before the 1970s. Most Americans remain painfully ignorant of our actions, while the leaders and policymakers who were the architects of the murder and mayhem remain in highly respected (among Biden Neo-libs and corporate conservative) American policy circles. To speak of immigration as a problem other countries have, and which they must solve, is part of why it is so ridiculous for our nation to not confront the facts of the American Empire and military-industrial complex.

We are a mixed economy, and that means there are socialist and capitalist elements.  To deny that is to obscure issues, confuse voters, and continue to flounder.

It remains disgusting to me how we are still not over our Cold War nostrums that deny our economy is a highly mixed economy. We continue to give "capitalism" credit for anything economically successful in our nation when that is more historically and empirically false than true. Worst of all, in the context of our discourse, we crouch in defensive posture at every government proposal to directly help people,  with voices across the approved corporate media spectrum saying such proposals must be rejected  because they are "socialist," as if "socialism" is the creature from the film, Alien. Social Security and Medicare are socialist programs--and our continued denial of that fact obscures reality, and causes us to be misled and confused as a populace. Until we get over our fear of something being called "socialist," and realize what it took Europe two world wars to realize, we will continue to crawl on broken glass in the dark. We need to stop idealizing capitalism as a theory and demonizing socialism as a theory. Both are necessary in a mature, functioning mixed economy. 

Biden remains the wrong man for the time

I remain unimpressed with Biden, unlike, say, so-called progressive congresspersons AOC and Jayapal. If Biden was really FDR, he would have gone much bigger in his demands and presentation, and would have put Joe Manchin and his corporate Democratic enablers on notice by saying he would go to the American people in state after state to push for his program proposals. Biden has started this negotiation too low, and has no plans to leave the White House to promote his program. The negotiations which will ensue behind closed doors in DC will most likely result in far less than what he promised, or implied for Americans desperate for anything. When President Manchin undermines much of what Biden promised, MSNBC/CNN viewers will end up dutifully accepting the shrugged shoulders from Biden and his enablers. Mark these words. Until Joe Biden starts acting as the president, and directly challenges Joe Manchin and the other corrupt Democratic Party senators who go along with the global corporate power agenda, the good in Biden's speech is only so much noise.

What is needed is a president who will galvanize Americans to agitation and use the Democratic Party as a major tool for popular organization. However, Biden didn't ask anyone to do anything--and the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC are filled with people who agree far more with Joe Manchin.  Yes, I give Biden credit for indirectly recognizing the bankruptcy of the Clinton and Obama administrations' policies and philosophies (He made no mention of those two grifters at all, which I am sure Clinton and Obama noticed). However, Biden remains the latest in a series of the wrong presidents at the wrong time. I have little sense Biden's pretty speech will be anything other than the opening move of a continued failed strategy. Most depressingly, what we have seen from most progressive groups, and the Squad, is how they have been co-opted. We should no longer accept saying to ourselves, "I'm been down so goddamned long/Bottom looks like up to me."

White House Operatives tell reporter to write a story. Reporter complies.

Jeez. This article from a Yahoo! National Correspondent about Biden breaking from Obama is such propaganda.  I really think the DNC is worried that progressives are going to start an independent party--notice I did not say third party; hence, this carefully constructed article where the Biden White House operatives practically wrote the article for this putz of a reporter.*  This article is designed to obscure the fact corporate power has long captured the two parties, and how, in a time where the Dems have control of the Senate, House, and White House, the DNC has figured out how to continue to not listen to the general public. What is not ever stated in any of these types of articles is that the progressives have won the policy arguments with the general public, when one compares the policies progressives want in the economic realm and public opinion polling data. Thus, Joe Manchin serves the interests of corporate power, and Joe Biden continues to act as if Joe Manchin is president--and at best give lip service to a need for structural changes. Then, Biden and now progressives in Congress, while wringing their hands, tell us, "Sorry, this is the best we can do, which is a few things around the edges..."--all while the planet burns, and structural inequality continues to run rampant inside the United States.  This idea that Biden is being "aggressive" in changing course from neo-liberalism and fascism--the article obscures the ideologies in talking about "Obama" and "Trump" in celebrity-driven politics mode--is simply nonsense.

Today, April 15, we will learn how much the Squad has raised in the first quarter 2021 compared to the first quarters 2019 and 2020.  I am hoping there will be a big drop in donations.  I removed myself from their email lists and stopped giving my usual $25 (as one of millions of small donors upon which they have relied).  However, I am of the view that too many progressives--the kind who ignore what Jimmy Dore says on the topic of strategy, and simply dismiss him an asshat--are themselves too tamed by celebrity-worship-posing-as-politics, and therefore may have continued to give money to the Squad.  Every progressive currently in Congress has been weak, craven, and a leadership failure in this unfolding Biden era.  Every single one of them, including my long-time favorite, Bernie Sanders.  They have willfully refused to seize the moment. They, too, have let Joe Manchin be president.  They have let down the people of our nation, and the people and creatures of our planet.  

Please understand:  This critique is not to let the crooks, i.e. McConnell and every single Republican, as well as Pelosi, Hoyer, and Manchin, off the hook. And trust me, Pelosi, Hoyer, and Manchin are crooks. Look at their stock buys.  Look at their corporate investments. They are crooks. Also, my critique is not said in a way to let off the hook corporate owned media--which too many Democrats continue to trust for opinion formation (don't just read the headline in the link; scroll down and note 73% of Dems trust corporate media cable news that they eagerly watch). Instead, we must face the fact the progressives we elected have shown themselves to be unworthy of further support. We pushed for these progressives to be elected to Congress with their promise that they would leverage power to get structural changes that our nation has long needed--not just get along with the power structure. Again, we need to demand our friends and families analyze for themselves the polling data on issue after issue over the past five years. Progressives have won the policy arguments--and yet, we see progressive politicians playing into backroom politics, which is where the corruption is most palpable and powerful. They refuse to shame Biden, Manchin, Sinema, and the rest by going into the states of those senators, talking up the policies the people in those states support with the progressives, and withholding votes while saying, "Put in the policies the people want!"  We will never complete the New Deal, or save our planet, with the current type of get-along politics these progressives are practicing.  

Finally, one will note, after the reporter/stenographer quotes a Princeton political scientist, the writer throws in the usual corporate media bullshit about the parties being polarized, implying what is needed is bi-partisanship. Sorry. The parties are not polarized about listening to big corporate and financial donors. They are all together on that.  I doubt the Princeton prof would have agreed with the sentence about polarization at this point, if that prof has any understanding of the moment we are in.  We are well past that type of thinking, and yet corporate media continues to push that propaganda.  Sigh.  And yes, I saw how the article writer quotes Noam Chomsky near the beginning, but precisely on something where Chomsky has himself fallen into celebrity-posing-as-policy.  Funny how now Chomsky gets quoted in a corporate media outlet article. That the article favorably quotes Chomsky is one of the clues as to how we know this article is the result of a White House operative telling the reporter, or the reporter's boss: 

"Hey, we need an article showing how Biden is really doing the progressives' work. Don't worry. We'll give you a bunch of sources from which you can pick and choose and help you write it. If you do, we'll give you more access. We know the right wingers don't read articles like this, and it won't hurt our corporate donors' feelings. They know Joe Biden is in their corner. We just need this for the egghead progressives out there to feel better."

Trust me, as someone who knows the history of American journalism. That is how this article came to be written, and how it is part of the charm offensive for progressives, who have begun to take a lot of heat from the grassroots on the Internet. It is just like the Bloomberg article, extolling AOC and the progressives for their "inside" "court the Establishment" game.  The timing is unmistakable. 

* Fat chance for any new party. I had hope for the Movement for a People's Party, but I am seeing essentially nothing happening. They should be starting in precisely the areas where the Democratic Party brand is most toxic, and pushing out the husk that is the Democratic Party in those largely rural and smaller populated state places. I don't see any activity, and I know I gave them $50 late last year in a fit of hope.  Oh well. Chalk that up alongside of those progressives who told us, "Don't worry!  We are going to work hard to push Biden left once he is elected. " As Daffy Duck would say, "....It is to laugh."  Instead, we are seeing the same old shaming tactics.

Kyle Kulinski, co-founder of Justice Democrats, lays it out in a way that every progressive has to finally agree

Just watch these two video clips from Kyle Kulinski at Secular Talk.  He nails how much Pelosi/Dem leadership hates progressives, and how weak progressives have been in taking on the fight for Americans and for the planet.  The key for progressive politicians is to leverage public power and that they stand with the majority of Americans.  "Behind the scenes" is where Pelosi's power is.  That is why progressives must stand out in the public and expose Democratic Party leadership in the same way as they would expose Republican Party politicians. 

The self-proclaimed jag off, pot head comedian, Jimmy Dore, has been correct on this issue.  It does not make Jimmy correct on everything, and anyone who knows me knows how much I disagree with him on Trump/Russia, for example. But, when he is correct, he is correct.  

Outstanding documentary from London Review of Books on Eric Hobsbawm

This is an extraordinary documentary.  

The documentary, just released, and free online, captures not only Hobsbawm's life, but also Hobsbawm's historiography.  I am now compelled to find Perry Anderson's critique of what he sees as a contradiction in Hobsbawm's theory of the 20th Century, whereas I agree with Hobsbawm that 19th Century liberalism and 19th/20th Century socialism and communism are all children of the Enlightenment, and share a similar language at the base.  Their reasoning and strategies differ, and their ultimate goals differ.  But, they are each rooted in the language that extols reason in philosophy, a belief in the need for scientific progress, and a sense of transparency, whether or not that is honored in the breach.

This documentary does an outstanding job of showing why one is not required to be a Marxist or Communist or anything even radical to understand Hobsbawm's interpretation of European (and indirectly world) history since 1789.  In fact, one can say Hobsbawm's history is ironically informed by, while still critical of Whiggish history.  In other words, an enlightened business person should find much to enjoy and be comforted by in Hobsbawm's history, which I hope does not deter radical readers from investigating Hobsbawm. :) 

Glenn Greenwald's story about his journalism in Brazilian government corruption is so damned important

 Just watch this.  Say what we want about Greenwald, with whom I have had some major disagreements about his anti-anti-Trumpism, he is still a major journalist of our time.  

A story of white privilege and a story of oppressed African-Americans

This story brought tears of outrage to my eyes.  It is the story, which just occurred, of a five year old boy African-American boy berated into tears by a police officer--yes, African-American woman police officer--in the still racist, former slave state of Maryland. The boy's crime? The boy walked out of school, presumably to go home or just get out from a place already oppressing him.  All captured on video.

This hit home to me because, in 1998, or thereabouts, in the first ten days of The Son's first year in school, i.e. kindergarten, The Son decided, on his own, to walk out of the school during lunch recess-- and walked home. Luckily for The Son, we lived really close to the school at the time. He walked right up to our house door, rang the house doorbell, and, again, luckily for him, The Wife was home, as she was a stay-at-home mom at the time. The Wife brought The Son back to school, where the school administration apologized to her for not noticing till just that moment when she returned with him that he had left. Why did The Son walk out of the school? The Son, who had been brought up by my hippy wife, and was in a pre-school of Jewish hippies, unluckily landed a martinet for a kindergarten teacher--and he was miserable. 

The next day, I took time off from work to march into the school, and got immediate access to the principal. I introduced myself, said I was the lad's dad, and then said, "Look, this child is miserable. And I figure there are two types of kindergarten teachers: hippies who let the sunshine in, and martinets who drill rigor and order into the youngsters. I know there is already more than one kindergarten teacher here, and if there are two, the other is a hippie, right?" He nodded and laughed, but said he would not phrase it that way, though he understood my meaning. I continued, firmly and clearly, "Good! Now, I also figure, there is already a parent complaining to you about his or her kid having the hippie teacher teaching their kid to be free--and they don't want that. So, here's my proposal: I propose a Prisoner of War exchange, as we are dealing with compulsory education. My son goes to the hippie teacher and the martinet teacher gets the other kid." 

The principal immediately tried to assuage me with the usual professional-managerial class (PMC) language of why that can't be, which led me to immediately say, with my trial lawyer voice firm and strong: "Look, my Dad was a teacher, my sister is a teacher, my wife has her teaching credential, my wife's sister is a teacher, her brother is a teacher, and her mother is a teacher. My mom works at another elementary school here in this district. I know what I am saying--and you know what I am saying is correct. We need this prisoner exchange now. There's no wait and see on this. As I say, my son is miserable--and now I am angry." The principal sighed and said, okay. It will be done this week. And it was that very week, maybe, if I recall right, in about two school days.

Now, after one reads the linked-to story and compares it to my above story, does anyone who doesn't want to punch the police officers in the face here--not just sue them--not yet see how white privilege works?

The difference between what happened to this five year old boy in the former slave state of Maryland and my then five year old boy in then-largely white suburban Orange County, California is stark. The difference here should outrage every human being everywhere. What happened in the still racist, but former slave state of Maryland isn't ultimately about the individual police officers, though retribution and accountability against the officers are a must there. This videotaped incident is a real life example about how our society criminalizes African-Americans from the time they are children, and criminalizes and marginalizes poor children in general. And this incident is an example of how the police are precisely used to ensure this happens systemically. Punishment is the order of the day, even for a five year old African-American. This incident is on all of us, and I'm talking about white liberals as well as the usual suspects--so no, "To Kill a Mockingbird" tut-tutting.

This child has been terribly traumatized, and we should all feel shame and outrage that this happens so much and so often.

Bill Maher's cultural elitism reveals his own shallowness

Bill Maher uses the Grammys to make an argument about meritocracy, when the Grammys are like a fast food takeover of a culinary contest where only Burger King and McDonalds sweep the awards every year.  And it is not there was some Golden Age for Grammy Awards. There wasn't.  It was always a commercial venture when it began after WWII, as it was a continuation of a trend Aldous Huxley noted in Brave New World (1932), how music in our society would eventually be reduced to jingles equal to the advertising for products that appeared on commercial controlled radio. Maher is oblivious to Lawrence Levine's Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America and therefore oblivious to the mid 19th Century miners and farmers who could recite Shakespeare, sing arias from operas, hum Beethoven's sonatas, and the like.  

We have a modern comparison to prove my point: Compare Italian young people in the 1970s and American young people in 1970s. At that time, corporate power had not completely taken over radio and television in Italy. And it was not as if Italian public school education was so superior to American public school education. Yet, in that period, Gentle Giant and Van Der Graaf Generator literally sold out stadiums in Italy while the Eagles and Loggins and Messina had to resign themselves to playing in clubs in Rome or Florence. But then, in the 1980s, corporate power in media grew suddenly and completely so that, by the end of the 1980s, Italian young people were suddenly listening to much of what American young people were listening to. Coincidence? I think not. It was a fast cultural devolution, and one that can be largely traced to corporate power over media sources. 

I raised my children to appreciate classical music and we took them to concerts to see the excitement of orchestrated music. That was something I felt I had to do to avoid them being bombarded with the ubiquitous nonsense that surrounded them. The good news of the Internet is classical and progressive rock have been enhanced and have grown because the Internet is nearly worldwide and there are enough people who have woken or stayed awake, particularly young people, to hear music that is truly of a quality that merits the term "meritocracy."  Yeah, it is not the majority of what young people stream on Spotify, but it is certainly there and not going away.  The Rolling Stone article to which Maher refers, about the fact 90% of the downloads come from 1% of the artists, is a short article making that one point. It doesn't try to grapple with why, which would force the writer or the magazine to deal with the continued ubiquitousness of corporate power in media, and how most artists can upload music, but can't find an audience without mass marketing--or maybe someone can possibly find a way to go "viral," which is beyond rare.  That we know there is a corruption based in economic power is evident when we see on YouTube the young people who upload streams where they listen to Yes or Gentle Giant for the first time--and are amazed.  Andy and Alex are favorites of mine, but this young man at Wilburn Reactions is, too. 

But, Maher can't even begin to go there. He is now completely in old Boomer get-off-my-lawn mode, attacking the Kardashians and Paris Hilton with cheap jokes and making Ok, Boomer fun of generalized yearnings of young people--who see a whole bunch of Meagan McCains and other rich people in our media and think, "I would like to have their stardom"--and not caring a damn about young people being stuck with taking a bunch of AP Courses, the pressures of going to college and taking out loans, with no increase in the minimum wage, and no health security. Sure, Bill, the problem is kids wanting to be a Kardashian.  So like early 19th Century British elite who worried about the masses not getting married but shacking up because they could not afford the fee to the minister--and thinking it was a decline in morals, not a decline in the economic health and wealth among the working poor and benighted peasant farmers.  How so Bidenesque of you, Bill.  

I won't be surprised to learn, if Bill loses his perch at HBO, if he decides to undergo a sex change and try to get a gig with Whoopi on The View. He'd fit in perfectly with his cultural elitism. Yes, you can say I am a cultural elitist, but the difference is I think anyone and everyone can be taught to appreciate great music, film, or art, and what a great feeling it is to be touched by truly powerful and compelling music, film, or art.  

News flash to Bill and other benighted Boomers and Oldsters: The Grammys NEVER spoke to quality of music or anything that would be a meritocracy.  It was crap fifty and sixty years ago, and crap today. The Grammys, however, are emblematic of the dumb down in American culture, and further separation of highbrow from lowbrow. If we ever got to the time machine, and brought 19th Century working class people to our time, they would shake their heads wondering what the hell could be going on in 20th Century and 21st Century America to not appreciate Mozart and Rossini.