What's The Matter With Republicans

Gerald Ford, by today's standards, was a moderate Republican. However, he carried within him the seeds of all that is wrong with the Republicans and the Neoliberals more generally. He hated pleasure and, consequently, failed to understand that there is more to life. How do we know? His

habitual lunch: “a ball of cottage cheese, over which he pours a small pitcherful of A.1. Sauce, a sliced onion or a quartered tomato, and a small helping of butter-pecan ice cream.” Eating was, Ford said, “a waste of time.”

Anyone who thinks like that ought not be allowed to vote let alone run a country.

Consider this epic assault on humanized economyfrom the NYT. It's no doubt true that if Germany undertook to "liberalize" its national economy it would become more "efficient," where efficient stands for increased poverty among the workers with a larger percentage of wealth going to a sliver of Germans. We know this to be true because it is the Neoliberal response to the success of the post-War prosperity caused by the mild social democracy then rampant.

It makes much more sense to insist that Germany give over its commitment to imposing Neoliberal austerity on the rest of the world in the hopes that more social democracy will again lead to a prosperous and happy society.

Technocratisme Destroys the World

Greece is technically a democracy in which the legislators do their utmost to represent their constituents views and legislators understanding of their constituents best interests. The recent austerity measures passed by the Greek Parliament do neither. What is especially troubling, to me in any event, was the decision by party leader in Greece to expel legislators who voted no. The austerity measures are not be seen as obviously right and principled disagreement is not only possible but necessary if democracy is to thrive in the face of technocratisme and neoliberalism run amok.

Remember the Years Before 1933?

Like all concerned Americans, I prefer to ignore events outside of these United States and when I do pay attention, I like to make risible comkparisons between those events and the Nazis. Because, well, it's easy. We all know that the probably senile Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor despite the Nazis' declining electoral share and despite Hindenburg's refusal to do the same thing somewhat earlier. Thus did Wiemar become an ex-parrot.

We all know that the Nazis represented the culmination of the rise of authoritarian regimes in Europe in the in the wake of WWI and, consequently, were the not the vanguard but the tail end of the rights anti-democratic counter revolutionary impulses. Hitler's rise was not the cause of democracy's demise but rather the result of far-too many dunderheads acquiescing to strangling in its crib because, after all, some kind of a third-way technocratically-inclined charismatic visionary (I know its contradictory, that's part of what the acquiescers dunderheads)  ought properly lead the path backward to the future.

As I have mentioned recently that there are solid reasons to worry about the Hungarians' dominate political party once again slaying the democratic dragon in the name of nationalism and the need for authoritarianism. I would argue that the recent spate of technocratisme in Greece and Italy and the well-know neoliberal distrust of democracy, what with people being unwilling to let corporations rule the world, gives the maniacs in Hungary some cover.

If you read the most recent Krugman hosted discussion of events there, you can find links to the constitution and with a little work you can find a link to the Hungarian national anthem. Or go here and see the response of all right-thinking, which is to say the left and liberal Hungarians,  people have to say about it. The constitution reads like a declaration of war on the contemptable corruption of this modern age and the anthem sounds like a the kind of bully-boy whining I'd expect from those who would deal death to the democratic experiment.

It's easy to become distracted by the antics of the mantic swine cavorting in the cool Iowan summer; but, we ought remember that the common foes for all concerned Americans are the authoritarians and the neoliberals.