related article http://themalay-chronicle.blogspot.com/2011/08/mca-chulia-street-prostitute-aka-penang.html
Two days of drama and truckloads of politics later, the question comes up: what next? A bumbling government added the ingredients of panic and ineptness, making the already well written script of the drama even more entertaining Politicians of all hues and parties – refusing to understand that the movement is against them collectively, and not just against the ruling government – added their own comical situations to the drama. But now that all this is about to end, it brings us back to the starting point. How do we move ahead on ensuring a good anti-corruption law comes out? For the last few months one would be forgiven for believing that the lunatics have been running the asylum called the UMNO, so inconsistent and muddled their actions have been. But after yesterday, it is worth asking if even the lunatics are in charge. Enough has been said about the incomprehensible strangeness of the government's actions, and in any case this level of mismanagement is so self-evident that additional comment is unnecessary. What is interesting however is to ask what would make a group of reasonably savvy, seasoned politicians used to exercising and staying in power act in such a self-defeating manner.
related article http://themalay-chronicle.blogspot.com/2011/08/drama-politics-looking-for-winnable.html
Generally, majority of Muslims of 21st century do not read the Qura'an as they consider reading of 1400 old Qura'an in 21st century where the world is advancing and turning into a village is just a waste of time. They feel that it is only the work of Madarsa students and religious persons who are foolish and far from the facts taking place everywhere in this enlightened era.
Indeed, I got nothing to say to Muslims or non-Muslims who think so, because ultimately freedom of thought exits in this era too.
However, when I read Qura'an, try to understand it and compare with what said in Qura'an and what is happening across the world this time, I would imagine that all world and so-called educated leaders who have been wandering from one place to another and from one thought to another for the solution they unable to find it or have but fooling nations of this planet, must read the Qura'an or the copies of Qura'an must be offered to them so that they can prevent themselves from carrying out mass murder of people in guise of lies and falsehoods.
For instance, this time from north to south, east to west, top to bottom and everyone in all faculties of society with one voice considers terrorism a dangerous and constant threat to peace of world; therefore, all actions US and its allies take are right and carry legitimacy to go ahead in this way.
Not exactly, but little bit I agree to these ideas and opinions when we lessen the views of those educated leaders whose educational ploys have made the world hell. When we study Qura'an and try to find out the solution of terrorism, wars, conflicts and all kind of corruptions, we see that Qura'an directly attacks on the sources convey the process of these violent operations or generate falsehoods to justify the killings they do it in the face of world media.
First have a look what Qura'an says. In Surah Al- Baqrah, verses 190-194, Qura'an says "الفتنة أشد من القتل" (sedition is worse than murder). Here, a new kind of opinion emerges in this verse that establishes that the real fight against terrorism is not begun yet. In this verse, Qura'an goes to the sources cause of terrorism, violence, wars, instability, corruptions, rapes and all kind of activities that push the ordinary people toward bad deeds.
When we take a look on war against terrorism particularly and all kinds of wars that have taken place or carrying out in different names across the globe, first thing that appears is that sedition and propaganda have a great role behind them. Especially war on Iraq, Afghanistan and war on terrorism just began on the shoulder of seditions and lies. There are so many confusions, suspicious, lies, conspiracies, propaganda lie in terrorism before starting a war on terrorism.
Today, international community is a part of the process that had been initiated decades ago across the glob to put the terrorism on an end. This Qura'anic verse suggests that before starting a war it is necessarily that source of the conflict to be demolished. In the war against terrorism in which propaganda, paid stories and paid writers play a role, as well as, these are the things paved a way later for mobilizing global phenomenon to get support on war against terror. These instruments are more dangerous than going ahead on war and killing thousands of people claiming we are fighting against terrorism or terrorists.
In this verse, it emerges that sources, propaganda, literatures, reports, exclusive reports, writers, security and political analysts have a role in spreading fear by portraying some cocked stories that how security and peace of the world, political and economic establishments in world are on threat by certain individuals who themselves are hiding and changing their hideouts to escape themselves from drone attacks or any covert operations. It is called sedition that is more dangerous than the terrorism itself.
Unfortunately, the sources and characters of terrorism are still alive, active, challenging world, functioning, recruiting and harboring trained, educated, and smart people for that cause.
The failure of world powers in bringing violent operations to an end is the source whose covert operations are still taking place for increasing more attacks and actions through secret agenda.
If world community wants seriously to put this conflict to an end, it must go against the propaganda and the sources functioning behind this and spreading sedition and that are the sources of terrorism spreading violence in certain countries; then decide whether the war on terrorism is really required.
The million dollar question here is after all who is going to fight against sedition and propaganda that is leading the international community toward the war on terrorism which is bringing insecurity leaving millions of people jobless around the world and a significant cause of financial meltdown across the glob.
Are we ready for this?
The people in question are not high on alcohol, which at worst is a relatively innocuous source of intoxication. While alcoholism can and does create serious health problems for addicts, there is an intoxicant which is far more potent and much more dangerous than booze. And that intoxicant, so much in evidence today in Malaysia, is power. Power intoxicates, and absolute power intoxicates absolutely. And we see such absolute intoxication everywhere, starting with our Parliament.
At a time when the country is facing the challenge of a global financial crisis, raising fears of even greater inflation and more economic hardship for the common citizen, what do our parliamentarians do? Drunk on their own sense of power - a power bestowed on them by the electorate which voted them into office - If people can - and should - be jailed for the dangerous practice of drunken driving, what should be the punishment for those who, drunk not on alcohol but on the more addictive intoxicant of power without accountability, recklessly drive an entire country on a collision course with potential disaster?
The intoxicant called power is evident in all spheres of officialdom, be it political office, the ranks of the bureaucracy, or a judiciary which includes members who appear to see themselves as being above the law that they dispense to others. the helpless taxpayers who see their money being squandered on projects that never materialise, might feel that Anna's rough-and-ready remedy is an appropriate antidote to the intoxication of power without responsibility.
Democracy raises more questions than it provides answers. That's one of the tests of a democracy: how many questions does it allow all those who participate in it to ask of themselves and of each other.
One of the more intriguing questions that democracy raises is this: Can a democracy choose, in a democratic manner, to make itself less democratic?
The case of what the media have labelled the Arab Spring. In a number of West Asian countries dictatorships have been overthrown and the ground has been prepared for the sowing of the seeds of democracy. Preliminary polls have shown that parties which advocate religious fundamentalism are likely to assume office. The governments formed by such parties will have been democratically elected. But how democratic are such governments going to be with regard to the individual freedoms they allow or disallow to the citizens who voted them into office?
If it is a democratic society, its citizens can choose to limit or restrict some of their freedoms for religious or any other reasons. This is the paradox about democracy: it gives you the freedom of choice to limit your own freedom of choice.
Can democracy subvert itself and be undemocratic? It can, and unfortunately it too often does. When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984, anti-Sikh riots claimed hundreds of lives in Delhi and elsewhere. The rioting mobs were allegedly led by Congress party leaders who were never brought to justice. Instead, in a sympathy wave for the victim's son, the Congress party under Rajiv Gandhi won an overwhelming mandate from voters.
Similarly, the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was voted back for a second term in office despite accusations that his administration aided and abetted the anti-Muslim killings that took place in Gujarat in 2002. The charges against Modi - that he is an accomplice to mass murder - have yet to be disproved in a court of law. Despite this, thanks to his strongman image, Modi's many admirers, in Gujarat and elsewhere would vote for Modi as the next Indian prime minister if they could.
Modi's Gujarat is a democracy. But like many other democracies it is a democracy flawed by majoritarianism: that people who are in the majority, who have the numbers on their side, must have their way and those who are in the minority can like it or lump it.
This is a gross distortion of democracy, which ought to guarantee the protection of all minorities, the ultimate minority being the individual citizen whose rights must not only be protected but seen to be protected.
In a democracy, the individual citizen has, or ought to have, democratic rights. By the same token is that individual also obliged to have democratic responsibilities? There can be no rights without responsibilities. What are these rights and what are these responsibilities?
Umno deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin exploited the race card tonight when he urged Umno to defend the Malay race, culture and institutions from the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR).
Hitting out at the DAP in particular, he accused the PR party of being an anti-Islam and anti-Malay force.
Muhyiddin (picture)also dismissed PKR as a spent force interested only in championing the cause of one man, and PAS as a party that had shed its Islamic ideology to please the DAP.
“(The DAP) do not respect royal institutions, insult government officers who are mostly Malay, slander our armed forces with insults, dispute our enforcement institutes, dismiss the credibility of our justice system and make a fool out of the Malays to gain power for themselves,” he said when opening Umno’s Wanita, Youth and Puteri wings’ annual general assemblies here.
“DAP’s agenda to form a republic by dismissing values, history and identity of Malaysia as a nation based on sovereignty and Islam as the official religion is evident,” he added.
“If not, do they dare suggest the prime minister’s position be selected based solely on elections and without being chosen by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong? What is the meaning of this?”
Speaking to about 4,000 delegates from the Wanita, Youth and Puteri wings, Muhyiddin called PKR an ultraliberal party lacking moral values for electing a leader with a credibility crisis to head the party.
“They preach values that are against our culture in the name of freedom,” he said.
“Although one facet in PKR preaches religion and another preaches ultraliberalism, they have only one goal — to defend their leader.”
He pointed out that PAS has lost its way by placing both PKR and the DAP’s agendas before its own.
“It is clear the political tsunami during the last general election has drowned out the Islamic state ideology from PAS’s political lexicon,” he said, prompting laughter.
Assuring the crowd that Umno has risen from the political tsunami of 2008, Muhyiddin urged delegates to unite and strive to defend religion, race and country.
“Umno has shown its commitment by uniting people of all races... We shall not stir hatred with other races. We shall not insult other races. We shall not be prejudiced towards other cultures. We are not racist like DAP’,” he said.
Umno deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin tonight called on every member of the party to soldier on and struggle to win every vote from the people to ensure victory for Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN) in the 13th general election.
Referring to the Wanita Umno movement as the party’s female warriors, Umno Youth as the war chiefs and Puteri Umno as the jewels of the party, Muhyiddin wanted the strength of the three wings to be mobilised so that they could be a fortress for the party.
“Let’s close ranks to champion the party’s cause! Let us stand solidly by the side of party president (Najib Tun Razak). Rise up and defend the continuity of the Malay race! Rise up to carry the party’s flag and fight! Let’s advance and defeat our enemies ahead. Ensure that victory is ours,” he said in a
highly motivated tone when opening the simultaneous general assembly of the Umno Wanita, Youth and Puteri movements 2011 at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC), here today.
The deputy prime minister wanted all the party wings to go down on the ground in all the 222 parliamentary constituencies, 576 state assembly constituencies and 7,470 district polling centres to ensure that all the votes were in favour of Barisan Nasional (BN).
“The war drum has been struck. The warriors’ strategy has been drawn up. Rise up and fight! Go (to all the constituencies).
“Don’t leave out anything. Don’t forget anything. Get every vote from every constituency. Remember, even one vote will decide our victory,” he said.
In his speech, Muhyiddin again reminded all the party wings to discharge their moral responsibility as Umno warriors to assist the people by paying attention to the problems of the people, feel their pulse, listen to their woes and problems.
As for the Wanita movement, Muhyiddin reminded them to strengthen activities for the People’s Network and intensify the “Caring Squad” activities with a proper and well-planned approach as the influence of this party wing was very strong in the community.
“The study on attitude must be accurate, coordination and cooperation with the divisional leadership must be strong,” he said.
For the Umno Youth, Muhyiddin wanted the wing to strengthen the members’ mental and physical strength to fight in the most difficult war in the history of the party besides understanding the aspiration of the generation that was also within their age group.
“Mobilise your youth frontline, let they be a strong fortress for Umno. Get down to the grassroots, get closer and understand the aspiration of the generation within your age group,” he said.
A do-or-die battle
A do-or-die battle
Muhyiddin also wanted the Puteri movement to regain its glory as the wing that provided protection to the young women and to bring them into the Umno fold so that the party could become stronger.
He said every member was responsible in determining that the strength of the party could only be achieved if they were always united (wahdatul qalb), be of one mind (wahdatul fikr), united in their deeds (wahdatul amal) and united in their objectives (wahdatul hadf) and to put aside the differences and disputes existing in the party.
“Don’t desert the battlefield. Don’t admit defeat before fighting. Don’t shame the party. Don’t sabotage (the party). Don’t boycott (the campaign). Don’t play out your colleagues. Avoid infighting. Don’t shut down the operations room. Don’t leave the country. Avoid back-stabbing. Don’t do anything that can jeopardise the party’s chances of winning the election.
“Remember that the election is a do-or-die battle. Remember that winning the election is not a personal victory, but a victory for the party,” he said.
On the election candidates, Muhyiddin wanted the three party wings to give full confidence to the party leadership’s choice.
“The candidates are the party’s weapons for victory. Let us give our full confidence to the top leadership to decide on this matter. What is important is that our candidates must be of calibre, knowledgeable, of high integrity, people-oriented, clean, sincere, trustworthy, of high morals and acceptable to the people. Let us accept the decision of the top leadership. Give our solid support to all our candidates. Mobilise our machinery to assist them,” he said.
Meanwhile, Muhyiddin said as an organisation, Umno was not spared from any shortcomings and weaknesses.
“We always strive to carry out changes and improve the weaknesses without sacrificing the principles of our struggle,” he added.
From the dawn of the colonial era, long before they even had a national identity, Americans have always felt they had a special role in the world, though the exact nature of American exceptionalism has always been a matter of some dispute.
Many have taken it to be a special religious destiny, but Alexis de Tocqueville, the first to consider it systematically, affirmed the exact opposite: "a thousand special causes ... have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects." Ironically enough, the exact term "American exceptionalism" was first used by Joseph Stalin, in order to reject it.
And yet, for 70 years American exceptionalism has been most prominently and consistently associated with imperialism ("benevolent", of course!), via the phrase "the American Century". It was coined by Time-Life publisher Henry Luce in February, 1941, 10 months before Japan's Pearl Harbour attack drew the US into World War II. The history of Luce's coinage provides a depth of resonance for a recent twist: a not uncommon, but particularly telling juxtaposition of four Time magazine covers from around the world this week.
In three editions - Europe, Asia and South Pacific - Time magazine's visually hot, tumultuous cover featured a gasmask-protected Egyptian protester, upraised fist overhead with a chaotic street background behind. The headline: "Revolution Redux". Not so in the exceptional American edition. There, the visually cool, wanna-be New Yorker-ish cover was a text-dominated cartoon against a light gray background: "Why Anxiety is Good For You."
Clearly, Time is whistling past the graveyard. As mostly Democratic mayors clamp down hard on Occupy Wall Street outposts across the land, it's obvious that the US' political class is having none of it. They do not believe that anxiety is good for them and they are doing their darnedest to keep a lid on things. Agitated citizens out in the streets are bad enough. Pictures of agitated citizens are simply too much.
Once upon a time, those pictures coming from a Third World dictatorship in a (hopefully) democratic transition would have been comfortably distant, even reassuring - exotic, other, subsumed in history, striving to become more like us, the transcendent ones at the "end of history".
That, after all, was part of the message of Luce's "American Century". But nowadays, everyone knows that the differences between Zuccotti Park and Tahrir Square are increasingly less significant than their similarities. They are matters of degree more than kind. There is no such place as "outside of history" anymore. Those making history know it, and those fighting history know it just as well.
Democratic mayors to the 99 per cent
In the US, the message from the mayors is simple: You've made your point. Now go to your room and shut up. We've got a lawn to keep up, and you've spoiled it. America's "grown-ups" as the political class likes to think of itself, have never had much patience when it comes to the "children", as its mere citizens are known. And yet, America's democratic revolutionary origins are at the very centre of a radically different vision of what American exceptionalism is all about.
The situation in Los Angeles is particularly exemplary. Although city officials welcomed Occupy LA at first, for weeks on end Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and others have been saying it's time to leave. Villaraigosa - like Obama - is a former progressive organiser turned neo-liberal politician. He was a teacher's union organiser when I first met him in the 1980s, as part of a progressive precinct network aimed at getting disaffected progressive voters to the pols.
Also within the coalition's core was the LA National Lawyers Guild's executive director. When Villaraigosa first took office in 2006, his first big battle was against the teacher's union he used to work for. He took them on with the backing of billionaire real estate developer and education "reformer" Eli Broad. Five years later, as he faces off against Occupy LA, the current NLG executive director, James Lafferty, is one of his major opponents.
With no sense of irony, Villaraigosa thought Thanksgiving weekend was the perfect time for an eviction. "It's clear that this mayor cares more about dead grass than a dead economy," Lafferty responded at an Occupy LA press conference. "The 99 per cent that have been thrown out of their homes, jobless, without proper healthcare and all the rest seem to be less important to him than that lawn."
America's exceptional democracy
As indicated above, the idea of American exceptionalism was always a contested one. But it's hard to deny that the New World in general was seen as a land of opportunity, and the American colonies were the place where the most opportunity was seen for people to actually settle in significant numbers. Yet, the way most people managed to get to this new land of opportunity and freedom was through indentured servitude, and when that failed to provide enough labour, the African slave trade was "Plan B".
The land itself came courtesy of the earliest stages of America's centuries-long series of genocidal wars. And when the American Revolution came, it was lead in large part by slaveholder advocates of freedom - men like Washington, Jefferson and Patrick Henry, whose influence only expanded as the new nation was established.
In Europe, the US example spawned the French and Polish revolutions, followed by more than a century of struggles in which the example of the US' existence powerfully transformed the Old World in combination with Europe's own internal modernising forces.Although their primary arguments were grounded in universalist appeals, the actual rights-holding subjects of their political system were a relatively tiny minority of well-to-do white males. The promise of rights-based liberal democracy was intoxicating to all, but forbidden to most. Equality was for gentlemen only. And yet, those excluded would not be denied. Scattered state and local battles coalesced into a national abolitionist movement by the 1830s, which in turn spawned a women's rights movement in the 1840s.
And even though the United States itself embarked on an imperialist course sparked by the Spanish-American War in 1898, its example as the first anti-colonial revolutionary regime inspired colonial revolutionaries as well. It was no accident that Ho Chi Minh approached Woodrow Wilson for his support at Versailles after World War I, before turning to communism as his second choice in seeking to rid his country of French colonialism.
From exceptionalism to deceptionalism
But the US had a hard time keeping up with itself, or with the world that it helped create. The European welfare state was a direct response to popular demands for a better, more just, less arbitrary life, demands that were sparked in part by the very existence of the US as an alternative.
As the US itself became more like Europe - more industrialised, more urbanised, less composed of small farmers and more composed of urban workers - the resistance to learning from European advances became increasingly irrational, and at odds with American pragmatism. Our political system lagged behind as well, lacking the fluidity and inventiveness that made parliamentary systems the dominant form of democracy elsewhere around the world.
This perverse refusal to learn from others who have been inspired by us in the political realm is strikingly at odds with Americans' grassroots improvisatory traditions. From food to music to everything in between, Americans have always adopted diverse influences, mixed them together and made them their own, based on the sole criteria of what works.
Yet, with far too few exceptions, we Americans have spectacularly failed to do this in the realms of economics and politics, where powerful elites have emerged to repeatedly stifle the US' spirit of ingenuity. Not only that, they have successfully blinded us as well. Under the growing influence of the 1 per cent, American exceptionalism has become American deceptionalism: a perverse refusal to see what others have done - often inspired by our own earlier examples - and use that knowledge to continue advancing ourselves.
The US' patch-work welfare state is the prime example of this dysfunction. But our lack of industrial policy is even more bizarre, given that we used to believe in it so. Indeed, the same could be said about the welfare state as well. Universal public education was an American idea - outside the South, of course - before catching on elsewhere around the globe. What's more, most of the US was homesteaded through a subsidised process of free or cheap land, supported by public infrastructure - or, in the case of railroads, publicly-subsidised infrastructure.
But when it came to an industrial welfare state, suddenly, everything changed. It's not so hard to understand why: the original industrial workforce was largely immigrant and culturally "other" - Irish at first, then central and southern European, predominantly Catholic or Jewish. It was not until the Great Depression pushed the US economy to the wall that we began to even partially catch up with Germany, which had created its welfare state half a century earlier.
Even then, it took another 30 years for us to add universal health care, but only for senior citizens. The results of creating Medicare were dramatic: Within a decade, American seniors went from being the age-group with the highest poverty rate to the lowest. But that was nearly 50 years ago, 130 years after Germany established its universal healthcare system. Since then, conservative resistance to America's welfare state has stiffened dramatically. Cultural differences between whites of European descent are nothing compared differences with people of colour - which moved dramatic to the fore as legal segregation was finally being dismantled.
Welfare in the US
A 2001 paper from the Brookings Institute, "Why Doesn't the United States Have a European-Style Welfare State?" found a direct correlation between welfare state spending and the size of minority populations - the more minorities, the lower the levels of spending. This held true both internationally (comparing more than 60 different countries) and nationally (comparing all 50 states). The paper did not argue that racial animosity was the sole reason for the US' fragmented and under-sized welfare state. It also cited the US' backwards political institutions - such as our lack of proportional representation - which in turn have roots in our history and geography.
The report stated, "Racial animosity in the US makes redistribution to the poor, who are disproportionately black, unappealing to many voters. American political institutions limited the growth of a socialist party, and more generally limited the political power of the poor."
Among other things, the report offered comparisons across time, which showed the US lagging decades behind Europe throughout the 20th century. The size of subsidies and transfers in the US in 1970 was roughly the same as that in the European Union in 1937. US figures in 1998 roughly matched the EU in 1960.
While American conservatives have long been hysterical about the welfare state in the US, two major points need to be stressed. First: German conservatives established the first comprehensive welfare state, under Chancellor Bismarck in the 1880s. Second, the American welfare state is the smallest and least comprehensive in the Western world. While American conservatives denounce the welfare state for supposedly strangling capitalism, Germany's welfare state has been crucial to its long-term prosperity, even as the US' incomplete welfare state has harmed us considerably. For example, without a national system, healthcare costs built into American cars were a crucial factor leading up to the bankruptcy crisis of 2009.
Nearly a half-century after Medicare, the US was finally ready to take a modest half-step forward toward expanding healthcare coverage. But President Obama's approach was so compromised, and so poorly argued that it's now opened the doorway for a massive reversal that could actually eliminate Medicare - a major decimation of the US' welfare state that would plunge millions of seniors into abject poverty, deprive them of healthcare and subject them to premature death.
Grand bargains
Obama is obsessed with trying to strike a series of "grand bargains" with conservatives, even though they keep rejecting him. As a consequence, he repeatedly begins his negotiations with positions that conservatives have supported in the past, hoping they will support those positions again. At the same time, he refrains from making energetic arguments for the liberal position.
As a result, his stimulus programme was roughly 40 per cent tax cuts (even though they're less effective in creating jobs than direct spending is) in a vain attempt to get Republican support. And when it came to health care, his approach was based on Republican proposals from the 1990s, developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation. It was the same foundation used by Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts.
Obama never used the popularity, efficiency and overall success of Medicare to argue for a government-centered approach, either an immediate full-fledged socialisation, aka "Medicare for all", or a gradualist approach - a public option for those currently without private insurance. Indeed, Obama collaborated with conservative Democrats in the Senate - most notably Max Baucus - to silence those who advocated for these approaches.
Medicare-for-all advocates were reduced to shouting from the audience and getting arrested, despite representing a substantial body of public opinion. Support for the more gradual public-option approach hovered around 60 per cent or more throughout the year-long legislative process. And yet, these proposals - tried and true in the rest of the industrialised world - could not even get a serious hearing.
Such is the power of American deceptionalism: No one else's experience in the world matters to the American political system.
Less than two years after Obama's Republican healthcare plan passed, its very modesty is being used against it. Although it did involve considerable long-term cost reductions, it was nothing remotely close to reducing costs to full-fledged welfare state levels. For example, calculations by the Centre for Economic and Policy Research show that, for example, if we Americans could get our per-capita health-care costs down to the level of most central European nations, we would have a budget surplus of around 10 per cent in 2080, rather than the current projected deficit of over 40 per cent.
By ignoring the example of other countries, the American political class has spun itself off into an alternate reality in which nothing short of catastrophically bad choices remain. (The situation of global warming denialism is an instructive parallel, in which facts have become entirely irrelevant.) And so, fuelled by an obsession with long-term deficits decades in the future, and ignoring the sky-high level of the unemployed, the US congress may well be about to drift toward abolishing Medicare as its so-called "solution".
Of course, Republicans like Congressman Paul Ryan, who originated the plan, won't come right out and say that. And neither will Democrats, now rumoured to be thinking of joining them in search of yet another "grand bargain". Ryan and company say they want to "save" Medicare by replacing it with a voucher system. As one wag put it, it's like killing my dog named Spot, and giving me a cat named Spot instead, then telling me you haven't killed Spot. But a variety of studies have stripped all the pretense away.
Most significantly, the vouchers ("premium support" in Orwellian Newspeak) would come nowhere near to paying the cost of health insurance for seniors, and the shortfall would only grow more severe over time. So instead of the government going broke, the people would. That's the anti-government Republican plan! But at least the plan would keep the private insurance companies making money hand over fist as they deny you coverage.
And since they're private companies, that counts as a win, according to the rules of American deceptionalism. Even if there is no real competition involved, and Adam Smith would have a heart attack if he saw what was being done in his name.
I've concentrated here on healthcare as a key welfare state component. But the same pattern of delusionary grand bargaining can be seen wherever you care to look. Consider "education reform". "America's schools are failing!" we're told. We have to privatise, voucherise, give parents more choice - that alone can save us.
But none of this is supported by evidence, certainly not the evidence of other countries, whose systems are more centralised and less privatised than those of the United States. The US accounts of nearly half of military spending worldwide. The only folks whose overspending ever came close to us was the Soviet Union, and we sure didn't learn anything from them. On the drug war? Don't even think of thinking about it!
The list could be extended indefinitely. There is not a single area in which Republicans won't condemn anything foreign just for being foreign (unless, for some reason they like it, the way Michele Bachmann likes Chinese slave labour). And there's not a single area where Democrats won't be defensive about thinking outside the box that Republicans have put them in.
If all this leaves you feeling anxious, relax. After all, as Time will tell you, "Anxiety is good for you!"
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