Obamarama - the Republican Drama.

Starve the Beast.

The talks between the Democratic administration and the Republican leadership have broken down just days before the deadline for the decision on the ceiling on borrowing for $14.3 trillion. There is the real possibility of an American default for the first time in the country's history. The results of which could be catastrophic for the US economy and other economies around the world. The shock-jocks and attack dogs have been out of control for years. We can hear Rush Limbaugh yelling that the GOP can't cave in or Obama will be re-elected in 2012. The negotiations will effect the next 10 years of American life, which might be the reason for the stalemate initiated by the Republicans as there could be a Republican administration in office by then. The policies initiated in the next 10 years will effect the pretext for a second Republican term in 2020. A huge surplus would provide the means for another round of tax-cuts, which would in turn create another deficit and the means to cut even further into programmes for the poor.

Just a couple of days ago Larry Elliot thought that the Republicans are not serious about tipping the US economy over the edge and taking the global economy down into recession once more. Rather the GOP will push this as far as they can and walk away after Obama has made major concessions (which he already has). The GOP will allow the debt-ceiling to be raised but in a way which is satisfying for the Tea Party. If the government was actually shut down as it was briefly in the 1990s it functioned to make Bill Clinton look like a statesman and raised his popularity among the electorate. Today 67% of Americans support Obama in his approach to taxes and spending on this issue. It is possible that the Republicans are looking to walk a fine line between a disaster which would only benefit the Democrats and a cop-out that will leave the Tea Party outraged. It is a serious possibility that the GOP are willing to instigate an economic crisis for indirect political gains, Obama has conceded an awful lot already and there will be a Republican administration in office by 2017.

The organs of the Republican machine have been about a "Starve the Beast" fiscal strategy for a long time, which differs from Goldwater conservatism in that taxes are cut in order to secure lower levels of spending. The approach actually generates huge amounts of debt as spending easily exceeds tax-revenues that have been slashed to bits for the benefit of about 1% of Americans. But this is part of the grand plan as the debt then acts as a means to call for more spending cuts. Keep in mind the huge changes in fiscal policy over the past few decades. In 1950 taxes on corporate profits accounted for 38% of tax revenue and by the 1990s it had been shrunk to 10%. Over the same time period income tax for the highest earners was chiseled from 91% in the 1950s to 28% in the 80s, with the 1990s marked out by a moderate tax increase. Now there is a moderate tax rise on the table, as the Democrats are arguing for a ratio of 83:17 cuts to taxes in tackling the debt whereas Republicans think a ratio of 85:15 is optimal. The narcissism of fine distinctions if there ever was one.

The Starved Beast.

So we now know how to contextualise John Boehner when he said "In the end, we couldn't connect. Not because of different personalities, but because of different visions for our country." Keep in mind, Boehner is the man who personally handed out checks on the floor of the House to sway a vote on tobacco subsidies and backed the bailouts as he was in the pocket of Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. The "Gang of Six" which Boehner belongs to has put forward a plan to cut $3 trillion in spending and to reduce marginal rates in order to relieve the rich of about $1.5 trillion in taxes. The plan aims to reform social security in that the costs of living will be shifted to the extent that the benefits the elderly receive today will be reduced as they get older and older. It is likely that this would lead to a huge rise in impoverished retirees. The premise of necessity of this deal provides a means through which cuts in social security and health-care can be imposed without any fuss from the public. This is the work of the Wall Street wing of the Democrats and the Republican Party as a whole.

At a time when around 45% of Americans oppose tax-cuts for the rich and 55% oppose tax-cuts for corporations, according to a recent Gallup poll. 71% of Americans and 51% of Republicans are opposed to the way the GOP have acted. It's no wonder when you think about. The American tax-payer pays more income tax than General Electric did from 2008 to 2010, when the company paid no taxes and received $4.7 billion from the IRS as it pocketed $7.7 billion in profits. The company has a team of lawyers and accountants working around the clock on ways for GE to avoid taxes altogether. The asses of non-financial companies are sitting on a cushion stuffed with $2 trillion in inert dollars that produce nothing and only earn a minuscule interest. Just 10% of that sum could be used to pump $200 billion into the US economy. Naturally, the Republicans continue to run with the line that the average corporation is overtaxed and actually pays the majority of taxes in the country.

As Ralph Nader has pointed out the 35% statutory tax rate for corporations is an absolute joke. Most corporations are adept at avoiding taxes and do so on a massive scale. These corporations include: American Electric Power, Boeing, Dupont, Exxon Mobil, FedEx, General Electric, Honeywell, International, IBM, United Technologies, Verizon Communications, Wells Fargo and Yahoo. According to the Citizens for Tax Justice "from 2008 through 2010, these 12 companies reported $171 billion in pre-tax US profits. But as a group, their federal income taxes were negative: $2.5 billion." The actual 35% rate would have raised $59 billion if it had been implemented properly. The highest rate was paid by ExxonMobil over three years it paid over 14%, whilst its net tax rate was a minuscule 0.4% on $9.9 billion in pre-tax profits. Since Obama took office in 2009 as of 2011 there has been a 40% increase in corporate profits. These are the same crowd who'll benefit most out of the "Gang of Six" proposal.

Obamarama - the Deficit Drama.

The Narcissism of Fine Distinctions.

Every serious commentator on US politics is aware of the fact that if you want to know who is about to win the election you should take a close look at campaign funding. Follow the money and you'll separate the loser from the winner in no time. It is the norm in the US that the President is elected from the campaign that receives the most cash. The campaign to re-elect Obama has raised $86 million in the first quarter and the Republican nominees are still in a state of disarray. The GOP is still split between the rightist wing-nut of Bachmann and the unsellable Mormon 'moderatism' of Romney, neither candidate is a realistic contender and collectively the GOP candidates have raised $35 million. There is still time and we'll see if the Republicans can make any headway in coming months, but my guts see a second term for Obama. The current issue of the debt-ceiling has raised signs of what we might see on the campaign trail as well as from the prospective second term for the Democrats.

As pointed out by Shawn Whitney there is not much difference between Republicans and Democrats on this issue. It is only a minor dispute over the extent to which the rich should contribute to the debt reduction plan. Obama has insisted that there will be trillions of dollars in cuts, no doubt to health-care, welfare and social security without scathing the bloated military budget. The military-industrial complex is untouchable because it functions as corporate welfare, whereas 'handouts' for the poor and elderly is too costly for the state to maintain apparently. Obama has tried to win over the Republicans with a round of spending cuts that amount to $4 trillion, though that much could have been raised had the Bush tax-cuts never been renewed under Obama. The Bush tax-cuts which cost the Treasury trillions of dollars over the last 10 years, at first it benefited many Americans but the number dwindled under the Bushites until only the richest Americans reaped the rewards. That's a real sunset policy!

The coalition government of the UK is running with a ratio of 80:20 in spending cuts to taxes, whereas Republicans found a ratio of 85:15 optimal and then walked out of negotiations after the Democrats only conceded 83:17. The kind of changes needed to make up that 17% would mostly come in the form of closing loopholes in the system. There are Republicans who want 100% spending cuts and no tax increases at all. The stalemate raised the prospect of a forced default on America's debts. Even conservatives have criticised the GOP line on the debt-ceiling as childish and ridiculous because they recognise it is not in the interest of the Republican Party to push for an economic disaster. But it is not the first time that politicians have created fiscal crises in order to initiate a wave of market reforms and austerity measures. This is especially true of the "Starve the Beast" approach of conservative strategists, which is a way of increasing debt to provide a pretext for more cuts to services that assist the poor.

The fact that the Democrats conceded almost the entire plan and it wasn't enough for the Republicans is indicative of the dramatic shift in politics that has occurred in the US over the last 40 years. The Democrats are now what used to be considered moderate Republicans while the Republicans have become even more extreme. In the words of Bill Maher "The Democrats have moved to the Right and the Republicans have moved into a mental hospital." To be even more blunt the American political system is a lot like a plane with two right wings. Noam Chomsky once distinguished between the Republicans and Democrats by noting that the GOP represent the business community in general whilst the Democrats are for Big Business specifically. The White House is looking to gain a 'moderate' platform for 2012, meanwhile the Left and the social democrats can go hang. The Democrats are aware that there is nowhere for the 'moderates' to run and Obama's real problem is how to win over enough of the 'crazies' to prop up a platform crafted for the ultra-rich.

Sleaze without Sleaze.

Once again it turns out we want the thing itself without the harsh element of it, just as so many of us want coffee without caffeine and Hitler without the Holocaust apparently; in this instance we want the sleaze without sleaze from Murdoch's red-tops. There is a dire need to ask fundamental questions about the nature of the mass-media and the provision of news through corporate structures to the public. The dominant narrative is highly optimistic in that we have managed to ground a beast that was out of control and we can now get back to proper journalism, which will run without corruption and the hacking of phones. It's the classic feel good story. We can still have the tabloids on celebrity sleaze, but without what it takes to deliver the tales to the readers. We have to hold to a radical critique of the mainstream media otherwise we will fall into ideological pitfalls. The problem here is that what has happened at The News of the World was not an aberration, it is an excessive form of what goes on in the mass-media and an outgrowth of the practices prevalent in the press.

As in the case of WikiLeaks there is a potential for the liberal reduction of it to a radical case of investigative journalism, a return to the halcyon days when journalists spoke truth to power and will now restore legitimacy in the media before The News of the World lost it's way. This is often put forth to combat the charge of "terrorism" leveled by the fruit-cakes of the Republican Party. Žižek would point out that the claim that Julian Assange is a "terrorist" in the same sense that Gandhi was a "terrorist" because he tried to stop the normal functioning of the British empire. Assange is trying to stop the normal functioning of information circulation and the way it is monopolised by the corporate media. The characterisation of Assange as the radical journalist is one small step away from the liberal niceties of Hollywood where we find in films such as All the President's Men that the little guy can discover a scandal and force the President to step down. So corruption can reach the very top but because of the democratic features of our society we can find it, root it out and eliminate it.

Whenever we read The Sun we are reading a paper churned out from the presses of News Corporation, a multinational media conglomerate, it is part of a chain of newspapers and media outlets which feature a strong leaning to the Right. We should take into account that the majority of media outlets in the world are large corporations or part of conglomerates. This has the effect of a skewed presentation of facts with respect to particular interests. Especially as the media conglomerates often have exclusive financial interests which may be endangered when certain information is widely publicised. So news items which endanger the financial interests of the media will be subject to greater flak, opposition and even distortion.

The advertising revenue is greater than the sales revenue of newspapers, it is a way of holding down the price of a paper at a level which maintains a high rate of sales and therefore a greater readership than without any advertising. The dependence on advertising revenue differs from the role of sales revenue in that the average reader of The Sun has no way of influencing the content of the newspaper. Even if there is an attempt to build an organised boycott of the newspaper over a particular issue, at best it would lead to a retraction of previous statements and possibly an apology. The advertisers can boycott a particular writer or reporter in a much more effective way, the loss in revenue is much bigger and the message is even clearer than a mass demonstration. This is the reason it took the advertisers to abandon Glenn Beck, the Groucho Marx of the Right, before his show was taken off Fox News. It is important to keep in mind that the advertisements are from businesses in most cases and marketing in general is tied up in its' own industry which caters to business.

In this way the interests and pressures internal to business converge and the reader has no investment in News International and therefore has no real influence on the content of The Sun. The interests that coalesce in media are stacked against the interests of an ordinary person reading a newspaper each morning. This is especially the case if the price of the paper is driven down or even eliminated on the back of advertising revenue and cross-subsidised from other outlets in the same conglomerate. As the pressures of business and the interests mount against the interests of readers, then reporting can be compromised and skewed to a particular set of interests over another. There is a sense then that the end product is composed for the affluent readers who buy the newspaper, while the audience includes the businesses that pay to advertise their goods. News is just the 'filler' to get privileged readers to see the advertisements which are the actual 'content' of the paper. This is true of newspaper that cost money and even more so of free newspapers distributed for people to read on their way home.

As the mass-media is essentially business-run or dominated by the forces of the market there is a constant internal need for a continuous flow of information. A newspaper needs to fill its' pages to maintain a steady flow of advertising revenue and in turn keep sales up. The consumers demand information on numerous worldwide events, some of which unfold simultaneously, which supposedly creates the necessity for major businesses and government sectors to come in where they can provide the material resources needed. The relationship between the media and the government is a contorted one, where we find Andy Coulson jumps from News International to the side of David Cameron and we have also seen John Birt make the leap from the BBC to an advisory position to Tony Blair. According to Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman this includes the Pentagon in the US, with the media commentary on foreign policy being heavily influenced by the military intelligence complex.

These are the reasons that Chomsky once said "Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the US media." The government provides the means by which the journalists are able to gain advance copies of speeches and forthcoming government reports, which means that there is a degree of dependence involved in the relationship. The government can schedule its' press conferences at hours which are conducive to the deadlines set in media organisations, press releases can be made in usable language and photo opportunities can be arranged with ease. So naturally the commentariat responds in a favourable manner. At the same time, a reluctance to run certain articles that will harm the interests which are invested in providing them with the resources needed to compete with rivals and function at a high standard of news provider. You'll find this is the case with the BBC, as 24 hour news is a giant echo-chamber and the fall of Basra was reported 17 times before it did.

We now know that after the General Election David Cameron first met with Rupert Murdoch and then Paul Dacre, the editor of The Daily Mail, later that month he met with Lord Burns of Channel 4 and Deborah Turness of ITV News at his country retreat. After that month David Cameron met with News International officials such as Rebekah Brooks, as well as Dominic Mohan of The Sun for a "general discussion" and Cameron later attended the News International summer party where he gave an interview to James Harding of The Times. Take note of the preference for these newspapers in particular. David Cameron later met with the editor of The Evening Standard for another "general discussion" and attended The Times CEO summit where he gave a speech. The Prime Minister attended the summer parties of The Financial Times and The Spectator. In the first 2 months of his premiership Cameron met with 12 media contacts and half of them were officials of News International. Later that year, David Cameron had Christmas dinner with Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch.

In 2010 David Cameron met with numerous members of the commentariat, but only a few were invited to his country retreats namely: Lord Burns of Channel 4, Deborah Turness of ITV News, Lord Rothermere of The Daily Mail, Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch of News International. There is another aspect to this, the way in which the relations between the state and the media is sustained for economic reasons and out of a convergence of interests. As the state can be captured by the economic interests of the ultra-rich then so can the media which falls under the control of private ownership. We found this was the case when Barack Obama apologised to Wall Street for his comments regarding "greedy bankers" and he had to demonstrate his dedication to a free-market in order to keep the business press happy with the Obama administration.

Then there is the flak which could be understood as the simple negative responses to a media statement, an individual or even a specific programme. Though it can take the form of a concerted effort to discredit an organisation or an individual, e.g. when The Sun fabricated psychiatric reports in order to justifiably label Tony Benn as "mentally unstable". A charge that the Murdoch press has reused against leftists continually over the years. It can also be applied to entire media organisations. We can see this whenever The Daily Mail attacks the BBC as left-wing in the same way that was the case when Norman Tebbit labelled the BBC the "Stateless Person's Broadcasting Corporation" because of its' supposedly unpatriotic opposition to the Falklands war. Flak is often an intentional effort to manage public information. The Sun recently dealt some flak against Gordon Brown for statements he made in an interview on phone-hacking. This is a blatant move to influence the discourse over the entire phone-hacking scandal at News International.

As for the independence of public broadcasting it depends on the degree of independence and freedom within the society as a whole. It used to be in Britain and Israel there was only state-television. The BBC remains the agenda-setter of the British media and it functions to limit the scope of the public debate, usually carving out a place for the public as a passive observer in a meaningless discussion over what we should cut and never whether or not we should cut. The coverage of events is usually confined to the centre-right, but it occasionally fluctuates left-wards at which point the reactionary press goes ballistic. The demographics of journalists and reporters at the BBC is predominantly white and middle-class, typically these are Oxbridge liberals. The Board of Governors has always been full of lords, businessmen, former politicians and the archetypal toffs. The principle means of funding for the BBC is the television license, which the Right has railed against because it would prefer the BBC to be ripped apart by private companies.

There was a time when the BBC was a lot more independent than it is today. In the 1980s there were significant attempts by the Thatcherites to undermine the independence of the BBC. The Corporation was labelled the "Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation" by Peter Bruinvels. The Conservative Party derided the BBC as "uncompetitive" and "over-manned" because of the perceived bias against Margaret Thatcher. In 1980 the Thatcherites appointed the aristocrat George Howard, a pal of Willie Whitelaw, because the idea of Mark Bonham-Carter taking the position was intolerable for the government of the day. After Howard followed Stuart Young in 1983, he was the brother of Thatcher's cabinet ally David Young. In 1986 Marmaduke Hussey, the brother-in-law of yet another cabinet member, emerged from a position working for Rupert Murdoch to the chair of the Board of Governors. Hussey soon made sure that Alasdair Milne was out, under Michael Checkland and John Birt the Corporation was restructured in greater accordance with the market.

When Greg Dyke told the truth about the Iraq dossier he was forced out of the BBC and replaced with Mark Thompson as Director General. Thompson is a man who believes so strongly in free choice (though not in the quality of those choices) that he is for the founding of a Fox News style channel in Britain. You should also keep in mind that Mark Thompson was the first Director General of the BBC to meet Ariel Sharon in 2005. This is the same Director General who refused to broadcast the Palestinian charity appeal in the aftermath of the Gaza massacre in which more than 1,417 Palestinian civilians, one-third of them children, were killed by Israeli bombs and bullets. The Israeli body count stood at 13, with over 500 injured. As of July 2011 124 Israeli children killed by Palestinians and 1,463 Palestinian children killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000, a fact that would make Mark Thompson sweat if it was ever muttered on the BBC. If it ever were said there would no doubt be an outpouring of rage from The Daily Mail and other toilet papers.

The state and the interests invested in the state often exploit widespread fears in order to pursue an agenda, which is where the media come in handy. In the 20th Century it was Communism that posed the primary threat to the West and it was portrayed in the media as endangering freedom and rights etc. This portrayal is often used as a means to shoot down those who are too critical of elite interests and it meshes well with those interests in particular. Most recently it has been resurrected to attack the President of the United States, along with a lot of other kinds of attacks on him. For a long time the grand narrative on which the politics of fear thrives was the Cold War and once the Berlin Wall fell there was a dire need for a new narrative to bring meaning to the world for journalists and politicians everywhere. It has been the narrative of the "War on Terror" for the last 10 years and we may be at a point when the narrative closes only to give way for another.