Norwegian Terror

The tragedy that unfolded this weekend in Norway is a reminder of the dangers posed by hate groups of all stripes.  Once you dehumanize others, you become capable of the most egregious crimes.  As of now, there are 77 confirmed killed and 97 wounded in the Oslo bombing and the shooting massacre at the Labor Party youth camp on the island of Utoya.  The 32 year-old accused of the crimes says that he wished to bring about a revolution in Norway.  The bomb in Oslo was a similar fertilizer and fuel mixture used in the Oklahoma City bombing. 

From AP: "A manifesto published online - which police are poring over and said was posted the day of the attack - ranted that the European elite, 'multiculturalists' and 'enablers of Islamization' would be punished for their 'treasonous acts.' "  Who knows what spurred this far-right terrorist to these cowardly and horrific acts?  And who knows how many support this hatred? 

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims' families.  

And let's call for an end to all divisive, dehumanizing, racist talk so that this tragedy is not repeated ever again.

The original post listed 92 dead.  The death toll was later revised downwards by Norwegian authorities.

Rewarding the Perpetrators

An excellent article in August's Harper's Magazine describes how we got into the current financial mess and anticipates what the next one will be like.  Thomas Frank in "The Age of Enron" traces the 2008 financial meltdown and ensuing recession back to the attitudes toward open markets and against deregulation that led to Enron's disgraceful collapse.  What amazes me is the support that this "free market" philosophy still gathers as embodied by the large number of Tea Partiers elected in 2010 and currently holding sway in the Republican congressional majority.  The nation elected people with the same failed political philosophy that got us into the mess. 

Frank lists five elements of the current and future corporate scandals and financial crises:

• Deregulation "either by law or by the de facto dumbing down or hacking back of the supervisory offices of government".  This culminated in the Commodity Futres Modernization Act of 2000 that is at the heart of the current problems.  This act created "regulatory blind spots not only in energy derivatives but also in credit swap defaults".  It was the later that was directly responsible for the 2008 collapse.
• The short-circuiting, buy-off, or capture of the private sector's oversight mechanisms.  Enron blazed the trail here but there are plenty of other examples - for example, credit-rating agencies giving "worthless mortgage-backed securities their seal of approval".
• The next scandal will "display the truculent culture of the trading floor."  The Tea Party movement was started by a business reporter from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade.
• "Unconsciuos journalistic perversity" that has in the past applauded the worst offenders before these collapsed and "kept politicians" who write the regulations Wall Street's way.
• The final (and most important feature) of the next scandal/collapse is that "we will not get it".  As Frank puts it:  "We will convince ourselves that these terrible things happened to us because markets are not free enough - that our only mistake was in not carrying our campaigns for deregulation or tax cuts to their logical conclusions.

With the Citizens United ruling ensuring unlimited corporate cash to conservative political candidates and with Republican governors' efforts to disenfranchise by means of the new "poll tax" (i.e., identity cards and other registration obstacles) voters who normally vote for (pro-regulation) Democrats, the next financial crisis is just around the corner.

And after the next collapse, you can expect the Tea Partiers and the corporate shills to be elected and re-elected because we are that ignorant.

Outrageous

With the Republicans threatening to induce a major global economic disaster by not raising the debt ceiling unless their extremist and unfair demands are met, Obama is showing signs of weakening in his defense of the social safety programs including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  Apparently, these programs are now "on the table" in the debt ceiling negotiations.  Also, apparently, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are still "off the table".  This is an outrageous affront to the middle class, the elderly and the poor. 

Instead of addressing the jobs issues that are at the heart of the ongoing economic crisis, the politicians are wrangling over a debt ceiling increase that was executed without controversy SEVEN TIMES during the Bush administration.  This is politics pure and simple.  If the President were a Republican, we would not be having this debate. 

Warren Buffett in a CNBC interview stated that the the Republican-controlled Congress is "trying to use the incentive now that we're going to blow your brains out, America, in terms of your debt worthiness over time."  In May, Buffett stated at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder's meeting that if the Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling, it would constitute "the most asinine act" in the nation's history. 

Katrina vanden Heuvel offered a solution in a recent Nation column: "Invoke Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which says that 'the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.' This constitutional option is one that the president alone may exercise."

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out...in the meantime, the Republicans should be held accountable for the ensuing crisis if the US defaults on its debts.  And Obama should be held accountable if he caves in to the extremists of the right - especially if the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are not also part of the solution.