Patriotism Porn

A lot of people think this Super Bowl commercial was pretty neat, but I think it’s stupid. The message is simple: let’s all rally around and get out of this hole and make things better. Fine and dandy as it is, of course. But it neglects political reality. It’s simply not possible for the Right and the Left, the Republicans and Democrats, to all hold hands and work together to get us out of the hole. First of all, they don’t even agree on what’s causing it, and they don’t agree on the solutions either. If they don’t agree on the cause or the solutions, how are they going to work together to get us out of the hole?

It’s a joke, stupid thinking by political idiots. But face it, most people are political morons because they don’t understand politics.

Capitalism is currently undergoing its most serious crisis since the Great Depression. The solutions offered by the Right are the same as they were then: Do nothing and let the natural cycle of business (the invisible hand of the free market) straighten itself out. Well, that’s not going to work. Hoover did that for three years and had nothing to show for it. Rooseveldt’s approach of course made sense. Recessions and depressions mandate an activist state and its massive intervention, otherwise, you’re in Hell forever. But then, I’m a Keynesian, eh?

Republican proposals will do absolutely nothing to help us out of the mess, and they will actually make it worse. They propose slashing wages, benefits and government spending and increasing the share of income that goes to the corporations and the rich – the 1%, while immiserating the 99% in the name of shared sacrifice. This project will increasingly devastate the middle class – which is the Republican goal. Elite projects the world over always attack the middle class, immiserate the middle class and dump vast number of the middle classes into the lower classes and poor. The goal is an El Salvadoran society typical of the 3rd world – 2% rich own almost everything, an immiserated, devastated and crippling middle class of about 8% limps along, and 90% are low income to poor. This is the dream of the Right, the rich, the 1%, the capitalists and the Libertarians the world over. They want a world where the rich own everything, where there is a huge impoverished proleltariat or peasant class to exploit for its labor, and not much in between (that would be the middle classes).

It is uncertain why the elites hate the middle classes so much. Perhaps their endless class war project simply immiserates the middle classes by design and not by targeting them specifically. But it is always the middle classes that put in democracy and a welfare state. Rightwing dictatorships are overthrown by the middle classes or by no one. Newfound money doesn’t like to have no say. And for some reason, the middle classes demand a welfare state because new money wants more security than a lowly worker has.

The comments are full of rightwingers cheering on Ron Paul and Rick Santorum while pouring abuse on Big Government, the auto bailouts (not really a progressive project at all as the devastation of auto workers’ unions was demanded by Obama as part of the deal) and Satan Obama. Which is to be expected. Patriotism porn in the US always and only jazzes up the freedom fries crowd. No matter how you feel about that fluttering flag, there’s no reason to go along with it. Don’t feed the enemy.