Libertarianism vs. Capitalism
Is Green Libertarianism possible?
I've run into an old buzz-saw several times in recent weeks, and it is in the definitions of "libertarian" and "capitalism." The Left has managed to convince every person of humane perceptions and values that "libertarian" is synonymous with "capitalism." Nothing could be further from the truth, and I wonder why they still do it, and more importantly, get away with it.
I'm a fan of Thom Hartmann, and in this article, he refers to the Libby, Montana WR Grace asbestos mine disaster, so I'll cite him as "the lead defendent" here, although the Counterpunch attacks on Alex Cockburn's "libertarianism" were the immediate cause of this essay [links at the end].
Libertarian Capitalism Killed My Best Friends
Wednesday, 14 August 2013 15:09
By The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Program | Op-Ed
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/18199-libertarian-capitalism-killed-my-best-friends
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It's much like the evolution of the word "environmental" - which once meant having a concern with our common habitat - basically, the Boy Scout Ethic, along with Native American practice - following the rules of sustainability, respect (if not love) for Nature, "playing fair" - i.e., not ganging up, being intellectually honest and truthful, etc.
Now, it means the shock troops of the Democratic Party, attacking the Republicans (who were once the more reliable environmental protection party), and their supposed "libertarian, free market" policies at every turn, along with anyone who thinks that people should be pretty much free to do those things like hunt and explore which our ancestors have always done, here. By now, they've extended it to anyone who tries to make a living off of the land - public or private. Democrats have quit calling themselves "environmentalists" because most people think they are anti-business, anti-ranching, and otherwise opposed to anything "modern" or "progressive."
The "Wise Use" movement (started by the "resource industries" to justify their pillage of public lands, forests, minerals, and fossil fuels) was the first to recognize the power of "framing." It isn't about out-of-state corporations pillaging our landscape and habitat at sell-out prices of pennies on the dollar, all the while "respecting" the "property rights" of out-of-state and foreign corporations which make all this legal. If it were up to local communities, they would never allow this stuff, or at least take half the action with full buy-out and shut-down options if things are going wrong. That's what Meagher County should do if it permits the copper mine, there - but of course it won't be up to them - the people who actually live there.
Burns, Brown, and the ALEC agenda on Northern Broadcasting.com
I couldn't believe Russell Nemetz the other day, saying we should call Sen. Baucus and tell him to include the ALEC amendment which PREVENTS local communities from having any sort of jurisdiction over feedlots, fracking plants, or any other environmentally objectionable projects. This is the guy you're listening to for your "farm and ranch news." It is nothing but ALEC propaganda, financed by all the biggest agribusiness companies, railroads, chemical combines - etc. - the very groups which have destroyed American agriculture, where fewer than 1% of the population now owns, farms, or lives here.
Is Sen. Conrad Burns, who started Northern Broadcasting as a farm and livestock auctioneer, still alive? He should raise hell about that. But he's just an employee, now, right ? - probably a lobbyist for many of those same firms who supported his business with their advertising and infomercials (just about the only "news" you'll find, there). That's something I don't get. Why would anyone keep working and doing those bad things when they're that old, and know better? Is it outright threats and extortion? I mean, normal people don't want to destroy the environment, and those who are trying to protect it. Nor do they want to destroy independent, local and regional broadcasters, which was exactly what Burns was before he became a Senator, and found that he could make big money by legislating himself out of business as Chairman of the Telecommunications sub-committee which gave $80 billion worth of public airwaves (frequency spectrum) to the 7 largest media and internet companies. As for Taylor Brown, he's pure ALEC. He should be their president.
Of course they have a stranglehold on Baucus. He was the "senior Senator" when Burns was first elected. And even more than Republican Burns, Democrat Baucus represents nothing but the super-rich, and they're the same people who support ALEC - war profiteers, the prison industry, "free trade" lobbyists gutting national sovereignty, environmental regulations, carbon taxes, etc; and most of all, the finance and insurance rackets preventing any sort of public healthcare, destroying locally controlled public schools (in effect, "nationalizing" them in order to shut them down), etc., etc.
Baucus is by far the best Republican in the Democratic Party, so he has no problem leaving his own party leaders in the lurch, making them (and the President) look like fools for selling out to the Republicans - the very strategy which Baucus has been able to force on them whenever he is "the swing vote", which he has all too often been.
His Republican "enemies" point to one gun control vote back in the 1980's, and a few environmental bills (none of which Baucus actually wrote) as "proof" he is some sort of "East Coast Liberal", which he has never even pretended to be. He is an oligarch, from generations of lawyers and big ranchers - he isn't there to serve the poor! Why don't the Democrats get that? And even though he counts as a Democrat for caucus purposes, he often supports the very same interests who have financed the Republican Party for more than a century.
While they cheer his voting against the Clinton Impeachment, there's no mention of the Medicare Part D and several crucial finance changes like repeal of Glass-Steagal, allowing the volatile derivatives market to be "insured" at the ultimate expense of the taxpayers, etc.
Remember the dissolution of Montana Power? Baucus had a big role in that, and it was his friends at Goldman, Sachs who put the whole deal together - all under contract with PPL in order to purchase MPC's generating assets to replace part of its own nuclear capacity, which at the time looked to be soon shut down. So, we might say that even 3-Mile-Island, WPPS, and other nuclear disasters, are part of Baucus's legacy - he's a big nuke advocate, and wanted to store nuclear waste in Montana, at one time. The fact that Baucus was so heavily involved in this explains the Montana Democrats refusal to blame anyone but the Republicans, and the phony "de-regulation" which was actually started by Democrats in order to eliminate the cartel-like regulatory structures which allow regulated corporations to use their monopoly power to get more money out of consumers. All the federal "alphabet" agencies (SEC, FAA, CAB, ICC, etc.) associated with the New Deal had that purpose - create cartels on the model of Italian Fascism.
As for nuclear disasters, they are financial more than environmental thus far, but we also know that the damage from the nuclear power industry is only beginning to be felt, and no matter what we do, it will probably kill millions more people, and leave country-sized territories uninhabitable for centuries. Japan looks to be the first example of this, although there is a huge area in Siberia, plus Chernobyl as earlier examples of the same thing. The Russians claim Chernobyl killed a million people, while the US and industry-dominated IAEA completely suppresses such studies and information. (Baucus has always been a big supporter of both the nuclear power industry and the nuclear weapons which are based in his state - at one point, 600 deliverable warheads, each 10 times the size of Hiroshima, now reduced to 150).
So, there are many "train wrecks" which Baucus has presided over besides the Insurance Extortion and Drug Cartel bailout bill, which they sold to the comatose as the "Affordable Care Act". He can't be forgiven for that, nor can nearly every Democrat who still refuses to see that this is no different than the gangsters in Somalia who steal the medical supplies and then sell it at huge profits only to those who can afford to buy it.
For 4% of GDP, we could have a world-class health care system. One that prioritizes and encourages people to seek and participate in their own health care, instead of making all care dependent on something called "insurance" which is merely betting (or hedging) that you will get sick and need to pay exorbitant private health care bills which no one would voluntarily pay. It's not that they force you to pay for health care. They force you to purchase a defective "coverage", which costs some 4 times more than the actual health care, itself.
Only a few people ever get the full value back of their "policy," for the simple reason that it prevents their estates being confiscated by "collection agencies" (working for hospitals, clinics, etc.) after they die It's nuts! We want HEALTH CARE, not "insurance" or "coverage" - what's that, a shroud after you're dead?
If ALEC and the monopolies which created it really believed in Free Trade, they'd let Indians or Chinese or Swedes or Russians open hospitals and clinics here. They wouldn't allow medicine to be patented or otherwise profited off of. They'd protect the right to self-medicate, as well as use any sort of health care which the medical monopolies presently prohibit. Drug companies do basically no "discovery" of new cures or drugs - that's all done academically, and by the scientific community which used to be independent of political and business ties). Instead, they "buy" someone else's patent, and thus get an exclusive monopoly on the product which they didn't earn, and no price controls over what they can charge. The rule they actually quote is "whatever the traffic can bear" - the "traffic" here being the 3rd party payers, Medicare, Medicaid, and wherever else the money comes from.
IT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH A FREE MARKET.
It's all monopolies and cartels, protected by the state so that only "approved" and "licensed" health care and medicines can be sold (or even distributed freely or by mutual negotiation).
And the original idea of patenting genes, ideas, principles, etc has been thoroughly discredited. You can copyright your own work on something, but you can't prevent others from duplicating or exeeding it. Much of current cyber-law is very wrong, in this respect. Again, Baucus is the darling of Silicon Valley, and it is the current corporate law regime which makes it all possible. No hint of any justice, here!
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For more on the current assault (by Leftists) on the Libertarian Tradition, see:
See also:
Inky Excitement of Those Old Hot Type Days
Alexander Cockburn’s Last Work
by VIJAY PRASHAD
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/09/alexander-cockburns-last-work/
De mortuo, parvum nisi malum
A Defense of Alexander Cockburn’s Libertarianism
by JOHN V. WALSH
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/16/a-defense-of-alexander-cockburns-libertarianism/
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A more or less definitive statement of the historical relationship between libertarianism and what most of us call "capitalism" (NOT free trade, free market, or pro-individual freedom - think corporate capitalism, monopoly capitalism, or finance capitalism):
Rothbard and the Libertarian Populists
Mises Daily: Thursday, August 15, 2013 by David S. D'Amato
http://mises.org/daily/6506/Rothbard-and-the-Libertarian-Populists
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