Capitalism

Gretchen Morgenson, a common-sense capitalist, doesn't want us to ruin capitalism with stupidity and greed. Alan Greenspan, a libertarian capitalist, was the Fed chair for many years; to some, he appeared to be a financial/economic genuis. Apparently even President Clinton, a Democrat, fell under his economic charms. President Clinton, in one of the worst decisions of his presidency, signed the bill that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. After the Great Depression, Glass-Steagall was passed to put a wall between the capital of commercial banks and the capital of investment banks. Speculative (high-risk) investment could not put at risk the capital of commercial banks and bring them down if the investments went bad. Glass-Steagall represented common sense capitalism, the kind that Gretchen Morgenson, financial journalist for the New York Times, believes in. Morgenson saw the Great 2008 Recession coming in advance. All the signs of unregulated financial markets were there. Morgenson saw them; Greenspan did not.

An analogy. A modern highway with thousands of cars requires some regulation for the safety of the common good---speed limits and stop signs.  A stupid libertarian would remove most of the stop signs and increase the speed limits. But a common sense Department of Transportation would keep them in place. Gretchen Morgenson is a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist; she once worked for the conservative Forbes business magazine. She wants capitalism to work well for all citizens; she wants to avoid the boom and bust cycles which hurt everyone.  Capitalism needs some stop signs and speed limits, some common sense rules and regulations to control speculation, greed, corruption and crime. Clinton and Greenspan began to pull up some of the stop signs; Bush and Greenspan continued to pull up more. A big crash became inevitable; it almost turned into another Great Depression. Apart from unprecedented action by the Fed, it would have become a Depression. 

Here is how Dean Starkman describes Mortenson, the common sense capitalist, in an article in the July 6, 2009, The Nation, entitled "The Most Important Financial Journalist of her Generation: Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times."  According to Starkman, Morgenson understood and fearlessly reported on the financial mess well ahead of most business reporters. She realized that "something in the system had gone deeply awry. She came to identify excessive "compensation [that] lies at the center of today's [financial] crisis."  

Morgenson asserts: "I believe in capitalism. To me it is natural that I would go after the people that are wrecking it."  For her, capitalism needed both better ethics and better regulation. For her, too much of modern American capitalism had become corrupt and often criminal. The mortgage crisis was rigged; it was predatory lending. "Capitalism should be made to work for everyone, not just the big shots." Corruption and crime may be inevitable when more people are making money by handling money than from producing goods.

In 2014, it is proving hard to put the hyperindividualistic, libertarian genie back into the financial bottle. Morgenson is still a financial journalist for the Times. Google her to find out her current analysis. She thinks that current laws and regulation are too lax. Some financial institutions are not only too big to fail, they are also too big and secretive to regulate. If you think capitalism itself is a problem and you want an alternative, google Mondragon to examine a cooperative economic model created by a Spanish Catholic priest.

Was Jesus a radical?

Was Jesus a radical?

"To be truly radical is to understand the root [cause] of the problem."  Angela Davis

White abolitionists who worked hard to abolish slavery weren't radical enough, biblically speaking.  They stopped at freedom for slaves but did not follow up with justice for the freed slaves (40 acres and a mule).  In fact, many white abolitionists were actually racist, as Lincoln was, (they believed that whites were superior to blacks) at the same time that they were against slavery.

In American eyes, white abolitionists were radical, but biblically they went only halfway.  Since ethnocentrism/racism was not rooted out, soon slavery was replaced by another system of oppression which enslaved blacks again.  Slavery was replaced by segregation, sharecropping and prison work gangs.

Was Jesus radical enough?  Jesus the radical, revolutionary prophet who pushed hard for the incarnation of the kingdom of God here on earth, identified ethnocentrism and oppression as the root social evils plaguing Palestine (Luke 4).  So he prophetically proclaimed that the revered temple was a den of robbers, that the religious leaders, many of whom were rich, neglected justice and the love of God.  He also scorched the religious rich ("Woe [doom] to the rich") who put Money on a par with God.

Jesus also had a radical solution: incarnate the kingdom of God in behalf of the oppressed poor; pursue Jubilee justice; practice love and do justice to fulfill the Law and the Prophets.  Only the Spirit-filled church (Acts 4:32-35) can fulfill this demanding assignment.  An Americanized church can't, and it is likely to be a part of the problem more than a solution.

In Mt. 5:10, Jesus warned that those who did justice would likely experience persecution.  After Jesus cleansed the temple and called it a den of robbers, the chief priests sought his death.  In their eyes, Jesus was a dangerous revolutionary.  After all their practice of ethnocentrism and oppression produced prosperity---for them.

David Brooks and "The Inequality Problem"

Compare David Brooks with Pope Francis, Martin Luther King, Robert Reich, Bob Lord and Pierce Nahigyan; they all fundamentally disagree with David Brooks.

David Brooks is often a voice of sanity and wisdom on public policy issues, but recently (New York Times, Jan. 16, 2014, "The Inequality Problem,") he blew it, and blew it badly, especially when compared to Pastor, Prophet, Pope Francis on economic inequality (The Joy of the Gospel).  I am angry at David Brooks, seething at his clever demonizing of the oppressed poor, his exoneration of the rich oppressors.  I am not the only one seething; see Robert Reich's article "David Brooks' Utter Ignorance About Inequality," Jan. 20, Nation of Change. http://www.nationofchange.org/david-brooks-utter-ignorance-about-inequality-1390142670. Also Bob Lord's article in the Nation of Change, Jan.20, 2014 entitled "Dr. King's Nightmare."  http://www.nationofchange.org/dr-king-s-nightmare-1390137955

I heard once that Brooks professes to be a Christian; if true, this makes his dangerous half-truths posing as the whole truth doubly tragic, triply evil.

In colonial times, Brooks would have been an excellent founding father, possibly a Thomas Jefferson type who had flashes of intellectual brilliance combined with the social evils of ethnocentrism and oppression.  The founding fathers were a rich, white, male elite who held a deep-seated belief in American exceptionalism, an ethnocentrism which justified, even required, expansion.  American exceptionalism is an arrogant, erroneous, dangerous sense of chosenness.  American ethnocentrism is the supposed superiority of Anglo-Saxon culture/civilization.  American expansionism---Manifest Destiny, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast, no matter what ethnic group was in the way.  These three "e's" are the root of all kinds of American social evils.  E., E., and E. legitimated horrible systems of oppression such Indian genocide, African enslavement and the Mexican American War which took one-half of Mexico's land.

This systems of oppression created what Orlando Patterson calls social death, in addition to millions of physical deaths.  Social death is Patterson's term for severely damaged cultures, severely dysfunctional social institutions.  For example, the Plains Indians economic system collapsed when the buffalo were exterminated and their land was stolen.  Much of the rest of the culture was devastated.  The evidence of social death can be found in dysfunctional marriages, families and communities. 

Out of the above factors, flow high rates of poverty, unemployment, crime, drugs, disease and abortions.

Brooks only examines a small portion of American history and society, ignores the ethnocentrism/oppression causes and only looks at the results---the "interrelated social problems of the poor."  Brooks ends up blaming the victim, demonizing the poor, and exonerating the rich.

Many Americans end up analyzing Haitian poverty much like Brooks analyzes American poverty.  They ignore 500 years of Spanish, French and American ethnocentrism and oppression.  The Haitian chain of causes and results can be summed in one word: ethnocentrismoppressionpovertydisease.  The biblical solution can also be summed up in one word: lovejusticereconciliationshalom.

Or James 1:27 through 2:26 sums the issue up like this:  Worthless religion/churches dishonor the oppressed poor, honor the rich oppressors; pure religion/churches put the poor first, call out the rich oppressors, combine love and justice to engage in abundant good works. 

Brooks is right that "Suddenly the whole world is talking about income inequality."  He needs to listen carefully to others before he writes any more misleading garbage.  For example, Pierce Nahigyan in the Jan. 21, Nation of Change, "8 Facts About American Inequality."  http://www.nationofchange.org/8-facts-about-american-inequality-1390315279 

1.  400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.
2.  America has the second-highest level of income inequality, after Chile.
3.  The current state of inequality can be traced back to 1979.
4.  Non-union wages are also affected by the decline of unions.
5.  There is less opportunity for intergenerational mobility.
6.  Tax cuts to the wealthiest have not improved the economy or created jobs.
7.  Incomes for the top 1% have increased (but the top 0.01% make even more).
8.  The majority of Congress does not feel your pain; one-half are millionaires.

'Doing' Democracy

In my last email essay, I discussed Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements by Bill Moyer.

In spite Lincoln's beautiful rhetoric about "a government of the people, by the people and for the people," here are the brutal facts according to Doing Democracy:

It is worth noting that as a result of the founding father's power elite idea of democracy during the first 20 years of U.S. history, only propertied, rich, white men, who comprised less than 10 percent of the population, were allowed to vote in federal elections. [this means a plutocracy, not a democracy]

How do the 8 stages of a social movement apply today to the issue of economic inequality/oppression?  I suggest that as a nation we may have reached point 6 "Majority Public Opinion," i.e., 
"Majority opposes present conditions and powerholder policies."  As a part of economic inequality, I would include poverty, unemployment, low-wage jobs and exploitation of women and immigrants.  If so, with a strong push from the American church, we could reach point 7 "Success" this year or next.  What are the signs of dramatic progress? 

The most powerful religious figure in the world, Pope Francis, is prophetically exposing economic inequality and pushing hard for change; if the American Catholic church would follow his lead, there would be hope for success.  The most powerful political figure in the world, President Obama, has identified economic inequality as the defining issue of our time, one he intends to address; If he follows through, the movement has a chance to succeed.  The most powerful financial figure in the world, Janet Yellen, new head of the Federal Reserve, is at least partly on board, according to  the Jan. 13 article in Time by Rana Foroohar; she describes Yellen as compassionate with a deep concern for the suffering of the unemployed; hopefully she will put the unemployed ahead of inflation on her agenda; pray for unprecedented action by Yellen.

Previously, of course, the Occupy movement, brought the issue of economic inequality to the center of public opinion.  A recent cartoon by Jim Morin in the Miami Herald highlights their achievement.  Pope Francis is pictured along side a huge man carrying a money bag with 1% written on his back.  It is implied that Pope Francis has just said that the "Meek/poor will inherit the earth."  The 1% man replies, "Oh really?  How can the meek inherit the earth if WE own it?"  For a cartoon like this to work, the public already has to have some idea of what Pope Francis and the 1% stand for. 

Several other events have brought the issue of poverty to the fore.  The 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty has brought forth much commentary; the Shriver Report on the large numbers of women in or near poverty often working in low-wage jobs; the Chamber of Commerce supporting comprehensive immigration reform.  Now is the time for the American church to come on board to counter the immense wealth the 1% have to put behind a powerful lobbying effort to maintain the unjust status quo.  The 1% will try to make minor reforms replace the needed paradigm shift.  It would be great to have a comprehensive NT theology of society focusing on oppression/injustice and justice to guide us; any volunteers?

In terms of the mass incarceration social movement, we may be only at stage 3.  If so, we have a lot of work to do.  Michelle Alexander may be more optomistic than I am.  If so, I bow to her judgment.  By the way, CCDA is on board as is the Evangelical Covenant church.  Economic inequality, racial inequality and gender inequality are interrelated.  Success in economic equality would help with racial equality and gender equality.

More on Janet Yellen.  Rana Foroohar believes that Yellen is the "right person" for the "right job."  She has the perfect blend of personality, values, skills and experience.  Yellen wants to rebalance the relationship between finance and society.  She believes the Fed has been "too lax on the regulation of the financial system."  Yellen is more concerned about the well-being of Main Street than the profits of Wall Street.

Now I will let Pope Francis have the last word:

The Church must be attractive.... a different way of doing things, of acting, of loving. . . . the values of the Kingdom incarnated on this earth. . . . a question of leaving everything to follow the Lord. . . . Religious men and women who are able to wake this world up."  Pastor/prophet Francis is calling us to love the poor, not demonize them, not paternalize them.  Francis wants us to love and do justice, not criminalize social problems with failed Prohibition strategies.

Pope Francis and President Obama

While Gandhi, King and Mandela were remarkably successful in gaining freedom and reconciliation, nonviolently, for their people, they did not have the same success in achieving economic justice for their poor.  But today God is raising up two persons to provide leadership in attacking economic inequality (systems of economic oppression that excessively reward the rich and exploit the poor).  Pope Francis and President Obama are these leaders.  Both have given recent speeches/teachings on this defining issue of our times.

But they cannot achieve economic justice alone; citizens, pulpits and pews must also become fully engaged.  Here are some of my proposals; what are yours?

1.  Increase the minimum wage into a living wage of around $15.00 an hour; predistribution (living wage) is much better than redistribution (welfare type programs).

2.  In the financial sector, sharply cut back on Wall Street by expanding community banks, state banks and credit unions.

3.  In the production sector, tightly regulate corporations such as we now do with utilities.  Reduce CEO salaries, heavily tax the 1 percent.  Greatly expand Mondragon style cooperatives.  Sharply cut subsidies to Big Oil and corporate agriculture.  Instead, assist family farms and small businesses.

4.  At the college and university level, create a salary cap for coaches at $100,000.  Reduce staff numbers by half.  Prioritize teacher education department by increasing their salaries, resources and prestige.

5.  Create a NT theology of society addressing such social evils as ethnocentrism and oppression and solutions such as justice and reconciliation.

6.  What are your proposals?  What are you willing to commit to?

7.

8.

9.

Pope Francis and President Obama and Us

I see the hand of God, the Holy Spirit, at work through Pope Francis and President Obama; now it is up to we the people and we the pew to act.

More REQUIRED READING: 

Charles Blow, my favorite Afro American political pundit, sees the handwriting on the wall in his editorial column in the Dec. 5, 2013 entitled "The President, the Pope and the People."  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/opinion/blow-the-president-the-pope-and-the-people.html?emc=eta1

The New York Times Editorial Board, Dec.4 writes about the president's recent speech on inequality; they sum up the speech and its signficance with phrases such as "one of his strongest speeches" he "will spend the rest of his presidency on the defining challenge of our time, reducing economic inequality and improving upward mobility."  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/opinion/the-president-on-inequality.html?emc=eta1 

Both Pope Francis and President have spoken boldly and bluntly on economic inequality and how it oppresses the poor; now will pastors and priests and rabbis do the same.  Now will NT scholars finally get down to business and create a NT theology of society built upon love and justice, upon an understanding of the social evils of ethnocentrism and oppression.  Could CCDA host a summit bringing Pope Francis, President Obama and John Perkins together to chart a new direction for America?

John Perkins and Pope Francis are biblical justice cousins

Pope Francis' exhortation/manifesto entitled "The Joy of the Gospel" is REQUIRED reading. Google "Pope Francis The Joy of the Gospel" and you can read the complete text.  I would have sub-titled his manifesto "Joy Requires Justice."

In my opinion, John Perkins and Pope Francis are biblical justice cousins.  Pope Francis has his own version of John Perkins' three "r's"

Relocation---from the sanctuary to the streets.

Reconciliation---from exclusion to inclusion.

Redistribution---from economic inequality to justice.

I also see Pope Francis reflecting both Luke 4:18-19 and Luke 4:25-30.  Luke 4:18 highlights the oppressed poor and Luke 4:25-30 grapples with religious ethnocentrism (exclusion).

Francis urges the church to move from the security of the sanctuary to the suffering of the streets; the church should be among "the bruised, hurting and dirty," among the marginalized, excluded and oppressed.

Pope Francis, almost thou hast persuadest me to be a Catholic, at least in terms of your profoundly biblical social teaching.  I see you as a desperately needed prophetic figure for today's times.  Martin Luther King was a drum major for justice.  I see you as a drum major for the poor and against systems of economic oppression run by the rich.  Your exhortation is bold and clear.

King was beginning to become a biblical prophet against the rich and for the poor when he was assassinated.  One pundit sees your recent prophetic teaching "The Joy of the Gospel" as the equivalent to King's "I Have a Dream" speech; it also echoes King's "I Live a Nightmare" speech [my title] given in December 1967.  Matthew Fox, a radical priest who was defrocked because of his anti-rich and pro-poor stance, is glowing in his praise of "The Joy of the Gospel."  Fox asserts:

I think that he [Pope Francis] delivered a tremendous message yesterday with this document about justice in the world.  I think it goes far beyond church reform. . . . he is willing to really critique the economic system with strong language and connecting it to the biblical tradition of justice and the prophetic work on behalf of the poor . . . [who are] defenseless against the deified market.

Note some of the powerful phrases Francis uses:  "unfettered capitalism, a new tyranny, idolatry of money, trickle-down economics, deified market, consumerism, covetous heart, feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, blunted conscience, where powerful feed upon the powerless, crude and naive trust in the prevailing economic system, the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root, evil crystallized in unjust social structures."

I also see that Pope Francis, in his own way, critiques the American trinity of hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism. 

To be continued

War on Drugs

Much of America is exceptionally stupid when it comes to understanding our social problems, and even more stupid when it comes to solutions.  Case in point: America's drug problem.  The following is a summary from The Week (Oct. 18) of an article 
"Why we've lost the drug war," by Stephen Marche.

 "The war on drugs is over.  Drugs won," said Stephen Marche.  That's the inescapable conclusion of the largest study of the drug trade ever conducted, just published in a medical journal.  Canadian researchers found that despite $1 trillion in spending to stop drug trafficking and sales, drugs are just as available as ever [Prohibition failed again], and far purer and cheaper.  In fact, marijuana's purity has increased 161 percent since 1990, and it's 86 percent cheaper.  Cocaine is 80 percent cheaper than in 1990.  In other words, "now is the greatest time in history to get high."  Clearly, attacking the drug supply doesn't work; the problem is that Americans' demand for drugs appears to be nearly "limitless" especially if you consider that 48 percent of the population also uses legal prescription drugs of some kind, including antidepressants.  The fundamental problem is that our bodies and minds were not made for a "hypermodern reality" where food is overabundant, social connections are weak, and people are switched on 24/7.  In a culture riddled with stress and despair, people self-medicate.  As long as our culture's mantra is "just take something," drug suppliers will be there to meet the demand.

I have retired in small town/rural Iowa.  Recently a deputy from the Mitchell Co. sheriff department said abuse of prescription drugs is worse than abuse of illegal drugs.

Pursuing the American Dream while following the American Trinity has its consequences.

American Dream and the American trinity of hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism

Are we Americans exceptionally stupid, even arrogantly exceptionally stupid?  Are we immoral idiots?  Are we blending the American Dream with the American trinity of hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism?  Or is it with the OT Israeli Trinity of idolatry, injustice and immorality?

Israel wouldn't repent, even after God sent prophet after prophet to warn them of impending judgment.  Their social evil seemed irreversible and led to their exile to Babylon.  Is American on a similar irreversible decline?

Has the false belief in American exceptionalism led us to an arrogant stupidity?  If so, what is the evidence?

1.  Our exceptionally, excessive military spending; we spend nearly as much as all the rest of the world combined; we have military bases all over the world.
2.  Our exceptionally, excessive system of unjust mass incarceration of young Black and Latino males; worse by far than any other democracy.
3.  Our incredibly inefficient health care system which costs twice as much per capita as any other democracy.
4.  Our extraordinarily unequal economic system which has created an enormous wealth gap, especially unjust racial wealth gap.
5.  Our exceptionally, excessive use of both legal and illegal drugs; more on this stupidity in my Friday blog.
6.  Apart from a few prophetic voices such as John Perkins, Jim Wallace and Randy Woodley, the American church is in bed with the American trinity.

Does an exceptionally flawed Americanized Christianity open the door for the exceptionally evil American trinity to run rampant?  Compared to Europe, America is highly Christian; does this indicate that American Christianity is part of the problem?

Again, I would highly recommend reading Randy Woodley's recent book Shalom and the Community of Creation; Woodley is a Cherokee Indian theologian.

P.S.  Readers may wish to add to the list of exceptionally stupid things  America does such as pollution, climate change, high rates of gun ownership, high rates of abortion, etc.


On some issues, there is too much bipartisan agreement in Washington, but you wouldn't know it from the media headlines.  There is tragic bipartisan agreement on:

1.  Excessive military spending:  the facts:  In 2011, the United States spent $739 billion on its military, China, $89 billion, Britain, $62 billion, and Russia, $52 billion.  The U.S. world share of military spending was 45%; China, 5%; in other words, the U.S. spends almost as much as ALL the rest of the world combined.  Surely we could cut our military budget in half; we would still be the world's most powerful nation by far.

2.  Excessive counterterrorism: the facts (from Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill):  "By mid-2010, the Obama administration had increased the presence of Special Operations Forces from sixty countries to seventy-five countries. . . . Obama and his team created a system "where people are being killed, you don't know what the evidence is, and you have no way to redress the situation," former CIA case officer Phil Giraldi told me.  "It's not that there aren't terrorists out there, and every once in a while one of them is going to have to be killed for one good reason or another, but I want to see the good reason.  I don't want to see someone in the White House telling me, "You'll have to trust me." We've had too much of that." . . . .  "While the Obama administration ratcheted up its drone strikes and targeted killing campaign, al Qaeda affiliates were growing stronger, embolded in part by the US escalation.  Although the Obama administration boasted that it had al Qaeda on the ropes, its global assassination program was becoming a recruitment device for the very forces the United States claimed to be destroying.". . . .  Colonel Patrick Lang, who spent his entire career in covert operations leading sensitive missions, told me that the threat posed by AQAP had been "greatly exaggerated as a threat to the United States. . . . Yeah. They could bring down an airliner, kill a couple hundred people.  But are they an existential threat to the United States?  Of course not.  Of course not.. . . . We've gone crazy over this.  We have this kind of hysterical reaction to danger."  Bush and now Obama are now engaged in "perpetual war" against terrorists; terrorists against terrorists??

3  Comprehensive immigration reform:  though the Obama administration wants reform, it is not front and center in its public political agenda; immigration reform has been pushed to the back burner.  For Republicans, reform is not even on the stove

The American Dream and Jubilee Justice

American missionaries, I highly recommend that on your next furlough, you spend 6 months or a year at George Fox Seminary studying under Randy Woodley, a Cherokee Indian scholar/practitioner.  There are areas of your theology and practice that are mostly likely fatally flawed and sinfully syncretistic.  Especially in the area of a biblical NT theology of society---the kingdom of God as Jubilee Justice for the oppressed poor.

By the way, I would recommend the same for most American pastors.  And for any white evangelical Christians who have blended their faith with Tea Party ideology which favors the rich and dishonors the poor.  Check out the Paul Ryan budget and see what is and isn't in his budget.

Now two excerpts from Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision (2012). 

The American Dream is actually a false premise based on the success of relatively few people, held up as a carrot for the masses.  In truth, an American Dream based on the misery of others caters to a selfish,consumer-driven mentality that values wealth and personal gain over justice and peace.  . . . In truth, America is a far cry from being a "Christian nation" or even a nation built upon Christian principles. . . .  The American Dream was built on a mentality of theft, imperialism, and supposed superiority. . . .  in order to maintain our "Dream" we have incorporated an ethic of war.

What is the solution to the American Dream?

Jubilee was good news for the poor. . . . . God's will and cosmic design is that no one suffer unjustly, but because human beings create unjust systems, shalom-type social parameters must serve as a social safety net to offset human disobedience.  In order to create a shalom system of social harmony, no person could be oppressed too long without hope of ease and eventual release; no family could remain in poverty for generations; no land could be worked until it was depleted and useless; no animals could go hungry for too long.  Any of these violations of shalom that were left unmitigated for too long would upset the natural order of reciprocity fixed in all creation. . . .  Jesus was the fulfillment of the Jubilee, the Sabbath system, and ultimately shalom.

The Tea Party

The Tea Party tail of 30-40 persons is wagging the larger Republican dog in the House.  The Tea Party, a determined, aggressive, passionate and uncompromising wing of the Republican Party, is winning the political battles in Washington.  They are controlling the political agenda; they are setting the terms of the political debate.  Not on the political agenda are three hugely important social problems: comprehensive immigration reform, the unjust mass incarceration of young black and Latino males, and the immoral income/wealth gap, especially the racial wealth gap of 20-1.

The Tea Party won the sequester battle; the Tea Party has succeeded in bringing about a partial shutdown of the government; and the Tea Party would see a federal government default as a good thing.  Anything to shrink the size of the government; anything to make President Obama look bad.  The president is on the defensive.

Unless the Republican leadership has the political courage to marginalize the Tea Party minority, the year ahead looks bad.  The poor will suffer; the rich will prosper.

I would fully support two anti-government policies: cut the military budget in half and eliminate massive corporate tax breaks (subsidies, welfare) and pro-Wall Street policies.