LET'S TALK ABOUT SOCIALISM

By Edwin Cooney

My guess is that readers viewing the above title of this musing will have one of three reactions. The first might be: oh, no! Socialism is the gateway to Communism! Cooney is obviously in denial as to the threat of both. Second, some people might expect to be bored by political analysis, however brief. Third, others are likely to cheer: Ah! He finally gets it!

I'm convinced that half the people who insist they hate socialism neither understand it nor are even curious about it! The origin of it is foreign and therein lies the major block to its consideration and acceptance by the majority of Americans. The thumbnail definition of socialism is that the government owns the means of the production and distribution of goods and regulates the rules of commerce. From here on, as my guide through what I have to say, I'm going to follow one of my very favorite observations which was made by President John Kennedy before the 1962 Yale University graduating class. As some of you know, I've used this statement to make a political point several times before.

One of the major issue solutions being made by Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and, to some extent, Elizabeth Warren is what is called "single payer healthcare.” That is payment of everyone's healthcare by the government. The fact that it is "socialism" is the main argument against it. Hence the question, what is "socialism?" In order to begin answering the question, I now call on President Kennedy.

“As every past generation has had to disenthrall itself from an inheritance of truisms and stereotypes, so in our own time we must move on from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult, but essential confrontation with reality.  For the great enemy of the truth is—very often—not the lie: deliberate; contrived; and dishonest; but the myth: persistent; persuasive; and unrealistic.”

The first step we must take to “disenthrall" ourselves from preconceived beliefs about socialism is to recognize that socialism is a foreign rather than an American political concept. One of the most constant threads running through American history is "nativism" which inevitably poisons our attitudes to most foreign born ideas. Note that industrialism also preceded full-fledged capitalism in this country by about sixty years, but money, which even more than religion inspires Americans, legitimized and thus Americanized industrialism. Capitalism is a commodity recognized because people can see its enrichment and value grow to meet their demands for increased purchasing power which benefits them personally.

JFK: ”Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears.  We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations.”

 The "prefabricated myth” here which is persistent, persuasive and unrealistic, is that socialism is designed to destroy capitalism. However, there is another “ism” which originated in Europe that was designed to destroy everyone's liberty. That is fascism, a combination of government and corporatism.  Back in 1962, Richard Nixon complained about the attempt to marry socialism and liberty, which he said would fail because true liberty cannot be compromised. However, Mr. Nixon never condemned fascism with the same enthusiasm as he did socialism. 

Adopting single payer healthcare would mark the end of capitalism insist the Limbaugh's, Hannity's, Ingraham’s, as well as President Trump. Yet they see only liberty emanating from the combination of corporatism and, yes, big government. Government must be big enough and strong enough to nurture and ensure the structure and benefits of ever-growing and expanding capitalism. Government that nurtures society is bad, but government that ensures capitalism is good, say the Conservatives!

Of course, there are risks in adopting single payer healthcare. To begin with, a lot of good, hardworking people rely on the health insurance business to make a living. Single payer may well destroy that healthcare insurance business. However, there are many other commodities available to those whose living depend on insuring against the misfortunes of their fellow citizens.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of prepaid healthcare is its political value. In recent days, both President Trump and Senator Sanders have been warned that the Russians are out to help Senator Sanders because he's the perfect opponent of President Trump's re-election. I haven't heard Senator Sanders' response, but President Trump is already hot about the issue. To President Trump, the "deep state" (his pet contrivance) is at it again.

JFK concludes that we enjoy the comfort of opinion rather than the discomfort of thought. Mythology distracts us everywhere. 

I like the open debate over socialism. It's good for the Democratic Party as well as for the Republican Party and we citizens are the ultimate beneficiaries of this debate. My quarrel with political conservatism is that it is naturally anti-social. Conservatism, as I see it, is about the conservation of capital. Its attempts at superior morality is absolutely nonsense. As for socialism, imperfect and not always applicable as it is, socialism is more about you and me than is conservatism and therein lies its value.

President Kennedy was right! Opinion is far more comfortable and far more easy than thought. Sadly, mythology distracts us everywhere.

Insofar as I'm concerned, most scary of all, mythology too often makes lies out of clearly unsubstantiated conclusions to our national detriment, thus almost invariably stultifying creative thinking!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY 

OKAY, HERE'S THE "SKINNY" AS I SEE IT!

By Edwin Cooney

I've always enjoyed politics, although the older I get, the more temperamental politics becomes, and the more I experience it as an observer, the more cynical it all seems.

First, a few truisms! Politics has always been just plain nasty. Like your children, politicians almost invariably have tried to get away with just about everything imaginable. Politics is invariably divisive as supporters of one candidate threaten not to support the winning candidate in the general election as a matter of principle. It's never politics. Not even ideologues who insist that they are above politics are honest enough to acknowledge their pettiness. (An example of that was Ralph Nader's Green Party candidacy in Florida which cost Al Gore the White House in 2000. I'm told that Mr. Nader, who made a living telling his truth about GM and other corporations, denies his culpability in the 2000 Democratic disaster.) 

Vote-getting and vote-denying schemes are an American tradition. The slogan "vote early and vote often" was a way of life in that area of the country known today as the “honest Midwest.” Back in the “gilded age,” just after the Civil War, both parties, even Mr. Lincoln's Republicans, began practices that were eventually picked up by New Deal Democrats in the Twentieth Century. The states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, each bordering the Ohio River at their most southern point, used that vital waterway as an avenue on which to manipulate votes. Riverboats regularly traveled up and down the Ohio carrying conscientious and dedicated voters to riverfront polling places. You could vote early in the morning in Ohio, make some strategic stops in Indiana, vote in Illinois, and have time to vote your way back to your Ohio home. Senator Benjamin Harrison, who won the electoral vote in 1888 over President Grover Cleveland while losing the popular vote, once while president-elect, happily suggested to Matthew Quay, one of his campaign managers, that surely the Lord had granted him the election. However, Quay observed to a crony afterward, "he wouldn't have said that if he knew how many good men came that close to serving in the penitentiary on his political behalf last election day!"

Here's a final truism: the rich will always have an advantage in politics. You can't expect the rich to leave their money and prejudices at home, any more than you can expect the poor to try and vote in great numbers on election day — even if historically they've occasionally sought to register their dead!

This presidential election year seems especially loaded with scoundrels of all sorts. First, but hardly foremost, there's that socialist scoundrel from Vermont via Brooklyn, Bernie Sanders, who is a Democrat by caucus but a Socialist by name. Then, there's that Indian squaw ("Pocahontas") scoundrel via Oklahoma, Massachusetts and the United States Senate, Elizabeth Warren. Next there's Papa Joe Biden, whose biggest flaw was not controlling his adult son from joining a foreign country's energy corporation while Biden senior served as Vice President of the United States. And everyone knows, of course, how mean busy little Amy Klobuchar is to her staff — imagine how mean she must subsequently be to her dog who can't tell on her, although I'll just bet you that President Trump understands dog language and will soon tweet what Amy's dog has said about her to the whole nation! Then there's Mayor Pete Buttigieg who's so wet behind the ears that he thinks the presidency is a natural one step up from being Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, an office he may have handled well, but hardly flawlessly. As typical of the time, we have, not one or even two billionaires running for president, but three: Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, and…one other guy who we would laugh ourselves silly at if only he weren't the incumbent president, Donald John Trump! As for the other two billionaires, many fear that their money and ambition is being spent to satisfy their egos more than for "we, the people." As for the candidates who have fallen by the wayside, the truth may well be (even though they would never admit it) that they are the lucky ones!

I don't like to write this, let alone think it, but I'm almost sure that Michael Bloomberg will be the Democratic candidate. He and President Trump will ultimately square off for the big prize. Even sadder, I'm slowly, but very reluctantly, coming to the conclusion that we are becoming an oligarchy. For years, conservatives have insisted that this country has been on a steady deadly drift to the left since Franklin Roosevelt who became the "root of all evil.” However, in the wake of the 2010 United Citizens triumph in the Supreme Court, it appears to me that my friend Tim and his lovely lady Deb (perhaps the only liberals in all of Alabama) are right about the oncoming of American fascism. Fascism occurs when government and business unite to control the socio/economic structure of a country for their mutual benefit. Fascists, like Communists, Nazis and theocracies, are invariably one-party states. Someone recently observed that if a nation has only one party, it really is a no-party state. Hopefully,  we haven't arrived at fascism, nazism or a theocracy yet, but Tim is looking more like a keen political prognosticator and that’s very, very scary!

As I wrote at the outset of this musing, I've always enjoyed politics with all its nastiness, inconsistencies, and even broken promises. Lately, however, politics has become downright squalid. Part of this has to do with the way politics has become integrated with religion. Religious leaders invariably insist that politicians must be not only moral, but moral according to their exacting religious standards.

We wouldn't be either free or human if we didn't expect our leaders to respond to our needs, but perhaps there's a requirement we need to insist on before we decide if a candidate is qualified to hold any public office, let alone the presidency.

Consider this question: How would either you or I be the loser if we were to ask every potential officeholder to demonstrate how he or she plans to work with members of the loyal opposition before we grant them our vote?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

SO, WHAT'S NEXT??

Now that the Democrats have impeached and the Republicans have acquitted the president, two questions rear their ugly heads.

Question #1: What does it all mean?

Question #2: Where do we go from here?

The answer to Question #1 is fundamental. Having acquitted President Trump by asserting that the desire of a president to be re-elected widens his power to use the government on his personal behalf regardless of the civil rights of his opponents, this threatens the very checks and balance of power that's the cornerstone of our national liberty.

Not everyone who was offended by the outcome of the Senate vote on Wednesday, February 5th is on the left! One of the most common concerns throughout our 241 years of history under the Constitution is that delicate balance of federal authority mentioned above.

A California friend of mine sent me the following reaction to the Senate's decision not to call witnesses and he has given me permission to quote him here:

"After 232 years and four months, the US Constitution finally died today. One of its core points was the then revolutionary separation of powers. Today the Senate decided that that concept was obsolete and not longer functional."

My friend David is no liberal. In fact he's a libertarian who is jealous of our property rights and especially dedicated of our rights to gun ownership. He is one of the smartest men I know. We have many differences as to the legitimate role of the federal government and the risks therein of federal activism. 

This is what you'll find at the close of every email message you receive from David:

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Olmstead v U.S., 277 U.S. 348 (1928), Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting.”

In other words, men of liberty are naturally alert to the dangers of men to whom liberty is contemptible. The real danger comes from those well-meaning men who lack any understanding of what might destroy liberty. What makes David's assessments so powerful is that far more than being a man with an agenda, he is a man of principle. I've never heard David express any favor for a political candidate, especially any leftist-oriented or Democratic Party candidate I tend to support.

What's apparent just lately is that President Trump has dropped all pretense regarding his call to the Ukrainian president. No longer does he deny the "quid pro quo.” Furthermore, he actually crows over the “quo!"

In the wake of recent events, Republicans will seek to demonstrate that Democrats sought the president's impeachment out of personal resentment, hatred and denial of the legitimacy of the 2016 election. The  Democrats will seek to demonstrate that Republicans have surrendered their obligations as public servants to the authoritarian whims of a president totally devoid of knowledge or even of understanding of the office he holds under the Constitution of the United States.

A most dramatic incident occurred this week that must command our attention: Willard Mitt Romney's decision to hold President Trump responsible for what Senator Romney decided was the President's abuse of his office. Senator Romney's “guilty" vote was an act of both principle and courage. As I see it, after having received party preferment in 2012, Romney did have a special obligation to protest presidential abuse of power. Last Wednesday, with the whole nation watching, he did just that. By so doing, Mitt Romney became to me an historic national hero more worthy of becoming president than he was in 2012. It would be grand if a former president named Bush and a former candidate named Dole would support Mitt Romney! 

The crucial question, even more urgent than what I asked at the outset, is: how much do you and I care about President Trump's assumption of limitless presidential power and authority? As I see it, that's what this impeachment effort has been all about.

Does it matter if a president acknowledges the limitations of the office he holds? Is the presidency wholly about his or her personal agenda? Have other presidents been subject to constant criticism almost from the moment they took office?

Of course they have! On more than one occasion, President Carter asserted that criticism and ridicule go with the territory.

Last week, I asserted that the "slippery slope" concept of the likely result of any misdeed mostly reflects people's fears more than it validates their conclusions. I concluded by saying that politics will eventually prevail, but where do we go from here?

Twenty-twenty is a political year.  It's time to get political beyond your comfort zone. Your personal liberty may well depend upon activist politics. Don't depend on others to free you from the personal prejudices and personally glorifying demands of a president totally unworthy of his office.

Like the Minute Men of 1775, beware — those Red Coat Republicans are coming. You don't need bullets to get 'em, all you need are ballots.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

SORRY LIBERALS, SORRY CONSERVATIVES, REGARDLESS OF THE OUTCOME, THIS IMPEACHMENT PROCESS WILL MEAN ZILCH!

By Edwin Cooney

When a politician, regardless of party, ideology, religious conviction, or anything else warns you that a particular law or action will set a permanently damaging social and political precedent (often identified as a "slippery slope”), he or she is only guessing. Thus, when Democrats insist that failure to convict President Trump amounts to a license for permanent presidential mischief, they're merely stressing their fears, the legitimacy of which they will enthusiastically try to sell to the public. When Republicans insist that the president is guilty of something, but that his behavior falls short of impeachable redress, they are conveniently denying the legitimacy of the impeachment process.

To borrow a phrase, when the "tumult and shouting" are over, the mainspring of this process, specifically politics, will remain pretty damned healthy, if you ask me! Since the Senate trial began, what has been fascinating is how the president's legal team has sought to blend legalisms into what is constitutionally a purely political proceeding while Democrats insist that "presidential obstruction" is against the law. (As I see it, the Democrats are more right than the Republicans, but the political and legal processes have been invariably at odds throughout American history.)

Forty-six years ago at this time, the House Judiciary Committee under Democratic Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino, Democrat from New Jersey, was beginning to gather "impeachable evidence" against President Richard M. Nixon. Much of that evidence came from the trials of the Watergate defendants. By July, the committee had adopted three Articles of Impeachment against Mr. Nixon. In the wake of his resignation, many historians insisted that the idea that this is "a government of laws and not of men" had been established through the political process of impeachment. Now, nearly a half a century later, President Donald Trump's supporters find themselves arguing that the president can do anything he wants to do. Even more, so long as he believes that his re-election is in the "national interest," he can even hire a foreign country's government to investigate his political opponents since there is no specific law preventing such a transaction. Democrats, who use the mores of the Founding Fathers much less than conservatives, insist that using foreign governments to accomplish domestic political objectives is a gross violation of patriotic American tradition. The ultimate strategy appears to go something like this: when the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the process. A friend of mine found a quote from Carl Sandberg where he says: "If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell." So, when both the facts and the law are against you, argue the legitimacy of the process. However, in case you think this is "wild" (and I do), consider the first major impeachment proceeding, who was behind it and why, and you might see what I mean when I assert that what's going on in Congress this week means "zilch."

Two signers of the Declaration of Independence were antagonists in the spring of 1804. One was Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, an outspoken partisan and Federalist  (and some insist a drunkard) from the State of Maryland. Appointed by President George Washington, he'd been on the high court since 1796. He was an ardent Federalist opposed to the Republican-Democratic administration of President Thomas Jefferson who was the other antagonist. Justice Chase adamantly opposed the administration's repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801 and the elimination of the circuit judgeships it had created. In November of 1803, the House Judiciary Committee chaired by John Randolph, a friend of President Jefferson, drafted eight Articles of Impeachment against Judge Chase’s partisan opposition to President Jefferson's anti-sedition laws. Frequently, from the bench, Justice Chase had vigorously admonished the administration's judiciary policies. Once the trial got underway in February of 1805, Chase, who testified before the Senate, insisted that he couldn't be impeached for his judiciary conduct, but only for violation of the law. On the surface at least, this dovetails with the argument being made by the Trump team. Jefferson has always been regarded as a strict constitutionalist, a defender against federal encroachment of any kind. However, nettled by Chase's cantankerousness, President Jefferson insisted Chase's temperament rather than the law was the important issue at hand. Just as interesting, Richard Nixon's last attorney general, a fairly conservative Republican gentleman named William Saxbe, insisted that the House could impeach any president "just because they dislike the color of his tie.”

Finally, there are those who insist that Senators Mitch McConnell and Charles Schumer are arguing opposite to the way they argued during the Clinton impeachment Senate trial. (Of course, I'm not surprised and I invite you not to be surprised either!)

President Andrew Johnson did in fact break a law — The Tenure of Office Act. However, it was a law passed by an overwhelmingly partisan Republican Congress strictly for political advantage. The “Tenure of Office Act” required the president to get the permission of the United States Senate before dismissing a cabinet member. Johnson vetoed the law but the Congress overrode the veto. Thus when Johnson dismissed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton without the Senate’s permission, Congress passed Articles of Impeachment against him.  That law would be repealed in 1887 and, in 1926, the high court asserted that the 1867 Tenure of Office Act was likely unconstitutional. However, it's important to keep in mind that at the time President Andrew Johnson defied the act, it was regarded as the law of the land. President Johnson’s opposition to the law was an act of political defiance. Even more ironic, President Reagan violated the Boland Amendment (a law making it unlawful to aid the Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980s), but no one possessed the political gonads to even suggest impeaching him!

The major difference between the 1999 Clinton impeachment and the 2020 Trump impeachment is that all of the relevant evidence for judgment in Clinton’s case was a matter of public record through the legal process including the president's testimony in court, the president's conduct before and after court, and the circumstance that by the time of the trial, the president had lost any control of the evidence. Only the president’s motives and conduct were at issue. The law already had been enforced through a financial penalty of compensation to Paula Jones. Today, President Trump controls the evidence relevant to a substantial investigation of the charges against him. To sum it all up, the main difference between today’s impeachment situation is that Donald Trump, unlike Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, or Bill Clinton, controls the evidence. 

Another distinction that’s deliberately being fudged by the administration and its apologists is that impeachment is different from prosecution in a criminal court. The question in an impeachment isn’t whether or not there’s a reasonable doubt, the question is whether the defendant’s actions are politically injurious to our way of governing. 

I originally opposed impeaching the president due to the very political aspect of the act of impeachment. It seemed to me that to impeach President Trump this early would take too much of the necessary momentum out of the political process when the time comes for judgment by the people next November 3rd.

Under the law, no person may be a witness against himself. Under the rules of impeachment, due to the purely political nature of the process, officeholders must be compelled to be witnesses as defenders of their public office and responsibilities rather than as defenders of their personal individualism and liberty at stake under the law. As for the argument that the Democrats' impeachment attempt is against the results of the 2016 electoral outcome, that is pure nonsense. Insofar as I'm aware, if President Trump were convicted, a gentleman named Mike Pence would be available to carry on his old boss's agenda.

Of course it matters whether or not President Trump is impeached, but last Friday’s Senate decision to not bother with the evidence clearly demonstrates that it will only matter when a liberal president offends a Congress controlled by conservatives.

Remember, the President of the United States of America is the head of the most dangerous force that political, social and religious conservatives insist they fear and even loathe. If you doubt me, wait until President Alexandria Ocasio Cortez pays Puerto Rico to get the dirt on her Republican opponent as she seeks a second term administrating the Green New Deal!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY