What is common-good conservatism?

truthout via alternet...

What is common-good conservatism? It is a political philosophy rooted in the stewardship ethic of traditional conservatism. It begins with three simple premises: that recognition of the shared dignity of all human beings is the essential predicate of a just society, that rights always correspond to duties and that we bear a collective responsibility toward one another. Forward-looking, solutions-oriented and committed to social, economic and environmental justice, common-good conservatism champions the interests of average Americans and promotes civic virtue while laying the foundations for broadly shared prosperity and human flourishing in the 21st century. It is both transformative and restorative - a political and intellectual rebirth.

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We must ensure that our economy and our government equitably distribute the benefits and burdens generated by both booms and busts. Taxation is also a mechanism for putting reasonable moral boundaries on greed. We must abandon libertarian-conservatism's reflexive opposition to any proposals to increase revenue - a millionaires' tax, ending the Bush-era tax cuts, or returning the top personal income tax rates to their levels during the Clinton administration, are all measures that we should discuss and consider. At the same time, we must identify and eliminate subsidies, loopholes and exemptions that benefit giant corporations, like the famous corporate jet tax break, in order to ensure that they also contribute their fair share.

Growing inequality, declining opportunity and a widely shared perception of systemic unfairness (that the game is rigged in favor of the super rich), ultimately undermine the stability of the social order and delegitimize our political and economic institutions. They must be addressed, so that our society can be maintained and extended forward in time.

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Common-good conservatism, with its emphasis on stewardship and its recognition of the traditional conservative concern for preserving communities and institutions over time, is the solution.

Intellectually bankrupt and morally craven, libertarian-conservatism is hurtling toward its Gotterdammerung, a political version of Ragnarok where the sky falls and the world burns.

But there is still hope. From the smoldering ashes of libertarian-conservatism's funeral pyre, something fresh and wondrous might emerge, a conservative phoenix, singing a beautiful new song. That song is conservatism, for the common good. And with its first notes, we will greet the coming of the dawn.

wouldn't it be loverly...?

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Counterpunch: It’s the system that’s toxic. Goldman Sachs merely operates well within the toxicity.

darwin bond-graham posting in counterpunch...

Whether Goldman Sachs is or isn’t an organization gripped by a toxic culture isn’t all that important when one considers the destructive impact that derivatives have had, and continue to have upon society. Capitalism as it functions today is completely dependent upon derivatives. Interest rates swaps are the single largest type of derivative, measured by notional amount, because they achieve an integration of different national, regional, and sectoral financial markets into one global financial system. It’s in the genetics of the project of financial globalization, fueled by derivatives, that the real problem lies, not in the internal culture of Goldman Sachs, or the illegal behaviors of some bankers across many firms. The real crime lies in perfectly legal and legitimated activities whereby a few powerful corporations design a system that puts the welfare of the world’s vast majority at grave risk. It’s the system that’s toxic. Goldman Sachs merely operates well within the toxicity.

repeating myself - which i am wont to do - it's absolutely the system...

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Money in politics - addiction as a metaphor for corruption

all in all, a useful metaphor...

william b. daniels in truthout...

Addiction and recovery metaphors are helpful for framing the private money crisis facing American democracy. The funders and the lobbyists are the dealers. Private money is the drug of choice. Members of Congress are the addicted consumers. Cynical and apathetic voters and the Citizens United Supreme Court justices are the codependents who enable the corruption machine to continue functioning. There can be no sobriety unless there is complete abstinence. This dynamic is what makes Congressional reform so daunting and cynicism such a facile response.

yes, and...?

Can we afford to be cynical? Do we give up on electoral politics and accept that our democracy is a corrupt, private-money machine? Or do we stop being codependent? Do we intervene and take steps to stop the new bosses in 2012? Do we confront the elephant in the room and show the addicts, the dealers and the codependents that we, the people, are the higher power of the Constitution?

We have all the tools. We can register voters and counter voter suppression laws. We can cultivate and support local and state candidates committed to the public interest. We can contribute. We can seek out every eligible voter who believes in the public interest and persuade them to vote. We can vote and participate in get-out-the-vote drives in our own communities.

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Every time a hit piece attacks a candidate committed to public-interest policies, we strike back with the truth and the facts. We explain the manipulation to our friends and acquaintances. When we see an ad promoting an evidence-free ideological candidate, we expose it as the machine talking. When we see candidates thriving without a campaign organization, we check for their boss connections. By striking back in these and similar ways, we will help to knock out the candidates the new bosses purchased with private money.

So power up, cynics. We are America’s higher power. We need your help to change our dysfunctional republic and restore the American social contract.

mr. daniels has considerably more faith in our profoundly and - dare i say - terminally broken system than i do... i have been belaboring what to do for a number of years and have come to the conclusion that incremental fixes simply ain't gonna cut it... i believe the only thing that can save us now is a constitutional convention and what's the likelihood we're going to see one of those any time soon...? the other option is a deus ex machina which i give about the same odds of happening...

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An embarrassment for Congress and a far-reaching blow to Washington’s financial credibility...? HAHAHAHA...!

oh, yeah... like there's any financial credibility left...

what kind of credibility could possibly remain for a country that has thrown trillions of dollars at its super-rich elites and their bankster puppets, has a larger defense budget than the rest of the planet combined, flushes billions and billions of dollars into the twin sinkholes of afghanistan and iraq, smooths the way for the loss of millions of jobs to other countries but works overtime to lighten the tax loads of the very corporations responsible, allows many more millions to be thrown out of their homes with no recourse, and then - THEN - turns around and burns the midnight oil in an attempt to shred the tattered remnants of the social safety net and place the burden for all of this on the very citizens who have already been repeatedly victimized in the decades-long rape and pillage...

from a nyt op-ed...

We are no fans of the supercommittee. It is undemocratic, and the deep, automatic cuts the law would impose if the committee fails to reach agreement are gimmicky and potentially dangerous. But walking away at this point would be an embarrassment for Congress and a far-reaching blow to Washington’s financial credibility.

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Simply dismissing the committee and undoing the sequester would be such a vast admission of Congressional failure that it could push down the nation’s credit rating, lead to chaos in financial markets and severely cripple hopes for an economic recovery. Republicans created the policies that forced up the deficit and then refused to compromise with President Obama. They cannot simply walk away now. Panel members have only a few days to come up with a plan that balances new revenues with spending cuts. That is the only way to wrestle down the deficit without doing huge damage to the economy and the country.

there isn't any credibility... there hasn't been any credibility for quite some time... with the congressional approval rating at a jaw-dropping 9%, talking about congressional credibility is beyond ridiculous... whatever happens - or doesn't happen - isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference to a system that is so profoundly broken, the only sensible thing to do is sit back and wait for the implosion...

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Why Occupy Wall Street and its offspring should stay away from electoral politics

glenn...

[T]he reason this is a street protest movement (rather than, say, a voter-registration crusade or an OFA project) is precisely because the protesters concluded that dedicating themselves to the President’s re-election and/or the Democratic Party is hardly a means for combating Wall Street’s influence, rising wealth inequality or corporatist control of the political process.

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[T]he unique value and promise of these protests is that they are independent of prevailing political institutions, and it’s difficult to see how these protests can simultaneously be fully integrated into those institutions while preserving that value.

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Dedicating oneself principally to the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects or Barack Obama’s re-election campaign would seem a glaring non sequitur to those concerns.

i am in total agreement... our electoral process is so seriously broken and so fundamentally compromised by the vast amounts of money thrown at it by our super-rich elites who are hell-bent on vacuuming up every last scrap of money and power on the planet, it's pure idiocy to waste time on it unless and until it's fixed...

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