Bonus March Again

The Bonus Marchers and the 99%

During World War I, it became evident that the country could not pay its soldiers enough.  The war was fed by the largest peace time draft in the nation's history, larger than the Civil War.   And, unlike the Civil War, patriotic young men could not buy their way out of service.  During the Civil War the draft was very unpopular, resulting in some rioting.  To quell this anger, a draftee could pay someone else to take his place. 

Of course this meant that the rich did not have to fight, and many did not, as the casualty rates climbed into the hundreds of thousands. 

World War I was different.  A patriotic fervor shot through the country, as the United States entered the war to prove it was now a great power on the world stage. 

As usual, this inferiority complex was based on nothing, since America had been a world power for nearly one hundred years; after the Civil War the United States was without a doubt the most powerful military force on the planet, it just didn't know it.

So, the draft filled the ranks, and the war was fairly short by world war standards.  It was so short,  the income tax had just been started in 1916, that the pay was ridiculously low.

So, Congress came up with the idea of a Bonus, that would be paid in 1940, to WWI veterans, who would be retiring about then.  Moreover, widows and orphans of veterans would also get the bonus.

This was the first "entitlement" benefit ever attempted by the United States government.  By today's standards it was ridiculous low, but it was a promise nonetheless.

Everything was fine until 1929.  The Great Depression made it clear that the government would have great difficulty making good on the bonus, since tax revenues had already been cut by Republicans during the 1920s, with the same assumption that the free enterprise system would fix everything.  This approach worked as well then as it has now, resulting in economic ruin, injustice and inequality. 

Of course, in 1929, 30 and 31, it was obvious the private enterprise system was failing, and the small bonus the veterans had been promised, became a "pipe dream".

At first this was not a big thing, after all it was a small amount of money for each veteran.  But as the depression deepened, and it became obvious Wall Street Bankers and investors had schemed, cheated, and lied in rampant speculation that destroyed middle class lives.   Veterans, who had no unemployment insurance, now looked upon the bonus promise as yet another lie that had cost them their economic futures. 

In 1930 there was no safety net.  Private charity was it, no welfare, no unemployment.  People were starving.

So the veterans marched.  They marched all over the country, calling attention to the unfairness of the American capitalist system.  To be sure, there were socialists and communists involved, seeing an opportunity for their cause (remember the Bolshevik Revolution was barely a decade old).  Regardless, there is no evidence that the radical left in fact led the Bonus March, even though conservatives have been claiming so eversince. 

Like today's 99 percent demonstrations, the Bonus Marches started peacefully.  After all these were veterans, of the Great War, and deserved respect.

Soon however, conservatives like Hoover lost patience with the marchers, and finally called in troops to contain the protests.  Famously, in Washington D.C. a riot broke out, mostly led by the bungling of  Douglas MacCarther (who even then was fancying himself a national leader).  The Army charged the marchers, shots were fired, and there were casualties.  The marchers were driven from their encampment, and Hoover was made out to be the villain;  attacking brave veterans.    In fact, history shows this debacle to be the Army's fault. 

Hoover's apparent lack of compassion, added to Roosevelt's campaign, and led to Hoover's defeat in the 1932 Presidential race. 

Today, the 99% are in a sense just like the Bonus Marches of the 1930s.  They are marching because of economic injustice and are angry with the financial elites in the country.  And, conservatives are calling for violent put downs of their supposed unlawful assemblies. 

It is interesting,  to watch conservatives  when the obvious economic injustice of the United States is divulged.  Af first they are amused, then they discount the protests, then quickly they call for violent suppression. 

Of course, in the 30s this suppression only added fuel to the fire, leading to the New Deal under Roosevelt.

Should we be so lucky again this time!!!!

Lies, Lies, Lies

 More than a few years ago, Richard Nixon, smarting from his loss to John F. Kennedy, promised that he would never be out lied and out smarted again. His fantasy world dictated that like Eisenhower, he was somehow a highly moral man, whose integrity was everything; and Kennedy had stole the election. In spite of this, Nixon according to his manufactured legend, said nothing.

 In fact, Eisenhower was a highly moral man, even though he presided over the largest combat arms experience in mankind’s history. Nixon was not. But, to compete and win in 1968, Nixon pioneered the political ideology that expediency rules everytime. An entire generation of conservatives followed suit, led by the likes of Carl Rove, and “dirty tricks” became the mainstay of the Republican Party.

 A major rationale for this expediency behavior was it was the only way counter what was becoming an endless series of liberal and New Deal victories, culminating in the War on Poverty and Medicare. This occurred right after the Democratic Party had finally purged itself of southern Dixiecrates in the mid-sixties. Suddenly the traditional counter to Democrat political hegemony was gone, racist southern democrates were purged from the party, when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

 Incredibly, the “party of Lincoln” that had hisorically been for the North and for Civil Rights (at an arms length) adopted under Nixon’s leadership a “southern strategy” and gleefully welcomed scores of disillusioned southerners, who were left without a party after the Democrats came out for Civil Rights. Nixon cynically coupled this political act that would have sickeded the Radical Republicans of post Civil War politics, with a “silent majority” ploy, that capitalized on the anger Americans had with the anti-war and hippie movement.

 Nixon wanted to win, even if it meant renouncing basic Republican Party positions that went straight to the heart of Lincoln. To be sure of victory, he threw in a good dose of reactionary philosophy drawing on the anger of white Americans with the hippies and the “uppity” blacks. The Watts Riots and later inner city explosions did not hurt his claim that only he could pacify not only Vietnam, but the United States as well. He campaigned in 1968 on an end the war platform using a barely pronouncable “Vietnamization” to explain his exit strategy from Vietnam. Of course, students of history remember that once Nixon was elected he intensified the war, by invading Laos and Cambodia and bombing non-stop until the Paris Peace Accords. But Nixon’s victory of 1968 followed by his landslide in 1972 established forever that “dirty tricks” worked, and Republican leadership followed whatever was popular and expedient and never again took the difficult path of “doing the right thing”, that was seemingly getting “do gooder” liberals in more and more trouble. “Bleeding heart” liberals was established as a dirisive term, and the label stuck, along with “effeet intellectual snobs”. Liberals who had definitely done the right thing in establishing basic human rights with the Civil Rights Act, were depected as soft on a whole host of issues, from war to criminal justice.

 The basic facts that liberal leadership had won two World Wars was conveniently forgotten, and a NEW REALITY was created that only conservatives were tough enough to win the cold war; or any war for that matter. And this last falsehood brings us up to date. Conservatives are busy right now creating new realities all over the place, from tax cuts that don’t really reduce revenues, to wars that don’t really cost anything. George Bush ran the country into the ditch, economically and politically, but didn’t really, it is Obama’s fault. Remember, winning is everything, even if the truth is lost and even buried for effect. If you win the election it doesn’t matter how. The most recent egregious example is the “Jobs, jobs, jobs” mantra of Republicans during the 2010 elections; which has been followed by tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, no jobs.

 In fact, joblessness is a learned behavior from liberals, it is the unemployed’s fault for being without work, it is a result of liberals being too soft on workers. I know, I know, it doesn't read very well does it?

 But , it seems that it is working. Obama’s approval ratings are falling, the country is mired in a recession that is never ending, and incredibly conservative policies that caused the mess are discounted by a bewildered public. A big problem exists with all this lying however.

 Fascism has many faces, but a very important one is using propaganda to create a false reality that is used to manipulate the masses into doing things individuals would never do. World War II provides countless examples of propaganda organized around a fictitious world view, that motivated mass murder on a horrendous scale. And herein lies American most important danger. Nixon’s expediency finally tripped him up, with the Watergate debacle. If that had not happened, it is possible Nixon would have destroyed the Democratic Party, resulting in one pary rule, which could have veered the United States into fascism. Today, this threat is even more possible.

 Corporations, who are making record profits by not hiring workers, are pouring billions into electing far right conservatives, whose agendas are quite frankly, fascist to the core. When nation states accept fictitious depictions of reality, and follow leaders who demand only that they believe the garbage they are being fed, democracy dies quickly, and fascism is right there.

 If you listen to the lies of current conservatives Presidential candidates, and the fanciful reality they pretend to support, you can see the danger; and it is not around the corner, it is right here, right now.

 Lies, Lies, Lies….

Find Photo I.D. in the Constitution...I dare you

I had lunch before the Stanford game at the Buck/Cardinal Club luncheon this weekend. We shared a table with a nice couple from Orange County. After some friendly banter we wandered into political territory. After a few minutes it was obvious she was a member of the tea party. She began what became a diatribe with the comment that she pushed vigorously that the country needed to "adhere to the greatest document ever written; the Constitution". We agreed with her, that constitutional law is very important to our democracy. But then she branched into the 10th Amendment, and the tea party fundamentalist brand of constitutional law. "If it isn't written there, it shouldn't be", she argued. And then it struck me, and I replied, you are right, where is photo I.D. in the constitution? Suddenly she got real quiet. I pushed the point, noting that many Republican states have passed laws requiring photo I.D., along restrictive lines, to vote. In many cases student I.D.s don't work, only drivers licenses and/or gun permits. The restrictive attempt to exclude the poor and the young from a fundamental constitutional right is obvious. I commented that the effort to steal elections, by denying millions the right to vote is obvious, and certainly is unconstitutional to its core. And from her, silence. Nothing.. Not a damn word. If fact electronics, photography, climatology, physics, astronomy, practically all modern science and discovery are not mentioned in the Constitution, because it was written (save the Amendments) over two hundred years ago. People owned slaves in those days, women could not vote or even hold property for that matter. A photo I.D. would be a painting. The Congress of the United States passes laws constantly reapplying the Constitution to modern problems and needs. The Constitution is also changed constantly through the practice of Judicial Review. Thankfully, the lady from Orange County was not a Stanford graduate, but married to one, who interestingly was about thirty years her senior. A beginning political science student learns the flexibility of our system through dynamic Constitutional Law. The voter registration photo I.D. laws are blatantly unfair and I hope will be declared unconstitutional, not because photo I.D. isn't in the Constitution, but because they are unfair and undemocratic. Shame on the tea party for pushing laws that are so unconstitutional. This proves conclusively that their "Constitutional Purity" is B.S., it's all about political power. Grab power, twist the law to do so, wall off opposition, and next fascism.