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Secretary of state for work and pensions Iain Duncan Smith delivers his speech at the Conservative Party annual conference 2015. Isabel Infantes/EMPICS Entertainment/PA Images. All rights reserved.Labours shock success in the snap general election left poll takers more than slightly embarrassed (except YouGov and Survation), and political commentators scrambling to cover their backsides. In their struggle to adjust to a resurgent Labour Party led by the unelectable Jeremy Corbyn the nominal progressives among the pundits provided a textbook guide to the difference between centrist neoliberalism and social democracy.

The Conservative manifesto included, among its political disasters, the proposal that care for the elderly should be funded by drawing on their assets with an exemption at 100,000.The proposal was quickly dropped due to opposition among Conservative MPs and in effect called for wealth-tested funding of residential care (nursing homes).

While ridiculing the Prime Minister for her U-turn, at least two opinion writers in The Guardian endorsed the proposal as necessary and fair. The proposal was necessary because of our ageing population and a life expectancy considerably greater than retirement age. It qualified as fair because it exempted the poor who rarely hold any assets.

For the reactionaries the division is between the undeserving poor and the deserving non-poor (who do the right thing), shirkers and strivers.

This proposal, and its appeal to centrists across parties, shows the difference between neoliberals and social democrats. Neoliberals themselves divide into reactionaries (e.g. Cameron) and progressives (e.g. Blair). For both tendencies the population falls into two categories, poor and non-poor. For the reactionaries the division is between the undeserving poor and the deserving non-poor (who do the right thing), shirkers and strivers. In this framework the reactionary neoliberals assign government the task of serving the strivers and providing minimalist support to the shirkers in a manner designed to coerce them out of their feckless sloth.

For the progressive neoliberals populations are also divided into the poor and non-poor, but they alter the categories to the deserving poor and the undeserving middle class. The latter have incomes that allow them to take care of themselves without government handouts. The function of government is to provide a decent safety net and support those who cannot take care of themselves, the deserving poor. This approach to social policy is epitomized in an 11 May comment by Polly Toynbee on the Labour manifesto:

"...[G]ifting large sums to students from wealthy families, free school meals to those who can well afford them, or triple-locking pensions to the rich retired may add to a sense of [Labours] extravagance."

Pure neoliberalism underlies this statement the role of social policy is to protect the poor and the market mechanism will take care of the rest of us. Public provision including a decent pension consists of gifts made to curry electoral favour.

In a letter to The Guardian a Liverpool Labour counsellor provided a clear and concise rejection, Polly and [Theresa] May are wrong to make funding social care a personal not a shared responsibility.

That sentence captures the social democratic philosophy which I would elaborate as equal universal provision, funded by progressive taxation. Social provision rather than commercialization through markets is the underlying political economy of social democracy. Social democrats restrict markets; neoliberals enhance them.

The social democratic commitment to universal provision directly contradicts the neoliberal vision of a market dominated economy.

The social democratic commitment to universal provision directly contradicts the neoliberal vision of a market dominated economy. Over the last decade neoliberals have responded to the social democratic principle of universal provision by labelling it populism of the left. Again Toynbee provides an excellent example while applauding the Labour Partys gains in the general election, she attributes it in part to bribery, Labour and especially Corbyn appealing to crass material interests,

"How do you catch the attention of the young, get them out of bed and into the polling booth for the first time? Yes, with a better vision, but also with a colossal eye-catching bribe of free tuition fees for all, however wealthy, never mind the sums."

Centrist neoliberals in Britain accept the principle of general provision for health. Few if any would make the above statement with health care substituted for tuition fees. The same is the case were the replacement words primary and secondary schooling. These are accepted as justified cases of universal provision by the overwhelming majority of neoliberals, but anything more is bribery or giveaways.

Yet the arguments for and against are the same. If those that can afford it should pay university fees and we means test for grants and loans, why not the same for primary and secondary schooling? If free university fees represent a subsidy to the middle class and wealthy then so do free primary and secondary education.

The fallacy in the centrist neoliberal argument should jump off the page the NHS and primary and public education are not free. Our government funds them through taxation. US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote, Taxes are what we pay for civilized society and as a general rule the more developed countries levy more taxes.

From Margaret Thatcher through John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown (albeit briefly), the calamitous coalition of Tories and Liberal Democrats, David Cameron and now Theresa May, the neoliberal vision prevailed market forces would serve the interests of the many and a safety net would protect the few. The differences between the Conservative and Labour governments consist largely of how meagre or generous the safety net should be.

But market forces have not served the many. On the contrary, they have rewarded very few. The implementation of the neoliberal vision resulted in growing poverty, stagnant or falling wages and systemic economic instability.

Jeremy Corbyn and the resurgent Labour Party offer a fundamentally different vision, one that Clement Atlee and his colleagues would quickly recognize were they with us social services delivered on the basis of universal provision funded by progressive taxation on incomes and wealth.

Universal provision unites society rather than dividing it.

That vision in its 21st century form provided the basis for a dramatic leap in the general election by the Labour Party, and should in the not distant future gift the keys of 10 Downing Street to Jeremy Corbyn.

Universal provision is far more than a vote-grabber, it is the only viable and sustainable way to organize a just society, because of its three great advantages.

First, universal provision is non-discriminatory, non-bureaucratic and lacks the arbitrary rigidity of means testing. All forms of means testing either suffer from the borderline problem or prove extremely bureaucratic in application. A strict income or wealth qualification cannot avoid excluding some needy households while including others less needy.

The alternative to all-or-nothing means testing is a sliding scale. For example, for households in the bottom 10% of the income distribution there would be no payment for university fees, the 10% above would pay a quarter of the fees, etc. Implementing such a system requires considerable bureaucracy and intrusive monitoring of household income and wealth. Universal provision of university education funded by progressive taxation would involve less bureaucracy than now exists.

Second, means testing by definition divides households into the haves and the have-nots; indeed, it reinforces and institutionalizes that division. This division fosters the shirker/striver and undeserving/deserving ideology of neoliberalism.

Universal provision unites society rather than dividing it.

Third and related to the second, universal provision increases the beneficiaries of social services, thus creating broad electoral support. The NHS enjoys overwhelming popularity precisely because it benefits everyone. A YouGov poll earlier this year found that the vast majority favoured the public health system and 53% of respondents endorsed a higher employee contribution to fund it.

The NHS provides the vindication of universal coverage, the efficient and effective means of provision and the basis for its own political sustainability. Thus we have the golden rule of social democracy. Broaden the beneficiary pool, eliminate poverty and reduce inequality while gaining electoral support. That is the strategy of the 99%.

Read more from the original source:
The rise of neoliberal contempt for democracy - Open Democracy

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to members of the media after the weekly Senate Republican Policy Luncheon at the Capitol May 9.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

While much of Washington fixates on Donald Trump and his scandals, a small band of Senate Republicans is workingin secreton a bill that would slash health insurance for tens of millions of Americans and jeopardize access for millions more. And theyre doing this on a so-called fast track meant to preclude debate. The reason for this rushed process? To obscure the obvious: that at heart, the American Health Care Act is little more than a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans.

Jamelle Bouie isSlates chief political correspondent.

Once the working group emerges from its cloister, the bill will be scored by the Congressional Budget Office, and thenin a sharp break with procedurebypass the committee process and go straight to the floor without a public hearing. There are even suggestions that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will use legislative gamesmanship to avoid debate entirely, so Republicans can pass the bill without any discussion of its contents and provisions. As Paul Ryan did in the House of Representatives, McConnell intends to restructure one-sixth of the American economy with as little input as possible, freezing out experts, industry representatives, and Democratic lawmakers. This, despite overwhelming opposition from the public; in one recent poll, just 23 percent of respondents said they approved of the Republican health care bill.

And what will the public get if and when the final version of the bill is passed into law? Millions of Americans will either lose their health insurance, see massive new costs, or face added obstacles, from lifetime caps on care to limits based on pre-existing conditions.

Theres no indication Republicans are thinking deeply about free market reforms to the American health care system. But lets just say they are. Perhaps a drastically less-regulated insurance market is worth the cost to ordinary individuals and families. If thats the case, then Republicans owe the country both honesty and transparency. It will get neither. Instead, every indication is that the GOP will push through with a process that holds deliberation in contempt. Thats not to say Republicans arent responding to someonethere are groups, like the Republican base, that want this billbut the broad public opposes the effort.

As it stands, theres a chance the Senate health care bill could pass before the July 4 holiday. Compare this to the process behind the Affordable Care Act. It took most of 2009 for Democrats to produce a bill: months of negotiationincluding a summer of talks between Democratic and Republican senatorsthat involved debate and input, as lawmakers produced drafts, defended proposals, and sold their plan to the public. Congress saw testimony from patients and other ordinary people, and citizens were able to lobby lawmakers with their input.

It was as open a process as possible, and while Democrats werent immune to misleading rhetoric (if you like your plan, you can keep it), the final law wasnt a surprise. It did what Democrats and the president said it would. And the party was proud of their work. This is a big fucking deal, Vice President Joe Biden famously whispered.

None of this is true of Republicans and the AHCA. Theirs is a closed, secretive process. There are no drafts, no inkling of the plan. No speeches defending its major planks or hearings where lawmakers and experts hash out concerns. When pressed with questions, Republicans from the Senate working group refuse to answer. Indeed, asked if it was important to bring a bill to the public, Republicans say, in effect, no. Well, I think were not worried so much about that as we are getting it together so we can get a majority to vote for it, said Sen. Orrin Hatch.

This might be tolerable if Republicans were open about the effects of their plan. But they arent. Theyre lying. Tom Price, secretary of health and human services, insists that the bill preserves Medicaid, telling CNN, We believe the Medicaid population will be cared for in a better way under our program because it will be more responsive to them. In reality, the bill phases out the Medicaid expansion and makes additional cuts, slashing 14 million people from the program. President Trump has made assurances that the bill guarantees coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, which just isnt true. Vice President Mike Pence promises a dynamic national health insurance marketplace that lowers costs, increases quality and gives more choices to working families. Given the massive coverage losses projected under the GOPs health care plan, theres no evidence that anything approaching that promise is on the horizon.

Republicans are pushing forward on an unpopular bill that, by every independent account, will harm millions of Americans. To justify this sprint, the White House is actively sabotaging insurance markets while telling the public that the Affordable Care Act is failing. And in taking this course, theyve shown a breathtaking contempt for democracy, insulating themselves from any political pressure, lying about the policies in question, and hiding this bankrupt process from the country.

This cowardly and factional governingmeant to satisfy a small minority of Republican Party backers, not the public at largewill likely backfire. Given Democratic anger, the presidents unpopularity, and broad discontent with the bill in question, there are decent odds this story ends with a Democratic victory in the 2018 elections and a chance to repair the damage. But between now and then, real people will suffer. Real people will have to decide if they can afford continued treatment. Real people will die. And as far as anyone can tell, the point of all of thisthe secrecy and dishonesty and likely painis tax cuts. Thats it.

Read more:
The Senate's Health Care Secrecy Is a Breathtaking Contempt for Democracy - Slate Magazine

In his brilliant op-ed published in Tuesdays Signal, Achievement worth working toward, columnist Joshua Heath describes the profound melancholy he feels at a time in his life when he should be filled with idealism and hope, anxious to plant the seeds of great dreams and better tomorrows having just graduated from UCLA with a graduate degree in political science.

Instead, he finds that America is broken, he writes.

Joshua quotes a recent study from Princeton wherein 1,800 different U.S. policies implemented between 1981 and 2002 were analyzed. The purpose of the study was to see whether the laws passed reflected the wishes of citizens.

The very disturbing truth was that, in almost every instance, our policies reflected the interests of economic elites and big business, not the citizens.

With the passage of Citizens United, powerful, moneyed individuals and corporations have even more control of how legislation is written and passed.

However, we can all work to overcome this appalling situation. We must strive together to remove money from politics!

This will take the many; it will require a public outcry of a gargantuan magnitude.

There are a number of organizations already working toward this goal. These are some of the things we can do to work toward this end:

We can amend the Constitution to overturn the Citizens United decision (see commoncause.org); we can support the American Anti-Corruption Act (check out represent.us) and follow the money on opensecrets.org.

Find and support a group working to get money out of politics so that our elected representatives dont have to worry about getting money from their very first day on the job!

When campaigns are adequately supported by government not private funds, and the publicly owned media provides ample time for all candidates to air their positions without having to raise millions of dollars, our elected officials will again be able to enact laws that reflect the wishes of the people, not the desires of big money.

We can have our democracy back! It will take work, but we can do it.

Lets make our democracy great again!

Sally White Valencia

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Sally White: Make our democracy great again - Santa Clarita Valley Signal

The Japanese government has passed a law that it claims is designed to punish anyone plotting or preparing to carry out a terrorist attack in the country, although the legislation has immediately been criticized by the UN and analysts who describe it as placing "handcuffs on democracy and civil liberties."

The "conspiracy law" was passed by the Diet in an ill-tempered session that went into the early hours of Thursday morning, with thousands of protestors outside the building chanting slogans against the legislation, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Despite being heavily outnumbered in the chamber, the opposition parties put up a staunch fight against the legislation and were outraged when the government announced that it would by-pass a vote in the Upper House, accusing Abe of attempting to prevent the details of the bill from being closely examined.

PM Abe claimed the legislation was necessary to prevent terrorist attacks in the run-up to and during the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games

Renho, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party, described the government's tactic as the "ultimate form of railroading."

Abe, who survived a no-confidence motion against his government shortly after the conspiracy bill was enacted, claimed the legislation was necessary to prevent terrorist attacks in the run-up to and during the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Olympics explanation

"It is only three years until the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics and I would like to ratify the treaty on organized crime as soon as possible so we can firmly cooperate with international society to prevent terrorism," Abe said.

Read:Mass protests in Tokyo against controversial military bills

Critics claim, however, that while the law has given the authorities the capability to prosecute 277 crimes as a conspiracy, few appear to have any directly link to terrorism. Instead, they point out, the statutes outlaw discussing going hunting for mushrooms in conservation areas, forging postage stamps, sit-in demonstrations and organizing an unlicensed bicycle race.

"This legislation has just given the police here sweeping new powers to crack down on all sorts of activities that, as far as I can see, have absolutely nothing to do with organized crime or terrorism," said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at the Japan campus of Temple University.

"The government has ignored parliamentary procedures to ram this through and I believe that most Japanese will be incredulous at the law as it has been delivered," Kingston told DW. "This can be used to curtail a person's right to privacy, the right to express dissent, the right to know and a person's freedom of expression."

"They have placed handcuffs on democracy and civil liberties, and the ultimate irony is that they claim to be doing it in the interests of protecting people," he added.

Celebration in the Japanese capital: Tokyo won the rights to host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games after defeating fellow bidder Istanbul 60 to 36 votes in a second round of secret voting. Madrid, the other city competing to host the XXXII Olympiad, had been surprisingly eliminated in the first round of voting.

The decision was also met with elation by the Japanese Olympic delegation in Buenos Aires. After wiping off tears of joy, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who flew to the Argentinian capital from the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, said: "By hosting the 2020 Tokyo Games, we will create hope."

Tokyo has promised 'compact Games' for athletes, fans and journalists, with 85 percent of the Olympic venues located only eight kilometers away from the Olympic Village, and hence in the heart of the city.

"Discover tomorrow" is the slogan of the 2020 Games. Future-oriented is also design of the Olympic Stadium by the Iraqi-British star architect Zaha Hadid, which is now set to be realized.

So far, the Olympic Village only exists on paper, or to be exact, in pixels. This graphic shows the concept of the organizers: The 44-hectare village complex is to be constructed in the vicinity of the Ginza shopping and entertainment district and house some 17,000 beds.

The current crisis at the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima nearly cost Tokyo the Games. On election day, PM Abe had to reassure the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that the situation was under control. Fukushima lies some 225 kilometers (140 miles) north of the Japanese capital.

Tokyo is more than just a city, it is rather a country, considering that it is home to some nine million people, according to the latest population census. About 35 million people reside in the larger metropolitan area. This is only made possible through the city's numerous skyscrapers.

In almost no other city on Earth are there so many people on the move as in Tokyo. The megacity has been praised for having a good transport network which is put to the test daily by millions of traffic participants. Around 80 percent of the people in the Japanese capital use trains such as this one transiting on the Yurikamome line.

Tokyo's first Olympic Games were held in 1964, after being canceled in 1940 due to WWII. 5151 athletes from 93 countries took part in the event, which was opened by Emperor Hirohito.

The Olympic Flame is coming back to Tokyo. Yoshinori Sakai, born in Hiroshima on the day the atomic bomb was dropped on the city, lit the flame in 1964, sending out a message for world peace.

Author: Joscha Weber / gd

Previous attempts

The government has attempted to pass similar conspiracy bills four times previously, but all have fallen short in the Diet. To ensure this version won parliament's approval, the number of crimes it specified was reduced and the government played up the threat that terrorists pose to the safety of the 2020 Olympic Games. It also insists the new legislation was necessary to enable Japan to ratify the 2000 UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.

Critics are far from convinced that the wide-ranging regulations will not simply be used to gag anyone who speaks out against the authorities in any way.

"The government is creating a surveillance state and has declared 277 new reasons for the authorities to be able to tap a telephone or carry out surveillance on someone," Kingston said.

"And there is a strong case for this legislation to be compared to the notorious 1925 Peace Preservation Law, which was used by the government of the day to round up communists and set Japan down the dark road to the militarism of the 1930s," he underlined.

And that ties into Abe's desire to rewrite the constitution, which conservatives believe was imposed upon a defeated Japan by the vengeful Allies after the war. A section of the constitution echoes the 1948 International Declaration of Human Rights, although the LDP's 2012 manifesto said that section should be replaced with a passage that imposes duties and obligations on the Japanese people.

Read:Can Japan stub out its smoking habit?

Criticism from the UN

Other critics of the law include the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, while Joseph Cannataci, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to privacy warned in May that the broad terms of the law could be interpreted equally broadly and lead to undue restrictions on privacy and freedom of expression.

Yet others say the concerns are being blown out of proportion.

"The reason the opposition is so angry is because it is the job of the opposition to be angry and claim that this is part of a plot to plunge Japan back into pre-war militarism," said Jun Okumura, a political analyst at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs.

"The important thing to remember is that to counter the weight of the government there is a need for an independent judiciary, an independent public prosecutor's office and a robust and free media, and Japan has all those things," he told DW.

"I do not see any practical fallout from the introduction of this new law," he added. "It would take a sea-change in Japan's security environment and social cohesion for things to get so bad that the government would do what the opposition is suggesting they will use this law to do. It won't happen."

View post:
Japan's new conspiracy law 'puts handcuffs on democracy' - Deutsche Welle

Express-News Editorial Board

Photo: PAUL J. RICHARDS /AFP /Getty Images

An attack on democracy, on all of us

There is much we dont know about the shooting Wednesday at a GOP congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia. But we know enough to suspect that the tone and tenor of our current political disagreements are acting as an unhealthy accelerant for what were already-over-the-top passions.

We know the lone gunman, who shot and wounded five before he was killed in a shootout, made his anti-Trump sentiments known on social media. And we know his victims were Republican members of a congressional baseball team. In other words, members of the same party as President Donald Trump.

We know that the shooter identified as James T. Hodgkinson, 66, from Belleville, Illinois reportedly posted this: Trump is a traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. Its Time to Destroy Trump & Co. Hodgkinsons brother said he was very distraught over Trumps election. He was apparently a volunteer in the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who condemned the shooting.

And we know that Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-South Carolina, was asked by a man he believes was the gunman about the party affiliation of the practicing team. He replied Republican.

Among those shot was House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, two law enforcement officials, an aide for Texas GOP Rep. Roger Williams and a lobbyist for Tyson Foods.

In a statement, the president said, We may have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember that everyone who serves in our nations capital is here because, above all, they love our country.

Wed broaden that definition of people who love their country to include most Americans why the need to calm our disagreements are necessary.

But this shooting is different in a noteworthy way.

The shooting is reminiscent of the one that claimed U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Tucson, as a victim in 2011. She survived with brain injury, but six were killed in that shooting. The gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, was ultimately judged incompetent, didnt stand trial and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He was reportedly fixated on Giffords, though his specific motives remain unclear.

But a theme was present in Wednesdays shooting, as it was in the one that claimed Giffords as a victim. Among those shot was a U.S. representative.

Any shooting of any innocent person is a tragedy. When the victims are those elected to serve us, this is an attack not just on individuals but on our democracy. While its clear that the 2011 Tucson shooting was an assassination attempt, its less clear if Scalise was the intended target or just a random victim at a GOP gathering.

Nonetheless, the fact that he was shot is noteworthy. Intended or not, this was an attack on our system of government.

We live in a time of conflict, of deep divisions about the president and about political ideology generally. The proper channels for such disagreements are the ballot box, free speech that entitles us to voice our disagreements, our institutions of checks and balances, and values that say we can have such disagreements and all be equally American.

There is, however, a lot of us and them plaguing the country. Among the more recent examples: deadly attacks on two brave men in Portland defending a young girl wearing a hijab; and the shooting of two Indian men in a bar in Kansas, killing one.

The culprit here is not the left, nor in previous shootings the right. It is that deranged extremist who believes that grievance channeled through the barrel of a gun is acceptable. It is not. Not in America. Not anywhere.

See more here:
An attack on democracy, on all of us - mySanAntonio.com