Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts

Thursday, May 18, 2017

For long as I can recall, at least after the civil rights era, the economic prosperity in the African American community has been on the decline. Ironically this started under the purview of a new approach to economics trumpeted to be the end all and be all to the problems (economic and civil) that confronted the U.S. since the end of the Vietnam war. This is what it was supposed to be but what it became was a new-fangled form of lassez-faire policy that to date, has serve to retard economic growth and increased disparities in wealth and income inequality in the U.S. and worldwide.

You got it, I am speaking about neoliberalism. I have defined neoliberalism policy as policy that transfers controls of economic factors from the public sector to the private sector. Neoliberals rather in the form of Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, Tony Blair or The Clinton’s assert that economic and foreign policy that removes trade barriers and restrictions on capital flows is the best thing you can do to create job growth, economic prosperity, wealth and more importantly, eliminate or at least, lift folk out of poverty. Although apolitical, after the 80s, democrats (social democrats in France, Labor in England & Democrats in the U.S.) used this ideology to usher in and promote their views on domestic and foreign policy. A strange occurrence, since historically, these political parties were framed as being the representative of the little man, main street, the factory worker and union member. Establishing neoliberal free market foreign and domestic would mean that the democrats would not have to work with the vulture class.  This meant forming more relationships with the elite and wealth of the big cities more so than the lowly farmers of the Midwest or miners in other states.  Even in urban areas, it meant economic ostracization for minority communities until it was time to secure their vote.

This alone demanded that Democrats listen and accept more ideas from the wealthy and affluent, and it has been the same since Tony Blair and the Clinton’s. Although democrats proclaim their policies serve progressive and liberal objectives, the harsh reality is that the do not. They have led to the destruction of unions and reduction in collective bargaining rights while they claim to be the party of the working class.  They have tightened relationships with the white-collar elite and for taking their money, have put in place policy that has help to suppress wages and wage growth.  These policies have also resulted in the ruination of the auto industry as we have witnessed in Detroit. But they did not stop there.  Starting with Bill Clinton, they even deregulated banks and had the gumption to tell the working poor that their situation was due to education, while rich liberals ignore the fact that even going to college, whether one finishes with a degree or not results in most African Americans having amassed nearly two times the amount of student loan debt than whites. Even Obama and other black establishment cats representing the democratic party got in on the act preaching the same credo asserting a culture of poverty argument that basically suggest that black are poor and need to go to college. As if all our problems are due more to having a poor education, than the neoliberal policies they unabatingly advance.

With Obama and his neoliberal economic locution, African American unemployment is still two times that of white unemployment. Economic disparity between whites and blacks has grown wider since his election and African American median income has fallen more than 10 percent with 26 percent of Black households being considered “food insecure.” Since Obama took office, the seasonally adjusted labor-force-participation rate for black Americans across the board has declined and the number of black food-stamp participants has increased more than 50 percent. Add to this that the percentage of black Americans who own homes has declined sharply and that real median income among black households based on data from your Census Bureau has also declined.  This means a higher poverty rates for blacks since 2008, a reduction in the number of young black men with full-time employment and an increase in median white wealth providing them with more income at a pace way surpassing that of blacks under your administration. Maybe this is why it has been determined that single African American women ages 36 to 49 have a median wealth of $5. This is without me even mentioning the paltry rate of GDP growth since you took office.  To put it bluntly, the economic liberalism of the Obama era was just a more murderous form of Reagan – unfettered (legal or illegal) immigration was encouraged and a blind eye was turn to both corporate tax evasion via overseas accounts and the activity of criminal banker activity on Wall Street.

All the can be connected in a causal manner to policy put in place by folk (99% democratic progressive liberals) elected to office or thought leaders, by the poor and working class black folk who have been distressed by said policies. Again, plainly put poverty and racism has only got worse during Obama’s tenure. Obama and democrats love to tout a higher minimum wage as being a solution but never answer how is this possible, when even with a higher wage, you cannot be sure that cats will give folk the hours they need just to get by let alone move out of poverty? How can this solve any economic issues sustained for blacks since democrats came to power during the post-civil-rights era and with democrats still pushing for capitalist globalization that has had a disproportionately negative influence on African Americans over the past 40 to 50 years? How can this help when 95% of the jobs created during the Obama Presidency were temporary? And don’t say because we talk about education because the reality is that African Americans with some college education have higher unemployment rates than whites who never went to college or even completed high school?

It was President Obama in 2014 that stated "if Uncle Jethro would get off the couch and stop watching Sports Center and go register some folks and go to the polls, we might have a different kind of politics." This in a nut shell is neoliberalism, who's efficacy that even the IMF is starting to question. A philosophy which states we get rich if you vote for us and us alone while you black folk will remain restricted to unstable low wage service sector jobs (which are vanishing) and represent the fastest growing population of homeless in the U.S., women and children. This is one reason why economic position of African Americans have not changed since democrats began to represent all major urban areas since the mid-1960s. If I am wrong, then why have schools failed to improve and have been on a downward trend since then?  Why have long-term job prospects in these same places decreased and even disappeared since then? Neoliberalism has never been shown to have been effective or even work in the real world, especially when it comes to improving the economic conditions of blacks regardless of location of residency. So, I ask you, why support a party that takes your vote and destroys your community and ability to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Riddle me that Batman.

Friday, December 9, 2016

There were several kerfuffle’s that the alphabet networks and their mindless audience pushed as being calamitous actions taken by Donald Trump this past week.  The two that caught my attention occurred while listening to NPR and applied to Taiwan and Pakistan. Seems that Mr. Trump accepting calls from the democratically elected Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and responding to a similar call from Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif were appalling, shocking and destabilizing, averring that the President Elect supposedly upended the traditional convention on how to deal with Chinese geopolitics, consequently destroying nearly 40 years of standard US diplomacy regarding Taiwan, and our relations with India via Pakistan.

This response was predictable based on how the MSM media has dealt with Trump and hung on his each and every word and tweet. Those critical of Trump say that his actions are just thoughtless blundering mistakes and signs of his ineptness in foreign policy. This was not the case. These single-minded individual elite’s infer that this is a reflection of Trump being a political novice.  I take the contrarian view and assert it is the complete opposite.

The US relationship with China has continuously been all over the place since the end of the Nixon Administration.  Likewise, we can only thank Obama with his droning and unauthorized raids in Pakistan (Bin Laden included) as only bring about more political destabilization with respect to diplomatic actions with the nation. It is as if the pundits do not see how their speculations on behalf of ratings and sensationalization, are being overstated.

Let’s start with Taiwan and China. After the Ford administration, upon taking office, President Jimmy Carter was in such a big hurry to normalize relations with China that in 1978 Congress got involved to make sure that America’s mutual defense treaty with Taiwan would not fall by the wayside. So under the leadership of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, a bipartisan congressional alliance proposed the Taiwan Relations Act after Carter ignored their concerns. In essence congress indicated that the United States would not hesitate to aid Taiwan if it was invaded by China going against terms of diplomacy established in 1949. Carter like today’s media pundits were afraid this would upset and hurt China’s feelings.

By the Time Bill Clinton was in office, a ‘One China’ policy and de-recognition of Taiwan was in full effect and since his Administration; we have not been honest in our foreign policy objectives. So in simple terms, the current reaction to Trump’s actions in regards to China-Taiwan may be unhelpful and may hurt the fledgling Taiwan democracy and should be considered more important than papers and air time advertisement media outlets sell.

All we can take away from this is that Trump is making good onhis tough talk on China and that he will shake the ways of old off and not be restrained by the bureaucratic practices of the old political establishment guard. Just by going against 37 years of China-US diplomatic protocol of the“One China” policy the US accepts and respects without query. No US President or President-elect has ever called a Taiwanese leader in recent decades. Trump’s independence is what the story should be about not to mention two things are abrogated from the popular analysis: (1) Chiang Kai-shek is no longer the leader of Taiwan and (2) Trump isn’t the first president or president-elect since 1979 to have communicated directly with a president of Taiwan noting that if memory serves me correctly Reagan did the same thing when he was president elect.

Fact is politicians on both sides of the isle have been reconsidering albeit very quietly the US-China-Taiwan relationship since 1989 (Tiananmen Square) and the question if they really want Taiwan to unify with China. In fact I bet I could find support if I really wanted to be super-duper accurate that since Tiananmen Square, the US have been selling more and more weapons to Taiwan, but this is mere speculation on my part. The point is Trump has not only shown himself thus far  to be an effective negotiator, he has also been continuously underestimated every step of the way so far by folk whom think they know it all in the media and has proven that there is more than one way to skin a cat metaphorically.

Adding Pakistan to the mix, we see the same thing if we are truly objective before we are outraged.  It is clear that President-elect Donald Trump may be amenable to similar eccentric methods regarding bilateral ties with the nation and Pakistani Prime Minister. In this case, the media analysts have called Trump’s actions on one end ridiculous and the other distressing.  Based on what I read all he said was that he thought Sharif was “a terrific guy” and wanted to visit what he described as a fantastic country with great people speaking of Pakistan. What all of this suggest is that Trump is not the traditional status quo political cat to the disdain of the traditional American political elite and mainstream media. All he wants is for the US to be a part in trying to secure peace between India and Pakistan.  What’s wrong with that?

The problem is that the reaction of the US media may be the biggest issue with respect to both  China and Taiwan, and Pakistan and India by blowing all of this out of proportion in their desire to “get Trump” by any means necessary. Fact is that US foreign policy is fluid and changes and over stating events as the aforementioned can do more harm than good. It is as if Trump taking a phone call is more problematic for the Chinese than Obama selling four missile carrying frigates and billions in other weaponry to Taiwan.  Then there is the fact that Trump isn’t even in office yet and has not even laid out any foreign policy. So just calm down and wait for something tangible to report on and not personal bias in the form of made-up fears.
Torrance T. Stephens. Powered by Blogger.

I am Author, Writer and Infectious Disease Scientist. Originally from Memphis, Tennessee.

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