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Message from Iowa: Occupy — and Run — everything!

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Posted by Jehu on Jan 4, 2012 in Featured, Historical Materialism, Voting | 0 comments

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Take a look at the Iowa results from last night, and smile!

I think this is justified for two reasons: first, the elections are a snapshot of the dynamically changing opinion among the American population. Of course, this snapshot is limited to those who actually attended the GOP caucuses, and it does not reflect the mass of the population except in some statistical fashion. But, it is the largest of snapshots likely to be gained in Iowa until the general election.

Second, the election can help us to understand how anti-statism is expressed in the outcome. I admit this political expression of anti-statism is only evident in a fundamentally flawed fashion — in the form of Ron Paul’s own person. As @punkjohnnycash on Twitter noted, Paul more accurately can be described as an anti-federalist, rather than an anti-statist. Still, I think, his support in the election can serve as a sort of proxy for anti-statist sentiment, so long as we remember Punk Johnny Cash’s caveat.

So, with those two caveats in mind — Iowa is only a limited sample of a proxy of the anti-statist position — let’s look at the results.

Returns indicated GOP Grandparents (65 and olde), are going for Romney, parents (40-65) went for Santorum, and their adult children (17-39) went for Paul. Paul also pulled from the lower working class. The income distribution of the vote reflects the age distribution, and this tends to support Paul among the young. Since younger voters are also over-represented in the lower income range of the population, the data seems consistent.

I would imagine, the distribution in the military is similar, with the lower ranks, who are being ground up by war, going with Paul. Politically, we might be looking at significant anger in the lower rank military due to the lethality of constant combat. A distinguishing feature of this election season are the donations to Paul from the military to the exclusion of almost all other candidates.

The results show 80%, of the GOP lodged firmly in what we can define as the “statist camp” — non-Ron Paul voters from the older and higher income base. The younger and lower income base is firmly anti-Washington, at least, and possibly anti-statist to the extent this anti-statism can have a political expression in the GOP as anti-federalist sentiment.

I think, the future is with the young, lower income mass. Parents will follow their children. This is true in thinking and in actual circumstances, for two reasons: austerity is forcing parents to provide less support to their kids, and you can bet this is having a profound psychological impact on them. It is very difficult to turn your kids away for support for education, or tiding them over during early financial burdens. Add to this, the adult children who are no longer leaving home to start their own families because of economic stress.

My conclusion from this: with 20 percent of the GOP already openly hostile to Washington, the stage is being set for a large-scale political crisis.

The remaining GOP is split between a larger evangelical base (50%) and the traditional business community (25%) and these folks should not be ignored. The division between the business community and the evangelicals is bitter and unbridgeable. The business community is not at all on board for the dogmatic pietism of the evangelicals — the workplace is hostile to that shit. Moreover, unlike the Democrats, the GOP has no figure to unite around and hold the fractures in place.

Ron Paul’s anti-federalism plays in all three sections of the GOP, but for different reasons. There is hostility to Washington as a political-economic entity (anti-statism); cultural entity (evangelicals); and regulatory (business). Don’t underestimate these anti-Washington attitudes: business, even dominating Washington, still is antagonistic to Washington at the granular level.

Capitals are fiercely competing with each other over the levers of power, and this is a life or death struggle among them. The domination of finance capital over Washington is not at all supportive of the interests of non-finance capital. Moreover, there is a huge mass of capital unable to function as capital, that has retreated to gold, speculation and treasuries. These capital are being screwed right now — this is FOFOA and followers of Austrian economists. They are on the edge of extinction.

The MF Global collapse sent a shock-wave through this mass of dead capital, as the banksters essentially ripped them off in broad daylight. MF Global was a wholesale looting of small capital by big capital. These folks will also fuel the anti-Washington anger.

The anti-statist argument is in very good position this morning — we should be happy!

Next up: Obama’s progressive base.

Among the progressives, Washington has done much of our job for us by destroying the independent worker organizations in the past 30 years. Resistance through these working class organizations is now impossible, the working class can no longer act politically as a class but as individuals. This might seem bizarre for a Marxist to state, but the these organizations were the primary social base of the fascist state. The divisions within the class domestically and internationally allowed capital to consolidate its grip on state power. And, the American labor movement played a pivotal role in Washington’s international strategy.

This corrupt fascistic labor movement no longer exists; over the past 30 years, it has been systematically dismantled, to impose the neoliberal agenda. A national labor movement within a globally evolved capitalism is an anachronism. A global labor movement is an oxymoron, since we are talking about all of humanity against a tiny stratum of parasites.

Occupy and the Tea Party are the new models for working class resistance — no leaders, because we all control only ourselves. The thing to note in this election is how the AstroTurfing of the Tea Party led not to its dissolution, but the emergence of Ron Paul’s anti-federalist message as a force within the GOP — anti-statist sentiment is adapting itself to ready made forms. The GOP corporate center did not kill the Tea Party message, it only infected itself with that message.

All in all, we are in a good position to establish a movement to replace the state with an association that is global. An association that recognizes no class, no dogmas and no national borders. The message of anti-statists should be:

“Occupy AND RUN everything, from your job to your planet.”

The union sit downs of the 1930s and the civil rights sit-ins of the 1960s are antiquated forms of 20th Century resistance; we now need to actively recognize our own capacities for self-activity. Both the sit-down strikes and the sit-ins were attempts by the oppressed to gain political and economic recognition, now the oppressed need to recognize their own capacities as their own. I really think we need to begin where we are – in our communities and workplaces – take control of these and manage them ourselves.

Also read: Robert Wenzel: “HOT: Did Ron Paul Just Win Iowa?” Ron Paul supporters are being very aggressive in their effort.

Obama seeks corporate tax rate cut, loophole limit

AP Online February 22, 2012 | JIM KUHNHENN WASHINGTON (AP) ?ˆ” President Barack Obama rolled out a corporate tax overhaul plan Wednesday that lowers rates but also eliminates loopholes and subsidies cherished by the business world. A long-shot for action in an election year, the plan nevertheless stamps Obama’s imprint on one of the most high-profile issues of the presidential campaign.

The president’s plan to lower the corporate tax rate to 28 percent came on the same day Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney called for a 20 percent across-the-board cut in personal income tax rates, underscoring the potency of taxes as a political issue, especially during a modest economic recovery.

Obama has not laid out a plan for overhauling personal income taxes. But he has called for Bush era tax cuts to end on individuals making more than $200,000, thus increasing their taxes, and for a 30 percent minimum tax on taxpayers who make $1 million or more.

Obama decried the current corporate tax system as outdated, unfair and inefficient. “It’s not right and it needs to change,” he said in a statement.

The president would reduce the current 35 percent corporate tax, which is the highest in the world after Japan but which many corporations avoid by taking advantage of deductions, credits and exemptions. Under his plan, manufacturers would receive incentives so that they would pay an even lower effective tax rate of 25 percent.

His plan would eliminate corporate tax benefits like oil and gas industry subsidies and special breaks for the purchase of private jets ?ˆ” two provisions that Obama has long targeted ?ˆ” and do away with certain corporate tax shelters.

In addition, Obama also would impose a minimum tax on foreign earnings, a move opposed by multinational corporations and perhaps the most contentious provision in the president’s plan.

“It’s a framework that lowers the corporate tax rate and broadens the tax base in order to increase competitiveness for companies across the nation,” Obama said.

Romney has also called for a 25 percent corporate tax rate, in line with what some congressional Republicans want. Campaigning in Arizona, the former Massachusetts governor said that if elected president he would propose lowering the top personal income tax rate to 28 percent from the current 35.

In Congress, Republican reaction was mixed. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said he appreciated the administration’s plan, though it set a corporate tax rate that is higher than the 25 percent he has proposed. He faulted Obama, however, for not offering a wholesale overhaul of the tax system for businesses and individuals. in our site corporate tax rate

“While this is a good step by the administration, I will borrow from the president’s own words to Congress from just yesterday: ‘Don’t stop here. Keep going,’” Camp said in a statement. But Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, dismissed the president’s plan as a “set of bullet points designed more for the campaign trail than an actual blueprint for fixing our tax code.” The issue of taxation has been a recurrent theme throughout Obama’s presidency. He has reduced some taxes for small businesses and has pressed Congress to temporarily cut payroll taxes on American workers to help prime the weak economy.

But he has also called for reducing the nation’s long-term deficits with a mix of tax increases and spending cuts. Republicans have flatly rejected tax increases. And Romney on Wednesday criticized Obama’s proposal for corporations, saying they would result in higher taxes. go to web site corporate tax rate

Under the framework proposed by the administration, the rate cuts, closed loopholes and the minimum tax on overseas earning would result in no increase to the deficit.

That means that many businesses that slip through loopholes or enjoy subsidies and pay an effective tax rate that is substantially less than the 35 percent corporate tax could end up paying more under Obama’s plan. Others, however, would pay less while some would simply benefit from a more simplified system.

Obama’s plan would result in about $250 billion in additional revenue over the next 10 years. But that money would be used to pay business tax credits that are currently temporary and that Obama would make permanent, administration officials said.

Corporate income taxes have been shrinking as a share of overall federal taxes for decades. In 2010, corporate income taxes made up just 12 percent of all federal tax receipts, down from 24 percent in 1960, according to the IRS.

Reducing the corporate tax rate to 28 percent would reduce tax revenues by about $700 billion over the next decade, according to an estimate prepared in October by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the official scorekeeper for Congress.

That means lawmakers would have to find about $70 billion a year in tax increases to keep the package from adding to the budget deficit, hardly an easy task.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who presented Obama’s plan, acknowledged that the debate “will be politically contentious.” “Some will say these proposals are too tough on business, and others will say that they’re not tough enough,” he said.

Indeed, several liberal-leaning groups criticized Obama’s plan for being “revenue neutral” and not generating more tax money to pay for government programs. “We can and should collect more tax revenue from corporations,” said Bob McIntyre, the director of Citizens for Tax Justice.

But the business groups objected to Obama’s plan to impose a minimum tax on foreign earnings, insisting instead that the administration embrace a “territorial” system of taxation.

The United States taxes U.S.-based multinational corporations on foreign profits, once that money is returned to the United States. In a territorial system, the U.S. would only tax profits made in the U.S. By taxing the foreign profits of U.S.-based multinationals, the U.S. has a worldwide system of taxation.

Those foreign profits are not taxed unless they are brought to the United States. And, in many cases, they are simply reinvested overseas, so they are never subjected to U.S. taxes. Administration officials said that under Obama’s plan, multinational corporations would continue to receive a tax credit for any taxes they pay overseas.

Among critics of his plan were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the high-tech industry, a group Obama has been eager to court.

“The framework would punish successful companies and push investments out of the United States,” said Dean Garfield, president and CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents firms such as Cisco Systems Inc., Google, Apple Inc., and Intel Corp.

___ Associated Press writers Martin Crutsinger and Stephen Ohlemacher in Washington and Kasie Hunt in Mesa, Ariz., contributed to this report.

JIM KUHNHENN

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