Winning Progressive

As our readers know, Winning Progressive frequently comments on the editorials and columns found in the opinions pages of the New York Times.  Here are three comments that we recently posted on military budgets, so-called entitlement “reform,” and “deficit hawks” who are really vultures.

In response to an editorial titled The Truth About Military Cuts, which criticizes the GOP’s efforts to falsely blame President Obama for the automatic cuts to military spending that were included in last year’s budget deal that narrowly averted the GOP-created debt-ceiling crisis, we commented:

That the GOP is lying about the cause of the cuts to the military budget included in the sequester is no big surprise – peddling untruths seems to be the thing that today’s GOP is best at.

What is remarkable is that the military cuts of approximately $55 billion per year that the GOP is squawking about is far less than the amount that most Americans believe should be cut from our bloated military budgets.

In a comprehensive national survey carried out by the Center for Public Integrity and two other groups earlier this year, 2/3 of Republicans and 90% of Democrats supported immediate cuts to military spending. The average total cut that the public supported was $103 billion per year out of a baseline military budget of $562 billion. More than half of the survey respondents supported cuts of at least $83 billion per year.

Cuts to military spending should certainly be done in a careful manner by, for example, eliminating weapons systems that were designed for the Cold War, closing military bases in countries that can afford to defend themselves, and cracking down on corrupt military contractors. But the important point is that reductions in military spending should be part of restoring fiscal balance, and the public supports going further on this issue than our elected officials do.

In response to Bill Keller’s column titled The Entitled Generation, which argues that Baby Boomers need to accept cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in order to restore fiscal balance, we commented:

It is misleading at best to put Social Security in the same category as Medicare and Medicaid and then blame our fiscal problems on “entitlements,” as the real problem is skyrocketing health care costs.

Social Security is fully solvent for twenty or more years, would continue paying 75% of benefits after that with no changes, and would be fully solvent for 75 years with minor changes, such as lifting the wage cap on the payroll tax.

Medicare and Medicaid face far larger fiscal problems, but the problems are not with the programs themselves, but rather with the fact that health care costs continue to skyrocket largely unabated. The GOP has no plan to deal with the cost issue but, instead, would simply shift all the costs to individuals. The result would be to raise the overall societal cost of health care because private insurance is more expensive than Medicare, while leaving even more people without insurance.

The Democrats have started to take the proper response, which is to find ways to rationalize health care spending, rather than to ration care. Doing so involves comparative effectiveness research, strengthening the IPAB, changing how providers are reimbursed, and allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Replacing inefficient private insurance with Medicare-for-all would also save a large amount of money. Misguided attacks on “entitlements” won’t.

In response to Paul Krugman’s column titled Money For Nothing, which explores how conservatives have continued to warn that deficits would lead to skyrocketing U.S. interest rates even as interests rates have actually fallen to near zero, we commented:

The disconnect between the reality of the past few years and the claims of the so-called “deficit hawks” can be explained by the fact that the “deficit hawks” do not actually care about deficits.

As we’ve seen over the past thirty years, conservatives who pretend to care about deficits (primarily Republicans, but also Blue Dog Democrats) only emphasize the deficit when they are seeking to eliminate a government program that benefits average Americans. When it comes to wars, corporate subsidies, and tax cuts for the wealthy, however, conservatives are silent about deficits and, instead, are actively cheerleading policies that are the primary cause of those deficits to begin with.

The reason that conservatives pretend to care about deficits while at the same time making such deficits bigger is that they are out to destroy government as a tool for benefiting the common good. And the way to do that is: (1) prevent the government from taking the steps needed to improve the economy in order to “prove” that government does not work, and (2) to create a deficit “crisis” that makes it “necessary” to do things like abolish Medicare, eviscerate Medicaid, shrink education and infrastructure investments, and slash the safety net.

In short, the “deficit hawks” are actually deficit vultures who are using the deficits they created to achieve their own ideological goals.

By Josh Marks

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman’s new book “End This Depression Now!” has made him a popular progressive. His Keynesian ideas are as refreshing as mountain air after years of conservative deficit hawks punishing the American people and holding back the economic recovery with draconian cuts to the public sector. But while it is empowering to hear Krugman talk about how to really create jobs and grow the economy through government spending, many of us have been waiting for President Obama to go on the offensive and back the radical right-wing Republicans into a corner.

If his recent weekly address is any indication, Obama is getting the message. He is starting to pound away at the obstructionist Republicans for blocking his jobs legislation that would put a million teachers, firefighters and police officers back to work; and would put countless construction workers back on the job rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure — roads, bridges, rail, runways, broadband, piping, etc…

It’s working. In response, Mitt Romney actually came out against federal aid to state and local governments so they can hire back teachers, firefighters and police officers. Romney says “it’s time for us to cut back on government” by laying off more firefighters, police officers and teachers. And this isn’t just election year talk to appeal to the radical right-wing Republican base. Romney has a proven record of cutting the public sector and destroying jobs while governor of Massachusetts. In fact, when he left office the Bay State was 47th out of 50 states in job growth.

Krugman and other progressives need to keep the pressure on the Obama campaign to stay on the offensive about how public sector cuts are hurting the economic recovery. In turn, Obama can be emboldened knowing the people are behind him to box the obstructionist, do-nothing House Republicans and Romney into a corner and put them on the defensive for rejecting the majority of the $447 billion American Jobs Act proposed last September that would have put millions of Americans back to work and put us on a path to a more robust recovery. Last September, the President gave a speech to a joint session of Congress in which he mentioned “jobs” 38 times and repeatedly implored Congress to pass the bill right away.

And what was in the American Jobs Act?

– $50 billion on infrastructure projects and establishment of National Infrastructure Bank

– $35 billion to prevent more teachers, firefighters and police officers from being laid off

– $30 billion to modernize public schools and community colleges

– $15 billion for construction workers to rehabilitate foreclosed homes and businesses

– Expanding access to high-speed wireless service to at least 98% of Americans

– Funding Pathways Back to Work program for low-income youth and adults

Obama is right to go after the Republicans for rejecting the American Jobs Act. Pounding away at the GOP’s obstruction of this job creation legislation and telling the American people how public sector cuts are hurting the overall economy is the right thing to do politically and the right thing to do for the country.

Here is Obama in his own words in his weekly address last Saturday. This is the kind of message not just progressives, but all Americans can and should get behind:

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been talking a lot about America’s economic future. I’ve told you how I believe we should go about creating strong, sustained growth; how we should pay down our long-term debt in a balanced way; and most of all, what we should do right now to create good, middle-class jobs, so people who work hard can get ahead.

This isn’t some abstract debate or trivial argument. I’ve said that this is the defining issue of our time, and I mean it. I’ve said that this is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and I believe it. The decisions we make over the next few years will have an enormous impact on the country we live in, and the one we pass on to our children.

Right now, we’re still fighting our way back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The economy is growing again, but it’s not growing fast enough. Our businesses have created 4.3 million new jobs over the last 27 months, but we’re not creating them fast enough. And we’re facing some pretty serious headwinds – from the effects of the recent spike in gas prices, to the financial crisis in Europe.

But here’s the thing. We have the answers to these problems. We have plenty of big ideas and technical solutions from both sides of the aisle. That’s not what’s holding us back. What’s holding us back is a stalemate in Washington.

Last September, I sent Congress a jobs bill full of the kinds of bipartisan ideas that could have put over a million Americans back to work and helped bolster our economy against outside shocks. I sent them a plan that would have reduced our deficit by $4 trillion in a balanced way that pays for the investments we need by cutting unnecessary spending and asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little bit more in taxes.

Since then, Congress has passed a few parts of that jobs bill, like a tax cut that’s allowing working Americans to keep more of your paycheck every week. But on most of the ideas that would create jobs and grow our economy, Republicans in Congress haven’t lifted a finger. They’d rather wait until after the election in November. Just this past week, one of them said, “Why not wait for the reinforcements?” That’s a quote. And you can bet plenty of his colleagues are thinking the same thing.

I think that’s wrong. This isn’t about who wins or loses in Washington. This is about your jobs, your paychecks, your children’s future. There’s no excuse for Congress to stand by and do nothing while so many families are struggling. None.

Right now, Congress should pass a bill to help states put thousands of teachers, firefighters and police officers back on the job. They should have passed a bill a long time ago to put thousands of construction workers back to work rebuilding our roads and bridges and runways. And instead of just talking about job creators, they should give small-business owners a tax break for hiring more workers and paying them higher wages.

Right now, Congress should give every responsible homeowner the opportunity to save an average of $3,000 a year by refinancing their mortgage. They should extend tax credits for clean energy manufacturers so we don’t walk away from 40,000 good jobs. And instead of giving tax breaks to companies who ship jobs overseas, Congress should take that money and use it to cover moving expenses for companies that are bringing jobs back to America. There’s no reason to wait.

Every problem we face is within our power to solve. What’s lacking is our politics. Remind your Members of Congress why you sent them to Washington in the first place. Tell them to stop worrying about the next election and start worrying about the next generation. I’m ready to work with anyone – Republican, Democrat, or Independent – who is serious about moving this country forward. And I hope Members of Congress will join me.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

Here are our latest NYT comments on economic policy being set based on non-existent threats rather than focusing on the real economic problems we face, and on whether right wingnuts will doom the Republicans’ chances in 2012.  Help spread these progressive ideas by using the links at our Letters to the Editor Campaign center to write a letter to your local newspaper.

My comment on how too much of economic policy in the US and elsewhere is based on fears of non-existent threats rather than an evaluation of reality.  This comment was in response to Paul Krugman’s column When Austerity Fails.

Maybe the confidence fairy, who will magically create economic growth and jobs if government imposes austerity policies, is hiding with the bond vigilantes, who are purportedly about to cause bond yields to skyrocket even though we have levels of inflation that are still far below what even the Federal Reserve says they should be.

The other people who are hiding, unfortunately, seems to be political and economic leaders who base their policy decisions on reality.  Time and time again we have seen the type of austerity policies promoted by economic conservatives here at home and over in Europe fail.  They failed when FDR mistakenly pursued them in 1937 and pushed the economy back into a hole.  They caused stimulus here in the U.S. to be far smaller than it should have been.  As a result, the Obama Administration’s stimulus efforts were enough to keep the Bush Recession from becoming the Bush Depression, but they were hindered from being enough to bring strong employment numbers and economic growth.  And now in Europe, austerity policies in Ireland, Latvia, Estonia, and other countries have caused untold suffering and pushed those economies even farther into a hole.

There are two realms where the forces of austerity have not prevailed.  The first is in the Obama Administration, which has largely managed to keep austerity at bay at the federal level.  As a result, our economic decline has been less disastrous than that of many European nations.  Unfortunately, the Obama Administrations lack of austerity has been counterbalanced by increasing austerity at state and local government levels, and by conservatives in Congress.  That is why we continue to struggle economically here.

And a second realm where austerity has not prevailed in Iceland, which had a horrible financial collapse, but has recovered far more quickly because the Icelandic people refused to carry the pain and the blame for economic problems created by the banksters.

Time and time again, austerity has failed while Keynesian-type stimulus policies have succeeded.  Let’s hope we get more political leaders who are interested in heeding such results, rather than in continuing to look for imaginary confidence fairies and bond vigilantes hiding under their beds.

My comment about whether the complete takeover of the Republican Party by wingnuts will doom the Republicans in the next election.   This comment was in response to Paul Krugman’s NYT blog post Charlatans and Cranks

Over at Balloon Juice, John Cole has coined the term “peak wingnut” for the garbage that comes out of the right wing echo chamber.  Namely, every time the right wing comes out with a new, more ridiculous conspiracy theory, fake controversy, or policy position, everyone thinks that the right wing has finally reached the limits of the crazy.  And then the right wing proves us wrong by coming up with something even crazier.  The joke behind peak wingnut, therefore, appears to be that the peak is never reached.

I certainly hope that you are correct that the 2010 election results will ultimately doom the wingnuts by wrongly convincing the Republicans that they could go peak wingnut and still win.  And the polling results suggest that your tentative prediction may prove to be correct – the pubic overwhelmingly rejects Republicans proposals such as abolishing Medicare and the radical Republican governors like Walker in Wisconsin, Kasich in Ohio, and Scott in Florida, are highly unpopular.

In order to strike a real blow against peak wingnut, however, the Democrats need to handily sweep the 2012 elections.  And, with the media and free-spending billionaires on the Republicans’ side, the only way such a sweep can occur is if all of us progressives get involved in pushing the progressive message, supporting the most progressive candidate in each political race (even if that candidate is far from the ideal we would like), and focusing our attacks on Republicans instead of on each other.

For this weekend’s reading list, we have articles about the success of AmeriCorps, progressive organizing in Ohio, the popular uprising in Syria, and why inflation in other countries should not distract us from taking the steps needed to address unemployment and sluggish economic growth here in the U.S.

If you have any feedback on these articles, or would like to recommend an article for next weekend’s reading list, please let us know at Winning Progressive’s Facebook page.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished - how AmeriCorps is a cost-effective and successful community service program yet is still coming under attack from Republicans

Ohio: A New Kind of Battleground - an article about how Gov. John Kasich’s radical budget proposal, which would slash social services and education funding even while cutting taxes for the wealthy, has caused disparate progressive interests to set aside their differences and work together to fight back

Storm Over Syria – an essay about the history and social conditions that have led to the popular uprising in Syria and to dictator Bashar al-Assad’s brutal attempt to crush that uprising

Inflation and Economic Hooliganism – an essay by Paul Krugman about how inflation in rapidly growing countries like Brazil, Russia, and China is being seized on by conservatives in the U.S. to prevent us from addressing the unemployment and low economic growth problems that we face here at home

Here are our latest NYT comments on how money, not too much democracy, is the main problem facing our politic system, and why we need to do even more to fight for jobs.  Help spread these progressive ideas by using the links at our Letters to the Editor Campaign center to write a letter to your local newspaper.

My comment on David Brooks’ NYT column The Politics of Solipsism, which argues that our political system is too responsive to the will of the people:

The evidence shows that the real problem is money in politics, not people in politics. In particular, our government has become far too responsive to only a small slice of wealthy and corporate interests, while ignoring the issues that affect the vast majority of people in our country.  A great example of this fact is the obsessive deficit hysteria that has overtaken DC even while joblessness is ignored.

The biggest problem facing our country right now is high unemployment and low economic growth.  While there has been some positive job growth in the past few months, unemployment is at 9%, and underemployment is over 15%.  Initial jobless claims were 472,000 last week, the highest they have been since August 2010.  And millions more people have dropped out of the labor market altogether, with our employment to population ration at 58.4%, the lowest it has been since 1983 and far below the 62-64% that it had been for years before the Bush Recession.

Given these circumstances, voters have made clear in poll after poll after poll that jobs are their biggest priority.  And in November 2010, voters registered their anger about joblessness, voting out Democrats who had not created enough jobs (ignoring the fact that it was Republicans who had prevented them from doing so), and voting in Republicans who promised to focus on jobs.

And what has the response to this situation and election results been?  For virtually everyone in D.C. to be obsessed with deficits.  Never mind that voters do not identify the deficit as nearly their biggest concern, that the deficit is not a major threat to our economic stability, that the short term deficit is mostly caused by the joblessness and low economic growth that the Bush Recession brought us, or that the spending cuts being proposed would destroy even more jobs.  Despite high unemployment and joblessness, Republicans in DC continue to focus on the deficit and Democrats feel they have to address the issue also because it is what the chattering classes and wealthy corporate interests want.

Our country’s deficit hysteria and refusal to address a real unemployment problem has nothing to do with our politicians being too responsive to the views of the American people and has everything to do with them being too responsive to the billionaires that bankroll them.  Money in politics, not people in politics, is the real problem.

My comment on Paul Krugman’s NYT column Fears and Failure, which discusses how DC is focused on unfounded concerns about short term deficits and inflation, rather than on the real issue of jobs and unemployment

For awhile we were having a jobless recovery, but now it appears that the recovery portion of the equation may be falling to the wayside.  The jobless portion, however, is remaining.

The latest disturbing data is from Thursday’s jobless claims report, which reported 474,000 initial unemployment claims, up 43,000 from the week before, which is the highest number of initial claims since August 2009. These numbers do not bode well for the unemployment report that will come out on Friday.

The problem, of course, is that we have done very little to actually try to increase jobs in this country.  The Obama Administration’s stimulus legislation in 2009 admirably kept our economy from sinking into a depression, but because of conservative opposition which would have prevented any legislation, it was far too small to achieve the type of recovery that was needed.  In fact, the stimulus bill only offset spending cuts at the state and local government level, meaning that the net stimulus was essentially zero.  And since the stimulus bill was passed, conservatives have prevented virtually any additional efforts to jump start our economy because they believe that a bad economy is key to keeping President Obama from being re-elected.

This cynical strategy from conservatives is consistent with the approach they are taking to the deficits.  Conservative economic policies are largely responsible for creating the deficit, as tax cuts for the wealthy reduced revenue while spending focused mostly on the military and corporate subsidies increased.  Yet, rather than proposing to change their policies in order to shrink the deficit, conservatives are doubling down on the tax cuts, opposing cuts to unnecessary government subsidies to corporations, and refusing to consider reductions in military spending.  What conservatives are doing is being “deficit vultures,” in that they are using the deficits they created as cover for an agenda focused on trying to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and the social safety net.  Similarly, conservatives are being “unemployment vultures” as they are promoting economic policies that keep unemployment high in an effort to defeat President Obama and Democratic Congressional candidates in 2012.

With conservative control of the House, there is little legislation that can be passed to address the joblessness problem.  But the Obama Administration can and must do other things in order to help alleviate the problem and win reelection.  First, it must use the Federal Reserve and government agencies to stimulate the economy as much as possible, through quantitative easing, a program that will provide real foreclosure relief, etc.   Second, the Administration must come out with a strong pro-jobs agenda in order to make it clear which party – the Republicans – are holding our economy back.

Here are our latest comments on Rep. Ryan’s unserious Path to Poverty, civility, and conservatives’ radical efforts to override local governments. Help spread these progressive ideas by using the links at our Letters to the Editor Campaign center to write a letter to your local newspaper.

My comment on Ross Douthat’s NYT column The Middle-Class Tax Trap, which erroneously argues that President Obama has not offered a serious plan for dealing with long term fiscal issues while the GOP’s Rep. Paul Ryan purportedly has

Yes, we have long term fiscal issues that need to be addressed.  But that fact is exactly why Rep. Ryan’s cowardly Path to Poverty is so unserious, while President Obama’s proposal would set us on the right path.

First, Rep. Ryan’s plan reacts to the short and long term deficits by digging America even deeper into a hole.  The two critical steps for addressing short term deficits are asking the wealthy elite and corporations to begin paying their fair share again, and to continue efforts to stimulate economic growth which, in turn, will increase revenue.  Instead, Ryan proposes to give even further tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations, and to cut spending that benefits the middle class, working class, and poor which will even further deflate our economy.  In short, Ryan is proposing to continue the conservative economic policies that dug us into this fiscal mess.

Second, of the two proposals, only one – President Obama’s – includes any plan to address the long term deficit issue.  The long term deficit is not a problem of government per se, but rather is the problem that health care costs across the board are escalating rapidly.  Ryan does nothing to curb these costs, but instead seeks to shift them to seniors by abolishing Medicare and eviscerating Medicaid.  Given that Medicare and Medicaid are more effective at curbing health care cost increases than is private insurance, such an approach would lead to our country spending even more on health care even if government is technically paying less.  By contrast, President Obama and the Democrats have already enacted a number of policies as part of health care reform that will reduce health care costs and are proposing to do even more by using the government’s position as a major purchaser of health care to make the health care industry far more cost effective.  In response, Republicans have scapegoated such efforts with lies about “death panels,” and are now proposing to repeal health care reform.  That Republican approach would, of course, increase long term health care costs, not reduce them.

While not often thought about as a fiscal issue, a third area where Republicans are showing themselves to be truly unserious on the deficit is immigration.  Putting more immigrants on a path to citizenship would be a great way to help alleviate long term fiscal concerns, as it would provide more younger workers to be paying into Medicare and Social Security.  Yet Republicans continue to push to reduce immigration, which has always been the lifeblood of our country, through closed door policies in states like Arizona.

The facts show that conservatives for decades pushed policies designed to increase deficits and now are using those deficits to try to cut government programs that they do not approve of.  The facts also show that today conservatives continue to be unserious about actually reducing the deficit.  If you are actually interested in having government live within its means while maintaining our way of life, rather than in simply continuing to shovel tax cuts and subsidies to the wealthy elite, you should be supporting Democrats, not unserious cowards like Rep. Ryan.

My comment on Paul Krugman’s NYT column Let’s Not Be Civil, which rejects the media’s claim that it is somehow “uncivil” for President Obama to challenge the Republicans’ unserious deficit proposals

Amen, Professor Krugman.  The calls from the chattering classes for “civility” have always amazed me for at least two reasons.

First is that civility, as defined by the chattering classes, is antithetical to democratic governance.  Certainly we should treat each other with basic respect and be willing to debate legitimate policy differences and even change our minds if the facts prove a differing opinion to be correct.  But civility as it is used today is intended to, instead, stifle debate by claiming that disagreement is somehow uncivil.  It is not.  The simple fact is that people disagree all the time because they have different philosophical beliefs, personal experiences, financial interests, etc. that lead them to see issues differently.  The best way to translate those differences into policy that works for society is to have vigorous debate in the marketplace of ideas in order to test the hypothesis and motivations behind competing ideas, not to simply pretend we can always split the difference and reach agreement on things we fundamentally disagree on.

The second thing that amazes me about the call for “civility” is that it only goes one direction.  As we’ve seen with this budget debate, Democrats and progressives are always told to stop questioning so that they can be “civil.”  Republicans and conservatives are rarely told to do so.

The falseness of the calls for “civility” made by the chattering classes can best be seen in their response to President Obama’s budget speech.  On one side you have a Democratic President who offered a stirring defense of progressivism, noted how ridiculous Rep. Ryan’s plan to abolish Medicare and destroy the social safety net in order to provide more tax cuts to the rich is, and pointed out the hypocrisy of conservatives complaining about deficits when those conservatives are proposing to continue the exact policies that created those deficits. On the other side, you have Republicans – who have spent the last three years questioning whether Obama is an American and making false claims about “death panels” – complaining that our President pointed out the vapidness of the Republicans’ latest “deficit reduction” proposal. No one ever called on Republicans to be “civil” when they questioned President Obama’s patriotism or citizenship, when they accused him of wanting to kill our grandparents, or when Republicans proposed to leave millions of seniors to fend for themselves against health insurance companies.  But suddenly everyone wants civility once our President called the Republicans out for the hypocrites they are?  How odd.

My comment on the NYT editorial The New Republican Landscape, which summarizes the radicalness of Republican rule at both the federal and state levels of government.

The radicalness of the Republican agenda is evident not only at the federal and state levels, but is also shown with the efforts of Republican Governors to usurp authority from local governments.

Perhaps the most egregious example of this is the new Emergency Manager law that Michigan Gov. Snyder and the Republican state legislature passed recently.  That law provides that if the Governor determines that a city, town or even school district is in financial jeopardy the state may dismantle the entire entity, dissolving locally elected government. In addition, the state would have the same powers with regards to schools, dismissing school board members, and taking over any and all schools in a district.

Under the terms of the legislation, corporations can be appointed and paid to take control and assume management of these disbanded cities, towns and school districts, selling assets, closing schools and eliminating all employee agreements. All collective bargaining can be dissolved, but even more than that, the mayors, city councils and local school boards that have been elected by the people will lose all control. They could be fired. In addition, police forces and prisons may be privatized under the law.  In essence, Michigan’s locally elected governments will serve at the pleasure of the governor, not the people who elected them.

Gov. Snyder is wasting no time using the authority under this radical law.  In fact, the law is already being used in cities like Pontiac, Benton Harbor, and Ecorse to lay off police officers, and just last week it was used to disband the city council in Benton Harbor.  And, unfortunately, the Emergency Manager Law concept is spreading, with Wisconsin’s out-of-control Gov. Scott Walker preparing to propose his own version.

The Emergency Manager Law is yet another example of how conservatives are taking advantage of the fiscal problems that their own policies created.  Conservatives are the ones who pushed unaffordable tax cuts for the wealthy elite, launched unnecessary wars based on lies, and carried out the deregulation wave that allowed the financial and housing market collapses to occur.  These policies all created the budget deficits that the federal, state, and local governments face.  Yet, instead of letting Democrats once again clean up the conservatives’ mess, conservatives are now trying to capitalize on that mess to radically remake society into a Galtian nightmare.  The situation could be considered absurd if it were not so serious.