Former Wall Street executive and Obama car-czar, Steven Ratner, recently wrote an op-ed for the NY Times, with a seemingly innocuous title, "Bernanke Should Be Thanked," but which reeks of condescension when placed within the full context of the article and the man writing it. The title implies that Bernanke is not being properly thanked by...someone. Ratner could have simply written an article defending Bernanke's reign as Fed-chair. Instead, he goes the extra-mile and commands (through a suggestive sort of call to action) that some third-party act a certain way to show their appreciation to Bernanke. This conscious choice creates two obvious questions: 1) Who exactly should be thanking Bernanke? 2) Why should they thank him? The last sentence of the article goes a long way in answering the first question: "At an early January meeting of the American Economic Association in Philadelphia, Mr. Bernanke’s farewell address was followed by a standing ovation, symbolic of the standing ovation he deserves from the entire country."

The financial elite---as symbolized by those in attendance at that farewell address---already have thanked Bernanke, and gave him a standing ovation to boot, which means that the aforementioned "third-party" that Ratner chose to import, but not to explicitly identify, means everyone else---which means the ignorant masses. What point did Ratner hope to make by including this little aristocratic anecdote? Did he offer it as "symbolism," or as proof of his argument? In other words, was his actual intention here to say that the rest of the country should thank Bernanke because the financial elite did? Does Ratner believe that the rest of the country lacks the divine mixture of enlightened knowledge and unimpeachable class embodied by those financial elite, such that we are unable to recognize Bernanke's credentials on our own accord and respond in kind? Yes! If he didn't, why go through the trouble of telling us? He thinks we're too dumb, or too rude, or both, to understand and exhibit the reverence that Bernanke deserves for...what exactly?

Mr. Ratner, we are not like you; Bernanke doesn't come to us, and we're prohibited from going to him---so how exactly do you propose that we thank him? If you have his phone number, and would be so kind as to share it with the rest of us, I'm sure many people would love to give him a call and have a chat. Obviously, that won't happen, but even if it were possible to thank Bernanke, why should we? Was it our system that he saved? Were we responsible for the state of affairs that needed saving? No---it was the financial elite who caused the mess, and who most needed Bernanke's help. To be sure, the entire country would've felt the pain if events had unfolded as the financial elite warned they may---without action---as the crisis began to unfold; but that hasn't changed---they didn't see the crisis coming, they only saw the future in regard to the possible effects of the crisis---they never saw the crisis itself.

Ratner praises Bernanke as a man with a "first-rate mind...matched by a first-rate temperament," and attributes his "success" to a "non-ideological approach that allowed him to take on each fresh challenge unshackled to a particular dogma." You should notice that this sentence is a truism---"unshackled to a particular dogma" is synonymous with "non-ideological"---Ratner uses synonyms to create a semantic impression---as he did with his opening, "Bernanke should be thanked," assertion and his conclusion, "Bernanke deserves a standing ovation"---to pretend as if he is actually saying something, and not simply repeating a naked assertion. But the deeper point here is that our financial system is inherently ideological; we have a fiat currency that is backed by nothing other than the monetary manipulations of the Fed and the Treasury, and promises pinned to the backs of future generations. What Ratner is actually identifying, but attempting to cover-up with the weasel words, "dogma" and "ideology," is the fact that Bernanke, and those like him, are "unshackled" by the law, the free market, and any semblance of democracy. They can do what they want, when they want. 

In Ratner's own words: "(Bernanke, Paulson, and Geithner) first threw out the playbook from past crises as inadequate to the current challenge and then threw out the rule book, as they formulated innovation after innovation to fight the conflagration. Most notable were the 2008 rescue of the insurance giant A.I.G. and the alphabet soup of programs designed to pump liquidity into the frozen financial system." "Conflagration" is a perfect word, as it reveals Ratner's intention to paint Bernanke (and his colleagues) as heroic fire-fighters, who used unique, brave, and effective methods to tame the fire that was burning through the system. This cynical construct conveniently obfuscates the fact that the Fed, the Treasury, and the other governmental and semi-governmental actors and agencies that formed and ran this system, were the arsonists before they were the fire-fighters---if they put out any blaze, it was only the one that they started! 

Ratner's article is around 20 paragraphs long---with nearly, if not exactly, the same number of sentences as paragraphs. He writes as if each sentence is so important that it deserves to be cordoned-off from the others---or maybe it's that he believes the reader is too dumb to fully appreciate his point without taking a mental break after each sentence? Either way, Ratner failed to make any objective case for any explicit claim---the article is more psychological than anything else, as it comes across as a whiny elitist crying about the lack of thanks that men like himself receive. 

He offers the assertion, "(Bernanke) played a central role in averting a financial meltdown and lifting the nation out of recession," and then proceeds as if this is settled fact---wasting no time actually proving it. Almost every paragraph is a naked assertion, and mostly having to do with Bernanke's "temperament," or "approach," or "style," or his "first-rate mind," or his "outspokenness," or, things that he was completely wrong about, like his economic pronouncements in the years immediately prior to the crisis. The only time that Ratner actually used facts in support of his argument came in this sequence: (I combined some of the paragraph-sentences into a single paragraph---Does he get paid by the paragraph?) 

"To counter the recession, Mr. Bernanke championed cutting interest rates to zero. But when even that proved insufficient, the Fed began its highly controversial program to buy Treasury and other debt as a means of lowering financing costs and stimulating growth. This program, known as quantitative easing, brought a chorus of criticism down on Mr. Bernanke, ironically, mostly from Republicans...And in a November 2010 letter in The Wall Street Journal, 24 well-known, conservatively inclined economists, financiers and academics decried the asset purchase program as risking 'currency debasement and inflation' while not promoting employment. Well, the group proved wrong on all counts. The program has succeeded in lowering interest rates without causing inflation — prices were up just 1.5 percent last year."

He finished this little "I-told-you-so sequence" by referencing (not quoting) an assertion made by the president of the San Francisco Fed: "unemployment may have been pushed down by a quarter of a percentage point — roughly 400,000 jobs — by just the second phase of quantitative easing." This is weasel wording at his height; Ratner cites the Fed as the source for an assertion about the success of the Fed's own actions---and even then, the best Ratner's biased source has to say is that maybe, just maybe, the second phase of quantitative easing pushed unemployment down by a whopping quarter of a percentage point---ha! That was an average month during the six years of job growth under the Bush Administration---without quantitative easing. And how does the Fed buy the Treasury's debt---is the Fed's money not American money, or is the Treasury's debt not American debt? If there is a complicated answer to this question, who, Mr. Ratner, should I thank for that being the case? Furthermore, I was under the impression that interest rates were determined by the Fed---but I value my sanity too much to even attempt to understand that system---how is it that the Fed succeeded in lowering rates? What alternative properly classifies this as a "success?"  

As I pointed out earlier, those of us who Bernanke gives no farewell address to, and whose letters he will neither read nor hear of, have no way to thank the outgoing Fed-chair. So even if we held Bernanke in the proper esteem, and felt the proper gratitude that Ratner believes Bernanke deserves, he could still write this demeaning article about how this public-servant, who gave so much to us, received so little in return from the peons that his wisdom saved---pulling their financial system back from the edge of collapse. So why did he write it? Because the standing ovation was symbolic---not just of what Ratner believes Bernanke deserves---but what he believes every member of that class of financial elites deserves---most notably himself. But it's not our system Mr. Ratner, it's yours, and Bernanke's, and the few people who are like the two of you and get to exercise such great power over the rest of us. Do you go through the trouble of buying a plane ticket when you travel to Detroit, the city you "saved" with the auto-bailout, or do you just start flapping those angel-wings? 

Here is the only thanks that the American people owe---it is the type of thanks that a host owes to its parasite: thank you for not taking too much, too quickly; thank you for not doing the only thing you are capable of---destroying us. What would Ratner have us believe? That we, the barbaric know-nothings, created this complex financial system in which the value of the dollar is pegged to...itself, in which a single entity can legitimately "buy" its own debt (or assets, or whatever else) apart from paying down that same debt? Thank you Mr. Bernanke, thank you Mr. Ratner, thank you so-so much for saving the greatest economic system in the history of the world from the virus that you and your predecessors pass around like hepatitis in a heroin den. Thank you for the fiscal insanity and crushing debt; thank you for destroying this country's productive capacity, and replacing it with a system of consumption---the existence of such a system is unsustainable. So don't fret Mr. Ratner, once the binge is over, we'll be sure to give you and Mr. Bernanke the thanks you undoubtedly deserve.

The Oneida Indian Nation, which, according to a recent report: "spent $3.5 million on lobbying and political contributions over the last eight years, more than any other entity involved in gambling in New York," attempted to use MLK's legacy to push their Redskins name-change agenda by running radio ads on the issue in Seattle, Denver, and DC on MLK day. The Oneida's position on this issue puts them in a very small minority among Americans, and an even smaller minority among Native Americans---a fact which many in the media have conveniently ignored. A poll conducted in 2004 found that 90% of Native Americans were not offended by the DC football team's moniker. In fact, many native americans still embrace the term "redskin," and some high schools on Indian reservations chose it for their nickname---like the Red Mesa Redskins on the Navajo Nation reservation. A recent poll by the leftist group, Public Policy Polling (PPP), found that 71% of Americans are opposed to the Redskins changing their name, with only 18% saying that they should change it, and 11% being unsure. While these polling numbers would be bouncing like pinballs off the walls of the liberal media's echo chamber if they were reversed---i.e, if they matched they matched a poll of the Washington Post, New York Times, or Boston Globe editorial boards---they are buried in favor of the manufactured outrage of professional activists posing as aggrieved victims. 

Suzan Shown Harjo, the leading activist for changing the Redskins name, dismisses the fact that the overwhelming majority of Native Americans claim not to be offended by the term, as she states: "(This) is really a classic case of internalized oppression...People taking on what has been said about them, how they have been described, to such an extent that they don’t even notice.” It must have been this lack of awareness, this "internalized oppression," that led Harjo to produce an Indian radio program called "Seeing Red." Furthermore, Harjo's excuse---that Natives accept "redskin" because non-natives subtly forced the term upon them---is fundamentally undermined by term's origin. The Oneida Nation's own newspaper, Indian Country Today, reported in 2012: "It was the Native Americans who first used the term “red” in order to differentiate between indigenous, white, and black people." The article cites a book written by Ives Goddard, a senior linguist at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of History; the book is titled, I am a Redskin: The Adoption of a Native American Expression (1769-1826), and the article reports that Goddard's work proves that "the earliest uses of 'red skin' were in recorded statements from Natives by the French who generally traded amicably with them. The French were careful to denote the 'red' distinction was made by Natives themselves." 

It was the Natives who referred to the Europeans as "the white man" and distinguished themselves as "the red man;" the article backs this assertion with a quote from Sitting Bull: “I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place.” The article also cites J. Gordon Hylton, an historian and professor of law who wrote an essay titled, "Before the Redskins were the Redskins: The use of Native American team names in the formative era of American sports, 1857-1944;" Hylton wrote: "…throughout the nineteenth century, the term (redskin) was essentially neutral when used by whites, reflecting neither a particularly positive or particularly negative connotation.” The article finishes with the author conceding that, as a Native American, he sympathizes with those who find the name offensive, and admits that he is "annoyed by shirtless white guys putting on fake war paint and headdresses," but concludes: "Remember, in the study of history, one should not let their own passions of today override existing facts of the past just because they don’t fit our own modern version of political correctness." In other words, Native Americans are entitled to their own feelings about the word, but they are not entitled to rewrite history in accordance with their current feelings.

While the Indian Country article makes clear that Natives self-identified as "red"---an association that was adopted by the "Red Power" movement of the 1960's, which essentially attempted to re-write history so as to create a homogenous, unified concept of Native Americans, and portray them as the original green, pacifist hippies---the term "redskin" was also used in reference to artificial skin color. The Oxford Dictionary states: "Redskin is first recorded in the late 17th century and was applied to the Algonquian peoples generally, but specifically to the Delaware (who lived in what is now southern New York State and New York City, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania). Redskin referred not to the natural skin color of the Delaware, but to their use of vermilion face paint and body paint." The entry goes on to say that the term went through a process of "pejoration"---through which a positive or neutral term becomes negative---but gives no indication as to when, how, or to whom the term became offensive, or in what regard. 

Another issue that must be fleshed out is how the term "redskin" relates to the abstract concept of a team's nickname; why would a franchise affix its own players with a disparaging nickname? If you name your team the redskins, then the players are, by definition, redskins; if the name is disparaging, then it is the players who are directly disparaged. Furthermore, the coach at the time the name was chosen, William "Lone Star" Dietz, was of Native American descent---so in addition to being theoretically disparaging to the team, the name would have been personally disparaging to its coach. Imagine for a moment that team owner Daniel Snyder decided to change the name from the "Redskins" to the "Aryans;" while such a name would be considered offensive by almost everyone, not a single person would claim that the name represents an attempt to disparage Aryans---it would be without question viewed as an attempt to glorify that term. This is due to the nature of a team's nickname---its fundamental purpose is to glorify and/or identify, not to disparage---a disparaging nickname contradicts its own purpose, and is disparaging, first and foremost, to the franchise itself and the players who represent it. And if you think this controversy is simply based on the fact that "redskin" is a reference to skin color, how do you explain opposition to the Indians, the Braves, the Seminoles, or the Fighting Sioux? 

Molly Hooper of The Hill recently posted a short article titled, "Tea Party faces 2014 challenge," in which she states: "The Tea Party is facing a huge test in 2014 as establishment Republicans and business groups try to wrestle back control of the GOP." The article identifies the competing factions in this battle in accordance with their respective reactions to John Boehner's attack on the "outside groups" that opposed the recent budget compromise. Hooper asserts that Boehner's attack, while viewed by its victims as an ominous sign of things to come, "emboldened allies in the business community and on K Street, who have been annoyed with the grassroots groups for making it more difficult to get things done in Washington." She notes that these "allies" of the establishment "are now funding business-friendly candidates and incumbents in GOP primaries, hoping that the result will be a more pragmatic House GOP conference in 2015," and quotes Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, to further support her claim: “The empire is striking back with the Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads supporting more pragmatic Republicans in primaries.” While this straightforward analysis correctly identifies the nature of the participants---pragmatic insiders versus principled outsiders---it fails to identify the nature of their battle, and its implication---that the Tea Party and the establishment Republicans are fighting for the same thing and on the same grounds---is fallacious.

While the "allies of the establishment" may be "annoyed" about the Tea Party obstructing DC's ability to "get things done," the Tea Party represents a political revolution against the things that DC was "getting done." When Obama, Reid, and Pelosi were running wild in 2009 and 2010, the establishment Republicans and their allies supported the Tea Party's principled stance against more government, more insider-corruption, and more debt. Now that the president's agenda is largely neutralized, they want to toss aside those very principles as harmful and unnecessary---as if it was merely an anti-biotic for the more blatant socialist infections. The establishment Republicans adopt principles for the political purpose of attacking Democrats. When even the slightest chance of actual governance arises, the establishment Republicans dump their principles on their more ideological ("Tea Party") colleagues, and then stab those colleagues in their backs as they attempt to carry the weight of those once-shared principles in public debate. The establishment's only purpose is power, and its only means of getting and maintaining it is by servicing the interests of their "allies;" they will use principles in order to protect these allies from harmful government policy when they are in the minority, and will reject those principles the moment they have the opportunity to craft government policy themselves.

These allies in the business community and on K Street are not the 17th-century French entrepreneurs and manufacturers who, according to legend, screamed "laissez-nous faire!" (let us alone!) at the government official who asked them what the absolute monarchy could do to help them. These groups don't oppose government intervention; they oppose the government interventions which oppose their interests---they are fine with government favors. Hooper correctly pointed-out that these allies of the establishment want more "pragmatic" GOP candidates, which means: They want candidates who will shrink to idealess confines of pragmatism when government policy promotes their interests---i.e., candidates who won't let principles hinder back room deals. When the specter of burdensome taxes and regulations threatens their interests, these business groups vehemently oppose government policy on principle, but when questions of government investment, or subsidies for their industry arise, they oppose those same principles as burdensome to getting things done. For these business groups, "getting things done" only concerns them in so far as it effects their own business---which obviously makes sense---but for the entrenched lobbying firms in DC, "getting things done" is there business, and political pull is the primary, indispensable means by which they do it. Accordingly, the existence of these firms depends on having enough influential politicians who are willing to compromise on anything, for the right price, and who will not let ideology get in the way of a good deal for their clients---they need pragmatists.

Lobbying is defined, by its more honest observers, as the art of influencing legislation by privately influencing the legislators. Total spending on lobbying dropped in 2013 to its lowest level since 2004---from $3.3 billion in 2012, to "only" $2.4 billion in 2013. Lobbyist spending had hovered around $3.5 billion in every year since Obama began his first presidential campaign---the GOP portion of that spending was largely intended to bolster those who stood against the President's agenda, in the hope that it would be obstructed and stalled. Now that President Obama is politically battered and unpopular, the Tea Party is no longer of any use to the lobbying firms whose clients now seek a return to normalcy---a return to the principle-less governance of the mixed-economy, where the budget reflects a compromise, not primarily between capitalism and socialism, but between the amount of money allocated for corporate welfare and the amount allocated for personal welfare. Nothing is more offensive to this system than politicians who are willing to risk a government shutdown on behalf of mere principles---nothing is more offensive to the GOP establishment and the lobbying interests responsible for its existence than the Tea Party. This lobbying scheme and the use of public policy to gain political power are the aspects of the battle that Hooper's article failed to identify; this is the aspect of DC that is almost never identified when both insiders and outsiders chastise Congress for not getting things done. (It's worth noting that the aforementioned Chamber of Commerce, who according to the Hooper article are helping the "empire strike back" at the Tea Party, spent a measly $52 million on lobbying in 2013, down from nearly $160 million in 2010---the year before the Tea Party made its way to Congress)

The establishment Republicans and their allies are fighting to control a political party for the sake of controlling a political party---for the political power that such control entails; the Tea Party is fighting for principles, both their own and principles as such. For the Tea Party, political power is a means to an end; for the establishment, political power is the end. When you hear men like Karl Rove openly admit that they believe that the purpose of politics is to win elections, this is what they are admitting. These establishment Republicans defend their position by claiming that principles are useless if you don't have the political power to implement them---if you don't win elections. Accordingly, they reject certain principles on the grounds that advocating and defending those principles, during a campaign or in public debate, will hurt their chances of winning elections---of having the power to one day implement those principles. The obvious question is: At what point will it be politically-safe for Republicans to actually implement their principles? At what point will it no longer be necessary to compromise in the name of the next election? Never. If the Republicans take the Senate in 2014, they will make the same arguments in advance of 2016 as they are making now; instead of setting aside principles in order to gain power, as they now say, they will say that they need to continue to set aside principles in order to maintain power. The Tea Party is nothing apart from its principles, and thus has nothing to lose in the battle of 2014; their principles---the principles of this nation's founding---will survive this battle even if the Tea Party loses. The establishment Republicans have no principles, they only have power; if they lose, they will cease to exist.