Contra Baucus- selected comments and analysis

Revenge of the Vine -  the Baucus Cult in Western History

What's really wrong with Max Baucus?  

Not many of us are taking the opportunity to dance on Max's grave - not yet, anyway.  Of course, he isn't dead, yet, which you'd never know from yesterday's Tribune with about 4 pages of nothing but tributes and praise for the man I have long called "The worst Senator in History" - meaning US history, of course.  I'm sure there were a few Romans or maybe even Latin American oligarchs who were worse.
  
The fact is, he's at the most dangerous point in his long career of serving Wall Street and just about every murderous, corrupt constituency in our Body Politic.  He's about to "reform" the tax system, to even better reflect the interests and "requirements" of the 1%.  Watch closely.  There will be a lot of sleight-of-hand, here.  Not that it's necessary.  The evidence indicates that he has no serious critics outside the Green Party and the Occupy movement (and of course Single Payer Healthcare advocates, who he treated like common criminals.  That would include Brian Schweitzer.).  

The Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury acting in concert would not be able to persuade Baucus and his crew of the need for any sort of ethical principles or social responsibility.  They have adopted the "self-interest" ethics of Ayn Rand along with every sort of intellectual dishonesty and disregard of scientific understanding - all the while pretending to represent the highest realms of intellectual excellence and legal "professionalism", from Harvard to Stanford, Yale, and now, Chicago.  They're all Straussians, now - like the guy who took away Oppenheimer's security clearance as much as Leo, or the Nazi Party favorite, Richard.  Maybe they're all Waltz Kings, after all.  Look at the success of Schwarzenegger, that echt Viennese King of the video rental store.  

It's Nietzschean, too, in its descent from Emerson and the early environmental radicals like John Muir or Gifford Pinchot.  The pursuit of excellence for a few, and mass sacrifice and tyranny for the many.  The pattern is clear, and I was just reminded of it by one of my unknown friends' posts:

"What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence – moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how “democracy” (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level: all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practise, in a sense, “democracy.” But now “democracy” can do the same work without any tyranny other than her own."
~Screwtape, From Screwtape Proposes a Toast, C. S. Lewis, 1959

Paul Stephens: When I used to associate with a lot of intellectual conservatives, they were always trying to get me to read this - I was more or less anti-christian, though, based on personal experience, so never read him. The above is right-on.

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Steve Kelly was one of the first to count coup.  "God is alive," he said, e-mailing his lists the story from the NY Times of Baucus calling it quits.  

Melinda Gopher's tweets soon followed.  She supported Mike Taylor against Baucus in 2002, and most NA's I know have long-standing grievances against Baucus as well as the Baucus family, itself.  (Disclaimer:  The Baucus family is from Great Falls, and actually neighbors - lived on the same block with the Diehl's, Swanberg's, and Peter's - all close friends of my family, as well.)

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Melinda Gopher
I was the one #Democrat that vowed to primary the most powerful Senator, in the #USSenate, while other state Democrats cowered...
Share · 1 · 11 hours ago near Missoula, MT · 

I reply:  "John Driscoll did it, so did Bob Kelleher - major Democratic party leaders - real labor guys, and social democrats.  Both were crucified by the Baucus Machine.  Max always pretended he didn't know what was happening - "plausible deniability," they call it."

Melinda Gopher
Believe the next person to lead #Democrats should be #LandlessIndian descendant
Share · 12 hours ago near Missoula, MT · 
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Melinda Gopher
#Baucus failed in his ENTIRE Congressional career to address #LandlessIndians needs...#13starflag

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Doug Wendt
Max Baucus 'our' "Senator from K Street" because of his ties to corporate lobbyists is RETIRING which makes his vote for unhinged massacres last week even more despicable. The Waterton Police faced hundreds of rounds & only stopped the bad guys last week when they paused to reload huge magazines. 4,000 dead in US from guns since Newtown. This ad puts the wrong headed liberal interpretation of the 2nd Amendment in context:

The Best Gun Control Commercial Ever Produced?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/the-best-gun-control-commercial-ever-produced
A man walks into his office with a rifle. He takes aim at his boss, and fires...

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Paul Stephens:

People assume I have some sort of personal grievance with Max.  I don't.  I've never had a conversation with him outside of public forums.  I just consider him one of most evil politicians I have ever seen or heard of, sellling out to the bad guys in nearly every case that matters, and getting nothing worthwhile in return - like closing Malmstrom, or promoting Single Payer healthcare, instead of destroying it.  He's also largely responsible for destroying Montana Power, via his connections with Goldman, Sachs, who under commission from PPL, packed the Board, paid off the preferred stockholders, and then liquidated the company, selling the generating assets to PPL, which was the whole point of the exercise (PPL was looking to replace its nuclear capacity, which it expected would soon be shut down).  Essentially, they were stolen, and Max or his people (along with Racicot) were in the loop all along.  

There are many other areas where Max's "leadership" has resulted in tremendous destruction to the economy (especially Montana's, and rural/small towns across the country),  "ending welfare as we [the 1%] know it," the health-care system, education (NCLB, the Race to the Top, etc), research & development ("intellectual property" for corporations, not for people), and foreign policy in general.  Max has supported all the wars, the PATRIOT Act, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (getting Clinton to sign it, which he was inclined to do, anyway), and other Republican, corporate "de-regulation" and "free trade" policies.  Max is the quintessential "neo-liberal" and was even one of the original "New Democrats" from the '70's which included Evan Bayh, John (and Bob) Kerry, Gary "Monkey Business" (Senator from CO - can't think of his last name), Bill Clinton, and Al Gore.  

While hanging, for many years, on Mike Mansfield's coat-tails, Max had none of the common touch or working class values of Mansfield, and thus has been the greatest disappointment to the Democratic base, although his effective use and doimination of the media, public and private, has largely obscured that fact.  Even more disappointing for more sophisticated observers is how shamelessly Max has maintained the support of some of the best activists and progressive leaders, who seem to ignore everything he has  done since the 1980's, when he may have actually tried to be one of the good guys.  But no good deed went unpunished, and like so many others, Max just caved in, and became the active agent of all that is wrong with our country and its government.  

Little-noted so far is Max's tremendous influence and even domination of the Obama Administration.  Jim Messina, a hero and complete creation of the Baucus Machine, got Obama re-elected, or at least takes credit for it.  So, add to the long list of Baucus's own sins and indiscretions, the creation of a President who might yet destroy the country which  once enslaved his people and ancestors.

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Truthout
The Obama administration is suggesting a compromise with Republicans to tie your benefits to something called "Chained CPI."

http://www.upworthy.com/you-will-not-believe-what-the-government-is-planning-to-do-to-your-poor-gentle-sweet-old-grandma-2?c=to1

You Will Not Believe What The Government Is Planning To Do To Your Poor, Gentle, Sweet, Old Grandma

www.upworthy.com

It doesn't mean you'll get your benefits cut. It just means you'll get less money. Totally not the same thing.

Paul Stephens: Especially pernicious because inflation is grossly understated by Soc Security, etc. Plus, those who lived freelance or in the black economy most of their lives get only the barest subsistence - my total income, with SSI and Food Stamps, is a little over $800/month. I could work part-time in a minimum wage job, but only a few of them are exempt from having your other benefits reduced in compensation. I'd have to make at least $500/month to have a worthwhile gain (i'd lose SSI, Food Stamps, etc), and I figure my time's worth $25/hr - that's what I'd charge for informal consulting, tutoring (to those with middle-class incomes - I do a lot of it for free), photography, writing, etc. But of course there is no work available for me. Somehow, I've been blacklisted. 
And that's a paradox in itself - no one has paid me or hired me for that sort of work in all the years since I most needed it, after being fired by Diamond Cab. It's like that was a punishment which all my other friends and associates recognized!

Peyton Farquhar LMAO. Obama the tyrant who will throw granny under the bus finally proves that he is no different from George the dumber. Both blue & red teams work for Wall Street.
Like · Reply · 5 ·

Brenda Roehrich Peyton. Obama is NO tyrant. That requires balls. He does this shit because he is spineless. I wanted Hilary Clinton as President; not Mr. fucking nice guy.
Like · 10 hours ago

Sarah Sparklers AND they're treating MILITARY retirees the exact same way. LIES and cheating.
Like · Reply · 3 · 11 hours ago

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The "free trade" and Pharma sell-outs for which Baucus was most culpable are described, below.   He was actually the deciding vote, and one of only a few Democrats who supported the "Part D" $50 billion/year giveaway to the drug cartels, as well as all the overprescription rackets and resulting health disasters attributable to it.  

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ZNet Daily Commentary: Tremendous Pharmaceutical Profits or Totally Protected Plunder? By Dawn Paley


Tremendous Pharmaceutical Profits or Totally Protected Plunder?

April 22, 2013 By Dawn Paley

http://www.zcommunications.org/tremendous-pharmaceutical-profits-or-totally-protected-plunder-by-dawn-paley

What the TPP really means for Latin America
Quieter is better. That seems to be the motto driving the negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The trade deal was initially called the P2, and it was a two-way affair between New Zealand and Singapore. Chile and Brunei joined the negotiations, which were renamed the P4. Then the US joined, and the deal was re-branded as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP). Today, negotiating countries are splayed across the globe like a constellation only a highly trained astronomer could recognize. In addition to the first five, the TPP now includes Australia, Malaysia, Peru, and Vietnam. Canada and Mexico recently joined the talks and Japan is vying to participate in the negotiations
The next round of negotiations will take place in Lima, Peru, and proponents are pushing for a final agreement by fall.
But the language of TPP promoters rings hollow for those who have tracked the progress of other trade agreements, like NAFTA. “They’re saying that it’s going to open up opportunities for exporting more Mexican goods to other countries, like to Asia… That Mexico will become more competitive in other markets,” said Manuel Pérez-Rocha, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, and member of the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC). Pérez-Rocha pointed out there’s little concrete evidence that Mexican exports to Asia will increase as an outcome of the agreement. “Mexico has actually signed many Free Trade Agreements with other countries, and its dependency to the US market hasn’t changed a bit,” he told the Americas Program.