Why I Have Good Reason To Trust Joe Biden's Judgement-- Generally Speaking

 

March 28, 2021

Sometimes in the course of scanning News headlines, an article will catch my eye and trigger an interesting thought or memory. Writing about it then becomes an exercise through which I can sort out my own thoughts, and put them to a test of sorts by posting it for public discussion. The key to writing effectively about politics is to want to make an intervention to help others, and to do it without fear of being proven wrong. Being proven wrong is how we learn, and it takes a kind of internal struggle to fight down the old ego and risk criticism.

Personally, as much as I enjoy sharing pics of outings, food porn, and enjoying other people's stories on Facebook, I have a difficult time expressing myself through memes or sound bites. If something strikes me as important, I'll write something on it and try to avoid long-windedness or stream of consciousness rambling. However I can't do "short". It never works, sorry. I suppose I am a Facebook non-conformist.

So, that said, (who else is tired of that expression?) the article in question covered President Biden's appointment of Gayle Manchin, spouse of Congressman Joe Manchin to head up a Federal Commission on Appalachia to address poverty, energy and Education in that region, largely in you guessed it, West Virgina and the Ohio Valley.

The article references Biden's efforts to convince Rep. Manchin to agree to a reform of the Fillibuster, since that is now the issue upon which the fate of our Democracy and Economic future currently depends. Manchin has expressed intransigence, with only a little wiggle room on the matter, therefore the article implies that Biden is using the appointment to "buy off" Manchin to get him to change his position.

Frankly, I have little doubt that this is in part fairly accurate. This is not to demean Ms. Manchin, who has a very strong background herself and is very accomplished as former First Lady of West Virginia and head of the State Board of Education, as well as serving on the US International Commission for Religious Freedom. However, one could argue that the appointment has, shall we say, "political implications". My initial reaction was "ugh", as a derivation of yuch! Luckily, I agree with my Wife, which is to never trust the first thing out of my mouth. 

I can just hear everyone saying "OH MY!", "This is corruption, influence peddling, patronage, everything rotten about Washington DC deal making which I hate. This is horrible", might be the response of those pure of heart observers who are repulsed by this kind of apparent back room dealing. Then I thought about it. 

Try to get over it. This is how effective leaders make government work, and is just what we need. This is how FDR got the New Deal implemented, how LBJ forced through Civil and Voting Rights, Medicare, and everything else that the racist Right wants to get rid of, then and now. 

What then is the difference between Biden and Trump? Didn't Trump make corrupt deals, bribe his prospective allies with rewards of one sort or another, etc? Didn't he appoint Elaine Chao as Transportation Secretary as a sop to Mitch McConnell, for example? He gave an unqualified Betsy DeVos the Education Secretary post as a reward for money and votes, right?  The answer should be obvious. One is acting in the interests money and power for a privileged few, an Oligarchy if you will, and the other to serve the "General Welfare". (That term, by the way, is in the Preamble to the US Constitution. Its the thing which the current GOP and its zealots on the Supreme Court hates the most, in its newest incarnation of the Confederacy)

As a general principle, the politics and methods of governance by leadership is mostly going to be the projection of their personalities and intentions through the strategic policies which they advocate, as defined by their relationship to the People as a whole. Without the "General Welfare" concept, which some might call the Common Good, ALL of politics is corrupt. Hang on to that thought for a bit, as it will come up again.

You may be wondering at this point about where I'm going with this piece and whether it is even relevant or worth the time to slog through. Or maybe you aren't, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

Some of the most beneficial and enduring policies in American and world history were made possible by what some might describe as corrupt deal making, at least on the surface. These were policies which still sustain and benefit mankind to this day, and are therefore right smack in the target zone for elimination by our current shared misfortune, today's "Trump GOP".

I'll start with an example who you may be familiar with, Broadway Star and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. (This part I will try to keep short) Hamilton, to his credit, wanted to create Credit, backed by the Federal Government. He proposed a National Bank. Why, you ask? Hamilton understood that the Articles of Confederation were a disaster, which opened the door to disunion, expansion of the Slave Trade and Plantation System, and more urgently the likelihood of foreign invasion, all due to the inherent instability and weakness of a system based on States Rights. He saw a National Bank (as well as a unified single currency) as the means for solving existential problems. The War Debt, foreign and Domestic; the destructive effects of the Southern Plantation system in furthering Slavery and economic backwardness, the inability to generate National Revenue to invest in the future, as opposed to the "Invisible Hand" of Adam Smith's "dog eat dog"  Free Market; the need to outlaw destructive profiteering and speculation, the sort of which almost destroyed our war effort against the British;  the inability to regulate commerce, and transact interstate business, and the urgent need for Manufacturing, Canals, Roads, for purposes of internal improvements and National Defense.

Hamilton proposed this Bank to President Washington to basically do two things in the short and long term. To reorganize the national debt through the Funding and Assumption Act, and use that reorganization as a form of refinancing of the US Government, thus turning the suffocating debt into an engine of new government backed credit for strategic/economic deployment. Under this arrangement, the Bank would have a monopoly on primary credit, and would be overseen by Congress. The public could also buy bonds to help capitalize the Bank, therefore having a stake in the Nation's progress as a whole. A tax on Whiskey brought money into the Treasury to fund the Bank as well. That would be how Hamilton would rein in the greedy profiteers, speculators, and Slave Plantations selling cheap commodities for the short term profit of a few, instead of the General Welfare for the Nation as a whole. Credit would be directed into those projects which benefitted the Public Interest, (the Bank was America's first Corporation, therefore by law accountable to the people and their representatives) and by nature were longterm investments.

Manufacturing in the American colonies was virtually outlawed under British Colonial policy, as it was in India and throughout their Empire, so addressing that need was the first priority, to become a self-sufficient producer of manufactured goods, as opposed to an import dependent Agricultural producer of cash crops for export, which the British dominated Southern cotton trade represented at the time.

In effect, Hamilton, who is today slandered as being soft on slavery, devised a system that meant the nearer term annihilation of slavery, which is why the southern states so fiercely opposed his 1st National Bank. Guess who the South delegated to be the spokesman for their opposition. Well, it was the sometimes disloyal leader of the loyal opposition to Washington's government, none other than Thomas Jefferson. Plantation and slave owner, Virginia native, racist, and rapist. Also a leading and conflicted figure of the American Revolution, whose loyalties were divided by his identification with his State, and the "Southern Way of Life". George Washington was not conflicted in the same way as Jefferson, not withstanding his personal history, which is the ultimate reason he backed Hamilton in the conflict with Jefferson over the National Bank. Washington saw that the system Jefferson was defending was economically unsustainable, ultimately unjust, a moral evil, and which maintained our status as an economic vassal State of the British Empire system, therefore he chose Hamilton's way of changing course.

How did Hamilton win out and get the Bank adopted? A deal, that's how. Washington "bought off" Jefferson. He agreed that the Capitol of the USA would be moved from Philadelphia to the newly created District of Columbia, in the South, as a city shared between Maryland and Virginia on the Potomac.  And Jefferson was sent to France, a position he wanted in order to pursue his personal and diplomatic...pursuits, shall we say. Washington was fine with this arrangement, getting Jefferson out of the country so he couldn't sabotage everything. This is the actual story of why our nation's Capitol is where it is.

Hamilton's Bank, both the first and second version were of course a huge success, which gave us the railroads, steam power, manufacturing of Iron, the Erie Canal, and a huge array of internal improvements which benefited the nation. It was so successful, that British Spy Aaron Burr asassinated Hamilton in a duel, primarily to prevent him from ever becoming President.  Years later, Donald Trump's favorite racist murderer and pro slavery President, the traitor Andrew Jackson (under influence of Burr's protege Martin van Buren)  personally destroyed the Second National Bank, but not before it accomplished its historic work.

But, getting the 1st Bank required a deal. Made in a backroom. Not the most democratic process, but totally in service of the General Welfare. This despite the opposition of the southern slave states, later the Confederacy. You can look it up.

Another fine example, not American but from Russia, but first some background. In the 18th and 19th Centuries, Czarist Russia was an American ally.  Under Catherine the Great, Russia initiated the League of Armed Neutrality to forge an alliance in Europe against intervention on the side of England during our revolution. In the early 19th century, American engineers from West Point surveyed and helped build the first railway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, at the pleasure of Czar Alexander I. His grandson, Alexander II, was an ally of Lincoln, who during our Civil War deployed the Russian Navy to protect our ports in New York and San Francisco. (Newspapers ran front page coverage of the Russian Sailors being given a heroes welcome with a ticker tape parade before 100's of thousands)

In 1861, paralleling Lincoln's later Emancipation Proclamation, Alexander II through Imperial decree abolished serfdom, becoming known as the Czar Liberator, freeing 23 million people.  He also drew upon American know how and manufacturers to plan and build the greatest infrastructure project in history, then and still today. The Transiberian railroad was inspired by Lincoln's Transcontinental, and traversed the largest land mass on Earth. There were many reasons, economic, political and cultural to build that Railroad. But it should be understood that Russia's landed aristocracy, the nobility, were opposed to it, for the same reason the GOP today will act to sabotage Biden's infrastructure plan. They saw the Russian Treasury as "their money", and opposed spending it if it meant they would be taxed, or rendered unable to steal or hoard their wealth as before. The increase in education and employment, bringing civilization to isolated and undeveloped areas of Siberia meant a dimunution of the Oligarchy's power and status. 

The Russian nobility did what you would expect. They sent their spoiled children to Universities for the rich, where they could study Anarchism and bomb making, and thusly arranged to blow the Czar into oblivion during a Royal parade.

However, before the Czar's demise, the Transiberian was begun and continued by his heir, Alexander III. (who was otherwise a very bad guy) The person put in charge of the project was an American influenced Russian named Sergei Witte. He had studied the economics of Hamilton and a German-American economist named Friedrich List from Pottstown Pennsylvania, who was a key figure in creating the Reading Railroad. List created the German tariff system called the Zollverein, (Customs Union) which united the country economically and made them a great agro/industrial power toward the end of the 19th Century.

Witte had the challenges of financing and organizing the railroad, dealing with political opposition from the Oligarchy, and financial warfare against Russia by British interests. But the biggest challenge itself was the sheer vastness of Siberia.

Pull out a map. Imagine travelling overland by Horse drawn carriage and dog sled from Moscow to Vladivostock, heading East.  Imagine the time and conditions, the perils involved. Now, imagine the same voyage, except those pre-Transiberian Railroad Russians would travel West by rail to Paris, where they would proceed to the nearest port and take a transatlantic trip to New York. From there, they would book passage on our Transcontinental railroad to San Francisco, where they would then book a transpacific voyage to Vladivostock. Which Russian do you think gets to Vladivistock first?

You guessed right. Leaving at the same time, the one who travelled West and circled the world by train and boat would arrive before the travellers taking the overland route across Russia.  That's how undeveloped Siberia was, and still is to an extent.

The engineering was a nightmare, because of permafrost and mud during seasonal change. Lake Baikal was a natural obstacle, which they tried to cross with ice breaking ships, then by building rail lines across the ice. They obviously lost a lot of trains that way, so they had to circumvent Lake Baikal, despite hazardous geological conditions to the South and the problem of railroad workers being devoured by Amur Tigers. The other factor was building to a port that was accessible to Russian ships, which presented a problem because the most direct route cut through Northern China.

Which meant that Russia needed to make a diplomatic initiative to China to secure their agreement to let the Southern route of the Transiberian come through. China said no, because they saw nothing in it for them, other than a huge economic leap for their leading competitor in East Asia.

So, Count Witte got involved in the diplomacy and got the Chinese to agree, finally. How did he do it, you may be wondering.  He bribed the Chinese Foreign Minister. With money.

Yep, that's what he did. A bribe. Straight up payment in gold. A deal. In a backroom. Not democratic at all. Yet, that was the only way it was going to happen. And it is to this day the greatest Railroad in the world in terms of size and scale, and serves the Russian people (and raw materials companies and Military) very well. Organized by someone who you likely never heard of, who studied the Economics of a certain American Broadway Star and Treasury Secretary.

I can think of several other examples in the 20th Century, especially during the almost  four terms of FDR, our modern day Machiavelli, and the biggest "wheeler dealer" in the US Senate, Lyndon Johnson, who forced through the federal laws and programs which we are right back trying to defend today. But I think the point is made.

Not to argue that progress is made through covert dealing, or corrupt illegal inducements. But when you are in a political war, like today, you want to be able to rely on those who have the experience of making government work for the people, and are willing to get down and dirty for that purpose. You want to be able to trust in people who have the right intention and psychological makeup that will strengthen them in the face of terroristic threats, blackmail, slander, and obstruction.

This is why I trust Joe Biden. He is basically a good man. He has seen it all in politics, done it all, made every mistake worth making and learned from them, as well as the mistakes of others. (Hello Bill, Barack!)  He has a strong connection to the legacy of FDR. He wants to be President for all Americans. And given all of his other positive qualities, I believe that it is good that he is old. I want to have a President who doesn't use Twitter. I want someone with an attention span who doesn't get his information from Facebook Memes or Google and fundamentally is not going to propitiate Media pundits in order to get a bump in the polls.

I like the idea of having an older President in these times, not a hothead or a nervous Nelly, or a passive reactor to popular trends.  Someone who is like many older people, determined, stubborn, not easily diverted or intimidated. Not willing to adapt to popular opinion when that opinion will lead to mass death and dictatorship. A person who knows his time here on Earth is limited, and has a single minded focus on getting a job done, without an outsized Ego that sabotages everything. Someone aware enough of their physical limitations who is able to effectively delegate to those with more energy and strong committment.

Ironically, many Trump supporters and Progressives are united in their distrust or even hatred of President Biden, albeit for different reasons. For Trump supporters, it is a Malignant hatred of the General Welfare concept, which runs up against their Theological snobbery, racism and greed. And for Progressives, it's a myopic view rooted in "Ageism" and generational hatred, or a twisted political revisionism that "Biden and Trump are the same, just two old white misogynistic tools of Ultra-Capitalism and corporate power", blah blah blah.

Whatever Joe Biden was in the past, I can assure you that he is a thoroughly changed person now, and like FDR, was transformed by personal tragedy, his campaign for President, and the Presidency itself. He has made mistakes, will continue to make mistakes, and will do what he did in the Senate for all those years. He will make deals, some of which will be "head scratchers" or even mildly infuriating.

I can say with confidence however that most everything he does he will do for us, not for himself or his own family. Anyone who can't see this will probably disagree with everything I write from here on in. I'm with Joe. Not unconditionally, but all in for backing him up on the things he's promised to do. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I trust him because I helped put him where he is, and intend to make sure he succeeds. I hope this isn't just too radical an idea. It would be so much easier to just hate them all, but I don't think we have that luxury anymore. On that note....