Rogue Columnist

A reader writes, "I'd like your take on the enduring value of MLK's contributions because
I don't think they're fully understood or appreciated. Falling on
inauguration day is (to me) poetic."

Yes, the second inauguration of our first African-American president is falling on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Most Americans, even black Americans, know little of King or the civil rights era. A better understanding can be gained by reading all three volumes of Taylor Branch's magisterial examination of America in the King years. And reading King's collected speeches and writings. Otherwise, this holiday remains a proxy for feel-good idiocy based on a few lines of the "dream speech," a magnificent piece of rhetoric but one that barely grazes the surface of the man and his message.

King was not alone in killing Jim Crow and achieving basic rights for all Americans in the 1960s. Students and sharecroppers seeking to register blacks or integrate buses and lunch counters were bludgeoned and sometimes killed by racist Southern cops and white mobs. Among the survivors is Rep. John Lewis, who was a young organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and one of the Freedom Riders. Every American should know the names of such giants as Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Fred Shuttlesworth, A. Phillip Randolph, Ralph Abernathy and Whitney Young. The little girls who died in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing. Lyndon Johnson, willing to lose the South to the Democratic Party (for a generation, he thought) in order to push through civil-rights legislation. All of these and more are the shoulders on which President Obama stands. But King, probably rightly, looms largest in the collective memory. Or at least a version of King.

Humans are cooking the planet into a nightmare out of a science-fiction movie. Nearly four years after the end of the Great Recession, America faces a permanent unemployment crisis, declining middle class, backward infrastructure and the prospect of years of anemic growth. The rich are more powerful than ever, with a historic share of national wealth; the same is true for the multinational corporations — but the wealth is not trickling down. Amidst these self-inflicted troubles, the Republican-controlled House is refusing to pay bills it has already approved. This is the essence of the debt-ceiling standoff. The House appears willing to flirt with, or even bring on default to get its way.

That way would be major steps to repeal the New Deal, Great Society and the domestic programs of the "Commie Dick" Nixon administration. Especially in their NRA-approved gun sights are Social Security and Medicare.

Such is the hostage-taking before which President Obama always bends. This time he claims he won't…blah, blah, blah. But a powerful block of Congress even discussing default is serious; this political dysfunction helped bring on the credit downgrades in 2011. Enjoy this relative stock rally while you've got it. As the debt-ceiling date draws closer, in February, markets will be turbulent. An actual default, which by its very nature would be disorderly, means worldwide chaos and potential depression. It would take the world's leading economy, and a government whose currency and Treasury bonds are the safest in the world, and flush it down the toilet.

Have you taken the Pew Research Center's "political typology" quiz? It's fascinating and frightening.

Among the twenty questions, I answered in the affirmative such ones as "Government regulation of business is necessary to protect the public interest"; "The growing number of newcomers from other countries strengthens American society"; "Relying too much on military force to defeat terrorism creates hatred that leads to more terrorism," and "Hard work and determination are no guarantee of success for most people."

In answering yes to questions about too much power being concentrated in in the hands of a few large companies and corporations making too much profit, I am simply responding to well-known facts about consolidation, concentration and record profits as a percent of GDP while per-capita GDP remains below pre-crash levels. How else should one respond? A few of the questions are too simplistic, forcing answers about highly complex issues. Faced with one, I picked a strong military as the best way to ensure peace. Religion is a very important part of my life; I said so.

My results: I'm a "solid liberal" — along with 14 percent of the public.

I have been hesitant to write about the so-called fiscal cliff for many reasons. It's an over-covered topic, leaving readers in a zombie trance, even if most of the stories shed little real light. I subscribe to the Abba Eban doctrine: "When all else fails, men turn to reason." And the less elegant: Surely, they couldn't be this stupid. But it looks as if one of two things will happen: Either we're going off the cliff/curb/ramp, or President Obama will sell out the middle class safety net to get a deal.

The Bush tax cuts on the rich need to expire. In that word, "expire," we have the answer. They were sold with an expiration date, once already extended. The cuts did not perform as advertised. The Bush years, even at their best, produced the worst job creation and growth in modern American history. Inequality grew as the rich, following the rentier model, used their money to gamble in the $600 trillion derivatives market and other casinos, rather than investing in productive, job creating enterprises. Frankly, taxes elsewhere need to go up. Americans are the least-taxed among advanced nations. And we need carbon taxes and taxes on transactions, i.e. gambling by the Wall Street Boyz.

The sequester part of the cliff/curb/ramp is an artificial creation that grew out of the 2011 budget standoff, to put a gun to negotiators to reach a debt/deficit reduction deal. It could be repealed by Congress in a day. But it won't, so serious, "automatic" reductions will start on January 1. The Congressional Budget Office has warned this will cause a recession