Could it be fate or the subconscious economy that once again rescues the fortunes of the Democrats?

It was the Gulf War economic recession that helped the Democrats to capture the executive branch of the federal bureaucracy in 1992; consequently, the slight majority of the people rejoiced together with Bill Clinton while triumphing over incumbent George Bush, Sr. and the rest of the Republicans. However, learning from their mistakes and implementing the new-old tax policy (no taxation without representation, meaning -- no governmental services... no taxes) the Republicans captured the legislative branch of the federal bureaucracy and signed the Contract with the Americans. Following booming economy, nevertheless, defended the Democratic executive bureaucrats and, in 1996, the slight majority of the people left Bill Clinton in the executive office for the second time. Why did it happen then, and most important, will it happen in the last year of the second millennium?

In other words -- will the prosperous economy of 1994-99 and the subconscious majority shield the Democratic executives again against the conscious policies of the Republican minority? Will our public mind be once again subconscious or will it manage to transcend into the realm of consciousness?

How else can we interpret such polling data that the Chief Perjurer's approval rating still stands above 50%? Or that democratic and republican polling data alike shows that, by a slight margin (5-10%), voters would support a Republican candidate? Maybe the majority of the American people realized that it is they, who actually drive the subconscious economy up, and not the federal bureaucrats who only rubber-stamp the laws, which are the reflections of the people's will? It may well be. Consequently, the majority may rather prefer the Republican executives, who proved that they can manage excellent reflections of the people's will and do not ruin it by breaking own laws while following orders of their own medulla oblongata. However, because the executive bureaucrats seemingly (to the subconscious majority) keep the economy on course and thus get much of their credit for the good performance of it, it would be preposterous to assume that the majority will cease to be subconscious and will prefer a republican candidate in the White House.

Surely, the fact that survey respondents are not keen on the implementation of the Contract with America also has something to do with these results. You can't have much enthusiasm for a cause when you don't approve the personal behavior of its principal crusaders. By contrast, those intellectuals who helped drive Ronald Reagan into the executive office enjoyed widespread popularity among the subconscious majority playing on its patriotic feeling that was hurt by the Vietnam failure and on its subconscious wish to punish the Evil Empire that was supposedly responsible for that failure.

Nevertheless, think about it this way. What if, instead of looking comparatively good, present economic conditions were about as bad as those Ronald Reagan's team confronted when the last vote was computed for his presidency? The table on this page provides a telling Reagan-versus-McCain scorecard, showing seven key economic indicators as of then and now: economic growth, worker's productivity, unemployment, personal income, inflation, the stock market, and consumer confidence.

If you still have rocks in your head and still are asking yourselves, 'why a Republican?' Well, although, with a subconscious Democratic president, America lost Her idealistic virginity, She can transcend her PR-syndrome and elevate Herself into a conscious and dignified ideological adulthood with a Republican president.

Why McCain, you may ask? Although the bureaucratic brass of the GOP does not support campaign finance reform, Senator John McCain dared to challenge them and earn appreciation of the American subconscious majority as an alternative to the stale politics-as-usual of the GOP's brass, who support Governor George Bush. Although Bush looked comparatively, with previous debates, more assertive and painted McCain's signature issue as being detrimental to the top GOP's brass, the senator from Arizona had taken the high moral ground in the Iowan debate, in which McCain forced the Texas governor to defend his bureaucratic reliance on corporate "soft money" that buries the ability of the concerned citizens to trace the real source of those money and to nail such harmful donations as that of the Loral Space and Co., and to nail it in the public eye right in time and not when it is too late. Although McCain came out victorious in that battle, it will not be enough to win him the Republican nomination and the presidential campaign, because the appreciation of the conscious middle class lies well around the GOP's fences and only the most active part of the commoners will really decide the outcome of the first round for the presidency.

The top brass of the Republicans believe that campaign finance reform will hurt their ability to resist the Democrats' propaganda because liberals already have their hands on the great majority of mikes and TV-cameras in the country and they can pay for their ads through the salaries of Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, and the like, rather than paying directly as the Republican candidates must do. Thereafter, if such a bill passes, the Democratic candidate would continue to receive the lavish indirect help of the media while the Republican candidate would have trickled down snippets from the media table; and it will be an unequal fight of the Republican David with the Democratic Goliath, in which the Republicans can only place their hopes in the hand of God and not in their own deeds. Therefore, those Republican bureaucrats who is already suspicious of McCain's reform bill will be more likely to vote for Bush, and they will instigate their vassals to do the same.

While being not so open and talkative on other domestic issues, like health care and Social Security, McCain did take much credit among the middle class voters by pressing hot buttons of the external politics when he criticized the Kremlin bureaucrats and their "brutal to the extreme" war in Chechnya and announced that if he were President, he would move to cut off the IMF's loans to Moscow. Although Bush, a week later, unveiled an identical position on Chechnya, his foreign-policy address sounded stale and precooked by his bureaucratic apparatus of advisers. And even a former National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, said, that "McCain was the first senior American politician to say that what the Russians are doing is genocide... It was a gutsy call, and he called it just right."

McCain and Bush showed real differences among themselves, both by form and by substance. McCain is less stiff about the American fate and America's "founding ideals" in foreign policy. Last week, he outlined a more aggressive policy of "rollback" toward totalitarian states like Yugoslavia, Iraq and North Korea. Although both Bush and McCain support free-trade and believe the U.S. should participate in multilateral organizations and work with allies and Chinese in the World Trade Organization, McCain is more critical of China, calling its leaders "determined ... ruthless defenders of their regime".

Although McCain had a few inconsistencies in foreign affairs, on the whole record, he has overwhelming credibility over Bush when it would really count -- the moment a President decides to send troops into conflict and takes full responsibility for the result of that decision. The President always has persuasive advisers on both sides of an issue, but it is he who casts the decisive vote, and it is he who is responsible to the Americans for the outcome of those American actions that originate in his mind.

Spontaneity, which is based on his expertise and experience, is McCain's crucial tactic in fighting with Bush for the GOP's nomination. McCain defies Bush's total reliance on the bureaucratic gurus of foreign-policy; nevertheless, he can balance and not be entirely close to their advises. Thus, McCain said, "when there is a crisis, I won't have to consult advisers". At the same time, McCain is in the groove with many American foreign-policy pandits, including Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski, and he can make his position loud and clear to them, and even to the Democrats, one of whom said, that "John has lived for years with these foreign-policy questions. It's not to say that someone who has not dealt with, cannot learn. It just takes time."

I do not think that the voting majority of Americans and, more importantly for now, the vast majority of Republicans, have the patience to wait for another Ronald Reagan, not even trying to create him. And Senator John McCain seems the right candidate for that role. His spontaneity reminds audiences of his heroic past and his expertise; more importantly, he ignites the commoners' anticipation of their own sons and daughters' heroic future, and that is the crucial characteristic for the real leadership among the subconscious majority, where it can not be acquired for any amount of money or for any relationship to the famous ancestors.

Therefore, cast yourselves back to that November of 1980 and notice that nothing was going right. The economy was in recession, brought on by the secondary shock-wave of the great oil crisis. The worker's productivity was hardly rising. Inflation was still raging about 10% per year; recall those creepy words, "stagnation" and "stagflation." The steepest bear market since the 1930s hit its bottom and was showing only its first sprouts of improvement, and consumer confidence was rated poor. Only the unemployment rate was relatively mild, at 6%, although it fluctuated to 10% at the beginning of that year.

Perhaps more than anything else, there was the humiliating feeling among the subconscious majority toward the economy that they were no longer masters of their destiny, and their fate took over their life. This crippling feeling was steadily propagated by the Democrats in order that the subconscious majority could not transcend into the realm of consciousness but forever intellectually and financially depended on them. Today, it's not just that the same economic indicators look great by comparison. It's the restored belief that the subconscious majority can transcend likely into the realm of consciousness and conquer or at least control our major problems -- poverty, unemployment, crime, diseases, and illiteracy -- the Five Great Whales, on which each revolution was born.

So, giving economic determinism its due, if McCain had Reagan's economy to deal with, how he would have capture the executive office?

You should not use "economic determinism" and "communism" interchangeably, because it would be the same as to mix up "destiny" with "fate". Any valid assessment of economic determinism must begin with the statement that, on balance, the theory of communism was of less enduring value than those of Fisher, I. or Harris, W. I say this regarding balance, because the point is that historically proven incorrect ideas are not only worthless, they're usually worth less than nothing because they obscure more than they clarify, thus, tending to blind their adherents and to make fanatics of them who have already killed 180 million humans worldwide and are going to kill some more in the name of the theory that supposedly, if implemented correctly, would lead humanity to paradise in this world -- the paradise that is still building on human bones in some places.

Take the Marxist notion that there are only two major classes -- the class of workers and the class of capitalists. The workers have no property and thus are necessitated-determined to be employees of the proprietors-capitalists, who mercilessly exploit the workers and become richer and richer while the workers become increasingly impoverished, sick, and degenerative. In the communistic countries, people already experienced and have first-hand knowledge of the incorrectness of the Marxian doctrine. However, in the capitalistic countries, the Marxian doctrine is still fashionable among the liberals, who still think that they can neglect the notion of the middle class, and who assumed that the only reason the proletariat (property-less class) prospered under the capitalistic rule because of unions and socialistic legislation, which limited the greediness and selfishness of capitalists.

This black and white dualistic doctrine still prevents the subconscious majority from a deeper understanding of the gray area of how labor and thriftiness let the lower class workers transcend to the middle class of petty-proprietors and from the latter to the upper class, and how the lazy and unthrifty capitalists descend from the upper class to the middle and lower classes, and how each social class gets its fair share of the gains from the increased social productivity, which largely depends on the competition (legal and illegal) among and between the classes of a society and narrowly depends on the competition (legal and illegal) among and between all human societies.

According to Mill's labor theory the value of a good is directly proportional to the amount of labor time required to produce and to distribute it. Indeed, things that require more effort in production and distribution do tend to be worth more. However, the liberal opponents of this theory are quick to point out that Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' were priced as next to nada when they first hit the market. And the habits of thought this concept helped create still tend to get in the way of the simple point that nothing is worth anything unless it gets into an open society and on a fair market, where the sophisticated consumers (in competition with each other) place some objective value on it.

But I do think there is one or two good ideas that can be partially salvaged from the wreckage of Marxist thought. Marx, in his essay on 'Estranged Labor' argued, that "the worker only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He is at home when he is not working, and when he is working he is not at home." And that would be correct when directed to the worker of monotonic labor, Charlie Chaplinish, with a monkey wrench, screwing a conveyer belt, whose mind is absent and subconscious, and who turned his pleasant work into his unpleasant job and alienated him/herself in the workplace. The liberals, following Marx, tend to blame the creator of this workplace (a capitalist, a society at large) for this alienation of a worker. But if the worker does not have a life goal and does not know where he/she is heading, then, how can he/she blame somebody else but him/herself?

When Alice fell into the Wonderland and met the Cheshire Cat, she asked him if he knows the way out. The Cat answered, that it largely depends if she knows where she wants to go.

Liberals, of course, could and should follow the Marxist doctrine because they need the subconscious worker who would (in all his/her decisions) rely on those liberals and even would not attempt to work out his/her own goal of life, thus becoming the conscious worker. But then again, such slavish workers should not ask for pity, because of their lazy minds.

And you know, there are plenty of "workaholics" today who treat the workplace as their home and call the workplace "home" and the home -- just a "house". And Marx himself could be considered as a workaholic because he preferred to spend his days in a library, working out his doctrine. He probably thought that it was his goal, his calling, to give others his doctrine, which supposedly would liberate other workers and turn them into conscious and moderate workers, but it did not, because it was based on the false assumption that the enemy is outside of the worker, not inside of him/her.

If there is any solution to the problem of the worker's alienation, it lies in thorough and conscious balancing between the worker's own subconscious desire to be rich and his/her conscious knowledge how to acquire the ownership and be in control of it. In fact, worker-owned enterprise existed before, as well as around, the time Marx wrote his Das Kapital, but he dismissed it as being too bourgeois, meaning -- too middle-classy and prudent. And the following generations of the subconscious workers paid the hefty price for his scientific negligence.

Nevertheless, there is still a grain of salt in his work, which gets dissolved over in such fallacious and still-current concepts as "the big or small government" and "consumerism or consumer sovereignty." The consumer is an individual and, as such, could not be sovereign; otherwise, the rule of majority would cease to exist and primordial anarchy  would take place, where 'each battles each' and 'no consumers allowed'.

What relates to the concept of the big federal bureaucracy, liberals, and Franklin D. Roosevelt was among them, see it as the solution to the problem of the worker's alienation in the workplace. On the contrary, conservatives, and Ronald Reagan was among them, see the big bureaucratic apparatus as the main problem, main obstacle that prevents resolution of the worker's alienation problem. On the first glance, it seems that both parties are right, and big government is the solution, when the time is right. However, the time is usually right only in relatively short periods of time when a nation confronted with a grave internal or external crisis, and, in the long betweens, it is the biggest problem.

Take a minute to reread the Communist Manifesto and its very first sentence -- 'A specter is haunting Europe -- the specter of Communism,' and the following one -- 'The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce 100 years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together,' -- and you will see how scientifically negligent Marx and Engels were, preferring to dismiss the evidence available to them of the middle-class ruling of the Periclean Greeks, who also created comparatively (with all preceding generations) massive and colossal productive forces for more than 22 hundred years before Marx and Engels. By the way, this evidence is thoroughly traced in my first book, Johns' Customs (External Evolution of Human Species), which is available at my web page -- license.htm. Therefore, the final call of the Manifesto -- 'The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!' -- has nothing to do with the conscious science but plenty with the subconscious religion.

And what is a religion? By definition, "religio" is an unverifiable belief, around which the believers are gathering. And around what should unite 'the working men of all countries'? Around the belief that it is not their own but somebody else duty to create for them working conditions that can be considered by them as "their" work, not simply as "their" job, or what? That is where the entrepreneurial competitive spirit is lost and the communistic childish dependency is born and perpetuated by the following generations of liberals, who blindly relied on that unverifiable story of destiny and fate that was recounted in colorful details in Marx's Das Kapital. And this belief is a variation of the biblical motif about the inevitability of the triumph of good over evil, of the good but property-less worker over the mean and evil-spirited proprietor-capitalist.

What must happen, said Marx, given the inexorable "laws" (remember that a tendency is not a law) of capitalist dynamics, is that the proletariat gets impoverished, sinking into 'misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation'. But 'with this too grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself'. And we know how his predictions turned out, when the "conscious" workers took over the Russian state bureaucracy and organized the workplace for other workers, who could not find a place among the new bureaucrats. The new Soviet workers still felt themselves outside their work, and in their work felt outside themselves. They still were at home when they were not working, and when they were working they were not at home. Why?

Because the old workers became conscious and transcended into the upper class of bureaucrats when they eliminated the old bureaucracy and took its workplaces as their new workplaces, which gradually turned out into their private property; meanwhile, the new workers still were subconscious and relied on the liberals and old workers, who became the bureaucrats, and waited in frustration that the latter would create workplaces-like-home for them. Thus, the vicious circle of alienation converged and, following Marx's logic, the new workers must start a new revolution against the old workers, in order to become the conscious bureaucrats themselves.

There then follows the final accord of the Communist Pathetique Symphony No7, as the conscious workers take over: 'The integument [the skin, VS] is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated'. That is very logical, but the question is how much time needed to become the conscious workers who would turn the private property into the social one; and reversibly, how much time needed to turn the conscious bureaucrats into the subconscious workers and to turn the social property into the private one?

That was the fatalistic theory of communism, and probably that is why it was first embraced by the very fatalistic back then Russians, in 1917. Turning our attention to present economic determinism and destiny, which the Americans prefer in 1999, we should analyze the following data.

The American economy is heading forward into the last year of the second millennium with a lot of momentum. After a sluggish 1.9% growth rate in the second quarter, the gross domestic product (GDP) jumped to 5.7% rate of increase of the total output of goods and services -- marked the biggest jump since the end of last year and pushed GDP to an inflation-adjusted $8.9 trillion. Hardy consumer and business spending and a strong buildup in business inventories contributed to the third-quarter growth. The economic progress is not showing signs of slowing down yet; consumers are spending avidly and businessmen are investing aggressively.

Many economists believe that, in the current fourth quarter, economic growth has slowed a bit but is still about 5%. For the entire year, they expect 4 percent of economic growth, which is higher than the 3% speed limit that the Federal Reserve believes to be the optimal growth rate that can be sustained without triggering excessive inflation.

The Federal Reserve has raised rates three times this year trying to slow the humming economy, to curb super-optimists, and to keep inflation under control. Now many economists believe that the Fed will raise rates again in February or March. Thus, Merrill Lynch's chief economist Bruce Steinberg said, that "the U.S. economy remains in overdrive... With no real sign of moderation, we expect the Fed to tighten'' the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other on overnight loans, moving them from the current 5.5% to 6%. This raise is expected from February 1 and before the middle of next year.

An inflation rate, tied to the rising GDP, rose at 1.9% in second and 1.7% in the third quarters, showing its mild character. Consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of total economic activity, rose at a rate of 5% from April through September. The personal savings rate of the Americans' (savings as a percentage of disposable income) stood still at 2.1% in the third quarter, an all-time low. It means that consumer confidence was very high in the third quarter, and consequently, business investment (spending on new equipment and plants) was rising at healthy rate of 7% and 10.9% in the second and third quarters.

America's swelling trade deficit continues to slow down the indicators of economic growth and imports grew at the rates of 14.4% rate and 14.9% in the second and third quarters, while exports were growing only at the rates of 4 % and 11.5% in the same quarters. Although the profits of the American companies decreased at a $6.5 billion rate in the second quarter as companies were pressed by increasing labor costs resulting from lowering unemployment rate, they rose at rate of $3.7 billion in the third quarter, reflecting the impact of Hurricane Floyd, other natural and man-made disasters, and improving economic activity in Asia and Latin America .

Liberals would promptly point out and boo the latter indicator, crying foul -- "see...see, capitalists get their profits from peoples' misery;" and as usual, they would miss the point that economic indicator of profit is measuring not the human greediness, but the human activity around the globe. When nature relaxes -- people are relaxed (you know, they are somewhat natural also) and their profits are going down; when nature is raging -- people are extremely active in order to survive and their profits are going through the roof. In usual economic terms, profits and debts measure supply and demand; in common sense terms, they measure our socially useful activity and our socially useless passivity, not our philanthropism and greediness. And I am sure that more people died from heart-attack in the second quarter than in the third one, because they were lazier back then and get bigger spare-tiers around their bellies, which prevented their hearts from normal activity. I do not have the statistic data yet, but I will report on this matter to you soon as my jalopy computer lets me. But, for now, look once more at the following table.

Reagan vs. McCain

In the months leading up to Ronald Reagan's victory in November of 1980, the economy was in recession, inflation was soaring, the stock market was bearish, and consumer confidence was sluggish. Today, these indicators look great by comparison with the past and probably will continue to show today's trend in the first quarter of the year 2000, but will be they still good in the second and third quarters? If they will, then, McCain strategy to accentuate the foreign policy will be right on the money. On the other hand, if they turn sour after the first quarter, then, he should prepare and find the focal point in the internal policy (among the Great Five Whales).

So, will the subconscious economy spell America's and McCain's gloomy fate or will the Republican conscious politics spell America's and McCain's starry destiny?

12/22/99

What is more important to us now – the chicken-and-egg or the egg-and-chicken?

Bush, Baker, Limbaugh and their ultra-conservative trail believe (as we, moderates, do) in freedom and in justice and that we together must protect our economical interests and promote our political values. However, their freedom of undertaking is slightly different from ours, because they protect the interests of the upper class and we protect the interests of the middle class. That is why they are so hypocritical and ambivalent in their drug and prostitution policies, criminalizing its lighter and legalizing its harsher forms.

I admit that it may be not the appropriate time for inquiring in those third rail policies where I can be electrocuted without proper safeguards. Therefore, instead, I will try to clarify the topic by analyzing the trial of the Microsoft Corporation.

Historically, anti-monopoly policy debates in the United States have been pre-occupied with a false dichotomy between policies that are intended to protect the interests of innovators and policies intended to promote the interests of the mediocre majority. Mr. Limbaugh is going nuts, trying to prove to us, the mediocre majority, that white is white and how it is important to preserve and promote excellence in our society. Who is arguing with that triviality? He spends all 15 hours of his work per week showing us trivialities that were long ago discerned by our common sense, and he has never tried to enlighten us by showing the difference between our long-lasting interests and those of the elite.

We, republicans, united into this party because of our faith in our core values -- individual freedom and rights, democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, and free markets. However, our core values are not universal values; and it would be an absurd pretense that they reflect the interests of aristocrats and our interests equally.

The Soviet communists were eager to promote that kind of equalization externally and internally, but the grim internal reality judged them gravely. Now this kind of equalization threatens our values as well because we are not trying to discern and ponder on our different economical interests.

Take for example the trial against the Microsoft Corporation. The federal Attorney General and those of 20 states believe that the Microsoft Corporation has used its monopoly in the software market of operating systems to protect its dominance and to eliminate potential competitors. The government bureaucrats think that in the end, consumers will be harmed, because they will have fewer choices.

Specifically, the government bureaucrats allege that Microsoft has engaged in actions to preserve its monopoly in the Windows operating systems (Win OS) that violate anti-trust laws. The government lawyers also assert that the corporation has used its monopoly in the Win OS market to attempt to monopolize the software market for Internet browsers. Moreover, government lawyers accused the corporation in other uncivilized competitive acts.

Microsoft lawyers argued that their corporation is simply trying to develop better products, and its actions were legal. The corporate bureaucrats asserted that there are no grounds for consumer indignation over their marketing practices, and that the government bureaucrats singled out their corporation unfairly.

More specifically, the government lawyers assert that the Microsoft Corporation is violating the Sherman Anti-trust Act of 1890, which has two sections. The first section prohibits certain types of agreements that restrict the flow of trade. The second section prohibits the misuse of monopoly power; specifically, anti-competitive actions that seek to maintain that monopoly power and actions that attempt to use that monopoly power to dominate another market.

Government lawyers allege that some of Microsoft's business agreements with Internet service providers (ISP) and Internet content providers (ICP) restrict the ability of the latter to promote such Internet browsers as the Netscape Communicator, thus, stifling competition and violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The government lawyers also allege that Microsoft has violated Section 2 by engaging in anti-competitive actions to preserve its monopoly in the software market of the Win OS and to extend that monopoly into the software market of internet browsers.

The government bureaucrats have been eye-balling the growing profits and the power of the Microsoft bureaucrats since 1990, when the Federal Trade Commission first started examining charges of Microsoft’s monopolistic behavior. In 1995, the corporate and government bureaucrats reached a settlement that required the corporation to change a variety of business practices, including key aspects of its licensing agreements with personal computer makers. So, why did the government bureaucrats start a more aggressive policy toward the corporate bureaucrats only in the middle of the past year?

Probably because the government bureaucrats believe that the corporate bureaucrats’ efforts to monopolize the internet market could have an wide-ranging impact on the end-consumer, and consequently, can lead to a substitution of the state bureaucracy control over internet commerce for a corporate bureaucracy control of it. If most people accessed the Internet with Microsoft software, the corporate bureaucrats could control commerce and content on the global computer network. Therefore, the stakes are much higher for the state and federal bureaucracies now than they were in 1995, when the Microsoft bureaucrats fought only for a monopoly in the software market of word processing and spreadsheet programs.

The Microsoft lawyers have already lost their case by preponderance of evidence (roughly speaking, more than 50%, comparatively with 95% of above reasonable doubt criterion, needed to win in a criminal case) in a lower court. The case is now in an appellate court, and it is likely that the Microsoft lawyers will appeal for justice all the way to the Supreme Court. If the government bureaucracy prove their temporal superiority over the corporate bureaucracy, then, the former want that the latter to cancel their exclusionary contracts with the ISPs and ICPs that allegedly harm the end-consumer. Moreover, the government lawyers want the corporation either to strip out its Internet browsing technology from its Win OS or to include a rival browser, made by the Netscape Communications Corporation. Some additional sanctions will also be placed on the Microsoft bureaucracy.

If the government bureaucrats assert that the corporate bureaucrats are temporarily inferior to them, then, industry analysts expect the Microsoft bureaucrats to place Netscape's software in the Win OS because it would be extremely difficult to separate Microsoft's Internet Explorer from its Win OS. However, it is impossible to determine a qualitative and quantitative impact on the end-consumer of other "remedies" the government bureaucrats may suggest.

It's difficult to speculate on the Microsoft's possible stock performance should they finally lose the case, but for now its stock price jiggles about 90 points and has stayed relatively still throughout the trial. Of course, negative publicity hurts, and could erode sales or make it harder for the corporate bureaucrats to do business as usual with their partners. Some industry analysts also prognosticate that the corporate management could get so distracted by the lawsuit that they might make poor business decisions that would lead to the demise of corporation or to break it into many pieces.

You may ask why on the earth we, commoners, should be concerned with the interests of the government and corporate bureaucracies?

Because we promote into the political bureaucracy the best of us in political virtues, and we promote into the economical bureaucracy the best of us in economical virtues. Therefore, we are ultimately responsible for both of them, and it is up to us to decide what is more important to us between now and the year 2004 – our political values or our economical interests.

Theoretically, we can strife for both. However, practically, it is always necessary to prioritize the materialization of our American Dreams, because the growth of the population is usually faster than the growth of the means of subsistence, though sometimes they can grow at the same pace.

Should we protect and stimulate such innovators as Bill Gates? Sure! The real question is, however, when and how should we protect our bests in economics and politics?

Until now, we have protected Bill Gates’ monopoly on his software-innovation because, after the Gulf War, we have needed a strong economy. That is why Bill Gates has so many billions of dollars that he cannot manage them on his own and has to delegate his decision-making power to the Wall-street brokers, who transfer it to the Treasury Department, which transfers it to the international bureaucracy, which mismanaged that money giving it to the dictators all around the globe. Bill’s money is our token of appreciation for his labor, not our appreciation of the "labor" of those dictatorial thugs. That is why Lenin was laughing at the Americans, saying that "they would bury themselves with their own shovels if they smell profit in it".

I am not against the stimulation of innovators, but it has its own reasonable limitations in particular times, where it becomes its own averse. You know that dialectics teaches us that opposites tend to converge into each other. And I am sure that now, Bill Gates is spending the lion share of his time around the pile of his money, thinking how to save it from other bureaucrats, rather than thinking about the innovations, which would perpetuate his name in our consciousness.

Mr. Limbaugh would say to you that it is Bill’s business and you should stay out of it, but I say to you that there are times for staying out of it and there are times when you have to give priority to political virtues, which have been diminished lately by the other Bill -- the present resident of the Oval Office.

Now you have an opportunity to make your priority loud and clear, and to choose who will be the No.1 for the next four years – Bill Gates again or John McCain.

02/26/00

At his mountain cabin in Colorado, John McCain gathered his senior strategists to assess the situation after the Super Tuesday voting. It did not take long for strategists to conclude that it makes little sense to continue. McCain won 7 states and 231 delegates. Bush has 617 of the 1,034 delegates needed for the nomination. Within a few hours Wednesday McCain’s campaign schedule was scrapped and the events in Colorado and Illinois were canceled. McCain said that GOP voters had spoken, and he respects their decision. "I am no longer an active candidate for my party's nomination for president,'' he continued.

Conceding the Republican presidential nomination to Bush, John McCain suspended his presidential campaign today without endorsing Bush and vowing to remain "a force for change.''

McCain offered Bush his "best wishes'' but not his endorsement. McCain rode waves of independents and Democrats to victories in New England and Michigan, posing an unexpected threat to Bush and the Republican establishment.

Bush, campaigning in Colorado, congratulated his former rival "for fighting the good fight.'' Bush said he did not ask McCain for his endorsement yet. Bush told that, "there needs to be some time to settle out, and John needed some time to think.''

McCain expressed determination not to feel sorry for self. "I'm not bitter," he insisted, "and I'm not going to indulge in recriminations... I'm a big boy... There are these millions of people out there, a lot of them people who had never voted before, and I'm not going to desert them. I'm not going to betray them by saying adios and riding off into the sunset."

McCain emphasized that he sought "no confrontation" with Mr. Bush and that he did not want an "adversarial relationship" with him, or "some huge confrontation at the convention." However, he said he wanted to keep his options open, including the possibility of a fight over the platform. To that end, he plans to retain the bloc of delegates he won in seven states rather than release them from duty.

He said, he does not know exactly how to carry forward his program that attracted so many people, but he will rely on his small group of supporters in the Senate, including Senators Thompson of Tennessee and Hagel of Nebraska, and his main campaign aides.

McCain said he would return to the Senate on March 20, after a brief holiday abroad. He said he would explore, among others, the attitudes of Bush's Senate supporters toward his legislative agenda. Only then, he said, after weighing the situation on Capitol Hill he would ponder his next step.

In his presidential campaign, McCain concentrated heavily on campaign-finance reform. After losing a battle, he is already talking about how to win the campaign. To that end, a soft-money ban should be one of his first priorities on Capitol Hill, where he intended to press "not just for reform, but also for a plan to pay down the national debt and preserve the Social Security system, instead of using the budget surplus just to cut taxes." McCain asked himself a rhetorical question, "Where can we work together in the Senate? We shall wait and see." So far, the Republican establishment strongly opposes any concession to McCain’s propositions.

Bush's campaign aides were contacting McCain’s team to determine how Bush should proceed with McCain. Bush wants McCain's endorsement to help woo independent voters in the fall. McCain's team has assured Bush’s team that McCain will not bolt the GOP and that McCain wants to be a "resource'' for the GOP campaign. However, there is no agreement among McCain’s team on how to handle the exit strategy. McCain had made it clear that his bid to reshape the Republican Party would continue, and much of the campaign discussion focused on how to gain influence on Bush.

Some have urged McCain to launch a third-party bid, pointing to his strength with independents in the primary season. But McCain has consistently argued that he is a "loyal Reagan Republican.''

"I can not conceive of John jumping from the Republican Party, but I certainly can conceive of John being pushed into it,'' said political director John Weaver, who is among a minority that advocates to continue the race outside of the GOP.

McCain opted to put his campaign on hold in order to leave his options open. His aides said the tactic gives him influence on Bush as he urges the GOP nominee to adopt his political reform agenda. McCain's options include barnstorming the country to promote campaign finance reform and running for president as a third-party candidate. He has ruled out bolting the GOP in the past, and pledged to "take our crusade back to the Senate;'' and today he said, "I love my party. It is my home.''

If McCain’s "home" is the formal structure of the GOP, then, he "will keep trying to force open doors where there are walls… of cynicism, or intolerance, or walls raised by self-interested elite who would exclude your voice from the highest councils of government" from inside of that formal structure. He also said, "I hoped our campaign would be a force for change in the Republican Party. I believe we have set a course that will ultimately prevail in making our party as big as the country we serve.''

However, if McCain’s "home" is people with whom he lives in that "house," then, he may be a "loyal Reagan Republican" outside of the GOP’s structure by continuing to defend the values and interests of the middle class. You can hardly re-structure a house from within, not exiting from it once or twice. Once and Ronald Reagan was forced to defend the values and interests of the middle class outside of the GOP’s structure, and it made the base of that structure larger and its facade more beautiful.

The point is that people, their needs and desires, not things, define the warmth and coziness of your "home."

If you, John McCain, want to wither away, then, the only appropriate excuse is your and your family health and well being. It is obvious that you lost a lot of blood in that mud wrestling you were instigated by Alan Keyes, and which was not prevented by your senior strategists.

We, the moderate Republicans, know you as an authentic and enthusiastic candidate. Enthusiasm, from Greek, means ‘God within.’ And we have perceived that God within you, who inspired us in this presidential campaign. Although you have not been always staying "on message," unlike Bush, you knew why you are running: You want to clean up the political system and restore honor to the White House. Whereas Bush as a candidate is utterly programmable and predictable, you are creative and spontaneous: Moreover, we have perceived you as one, who knows the subject of his speech while he is talking. And we would appreciate you, John, more, if that God within you would tell us – will you continue the race outside of GOP this year or the inside of GOP in the year 2004? We would like to know it before we would go into the camp of Pat Buchanan.

03/09/00

On March 29, the majority (57-43) of federal senators defeated the last major challenge to their effort to ban unrestricted contributions to the political parties, clearing the way for passage of a radical campaign finance legislation, from which the real tax-reform may start.

The outcome of the two-week debate became clear when the majority of senators rebuffed an effort that would have undermined much of the McCain-Feingold bill if the Supreme Court struck down any part of it.

The bill under consideration by the Senate would amount to the most radical change to the campaign finance law since the Civil Rights movement era. The new law would ban the unregulated donations by unions, corporations and individuals to the political parties known as “soft money”. It would also restrict issue advertising by unions, corporations and many single-issue groups in the 60 days before a general election and the 30 days before a primary. For the first time since 1974, it would raise the limits on regulated contributions to candidates and parties. Individuals would be allowed to give $2,000 to a candidate per election and a cumulative total of $37,500 a year to all federal candidates and parties. The numbers would rise with inflation. Candidates running against millionaires putting their own wealth into their campaigns would be given more leeway.

Table 5

Senator Torricelli (D-N.J.) said, "Here's the most remarkable thing about the campaign finance system in the United States. No one ever proposed it. No one ever wrote it and no one ever voted for it. Because the Supreme Court wrote it." He also said that the Senate in the last two weeks had unexpectedly created a radical bill, amendment by amendment, covering parties, candidates, and outside groups that should rise and fall together. He continued, saying that, “These are a series of overriding reforms inextricably dependent on each other. If one or more are removed the nation will have a radically different campaign finance system.”

Senator Thompson reminded Senators that Congress had been reacting to revelations of campaign finance abuses in 1974 and suggested it would still have enacted strict contribution limits even if it had foreseen that the court would strike down its spending limits.

The federal senators, who support the campaign finance reform bill authored by Senators McCain (R-Ariz.) and Feingold (D-Wis.) and who want to ban the use of “soft money” by political parties, gained momentum when the majority of them (60-40) defeated the alternative bill of Senator Hagel (R-Neb.) that would have limited, but not banned, such contributions. President Bush supports the Hagel bill that would limit funds that corporations, unions and individuals provide the parties.

The majority of senators (52-47) rejected a Hagel proposal to triple the current contribution limit on “hard money,” donations made directly to political candidates. Hagel's alternative was the most significant challenge to the McCain-Feingold bill, which would ban unregulated soft money donations to the parties and restrict political ads run in the final 60 days of a federal election. However, the majority agreed to accept a part of Hagel's plan that tightens disclosure rules for political spending and advertising.

Hagel had contended that McCain-Feingold’s approach would weaken political parties by closing the political process to some people and restricting it to those “who can afford to play outside the process”. Refuting Hagel’s argument, McCain said the Hagel bill would give legal legitimacy to soft money by preserving, “indeed, it sanctions, the soft money loophole that has made a mockery of current campaign finance law and which has led directly to the many outrageous campaign finance scandals over recent years that has so badly damaged the public's respect for their government”.

The Hagel bill would have allowed donations of up to $60,000 a year to the national parties. It would have tripled the $1,000 hard money contribution limit that has been in place since 1974, adjusting it for inflation. Senators McCain and Feingold suggested no increase of the $1,000 limit on individual contributions, although both have acknowledged that they will have to accept some increase in the 27-year-old ceiling. However, such supporters of the McCain-Feingold bill as Senator Dodd (D-Conn.) called it a “cost-of-living adjustment for less than 1 percent of the American public that can afford to write a $1,000 check”.

Five-year-long effort of McCain and Feingold to ban soft money has died in Republican- led Senate. Now, the majority of senators said that the political climate in the country had changed for several reasons:
--because the Democrats, who have long provided the most votes for it, picked up seats, leaving the Senate divided 50-50;
--because of the corrupting campaign finance system, less and less citizens participate in the electoral process;
--because in the 2000 election, the two major parties broke nearly even in soft money fund-raising (about $250 million each party), making some Republicans willing to take a second look at the system.

Hagel said his bill secures a middle way to campaign finance reform that does not raise the constitutional free-speech problems that the McCain-Feingold bill might face, because his bill would not weaken the influence of political parties, particularly at the state level. Besides, it would win the president's signature. He said, “What good does it do to pass legislation we know will be struck down” by either the president or the courts?

The constitutionality issue came up on March 26 when the majority (51-46) senators passed a proposal of Senator Wellstone (D-Minn.) that would ban late-campaign advertising by advocacy groups. Wellstone said his provision was needed to close a loophole in the McCain-Feingold bill that would keep corporations and unions from paying for “attack ads” in the final 60 days of an election but keep non-profit groups from placing an identical ad.

Refuting the Wellstone amendment, McCain said he liked Wellstone’s idea but voted against it because of significant questions about its constitutionality. He said the passage of this amendment, supported by numerous Republican opponents of the McCain-Feingold bill, made it more important to defend that amendment; and it could nullify the entire legislation if the courts found just one part of it unconstitutional. Refuting challenge after challenge, McCain said it was intended to sabotage the centerpiece of his bill, the ban on the donations known as soft money that reached a record of nearly a half of a billion dollars in the last election.

McCain said, "Have no doubt about what this vote is really about. If you vote for this amendment, you are voting for soft money. That is really what this vote is all about."

The final vote on the McCain-Feingold bill was postponed until April 2, in part because a delegation of senators concerned with energy policy had a trip planned to Alaska. However, the bill will probably pass through the Senate in this round; after that, it will go to the House of federal representatives. If the bill will pass through the House, President Bush may sign it in three weeks – only then, it will become a law of the land. However, if Mr. Bush would reject it, then, the majority of senators must be increased to 66 in order to override the presidential veto.

Mr. Bush, who had criticized McCain's campaign finance plan in the Republican primary skirmish last year, declined to say whether he would sign a bill that banned soft money. Probably Mr. Bush still hopes that the bill will be killed in the House, thus, having the responsibility taken off him for signing or rejecting it. Nevertheless, he said that, “if it improves the system, I will sign it. I look forward to signing a good piece of legislation”.

However, that is question – who and how will define what is the good or bad legislation? If Mr. Bush would define a good legislation as one that was worked out by the simple majority (51), then, he should sign the McCain-Feingold bill. On the other hand, if Mr. Bush would define a good legislation as one that was worked out by the super majority (66), then, his service to the commoners and laborers might be rendered as useless, and he would show himself as a real Clintonoid.

Thereafter, we will see if Mr. Bush keeps his promise in the same manner as he kept that one, related to a problem of gas emissions and global warming.

3/30/01

On May 15, McCain pushed through the Senate a rebuke of the Republican leader in Senate, Trent Lott, for acting to "thwart the will of the majority" by failing to send to the House the overhaul of the campaign finance law that the senators approved by 59-to-41 vote last month. The senators voted 61-to-36 in favor of a resolution directing the secretary of the Senate to transmit the campaign finance legislation to the House "without delay." This resolution was attached as an amendment to education legislation, which is still being debated therefore has no immediate effect on Senator Trent Lott, the "majority" leader from Mississippi, who was not directly mentioned in the resolution. However, McCain made it quite clear that the resolution was directed straight at Mr. Lott and was a repudiation of his quiet delay of campaign finance legislation. "What we are seeing here is a minority of one stopping the will of this body," McCain said.

Although McCain is now bucking the Republican conservatives on an array of issues, on this one he acted promptly -- a day after Mr. Lott told reporters that he had no intention of sending the Senate bill to the House until after the House had passed its own campaign finance bill. Although Mr. Lott did not explain his action, other Republican senators said their leader's delay had been intended to ensure that the House coalition in favor of overhauling the campaign law could not somehow force the Senate bill directly to the House floor for a vote and send it to President Bush before House Republicans could draft their own bill.

After the vote on the resolution, Lott's aid said that Mr. Lott would send the Senate bill to the House, but he refused to say when. He accused McCain of choosing "to stall the president's top priority, education reform (the main concern of the American people) in an attempt to coerce the House into taking up the Senate's version of campaign finance reform." The Republican conservatives fiercely oppose the campaign finance measure, which would ban the large unrestricted donations to political parties known as soft money. The bill's supporters have hoped that they could take up the Senate bill in the House, or something quite close to it, and avoid having to go to a House and Senate conference committee to reconcile the differences. They say they fear such a committee would provide their opponents with another opportunity to scuttle or rewrite the legislation.

In brief floor debate, McCain read scathingly from civics textbooks on how government is supposed to work, with bills moving between the House and Senate. "Holding this bill is arbitrary and unfair," he said. "A sound majority of senators has passed the campaign finance reform."

He said that if such a delay was allowed to stand, "This could lead to a very, very unsound and unfair process that could deprive the majority of the Senate of their rights."

He was joined by Senator Russell D. Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who is the co-sponsor of the campaign finance measure. Mr. Feingold said, "The majority leader is simply frustrating the will of the Senate and the will of the American people for no apparent reason."

Mr. McCain won the support of 14 Republicans and 47 Democrats. The lone Democrat opposing the measure, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, did so because the resolution was added to education legislation that he was trying to protect from unrelated amendments.

The unusual Senate confrontation underscored the mounting tension over the campaign finance bill and, more broadly, over control of the agenda in a Congress where Republicans have only a slender majority.

With the Senate evenly divided, many Republicans consider Mr. McCain a thorn in their side because of his willingness to work with Democrats. Today, for example, he joined with Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, to introduce legislation to close a loophole in gun laws that allow people to buy firearms at gun shows without background checks. Such legislation has languished in Congress for several years.

The House passed the campaign finance overhaul in 1998 and 1999, when it was blocked by the Senate, but is now moving slowly on the issue. Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority whip, has vowed to do everything he can to defeat the bill.

5/15/01

John McCain apparently will be a key figure among the federal senators, who will lock up the Democratic control over the Senate, leaving the conservatives with a major headache. The latter are already gnashing their teeth over McCain's spending the weekend at his vacation home with the Democratic leaders, Tom Daschle (senator of South Dakota) and Bruce Reed (a former aide to Mr. Clinton and now the head of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council). Mr. McCain had become close to Mr. Reed when the two tried to push anti- tobacco legislation (which died largely because of conservative opposition) through the Senate a couple of years ago.

A close working relationship between McCain and the Democratic senators could pose the additional to usual problems for the WH bureaucrats who are trying to promote their conservative agenda in the Senate. McCain's aids say that Mr. McCain enjoyed having guests at his weekend home and had invited Mr. Daschle and Mr. Reed long before the turmoil in the Senate set off by Senator Jeffords (Republican of Vermont). They also say that, "It's long planned, strictly social, no politics, no policy, no nothing". Even though Mr. McCain insists that this meeting with the Democratic leaders was arranged a month ago and is purely social, "socializing" across usually rigid party lines in the federal politics comes right after a successful Democratic effort to persuade Mr. Jeffords to switch parties or become an "independent", thus, putting the Democrats in the numerical majority in the Senate. However, to gain the qualitative majority, the Democrats need that Mr. McCain would also abandon the Republican party.

Although McCain issued a statement saying the Republicans should learn to tolerate diverse ideas and "to grow up," he still hesitated to change parties or become an independent. But the time is probably on his side, because failing to push through his own agenda, Mr. McCain is necessitated to leave the conservatives behind in order to become an "independent," while taking the moderate Republicans with him to build the real middle-class party, which may greatly facilitate his running for presidency in 2004.

Right now Mr. McCain is at odds with the conservative brainiaks (Baker-Cheney-Rumsfeld) over an array of legislative issues. He was one of two the Republican senators who voted against the recent $1.35 trillion tax-cut bill, and he has been frustrated by the WH bureaucrats' reluctance to share the federal executive power with several of his supporters.

The WH bureaucrats say that, "The fact that the administration has nobody who does regular outreach to McCain has created a lot of fear about McCain in the White House. They've looked for people to be informal channels and McCain doesn't want them." The conservatives would rather spy on Mr. McCain than to share executive power with his supporters, and it is only natural that Mr. McCain does not want to tarnish his image while promoting their conservative agenda.

Acknowledging defeat of his last year presidential campaign, McCain said that he still hoped to prevail someday in "making our party as big as the country we serve." He did not specified the name of that party back then, but I believe he meant the Common People Party, not the Republican or the Democratic.

Except for his advocacy of a ban on large, unregulated donations to political parties, McCain used to be a predictable conservative on most domestic issues. However, he changed his outlook for domestic policy largely under the influence of his middle-class supporters in his presidential run. Now he is sponsoring an array of bills with the moderate Democrats and taking stands that often contradict to the upper-class interests of the WH bureaucrats and the Republican conservatives at large.

Lately, the latter have been trying to label Mr. Daschle as an obstructionist who bent on stopping of their agenda at any cost. However, Mr. Daschle's leadership in the Senate means that McCain's agenda (including the campaign finance reform, the creation of Medicare prescription drug benefits and regulation of managed health care, and others) have a better chance of senators' consideration than they did under the conservative Republican leadership.

Mr. Daschle has already said that the sponsored by Mr. McCain managed care bill would be the first up for consideration after the Senate completed its work on its education legislation. Mr. Daschle also promised to do his best in order that Mr. McCain's campaign finance legislation would emerge intact if the conservative representatives in the House pass a different version of the bill.

On the other hand, Mr. Bush has recently made efforts to patch up his relations with Mr. McCain, inviting him to dinner, which was postponed because of Mr. Jeffords' announcement. But anyway, it is probably the case of too little too late.

6/1/01


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