A good friend asks: Seriously, how do you think our side is faring now?
In the Presidential level, we’re faring really quite well, especially in light of the fact that about half of all Americans are dumb or ignorant or both and – dammit! – proud of it!
Barack Obama is the real deal. I don’t mean he is some messianic, once-in-a-lifetime fount of charisma and wisdom (although he surely has his moments.) When I say he’s the real deal I mean that the intelligence and wisdom, the compassion and empathy, the pragmatism and effectiveness, the competence and confidence that we see are not fake. Unlike say, Mr. “Reformer With Results” Bush or Mr. “Deregulator? Me? No Way” McCain, who don public personas that have very little to do with their actual personas.
Obama is running a close to flawless campaign for President. If he does not succeed and become President, there’s very little to look back on and wish for a do-over. (Though one does wish the Hillary Clinton supporters would have understood how primary elections work and that the idea of her running to the very last moment did not serve the party well.)
I first saw Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, when he made a speech that simply took my breath away. At the end of it, I could only say, “That man’s gonna be President one day – one day soon, if we’re lucky.” I have not wavered in my conviction since – to this day.
Barack is slowly reassuring undecided voters (and likely some who had thought of themselves as McCain supporters) that he is someone who can be trusted. Undecideds and likely McCain voters believe that McCain is someone who has been vetted by 25+ years of service of on the national stage. This belief supports many of their ideas about McCain – he’s “experienced,” he’s “a known quantity,” he’s “steady and reliable.” Simply by dint of his love of appearing on Meet the Press (he is one of the, if not the most, frequent guests in the venerable history of that program), and the cooperation of a majority of Arizona voters, he has become someone most Americans can imagine in the Presidency. Barack Obama is working hard to earn the same level of comfort, and has accomplished much, in a much shorter time period. And unlike McCain who has had an uniquely valuable activist base in the form of national political reporters and pundits, Obama has achieved much over this same base’s strong objections.
If the Republicans were running in a united fashion behind a traditional Republican – someone like Mitt Romney or Bob Dole, Barack Obama would have a fairly steep hill to climb, and if successful would like squeak by. But the Republicans are doing no such thing. Instead, they have chosen an outsider who has made a career of publicly bashing Republicans to burnish her image as a “maverick.” Of course, when it comes time to vote he votes the party line – his 2008 voting record (the shortest of any Senator), is 100% consistent with the Bush administration. This would include his vote IN FAVOR OF torture – a vote most reporters seem either unaware of or unable to understand.
John McCain is a deeply unserious person. I first heard him speak during his many appearances on the old Don Imus show on WFAN in New York. John would call in, the boys would fall all over themselves beating up on various liberal targets, John would tell a story about his glory days making Viet Nam safe from Communists, and finally the talk would turn to current events. McCain was (and is) an expert Senator. He is able to talk about current events in a way that makes it seem that he supports all reasonable sides, understands everyone’s legitimate concerns, and knows that we have to get the right outcome. Which is every case was the Republican Party position. His Senate record shows him to be what he in fact is: a deeply conservative Senator from what has been a fairly conservative state, pretending to be something else because it gets him invited on Meet the Press.
Sadly, I believe McCain has entered a new phase in his life. I think there are undeniable signs that he is struggling with either ordinary old-age dementia, early Alzheimers, or some other condition. He is never without a handler. He goes on The Tonight Show with his wife. He cancels on Dave Letterman and promises to return with Sarah Palin. Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham take turns being attached to his side. (Even yesterday morning when McCain arrived at the Capitol for his, um, whatever it was he did (is it too strong to call it “killing the deal that would have staved off The Second Great Depression? Probably…), there was Joe Lieberman waiting at the curb to meet McCain’s limo and escort him up the stairs.
So we have a contest between youth and old age, vigor and decline, intelligence and ignorance, grass-roots enthusiasm and top-down party discipline, dedication and power-grabbing. The financial sector meltdown is clearly a wildcard in this process, and certainly has the potential to change to game in either direction. McCain could yet somehow yank victory from what looks by all indications to be defeat.
But in his long career, McCain has not shown the shrewdness or intelligence to do so, while his opponent has repeatedly shown that hard-work and talent can be used with discipline to accomplish great things. So I remain quite bullish on our chances, and can even imagine that this will yet become the landslide that has seemed pre-ordained for two years.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The Largest Tax Break In History
We have been conditioned to think of “tax breaks” as something other than “welfare checks.” When the government wants rich people to do something, rather than simply require them to do it (which would be too presumptuous), it gives them the money to do it and asks them nicely to get on it. Which they generally never do.
Giving the richest Americans tax breaks for the past 8 years has been defended as necessary to ensure adequate job creation. Well, we taxpayers upheld our end of the bargain – we gave them the money. But then the rich people didn’t use it to create jobs. Businesses weren’t invested in, factories weren’t built, workers weren’t hired. Instead, the money sat around in various “safe” investment vehicles, accumulating. Until eventually, like any under-utilized asset, the money began to lose its value. Net result: rich people took our money and frittered it away. And like Ronald Reagan’s beloved and largely mythical welfare queens, they did in fact spend it on lavish lifestyles and not much else.
One might think that having watched this strategy fail again and again that at some point enough people would yell “stop” and bring this nonsense to a halt. But one would think wrong. The current “bail-out” could just as well be called a “tax-cut” for Wall St. And just like the previous trillions in tax-cuts, the money is to be handed over with no strings attached. Create jobs or don’t. Invest in businesses or don’t. Lend or don’t.
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the money will not be used for any socially useful purpose. Not for creating jobs, not for investing in businesses and not for lending. And the reason is more than just that this has never worked yet and is therefore unlikely to work this time. There’s a deeper root cause that is one of the Things We All Know™ but don’t speak about.
VC’s, investment bankers, traditional banks, mortgage lenders and other hoarders of capital (even rich uncles, the so-called “angel investors”) are not investing and lending and have not been for some time. The reason is not because they don’t have the money. Money they’ve got (and will shortly have in some quantity). What they lack is credit-worthy borrowers.
The current crisis was originally billed as a “sub-prime lending” crisis. Then a “mortgage crisis,” and now a “credit crisis.” (Actually, the credit crisis was already well underway concurrently with the so-called mortgage crisis.) But these names all mask something I think deep down We All Know™: that the nation’s borrowers do not earn enough to pay any more loans back. In fact, they are already saddled with more debt than they can service.
The real crisis is a jobs crisis. We have arranged our society’s resources in a way that benefits too few people at the expense of too many. We need to re-direct resources toward activities that will create jobs. My man Obama wants to do this immediately I the energy sector, which is of course a good idea. But I think he’ll find when he gets his head around this that what he wants to do in energy we’ll need to do in sector after sector. From food to cars to education to healthcare to consumer goods to services. All of it needs to be re-structured so that Henry Ford’s old idea – that his workers need to make enough money to be his customers – in once again true. And once we’ve done that here, we need to export that reform across the world.
That ought to keep us busy for the next half-century.
There is no shortage of work that needs doing. There is no shortage of raw materials. There is no shortage of labor. What’s been lacking is the leadership to ensure that these inputs are organized and managed in a renewable and productive way for the benefit of the maximum number of people.
Giving the richest Americans tax breaks for the past 8 years has been defended as necessary to ensure adequate job creation. Well, we taxpayers upheld our end of the bargain – we gave them the money. But then the rich people didn’t use it to create jobs. Businesses weren’t invested in, factories weren’t built, workers weren’t hired. Instead, the money sat around in various “safe” investment vehicles, accumulating. Until eventually, like any under-utilized asset, the money began to lose its value. Net result: rich people took our money and frittered it away. And like Ronald Reagan’s beloved and largely mythical welfare queens, they did in fact spend it on lavish lifestyles and not much else.
One might think that having watched this strategy fail again and again that at some point enough people would yell “stop” and bring this nonsense to a halt. But one would think wrong. The current “bail-out” could just as well be called a “tax-cut” for Wall St. And just like the previous trillions in tax-cuts, the money is to be handed over with no strings attached. Create jobs or don’t. Invest in businesses or don’t. Lend or don’t.
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the money will not be used for any socially useful purpose. Not for creating jobs, not for investing in businesses and not for lending. And the reason is more than just that this has never worked yet and is therefore unlikely to work this time. There’s a deeper root cause that is one of the Things We All Know™ but don’t speak about.
VC’s, investment bankers, traditional banks, mortgage lenders and other hoarders of capital (even rich uncles, the so-called “angel investors”) are not investing and lending and have not been for some time. The reason is not because they don’t have the money. Money they’ve got (and will shortly have in some quantity). What they lack is credit-worthy borrowers.
The current crisis was originally billed as a “sub-prime lending” crisis. Then a “mortgage crisis,” and now a “credit crisis.” (Actually, the credit crisis was already well underway concurrently with the so-called mortgage crisis.) But these names all mask something I think deep down We All Know™: that the nation’s borrowers do not earn enough to pay any more loans back. In fact, they are already saddled with more debt than they can service.
The real crisis is a jobs crisis. We have arranged our society’s resources in a way that benefits too few people at the expense of too many. We need to re-direct resources toward activities that will create jobs. My man Obama wants to do this immediately I the energy sector, which is of course a good idea. But I think he’ll find when he gets his head around this that what he wants to do in energy we’ll need to do in sector after sector. From food to cars to education to healthcare to consumer goods to services. All of it needs to be re-structured so that Henry Ford’s old idea – that his workers need to make enough money to be his customers – in once again true. And once we’ve done that here, we need to export that reform across the world.
That ought to keep us busy for the next half-century.
There is no shortage of work that needs doing. There is no shortage of raw materials. There is no shortage of labor. What’s been lacking is the leadership to ensure that these inputs are organized and managed in a renewable and productive way for the benefit of the maximum number of people.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Why Is This So Hard for John O’Brien To Grasp
I attack John O’Brien, I do. And I do baselessly, without any real justification other than he seems to be in charge of spouting nonsense on CNN in the mornings. So I attack – kid, really. And I kid with nothin’ but love, baby.
All news and public discourse has been cancelled and replaced with the words “$700 Billion Bail-Out.” Oh sure, sometimes one hears, “Wall St. CEOs” or “Wall Street to Main Street,” but the basic message is the same: Crisis! Panic! Need Trillions Now!
There seems a quite unexpected backlash forming and ready to strike back in the form of truly arch speeches, commentary and letters to the editor. (And if you think one Adolph Q. Hitler would have been able to stand up to invective like that, you’ve got another thing coming, buster.
Atrios is promoting a speech from a Congresswoman who clearly explains in terms most kindergartners could understand why the Bail-Out That Ate Cable TV News is a hoax. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D, OH (Toledo) was on the floor of the US House of Represenatives making sense. (It may be that a permit is required for this. I don’t really know.) Watch it:
This current crisis just the first of several. While it may the largest in terms of money, the others will consume overall the vast majority of our tax dollars. Requests for additional bail-outs are coming from the auto industry, the airline/travel industry, and likely the Land of Farming before long.
As Obama has said of our foreign policy thinking, it is well-past time for us to end the mindset that makes these bail-outs possible. If a private sector actor is in need of financial aid, why don’t we look at it as an investment. We should be willing to lend money, or guarantee money, or as here just give it away, only when the benefits are clearly defined in a hard, quantitative manner, with clear lines of responsibility for ensuring a meaningful degree of accountability for the promised results.
That doesn’t seem so hard, now does it? If the nice people at our nation’s banks (meaning of course any bank or sort-of bank with employees here, even if its shareholders are an ocean away) want some taxpayer money, what are they willing to offer? Can they promise a certain number of new jobs? Guarantees of maintaining existing levels of jobs? Increasing wages? Lower prices (and how much lower)?
I am obviously no expert in this area, but the older I get the more I am learning to trust my own judgment and common sense. And for the life of me I cannot understand why our leading politicians and other leaders (and Tom Brokaw, I’m looking at you) cannot summon the courage to call “BS” on a proposal as half-baked as this.
If an educational official showed up and day and said, “Quick, I need a half-trillion by next Tuesday, or else all of your children are gonna wind up dumber than rocks,” they’d be laughed right out of town. The request for an infusion of money into the financial sector may well have an element of actual need, perhaps even an element of urgency. But if either of these things are true, we’re gonna need more than President Paulson’s word on it.
All news and public discourse has been cancelled and replaced with the words “$700 Billion Bail-Out.” Oh sure, sometimes one hears, “Wall St. CEOs” or “Wall Street to Main Street,” but the basic message is the same: Crisis! Panic! Need Trillions Now!
There seems a quite unexpected backlash forming and ready to strike back in the form of truly arch speeches, commentary and letters to the editor. (And if you think one Adolph Q. Hitler would have been able to stand up to invective like that, you’ve got another thing coming, buster.
Atrios is promoting a speech from a Congresswoman who clearly explains in terms most kindergartners could understand why the Bail-Out That Ate Cable TV News is a hoax. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D, OH (Toledo) was on the floor of the US House of Represenatives making sense. (It may be that a permit is required for this. I don’t really know.) Watch it:
This current crisis just the first of several. While it may the largest in terms of money, the others will consume overall the vast majority of our tax dollars. Requests for additional bail-outs are coming from the auto industry, the airline/travel industry, and likely the Land of Farming before long.
As Obama has said of our foreign policy thinking, it is well-past time for us to end the mindset that makes these bail-outs possible. If a private sector actor is in need of financial aid, why don’t we look at it as an investment. We should be willing to lend money, or guarantee money, or as here just give it away, only when the benefits are clearly defined in a hard, quantitative manner, with clear lines of responsibility for ensuring a meaningful degree of accountability for the promised results.
That doesn’t seem so hard, now does it? If the nice people at our nation’s banks (meaning of course any bank or sort-of bank with employees here, even if its shareholders are an ocean away) want some taxpayer money, what are they willing to offer? Can they promise a certain number of new jobs? Guarantees of maintaining existing levels of jobs? Increasing wages? Lower prices (and how much lower)?
I am obviously no expert in this area, but the older I get the more I am learning to trust my own judgment and common sense. And for the life of me I cannot understand why our leading politicians and other leaders (and Tom Brokaw, I’m looking at you) cannot summon the courage to call “BS” on a proposal as half-baked as this.
If an educational official showed up and day and said, “Quick, I need a half-trillion by next Tuesday, or else all of your children are gonna wind up dumber than rocks,” they’d be laughed right out of town. The request for an infusion of money into the financial sector may well have an element of actual need, perhaps even an element of urgency. But if either of these things are true, we’re gonna need more than President Paulson’s word on it.
Monday, September 22, 2008
1.8 Trillion Dollars Is A Lot of Dollars
Most people don’t know what the government does with their money. A lot think that the money is used for pork (something like 3% of the annual deficit – we’re talking tens of billions, folks). Or for that matter, what a new bomber costs ($2 billion).
Here’s some detail from the always-interesting Chris in Paris at Americablog.org
So all of a sudden, we can come up with $700 billion – no wait, that’s $1.8 trillion. If we don’t hurry up and give them what they want, it’ll probably be $2.6 trillion soon. (Go ahead, think I’m kidding.)
What does Obama’s health care plan cost? $50-60 billion a year for the first 10 years, which Republicans are certain is far too expensive.
On top of just the insane price tag, there’s the question of whether this will fix anything…(And this leaves aside the distrurbing parallels to the Iraq War run-up, where asking questions and tying the Executive's hands was thought to be Dangerous and Unpatriotic).
I keep coming back to the idea that we keep failing to speak about what is really important (i.e. Things We All Know ™). WHY aren’t banks lending to each other or to business or individual customers? Well, a huge infusion of cash would suggest that the reason is that the banks lack the funds to lend.
Wouldn’t that mean there was a lot of pent-up demand for loans that wasn’t being met?
I doubt many believe that the problems in our economy is not enough debt.
I’m keeping my eye on the ball. I believe that we have deeper and more serious economic problems than big financial institutions lacking adequate funds to lend. (I suspect they lack adequate funds to operate, for what it’s worth, and that the Big Scary Crisis is fueled by images of people having to take sacks of gold coins to the Pathmark. Likely as true of Mr. Hussein’s WMD’s and 45-minutes’ away drones.)
I think banks aren’t lending not because they lack funds but because they lack credit-worthy customers, both business and individual. I suspect that many companies will soon find that they too lack customers, as too many people simply have inadequate incomes.
We are on a decelerating downward spiral, the end point of which is surely not Goldman Sachs getting a trillion or two bucks. The end of this spiral comes when companies can’t meet their payrolls, workers drain all their funds and assets, and we end up at something very like a standstill.
And getting the great organ-grinder grinding again is 1000 (a trillion?) times more difficult than it would be to keep it going.
“Keeping it going” meaning that we should take that $700 billion (or $2.5 trillion) and use it for direct job creation: public works, loan guarantees to businesses using the money to create jobs, etc. We will also want some of that money available to pay for public relief – food stamps, short-term housing, rent assistance, etc.
Right now, only those who do not need credit can get it. There’s no use in making it even easier for them when there are tens of millions of Americans who need something even more pressing than a better rate on their car loans: jobs, groceries, gasoline, etc.
Here’s some detail from the always-interesting Chris in Paris at Americablog.org
For the US budget, here are a few examples from Bush's budget in 2007:
* Veterans' benefits at $73 billion
* Education was $90 billion
* Interest on US debt was $244 billion
* Medicare $395 billion
* Defense was $548 billion
* Social Security was $586
So all of a sudden, we can come up with $700 billion – no wait, that’s $1.8 trillion. If we don’t hurry up and give them what they want, it’ll probably be $2.6 trillion soon. (Go ahead, think I’m kidding.)
What does Obama’s health care plan cost? $50-60 billion a year for the first 10 years, which Republicans are certain is far too expensive.
On top of just the insane price tag, there’s the question of whether this will fix anything…(And this leaves aside the distrurbing parallels to the Iraq War run-up, where asking questions and tying the Executive's hands was thought to be Dangerous and Unpatriotic).
I keep coming back to the idea that we keep failing to speak about what is really important (i.e. Things We All Know ™). WHY aren’t banks lending to each other or to business or individual customers? Well, a huge infusion of cash would suggest that the reason is that the banks lack the funds to lend.
Wouldn’t that mean there was a lot of pent-up demand for loans that wasn’t being met?
I doubt many believe that the problems in our economy is not enough debt.
I’m keeping my eye on the ball. I believe that we have deeper and more serious economic problems than big financial institutions lacking adequate funds to lend. (I suspect they lack adequate funds to operate, for what it’s worth, and that the Big Scary Crisis is fueled by images of people having to take sacks of gold coins to the Pathmark. Likely as true of Mr. Hussein’s WMD’s and 45-minutes’ away drones.)
I think banks aren’t lending not because they lack funds but because they lack credit-worthy customers, both business and individual. I suspect that many companies will soon find that they too lack customers, as too many people simply have inadequate incomes.
We are on a decelerating downward spiral, the end point of which is surely not Goldman Sachs getting a trillion or two bucks. The end of this spiral comes when companies can’t meet their payrolls, workers drain all their funds and assets, and we end up at something very like a standstill.
And getting the great organ-grinder grinding again is 1000 (a trillion?) times more difficult than it would be to keep it going.
“Keeping it going” meaning that we should take that $700 billion (or $2.5 trillion) and use it for direct job creation: public works, loan guarantees to businesses using the money to create jobs, etc. We will also want some of that money available to pay for public relief – food stamps, short-term housing, rent assistance, etc.
Right now, only those who do not need credit can get it. There’s no use in making it even easier for them when there are tens of millions of Americans who need something even more pressing than a better rate on their car loans: jobs, groceries, gasoline, etc.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Things We All Know(tm) About the Liberal Media
For many years now it has seemed to me that there are unspoken premises underlying much of our political (and general for that matter) discourse. When it comes to the media, studies routinely show higher levels of Democratic Party registration, for example. Of course, this doesn’t translate to liberal coverage, and in fact may be part of the reason why the mainstream media bends over backwards to accommodate Republicans. But the presence of liberal bias amongst members of the media is well-documented.
Of course there are other groups who suffer from the same “liberal bias.” College faculties, for example. Or people with advanced degrees. The frame of “liberal bias” is of course a creation of the Right, foisted on our society by their, um, “assertiveness” (as recently confessed by cerebrally-challenged cable talker Joe Scarborough).
But there is an alternative frame which reveals a Thing We All Know™. Why do journalists, college professors, PhDs, etc., all appear to favor liberal policies? Are they craven? Corrupt? Unfair? The Right tells us it’s because they were indoctrinated by their liberal kindergarten teachers. (Yet another group with the dreaded “liberal bias.”)
Maybe the reason why all these elites prefer liberal policies has nothing whatsoever to do with these groups and a great deal to do with the policies. Why is there such a strong correlation between intelligence, education and liberalism, on the one hand, and ignorance, illiteracy and “conservative values” on the other?
Might not the answer be that modern Republican ideas are inferior? That they are – for want of a more polite term – stupid? In fact, for some decades now, they have been engineered specifically to delude the easily-deludable.
Modern Republicans committed a long time ago to a program of embracing hair-brained schemes if they could be used to manipulate enough dumb voters to come their way. Here’s a revealing list:
1. Trickle-down economics
2. The “Laffer Curve” (i.e., cutting taxes raises revenues)
3 Imminent Soviet/Communist take-over of the US/World
4. Sovereignty of the Panama Canal (US sovereignty)
5. School Prayer
6. Anti-Flag Burning
7. Bussing
8. Anti-Abortion
9. Anti-Gay marriage
10.Immigrant bashing
11.Anti-Stem cell research
12.Anti Heart-transplant surgery.
13.WMDs
14.Protecting “Under God” in Pledge of Allegiance
15.Terry Schiavo
16. Defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment
I could go on, and I invite you, dear readers, to do so in the comments. But you get the point. These are dumb things. Let’s be plain. And the fact that many smart people reject them is not evidence that the smart people are being unfair, or are corrupt, or victims of previous “liberal” brainwashings.
The ultimate Thing We All Know™ here is the old saw that “reality has a liberal bias.” And in truth We All Know This. The culture warriors of the right know perfectly well that they are peddling, at best, a mild corrective to excesses of a mainstream consensus.
And right now, one Thing We All Know™ is that McCain is horribly unprepared to be President, as is his VP pick. And I think if we’re being really honest, We All Know that Barack Obama is the man we need and will make the nation proud.
At least those of us with enough on the ball to resist the silly games of the Right.
Of course there are other groups who suffer from the same “liberal bias.” College faculties, for example. Or people with advanced degrees. The frame of “liberal bias” is of course a creation of the Right, foisted on our society by their, um, “assertiveness” (as recently confessed by cerebrally-challenged cable talker Joe Scarborough).
But there is an alternative frame which reveals a Thing We All Know™. Why do journalists, college professors, PhDs, etc., all appear to favor liberal policies? Are they craven? Corrupt? Unfair? The Right tells us it’s because they were indoctrinated by their liberal kindergarten teachers. (Yet another group with the dreaded “liberal bias.”)
Maybe the reason why all these elites prefer liberal policies has nothing whatsoever to do with these groups and a great deal to do with the policies. Why is there such a strong correlation between intelligence, education and liberalism, on the one hand, and ignorance, illiteracy and “conservative values” on the other?
Might not the answer be that modern Republican ideas are inferior? That they are – for want of a more polite term – stupid? In fact, for some decades now, they have been engineered specifically to delude the easily-deludable.
Modern Republicans committed a long time ago to a program of embracing hair-brained schemes if they could be used to manipulate enough dumb voters to come their way. Here’s a revealing list:
1. Trickle-down economics
2. The “Laffer Curve” (i.e., cutting taxes raises revenues)
3 Imminent Soviet/Communist take-over of the US/World
4. Sovereignty of the Panama Canal (US sovereignty)
5. School Prayer
6. Anti-Flag Burning
7. Bussing
8. Anti-Abortion
9. Anti-Gay marriage
10.Immigrant bashing
11.Anti-Stem cell research
12.Anti Heart-transplant surgery.
13.WMDs
14.Protecting “Under God” in Pledge of Allegiance
15.Terry Schiavo
16. Defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment
I could go on, and I invite you, dear readers, to do so in the comments. But you get the point. These are dumb things. Let’s be plain. And the fact that many smart people reject them is not evidence that the smart people are being unfair, or are corrupt, or victims of previous “liberal” brainwashings.
The ultimate Thing We All Know™ here is the old saw that “reality has a liberal bias.” And in truth We All Know This. The culture warriors of the right know perfectly well that they are peddling, at best, a mild corrective to excesses of a mainstream consensus.
And right now, one Thing We All Know™ is that McCain is horribly unprepared to be President, as is his VP pick. And I think if we’re being really honest, We All Know that Barack Obama is the man we need and will make the nation proud.
At least those of us with enough on the ball to resist the silly games of the Right.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Welcome to the Soup, Rich Folks!
A Much Bigger Picture
The news of course is 100% dominated by “coverage” of the “Wall St. Crisis.” I’ve just given you as much useful information as you’d get from watching 100 hours of MSNBC and CNN simultaneously.
Our man Barack (he’ll always be “Barry” to me) seems to have Old Grumple-puss well in hand. I understand Sen. McCain dribbled some creamed corn down his chin while talking to NBC’s Anne Curry, which of course is very good news indeed for one Rudolph Giuliani. So let’s take a look at the economic “meltdown” that Brian Williams is suddenly a big expert on.
The economic mess seemed to me well reflected in a Margaret Warner piece last night on the Lehrer News Hour. The first thing that hit me was just what a thoughtful and articulate journalist Margaret Warner is. She’s the real deal. She hosted a segment with a bright and articulate economist from a Chicago investment firm as well as Jane Bryant Quinn, clueless commentator, columnist and all-around purveyor of Convention Wisdom. What these three very bright and well-paid women discussed for 10 or so minutes was how the Wall St. Crisis affects “you,” by which they meant, of course, themselves and each other.
Should I move money out of my 401(k)? Are my brokerage accounts at Merrill safe? Just how diversified should my portfolio be? And what about gold (goddammit)?
What struck me was that these rich people are scared. Scared because this Wall St. business may well affect them – rich people! Can you imagine! There is an outside chance that when the chips fall, EVEN PEOPLE WITH LARGE SUMS OF MONEY may get roughed up. For these guardians of the conventional wisdom, this was Serious Business Indeed.
Well rich folks, welcome to the soup! For the last 30 or 40 years, our society’s leaders have dithered while powerful interests (is “Lobbyists for the Rich” too crude?) have run rough-shod over the rest of us. Ordinary Joes (and Janes – and why can’t “Joe” be a universal signifier any way?) have had to take it on the chin as employers walked away from any obligations to them. First it was job security. Then pensions. Then physical facilities. (You know anyone with an office with, you know, “walls” and a “door”? Those things used to have “windows!” Amazing!) Then more and more “productivity” gains – more work, same pay. Then just less pay. Can 2000 people do what 3000 people were doing yesterday? Harvard MBAs assure us that they answer is a resounding “Y-E-S!”
In fact, the entire history of business in the United States over the last several decades has been a tale of shifting wealth away from workers, then customers, to senior managers and shareholders. Enormous pay is needed to motivate people to be CEOs. (It’s hard work!) (Can two CEOs do what three CEOs did yesterday? Harvard MBAs assure us, “Don’t be silly. Pass the caviar.”)
Republicans, and then most Democrats, came to believe that people respond to taxes because it hit their pocket book. (Never mind that most people don’t really know what percentage of their total revenue is paid in taxes, or how much that percentage has gone up and down over the years.) So if we want wind-power, just give people a tax break and soon windmills will be spouting up all over. (I had to swerve this morning to avoid one that had gone up overnight in the middle of the LIE. (I kid.))
But what is the one thing that the government has relentless taxed the most? Labor. The vast majority of tax revenue comes from taxes on labor, a k a “income taxes.” Capital musnt’t be taxed – that would be B-A-D! So we tax labor and as a completely foreseeable result, jobs are scarce and getting scarcer.
So capital accumulates. And accumulates. But, Harvard MBAs assure us, this is very good, since all that capital is available to be invested in things that create – wait for it – jobs! That’s right, give rich people enough money to satisfy their most craven wants, and then give them some more, and presto: jobs! Fantastic, no?
Fantastic, yes, I’m afraid. All that capital has done little to create jobs. It has just stood around and like any underused asset, it is wasting away. Banks are literally being handed checks for billions and billions of dollars in the hope that they will lend it. But they aren’t making loans, mostly because they can’t find borrowers they think will be able to repay.
And that, my friends-s-s-s, is the rub. The pot we’re in (and for those just joining in, “Welcome Rich People! Come on in!”) is a much more dangerous pot than all the Anne Currys and Brians Williams’s can ever hope to grasp.
We have more or less killed our ability to create jobs. We need to massively re-distribute resources so that more of us can earn a decent living, sadly, however, at the expense of hedge fund managers being able to hire Eric Clapton for their kid’s Bar Mitzvah. And we have spent the last 30 years convincing ourselves that the one mechanism that could actually accomplish this feat – the federal government – is not only horribly inept but actually downright evil. (That’s a fact, says Fox News.)
Business leaders will not suddenly wake up and say, “Hey, I know! Let’s violate our legal obligations to our shareholders and start maximizing value not for the shareholders but for the benefit of the most people, employees, customers, and so on. Yeah!”
It is the provenance of the government to lay down the law, even to businesses. (I know some of you are thinking, “No! Un-possible! How could that be? Doesn’t government work for business?” And I can see why you might think that.)
But the truth is the government is the only mechanism we have, and we have spent the last 10 years using it to saw tin cans in half so that it is now terribly useless as an instrument for reforming society.
We are in the midst of a perfect storm. The issue is not banks holding bad loans, or a mortgage crisis. Americans are not going to find getting a car loan or a mortgage “harder.” There’s a reason for the foreclosures. People aren’t earning enough money. Why don’t people just buy health insurance when their companies don’t provide it? Because like the companies themselves they can’t afford it! A spending spree fianced by easy credit is ending, and the results are as painful as they were predictiable.
But that’s not the half of it. American businesses have not embraced innovation, opting instead for lay-offs, outsourcing and all manner of cost-cutting. There is a price coming due on that front. We have massively under-invested in education, a foolishness for which we will be paying the price for decades to come. We have, more or less, been eating our seed corn, and now it’s gone.
It is one of the unspoken premises (which I like to call “Things We All Know™”) that things are so bad that we must look all the way back to the Depression for comparisons. And many Harvard MBAs are quite certain that this is nothing like that. Well, on this I agree with them. But their small-mindedness leads them to conclude that 1929 and the Great Depression is some kind of floor, below which it is not possible to fall.
Who says? Why should 1929 be the floor? Aren’t there the elements present for something much worse? I am sad to say that I believe they are. And even electing a great man like Barack Obama will not be enough to save us, any more than FDR was able to save our grandparents from the Great Depression.
Hang onto your hats, kids! We’re in for a wild ride!
The news of course is 100% dominated by “coverage” of the “Wall St. Crisis.” I’ve just given you as much useful information as you’d get from watching 100 hours of MSNBC and CNN simultaneously.
Our man Barack (he’ll always be “Barry” to me) seems to have Old Grumple-puss well in hand. I understand Sen. McCain dribbled some creamed corn down his chin while talking to NBC’s Anne Curry, which of course is very good news indeed for one Rudolph Giuliani. So let’s take a look at the economic “meltdown” that Brian Williams is suddenly a big expert on.
The economic mess seemed to me well reflected in a Margaret Warner piece last night on the Lehrer News Hour. The first thing that hit me was just what a thoughtful and articulate journalist Margaret Warner is. She’s the real deal. She hosted a segment with a bright and articulate economist from a Chicago investment firm as well as Jane Bryant Quinn, clueless commentator, columnist and all-around purveyor of Convention Wisdom. What these three very bright and well-paid women discussed for 10 or so minutes was how the Wall St. Crisis affects “you,” by which they meant, of course, themselves and each other.
Should I move money out of my 401(k)? Are my brokerage accounts at Merrill safe? Just how diversified should my portfolio be? And what about gold (goddammit)?
What struck me was that these rich people are scared. Scared because this Wall St. business may well affect them – rich people! Can you imagine! There is an outside chance that when the chips fall, EVEN PEOPLE WITH LARGE SUMS OF MONEY may get roughed up. For these guardians of the conventional wisdom, this was Serious Business Indeed.
Well rich folks, welcome to the soup! For the last 30 or 40 years, our society’s leaders have dithered while powerful interests (is “Lobbyists for the Rich” too crude?) have run rough-shod over the rest of us. Ordinary Joes (and Janes – and why can’t “Joe” be a universal signifier any way?) have had to take it on the chin as employers walked away from any obligations to them. First it was job security. Then pensions. Then physical facilities. (You know anyone with an office with, you know, “walls” and a “door”? Those things used to have “windows!” Amazing!) Then more and more “productivity” gains – more work, same pay. Then just less pay. Can 2000 people do what 3000 people were doing yesterday? Harvard MBAs assure us that they answer is a resounding “Y-E-S!”
In fact, the entire history of business in the United States over the last several decades has been a tale of shifting wealth away from workers, then customers, to senior managers and shareholders. Enormous pay is needed to motivate people to be CEOs. (It’s hard work!) (Can two CEOs do what three CEOs did yesterday? Harvard MBAs assure us, “Don’t be silly. Pass the caviar.”)
Republicans, and then most Democrats, came to believe that people respond to taxes because it hit their pocket book. (Never mind that most people don’t really know what percentage of their total revenue is paid in taxes, or how much that percentage has gone up and down over the years.) So if we want wind-power, just give people a tax break and soon windmills will be spouting up all over. (I had to swerve this morning to avoid one that had gone up overnight in the middle of the LIE. (I kid.))
But what is the one thing that the government has relentless taxed the most? Labor. The vast majority of tax revenue comes from taxes on labor, a k a “income taxes.” Capital musnt’t be taxed – that would be B-A-D! So we tax labor and as a completely foreseeable result, jobs are scarce and getting scarcer.
So capital accumulates. And accumulates. But, Harvard MBAs assure us, this is very good, since all that capital is available to be invested in things that create – wait for it – jobs! That’s right, give rich people enough money to satisfy their most craven wants, and then give them some more, and presto: jobs! Fantastic, no?
Fantastic, yes, I’m afraid. All that capital has done little to create jobs. It has just stood around and like any underused asset, it is wasting away. Banks are literally being handed checks for billions and billions of dollars in the hope that they will lend it. But they aren’t making loans, mostly because they can’t find borrowers they think will be able to repay.
And that, my friends-s-s-s, is the rub. The pot we’re in (and for those just joining in, “Welcome Rich People! Come on in!”) is a much more dangerous pot than all the Anne Currys and Brians Williams’s can ever hope to grasp.
We have more or less killed our ability to create jobs. We need to massively re-distribute resources so that more of us can earn a decent living, sadly, however, at the expense of hedge fund managers being able to hire Eric Clapton for their kid’s Bar Mitzvah. And we have spent the last 30 years convincing ourselves that the one mechanism that could actually accomplish this feat – the federal government – is not only horribly inept but actually downright evil. (That’s a fact, says Fox News.)
Business leaders will not suddenly wake up and say, “Hey, I know! Let’s violate our legal obligations to our shareholders and start maximizing value not for the shareholders but for the benefit of the most people, employees, customers, and so on. Yeah!”
It is the provenance of the government to lay down the law, even to businesses. (I know some of you are thinking, “No! Un-possible! How could that be? Doesn’t government work for business?” And I can see why you might think that.)
But the truth is the government is the only mechanism we have, and we have spent the last 10 years using it to saw tin cans in half so that it is now terribly useless as an instrument for reforming society.
We are in the midst of a perfect storm. The issue is not banks holding bad loans, or a mortgage crisis. Americans are not going to find getting a car loan or a mortgage “harder.” There’s a reason for the foreclosures. People aren’t earning enough money. Why don’t people just buy health insurance when their companies don’t provide it? Because like the companies themselves they can’t afford it! A spending spree fianced by easy credit is ending, and the results are as painful as they were predictiable.
But that’s not the half of it. American businesses have not embraced innovation, opting instead for lay-offs, outsourcing and all manner of cost-cutting. There is a price coming due on that front. We have massively under-invested in education, a foolishness for which we will be paying the price for decades to come. We have, more or less, been eating our seed corn, and now it’s gone.
It is one of the unspoken premises (which I like to call “Things We All Know™”) that things are so bad that we must look all the way back to the Depression for comparisons. And many Harvard MBAs are quite certain that this is nothing like that. Well, on this I agree with them. But their small-mindedness leads them to conclude that 1929 and the Great Depression is some kind of floor, below which it is not possible to fall.
Who says? Why should 1929 be the floor? Aren’t there the elements present for something much worse? I am sad to say that I believe they are. And even electing a great man like Barack Obama will not be enough to save us, any more than FDR was able to save our grandparents from the Great Depression.
Hang onto your hats, kids! We’re in for a wild ride!
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Whew!
New experiment. I'm going to try to post something everyday, reflecting my views as of that moment.
And as of this moment, I have to say, "Whew!" The polling is back to where it was before the conventions, with Obama slightly ahead and moving into an electoral college lead. Which is of course very good news indeed.
Overnight, McCain seems to have messed up an interview with a Spanish radio or TV outlet. Evidently, after being asked seriatim about various Latin American leaders, he was asked about the Spanish president (not a PM?), and persisted in speaking as though he were a left-wing Latin American thug (i.e., in the "Chavez-Castro Club"). Even when the reporter tried to steer him back, he seemed not to get it, and continued on his platitudinous way. (As they do.)
Oh, and the global financial markets are melting down and will soon be naught but rubble where once great wealth had been. The ranks of the unemployed and poor will welcome the many ex "investment bankers" and even the occasional "former big law partner."
Which of course is good news for Rudy Giuliani.
The last few days seem like they have been rough on poor old John McCain, who seems increasingly out of it, as though he had yet to learn his new talking points.
I've also noticed that he seems to never be without a handler, and I don't mean in a political sense. I mean in the sense of a handler for someone who really can't be left by himself in public. While I wish the man no ill and nothing but love, baby, I'm concerned that there is an accumulating body of evidence that indicates that Senator McCain's mental acuity may be declining to the point where even the Republicans -- the Republicans who foisted an Alzheimers-struck Ronald Reagan on us and kept it a secret for more than a decade -- cannot cover up his unfitness for high office. (Of course, he could be bed-ridden, unable to feed, clothe or clean himself, and convinced that his nurses are all working for that damn Ho Chi Mihn, and still be in the middle of the Senatorial pack, mental acuity-wise).
All of this -- the way the markets seem to indict the Republicans' laissez-faire-ism, the increasing "losing it-ness" of the Republican candidate, the collapse of the media's short-lived love affair with Governor Palin, the continued exudence of competence by Obama, the developing main-stream-media narrative that McCain is lying -- should be reflected in the polls in the next few days. Barring the unexpected (and wouldn't that be a neat trick), I'm hoping to see Barack open up a decent lead and ride it all the way to what one can only pray will be a right-good thumping of Arizona's hard-core, dishonorable senior (and yes folks, I mean senior) Senator.
And as of this moment, I have to say, "Whew!" The polling is back to where it was before the conventions, with Obama slightly ahead and moving into an electoral college lead. Which is of course very good news indeed.
Overnight, McCain seems to have messed up an interview with a Spanish radio or TV outlet. Evidently, after being asked seriatim about various Latin American leaders, he was asked about the Spanish president (not a PM?), and persisted in speaking as though he were a left-wing Latin American thug (i.e., in the "Chavez-Castro Club"). Even when the reporter tried to steer him back, he seemed not to get it, and continued on his platitudinous way. (As they do.)
Oh, and the global financial markets are melting down and will soon be naught but rubble where once great wealth had been. The ranks of the unemployed and poor will welcome the many ex "investment bankers" and even the occasional "former big law partner."
Which of course is good news for Rudy Giuliani.
The last few days seem like they have been rough on poor old John McCain, who seems increasingly out of it, as though he had yet to learn his new talking points.
I've also noticed that he seems to never be without a handler, and I don't mean in a political sense. I mean in the sense of a handler for someone who really can't be left by himself in public. While I wish the man no ill and nothing but love, baby, I'm concerned that there is an accumulating body of evidence that indicates that Senator McCain's mental acuity may be declining to the point where even the Republicans -- the Republicans who foisted an Alzheimers-struck Ronald Reagan on us and kept it a secret for more than a decade -- cannot cover up his unfitness for high office. (Of course, he could be bed-ridden, unable to feed, clothe or clean himself, and convinced that his nurses are all working for that damn Ho Chi Mihn, and still be in the middle of the Senatorial pack, mental acuity-wise).
All of this -- the way the markets seem to indict the Republicans' laissez-faire-ism, the increasing "losing it-ness" of the Republican candidate, the collapse of the media's short-lived love affair with Governor Palin, the continued exudence of competence by Obama, the developing main-stream-media narrative that McCain is lying -- should be reflected in the polls in the next few days. Barring the unexpected (and wouldn't that be a neat trick), I'm hoping to see Barack open up a decent lead and ride it all the way to what one can only pray will be a right-good thumping of Arizona's hard-core, dishonorable senior (and yes folks, I mean senior) Senator.
Friday, September 05, 2008
A Worrisome Turn Toward the Dark Side
It seems like the Republicans have been breaking through one moral boundary after another, from the preposterous witch-hunts of McCarthy to the outrageous use of government apparatus for political gains by Nixon, from Willie Horton to smearing Max Cleland. So a claim that the Republicans have made a platonic shift to evil has to be viewed with some skepticism. Nevertheless, I worry that such a claim may be valid.
Watching the Republican Hate Fest ’08 this week, I heard a line that really resonated: when did unplanned unwed teenage pregnancy become a good thing? Thinking about it, it occurred to me that nearly all of the Republican talking points were as divorced from reality as their claim that Bristol Palin’s pregnancy was a joyous event. In fact, viewed through this prism, the entire Republican enterprise seems to be nothing more than political marketing run amok.
Even their biggest ideas are self-evidently false. Lowering taxes creates jobs. Life begins at conception. Liberals love to tax people. Democrats want high taxes and big government. Obama doesn’t know enough to keep us safe. Sarah Palin is terrific. People just want the government to get out of the way. Government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.
The issue is campaigning and governing by slogan. And not slogans that neatly summarize a complex thoughts into something memorable. In fact, it’s the opposite: slogans as a way to disguise something unpalatable as something palatable. We see it all the time. The “PATRIOT” Act. “Compassionate Conservative.” “The Ownership Society.” “Support the Troops.” In every case, the actual meaning is almost perfectly contradicted by the reality.
So far, it’s more or less business as usual, though far more so for the Republicans, whose actual beliefs are way outside the mainstream and who must therefore work harder to disguise those beliefs to try to get elected.
But there was something about watching Republican after Republican get in front of a camera and describe Palin as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Had Obama picked a comparable light-weight, there’s no doubt the choice would be greeted as prima facie evidence of his dangerously bad judgment. And I believe that on some level Republicans know perfectly well that McCain’s choice is wrong-headed, but are so committed to their cause that they are fine with denying what they know to be true.
And there’s the rub. A movement this large, even if unable to win national office, that is so dedicated, so zealous, so free of honor, is a danger. I am concerned that these people could convince themselves of anything. And I think we saw that this week in St. Paul when the party faithful embraced the idea that off-shore drilling was, virtually overnight, an urgent national priority. Six weeks ago none of them had even heard of it; three weeks ago their own leader was against it, and a week ago none of them cared a jot about it. And now they are ready to lead their party unto death in defense of it.
Very committed zealots who feel they are free from the constraints of reality are a dangerous threat to civilized society. Ask the Germans.
Watching the Republican Hate Fest ’08 this week, I heard a line that really resonated: when did unplanned unwed teenage pregnancy become a good thing? Thinking about it, it occurred to me that nearly all of the Republican talking points were as divorced from reality as their claim that Bristol Palin’s pregnancy was a joyous event. In fact, viewed through this prism, the entire Republican enterprise seems to be nothing more than political marketing run amok.
Even their biggest ideas are self-evidently false. Lowering taxes creates jobs. Life begins at conception. Liberals love to tax people. Democrats want high taxes and big government. Obama doesn’t know enough to keep us safe. Sarah Palin is terrific. People just want the government to get out of the way. Government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.
The issue is campaigning and governing by slogan. And not slogans that neatly summarize a complex thoughts into something memorable. In fact, it’s the opposite: slogans as a way to disguise something unpalatable as something palatable. We see it all the time. The “PATRIOT” Act. “Compassionate Conservative.” “The Ownership Society.” “Support the Troops.” In every case, the actual meaning is almost perfectly contradicted by the reality.
So far, it’s more or less business as usual, though far more so for the Republicans, whose actual beliefs are way outside the mainstream and who must therefore work harder to disguise those beliefs to try to get elected.
But there was something about watching Republican after Republican get in front of a camera and describe Palin as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Had Obama picked a comparable light-weight, there’s no doubt the choice would be greeted as prima facie evidence of his dangerously bad judgment. And I believe that on some level Republicans know perfectly well that McCain’s choice is wrong-headed, but are so committed to their cause that they are fine with denying what they know to be true.
And there’s the rub. A movement this large, even if unable to win national office, that is so dedicated, so zealous, so free of honor, is a danger. I am concerned that these people could convince themselves of anything. And I think we saw that this week in St. Paul when the party faithful embraced the idea that off-shore drilling was, virtually overnight, an urgent national priority. Six weeks ago none of them had even heard of it; three weeks ago their own leader was against it, and a week ago none of them cared a jot about it. And now they are ready to lead their party unto death in defense of it.
Very committed zealots who feel they are free from the constraints of reality are a dangerous threat to civilized society. Ask the Germans.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Apples to Apples
Many Americans have been told by the media that John McCain has more experience. The “right” experience, in the words of the recent LAT poll. Well, it’s undeniable that McCain has more experience, but the current framing of this issue is inherently unfair and misleading. The truth is that in a fair comparison, Obama is the far more experienced candidate.
In 1983, McCain was 47 years old – the same age as Obama is today. Through family connections and family wealth, he was able to win a hotly contested primary and then a general election as a member of the US House of Representatives. He had previously worked in PR at his father-in-law’s company, and served 22 years in the US Navy, retiring with the rank of captain. He led a small training squadron (apparently ably), and also acted as the Navy’s liaison to the US Senate. He did not earn a major sea command. He had struggled at Annapolis, and barely managed to graduate. His record as a pilot was checkered.
In 2008, Obama has already leapfrogged McCain at the same point in his life by entering the US Senate two years ago. Obama has routinely garnered academic achievements and honors, including the highly coveted and prestige presidency of the Harvard Law Review. He has taught Constitutional Law at one of the nation’s most prestigious law schools for over a decade, written a best-selling book about forging a new way forward for America, and spent decades as a community organizer helping deserving Americans get the break they needed to get ahead.
The “experience gap” is really nothing more than the “age gap.” I can speculate about what Obama might have accomplished by his 72d birthday – more accolades, more concrete change, more leadership. (No need to speculate about McCain since age 47 – he’s mostly been an extremely conservative doctrinaire Senator from a conservative state with a gift for seeming to be on all sides of every issue.) But without that speculation being added into the mix, comparing Obama at 47 to McCain at 72 becomes nothing more than saying that one of these candidates is 25 years older than the other one.
If Obama’s experience is not “right,” or “enough,” or “adequate,” that’s because he is 47 years old. If the American people think 47 is simply too young to be President, that it certainly their prerogative. As is their right to think that 72 is simply too old. But to dress this age-ism up as “experience gap” is misleading.
In 1983, McCain was 47 years old – the same age as Obama is today. Through family connections and family wealth, he was able to win a hotly contested primary and then a general election as a member of the US House of Representatives. He had previously worked in PR at his father-in-law’s company, and served 22 years in the US Navy, retiring with the rank of captain. He led a small training squadron (apparently ably), and also acted as the Navy’s liaison to the US Senate. He did not earn a major sea command. He had struggled at Annapolis, and barely managed to graduate. His record as a pilot was checkered.
In 2008, Obama has already leapfrogged McCain at the same point in his life by entering the US Senate two years ago. Obama has routinely garnered academic achievements and honors, including the highly coveted and prestige presidency of the Harvard Law Review. He has taught Constitutional Law at one of the nation’s most prestigious law schools for over a decade, written a best-selling book about forging a new way forward for America, and spent decades as a community organizer helping deserving Americans get the break they needed to get ahead.
The “experience gap” is really nothing more than the “age gap.” I can speculate about what Obama might have accomplished by his 72d birthday – more accolades, more concrete change, more leadership. (No need to speculate about McCain since age 47 – he’s mostly been an extremely conservative doctrinaire Senator from a conservative state with a gift for seeming to be on all sides of every issue.) But without that speculation being added into the mix, comparing Obama at 47 to McCain at 72 becomes nothing more than saying that one of these candidates is 25 years older than the other one.
If Obama’s experience is not “right,” or “enough,” or “adequate,” that’s because he is 47 years old. If the American people think 47 is simply too young to be President, that it certainly their prerogative. As is their right to think that 72 is simply too old. But to dress this age-ism up as “experience gap” is misleading.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
McCain vs Obama: Victim vs. Empath
McCain vs. Obama
I heard Fareed Zakaria talking with Brain Lehrer on WYNC yesterday on the topic of differences between McCain and Obama on foreign policy. Fareed thought that there was a time when he would have said not much separated the two, but that McCain had taken several positions recently which made him think there were meaningful differences. (The main change seemed to be McCain’s recent idea to rid the G-8 of Russia and China, which is of course plainly counter-productive.)
What struck me though, was how little appreciation Fareed had for the enormous differences between the two candidates. His idea about politics seems to rest on an entirely left-brain approach where one simply compares the competing policy proposals and selects the one which is more closely matches one’s own idea of the best policy proposals. For me, it's far more telling as a determinant of the kind of governance we can expect is the emotional and psychological make-up of the candidates.
I often joke with people that if the people making Campbells Soup ads think they are selling soup, they’ll make unsuccessful ads, whereas if they think they are selling love, redemption, acceptance, etc., they’ll end up selling lots of soup. I don’t think McCain’s or Obama’s policy proposals are what will have the biggest impact on our society, any more than Candidate Bush’s passion for a Patient’s Bill of Rights made much difference to our health care system. Instead, the fundamental character of the person is the biggest determinant of the kind of governance we will get.
To me, the fundamental character of a person is best described in emotional and psychological terms. For example, I think the Current Occupant (h/t Garrison Keillor, of course) suffers from the effects of the terrible trauma he suffered as a child when his younger sister suddenly fell ill and passed away. His feelings of powerlessness in the face of random, inexplicable tragedy – feelings which were steadfastly ignored by his parents – are the direct cause of his misguided efforts to “protect” the US – and his inability to stop talking about the paramount importance of doing so. I think that’s what is behind his idea that he himself is personally responsible for the nation’s safety, and he is surely not going to wait around for other nations to act if doing so jeopardizes his protective (preventive) mission (as he had to do with tragic results as a child). In fact, it is this impatience that leads others to perceive that they are spurned and rejected. They are.
I’m still learning about the early experiences of McCain and Obama, but already I can see a fundamental difference in their characters. McCain seems to me to be primarily about being a victim – a quality he had long before he was so horribly victimized by the North Viet Namese. His high school nickname of “McNasty” is some evidence of this – a person who lashes out to protect himself from too-painful feelings. My guess is that John developed a sense that he was never going to be good enough for his ultra-successful dad – a sense that he was being expected to perform to a very unfair standard. John strikes me as someone who is always probing for acceptance – that’s what those back-of-the-bus bull sessions are: a chance for John to get acceptance.
As a leader, my guess is McCain would be quick to see the US as a victim, a nation that is being subjected to unfair standards. (It is of course true that the US is indeed expected to conform to a standard of behavior higher perhaps than any other nation. My own view is that that expectation is entirely fair. I doubt McCain would see it that way.) McCain would be quick to take offense, and quick to take action to challenge those he sees as confronting him (i.e., holding him to an unfair standard). His famous temper is a testament to the extent he feels slighted unfairly – in other words, victimized.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, could not be more different. I read him as being Mr. Empathy. He is quick to understand others. He readily shares similar experiences. But he does not leave things there. He generally pivots to his own ideas of how to help. His policies seem to be based on fully understanding how those impacted by them will perceive them, the result of his starting with understanding as best he can how others see and feel things.
An Obama foreign policy would be based on understanding the viewpoints of other nations – which by itself would instantly bolster American credibility and prestige. His actions would proceed organically from his understanding of how others perceive their own worlds, and therefore would be far more likely to be welcomed and far more likely to be productive. Domestically, Obama has already begun the process of people making more of an effort to understand the needs and feelings of others, something that the Republican revolution of the last 40 years has specifically targeted (“Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago,” Reagan famously asked). His empathetic nature is quite disruptive to the conventional wisdom.
We have a clear choice, not between competing policies but between competing personalities. We can choose a perpetual victim, someone who is constantly striving for acceptance and spurning those perceived as authorities (people with unfair expectations). Or we can choose an empathizer who can synthesize the needs of various individuals into harmonious compromises and solutions that provide a real chance of achieving success.
I heard Fareed Zakaria talking with Brain Lehrer on WYNC yesterday on the topic of differences between McCain and Obama on foreign policy. Fareed thought that there was a time when he would have said not much separated the two, but that McCain had taken several positions recently which made him think there were meaningful differences. (The main change seemed to be McCain’s recent idea to rid the G-8 of Russia and China, which is of course plainly counter-productive.)
What struck me though, was how little appreciation Fareed had for the enormous differences between the two candidates. His idea about politics seems to rest on an entirely left-brain approach where one simply compares the competing policy proposals and selects the one which is more closely matches one’s own idea of the best policy proposals. For me, it's far more telling as a determinant of the kind of governance we can expect is the emotional and psychological make-up of the candidates.
I often joke with people that if the people making Campbells Soup ads think they are selling soup, they’ll make unsuccessful ads, whereas if they think they are selling love, redemption, acceptance, etc., they’ll end up selling lots of soup. I don’t think McCain’s or Obama’s policy proposals are what will have the biggest impact on our society, any more than Candidate Bush’s passion for a Patient’s Bill of Rights made much difference to our health care system. Instead, the fundamental character of the person is the biggest determinant of the kind of governance we will get.
To me, the fundamental character of a person is best described in emotional and psychological terms. For example, I think the Current Occupant (h/t Garrison Keillor, of course) suffers from the effects of the terrible trauma he suffered as a child when his younger sister suddenly fell ill and passed away. His feelings of powerlessness in the face of random, inexplicable tragedy – feelings which were steadfastly ignored by his parents – are the direct cause of his misguided efforts to “protect” the US – and his inability to stop talking about the paramount importance of doing so. I think that’s what is behind his idea that he himself is personally responsible for the nation’s safety, and he is surely not going to wait around for other nations to act if doing so jeopardizes his protective (preventive) mission (as he had to do with tragic results as a child). In fact, it is this impatience that leads others to perceive that they are spurned and rejected. They are.
I’m still learning about the early experiences of McCain and Obama, but already I can see a fundamental difference in their characters. McCain seems to me to be primarily about being a victim – a quality he had long before he was so horribly victimized by the North Viet Namese. His high school nickname of “McNasty” is some evidence of this – a person who lashes out to protect himself from too-painful feelings. My guess is that John developed a sense that he was never going to be good enough for his ultra-successful dad – a sense that he was being expected to perform to a very unfair standard. John strikes me as someone who is always probing for acceptance – that’s what those back-of-the-bus bull sessions are: a chance for John to get acceptance.
As a leader, my guess is McCain would be quick to see the US as a victim, a nation that is being subjected to unfair standards. (It is of course true that the US is indeed expected to conform to a standard of behavior higher perhaps than any other nation. My own view is that that expectation is entirely fair. I doubt McCain would see it that way.) McCain would be quick to take offense, and quick to take action to challenge those he sees as confronting him (i.e., holding him to an unfair standard). His famous temper is a testament to the extent he feels slighted unfairly – in other words, victimized.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, could not be more different. I read him as being Mr. Empathy. He is quick to understand others. He readily shares similar experiences. But he does not leave things there. He generally pivots to his own ideas of how to help. His policies seem to be based on fully understanding how those impacted by them will perceive them, the result of his starting with understanding as best he can how others see and feel things.
An Obama foreign policy would be based on understanding the viewpoints of other nations – which by itself would instantly bolster American credibility and prestige. His actions would proceed organically from his understanding of how others perceive their own worlds, and therefore would be far more likely to be welcomed and far more likely to be productive. Domestically, Obama has already begun the process of people making more of an effort to understand the needs and feelings of others, something that the Republican revolution of the last 40 years has specifically targeted (“Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago,” Reagan famously asked). His empathetic nature is quite disruptive to the conventional wisdom.
We have a clear choice, not between competing policies but between competing personalities. We can choose a perpetual victim, someone who is constantly striving for acceptance and spurning those perceived as authorities (people with unfair expectations). Or we can choose an empathizer who can synthesize the needs of various individuals into harmonious compromises and solutions that provide a real chance of achieving success.
Monday, June 02, 2008
The Coming Craze for Confrontational Journalism
These past 10 years, many on the left have been appalled at the roll-over-and-rub-my-belly style of US journalism as mainstream journalists have vied with each other to see who loves Republicans the most. Not surprisingly, there's been a hailstorm of criticism about this.
Just in time for the return of the Democrats to power, the US mainstream press is about to shake off its journalistic slumber of the past 12-15 years and get back to basics: constantly hectoring the President about his many scandals and missteps, while making sure the opposition gets PLENTY of air time to bring these issues to the attention of the American people.
Wait for it, people. It's coming. And it will be just as ugly this time as it was under Clinton.
Just in time for the return of the Democrats to power, the US mainstream press is about to shake off its journalistic slumber of the past 12-15 years and get back to basics: constantly hectoring the President about his many scandals and missteps, while making sure the opposition gets PLENTY of air time to bring these issues to the attention of the American people.
Wait for it, people. It's coming. And it will be just as ugly this time as it was under Clinton.
I don't usually waste my beautiful mind on the musings of confirmed half-wits like Billy Krystal. As a kid, I had two dogs, Spot and Frisky. ("Naming Things" was evidently not a course that either of my parents excelled in.) Either one of them, both long-gone to doggie heaven of course, had more insight into American public affairs that Billy. Yet neither has a newspaper column. Oh the injustice!
According to reliable sources, Billy is mad that BHO didn't talk more about the military at a recent commencement address. This brought home to me a idea I've been toying with the last few weeks about the nature of Republican-ism.
Republicans are famously derisive of governmental powers and responsibilities. But with one glaring exception -- the military. in fact, in their current mis-adventure in the Middle East, they are endeavoring to accomplish every task -- building schools, caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, etc. -- solely with military resources. In many cases, those resources are in fact outside contractors (wouldn't want to leave out those poor shareholders!), but even they are largely militarized servants of the DoD. (And speaking of which, boy oh boy are we well defended! Who knew we faced such threats!).
Not just overseas. The only appropriate manifestations of the US Government to these loonies are military ones. That's why they've accepted such quasi-military icons as police and firemen. (Firemen!). Perhaps we can convince them on skycaps and doormen.
For reasons only their psychoanalysts could fathom, these authority-lovers see the only legitimate branch of government as the military. Imagine their surprise when young President Obama switches things around!
I really can't wait for these unreconstructed Birchites to return to their richly deserved place of ridicule and obscurity.
According to reliable sources, Billy is mad that BHO didn't talk more about the military at a recent commencement address. This brought home to me a idea I've been toying with the last few weeks about the nature of Republican-ism.
Republicans are famously derisive of governmental powers and responsibilities. But with one glaring exception -- the military. in fact, in their current mis-adventure in the Middle East, they are endeavoring to accomplish every task -- building schools, caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, etc. -- solely with military resources. In many cases, those resources are in fact outside contractors (wouldn't want to leave out those poor shareholders!), but even they are largely militarized servants of the DoD. (And speaking of which, boy oh boy are we well defended! Who knew we faced such threats!).
Not just overseas. The only appropriate manifestations of the US Government to these loonies are military ones. That's why they've accepted such quasi-military icons as police and firemen. (Firemen!). Perhaps we can convince them on skycaps and doormen.
For reasons only their psychoanalysts could fathom, these authority-lovers see the only legitimate branch of government as the military. Imagine their surprise when young President Obama switches things around!
I really can't wait for these unreconstructed Birchites to return to their richly deserved place of ridicule and obscurity.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Accountability, Please
The DNC just bent over backwards to give props to the state delegations of Florida and Michigan. The so-called leaders of these state delegations -- the same maroons who decided to proceed with primaries in spite of a clear rule not to, and in spite of their sister states' respect for the same rule -- claimed that not seating these states' delegations would imperil our chances in the fall. So, seated they are.
Let's have an accountability moment, then. We were told that these guys needed this sop to win. They have it. Now, let's see them deliver Michigan and Florida this fall. If we don't carry them, I want to have an accountability moment and call these calls on the carpet.
Being right matters. Ignoring the rules, gaining special favor at the expense of your peers, pleading special circumstances just because one doesn't like the outcome, and then failing to deliver -- is not right.
Let's have an accountability moment, then. We were told that these guys needed this sop to win. They have it. Now, let's see them deliver Michigan and Florida this fall. If we don't carry them, I want to have an accountability moment and call these calls on the carpet.
Being right matters. Ignoring the rules, gaining special favor at the expense of your peers, pleading special circumstances just because one doesn't like the outcome, and then failing to deliver -- is not right.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Negative Attracts Negative
The great Chris “Mad Dog” Russo recently appeared on an HBO show hosted by the almost equally great Bob Costas to talk about the phenomenon of sports talk radio. Chris essentially plays as a character a louder, more combative version of himself on his talk radio show on WFAN in New York. But on Costas’ show, as I suspect in real life, Chris is a bright and insightful guy.
Russo made the point that sports talk tends to emphasize the negative. IF a NY sports team messes up, or a player messes up, his show will go on and on, beating a dead horse, analyzing the failure. On the other hand, of course, positive achievements are mentioned, analyzed and discussed, but far more rarely and far more briefly. Russo observed that negativity was simply inherent in the medium. It reminded me of Michael Moore’s observation about local news – the old “if it bleeds it leads.”
Whether there is something inherently negative in the non-fiction media, or whether the people who control it make it negative for other reasons, there can be no real doubt that such media does tend to emphasize and gravitate toward negative stories. I don’t think that this phenomenon began as a product of any kind of political bias.
However, of the two political parties, one has a similarly inherent negative bias. The Republican party, especially under the modern reign of the Reagan-Bush crowd, is inherently negative. Their political position is often summed up by friend and foe alike as “smaller government, lower taxes, less government intervention.” This is a critique – a negative reaction. Their whole movement is a nothing more than a sustained complaint.
In thinking about the way in which the media seems obsessed with giving Republicans positive coverage and the Democrats negative coverage, there are several important factors to consider. (Two current examples to consider: Obama’s pastor is nearly wall-to-wall, while McCain’s spiritual endorsers are barely covered, and McCain’s independently wealthy wife isn’t going to release her tax returns (no big deal), while John Kerry’s independently wealthy wife didn’t release her tax returns (scandal!).) Certainly the fact that Republicans hold reporters accountable for their stories in a way that the Democrats do not is such a factor. The fact that the media is controlled by people who are sympathetic to Republicans for business reasons is another. The fact that most beat reporters are in fact liberal and therefore end to overcompensate for their personal bias is another.
But I do think one such factor is this inherent negativity of the medium. The press likes to emphasize negative stories. It’s what they’re focused on. The Republicans are the party of Negative Stories. There’s a natural affinity between the media and the Republicans, a sort of symbiosis: the press needs negativity, the Republicans need air time. This is particularly true since their views are held by a stubbornly small minority, they need to whip up support more strenuously. Plus, their way of whipping up support is not to tout their own ideas (of which they have none), but rather to demonize and attack the Democrats – a perfect topic for the press, just as demonizing the hapless goalie or unlucky quarterback makes for compelling sports talk radio.
The press is likely to have an affinity for the Republicans as long as the Republicans remain addicted to their aggressively negative ways. Of course, this addiction may last forever, but there is always a chance that in their search for votes, the Republicans of the future may conclude that they need to develop some ideas of their own. As Judy Temuda (sp?) used to say “it could happen.” Right?
Update: A clear example of this is in this morning’s Washington Post. A story is prominently featured about a federal arts commission objecting to a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. as excessively confrontational and vaguely totalitarian. (It is being sculpted in China, to boot.) This negative story will receive far more play than the earlier positive story announcing the statue’s design in the first place.
Russo made the point that sports talk tends to emphasize the negative. IF a NY sports team messes up, or a player messes up, his show will go on and on, beating a dead horse, analyzing the failure. On the other hand, of course, positive achievements are mentioned, analyzed and discussed, but far more rarely and far more briefly. Russo observed that negativity was simply inherent in the medium. It reminded me of Michael Moore’s observation about local news – the old “if it bleeds it leads.”
Whether there is something inherently negative in the non-fiction media, or whether the people who control it make it negative for other reasons, there can be no real doubt that such media does tend to emphasize and gravitate toward negative stories. I don’t think that this phenomenon began as a product of any kind of political bias.
However, of the two political parties, one has a similarly inherent negative bias. The Republican party, especially under the modern reign of the Reagan-Bush crowd, is inherently negative. Their political position is often summed up by friend and foe alike as “smaller government, lower taxes, less government intervention.” This is a critique – a negative reaction. Their whole movement is a nothing more than a sustained complaint.
In thinking about the way in which the media seems obsessed with giving Republicans positive coverage and the Democrats negative coverage, there are several important factors to consider. (Two current examples to consider: Obama’s pastor is nearly wall-to-wall, while McCain’s spiritual endorsers are barely covered, and McCain’s independently wealthy wife isn’t going to release her tax returns (no big deal), while John Kerry’s independently wealthy wife didn’t release her tax returns (scandal!).) Certainly the fact that Republicans hold reporters accountable for their stories in a way that the Democrats do not is such a factor. The fact that the media is controlled by people who are sympathetic to Republicans for business reasons is another. The fact that most beat reporters are in fact liberal and therefore end to overcompensate for their personal bias is another.
But I do think one such factor is this inherent negativity of the medium. The press likes to emphasize negative stories. It’s what they’re focused on. The Republicans are the party of Negative Stories. There’s a natural affinity between the media and the Republicans, a sort of symbiosis: the press needs negativity, the Republicans need air time. This is particularly true since their views are held by a stubbornly small minority, they need to whip up support more strenuously. Plus, their way of whipping up support is not to tout their own ideas (of which they have none), but rather to demonize and attack the Democrats – a perfect topic for the press, just as demonizing the hapless goalie or unlucky quarterback makes for compelling sports talk radio.
The press is likely to have an affinity for the Republicans as long as the Republicans remain addicted to their aggressively negative ways. Of course, this addiction may last forever, but there is always a chance that in their search for votes, the Republicans of the future may conclude that they need to develop some ideas of their own. As Judy Temuda (sp?) used to say “it could happen.” Right?
Update: A clear example of this is in this morning’s Washington Post. A story is prominently featured about a federal arts commission objecting to a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. as excessively confrontational and vaguely totalitarian. (It is being sculpted in China, to boot.) This negative story will receive far more play than the earlier positive story announcing the statue’s design in the first place.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Friday, May 02, 2008
This Guy
This guy, Arthur Silber, must get paid by the word, but his writing reflects both genuine insight as well as the level of outrage that I would have thought would be all-too-common by now.
I guess after America is completely lost people will get upset.
I guess after America is completely lost people will get upset.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Some Things the President Says are NOT True
Tort reform is NOT the solution to the health care crisis.
Drilling for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge is NOT the solution to our energy problems.
Large unfunded tax cuts to wealthy Americans will NOT address the crisis in job creation.
Al-Qaeda is NOT the greatest threat to US national security.
Sending a 2d aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf to menace Iran does NOT make us safer or reduce tensions in the area.
Finally, John McCain is NOT a maverick straight-talker.
Now you know what to think.
Drilling for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge is NOT the solution to our energy problems.
Large unfunded tax cuts to wealthy Americans will NOT address the crisis in job creation.
Al-Qaeda is NOT the greatest threat to US national security.
Sending a 2d aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf to menace Iran does NOT make us safer or reduce tensions in the area.
Finally, John McCain is NOT a maverick straight-talker.
Now you know what to think.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Audacity of Hope
Hard to see any reason to hope that 2008 will be any different than previous Presidential elections. The press' piling on the "Wright Affair" is just a sample of the nonsense that will be peddled throughout the election (no matter who the Democratic nominee is).
It's easy to blame the press, which no doubt bears a large share of the responsibility for ending the madness. But where are the Democratic 527's running Hagee ads? Where are the elected Dems who are calling on McCain to denounce, repudiate, etc.?
We cannot expect to be successful if we don't show vigor in our campaigns. Kerry came to be seen as ineffective in his responses to Swift Boat, just as Obama risks the same thing here. (And if HRC were the leader, or the candidate Republicans feared more, then she too would be portrayed as unable to stop the media firestorm over "Pardon-gate" or whatever phone-baloney controversy was ginned up to smear her.)
Unless a majority of individual voters is somehow able to form and elect leaders who are both committed to change and have the skills to bring change about, there's no hope. And so far, I'm not seeing anything like the necessary majority of voters. I want to believe in my fellow Americans and their essential goodness, but when I overhear them talking about Obama and Hillary, I wonder if there are enough open minds left...
It's easy to blame the press, which no doubt bears a large share of the responsibility for ending the madness. But where are the Democratic 527's running Hagee ads? Where are the elected Dems who are calling on McCain to denounce, repudiate, etc.?
We cannot expect to be successful if we don't show vigor in our campaigns. Kerry came to be seen as ineffective in his responses to Swift Boat, just as Obama risks the same thing here. (And if HRC were the leader, or the candidate Republicans feared more, then she too would be portrayed as unable to stop the media firestorm over "Pardon-gate" or whatever phone-baloney controversy was ginned up to smear her.)
Unless a majority of individual voters is somehow able to form and elect leaders who are both committed to change and have the skills to bring change about, there's no hope. And so far, I'm not seeing anything like the necessary majority of voters. I want to believe in my fellow Americans and their essential goodness, but when I overhear them talking about Obama and Hillary, I wonder if there are enough open minds left...
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
A Pennsylvania Thought or Two
We’ve now managed to piss away some large amount of money – let’s call it $25 million, shall we? – on an mostly pointless contest in Pennsylvania. The silver lining, of course, is the energy created amongst Pa. Dems and new voters, which of course is not nothing. But I doubt many donors to either BHO or HRC would be happy to see their money going for a general energy-raising exercise.
Listening to Pa. voters, I’m struck by how disconnected they are from the reality of the Democratic race. I wouldn’t want to say how prevalent this attitude was, but many of the voices I heard in the media seemed to be choosing between the two as if either one might win.
I find it odd that so many voters were persuaded that HRC had a legitimate shot. It is surely a testament to her campaign effort that she was able to attract 55% of Pa. voters to what is surely a losing cause. It’d be like Huckabee winning Pa. (He did get 11%, and Ron Paul 14%!)
In fact, HRC’s best argument is one she dare not utter publicly: even as a dead certain loser, some 55% of Pennsylvanians were willing to throw their vote away on her.
I hope BHO now ceases firing HRC’s way and only focuses on McCain. I think that was their strategy before they got suckered into mounting a full-scale (but not, despite HRCs claims, a maximum-scale) effort in Pa. I think super-delegates will be impressed not only with his lead in the delegate count, but also at how effective his attacks against McCain are.
It’s time for BHO to declare victory in the battle for the nomination and move onto the general election. (He could also use a few days off, from the look of things in Pa.)
Listening to Pa. voters, I’m struck by how disconnected they are from the reality of the Democratic race. I wouldn’t want to say how prevalent this attitude was, but many of the voices I heard in the media seemed to be choosing between the two as if either one might win.
I find it odd that so many voters were persuaded that HRC had a legitimate shot. It is surely a testament to her campaign effort that she was able to attract 55% of Pa. voters to what is surely a losing cause. It’d be like Huckabee winning Pa. (He did get 11%, and Ron Paul 14%!)
In fact, HRC’s best argument is one she dare not utter publicly: even as a dead certain loser, some 55% of Pennsylvanians were willing to throw their vote away on her.
I hope BHO now ceases firing HRC’s way and only focuses on McCain. I think that was their strategy before they got suckered into mounting a full-scale (but not, despite HRCs claims, a maximum-scale) effort in Pa. I think super-delegates will be impressed not only with his lead in the delegate count, but also at how effective his attacks against McCain are.
It’s time for BHO to declare victory in the battle for the nomination and move onto the general election. (He could also use a few days off, from the look of things in Pa.)
Monday, April 21, 2008
Accountability Free Media
Bill Clinton famously said that Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. There you have it. The Republican party is behind their nominee, just as they always are. The problem is whether they can get the independents and swing voters who have come to loathe Bush.
Does anybody remember like two months ago when the Entertainment Media was dead certain that McCain was going to struggle with getting his right-wing on-board? I'm certain that Timmeh all the way to Howie and back again were 100% that McCain had a big problem on his hands with getting all those who hated him jazzed about his campaign.
No? No one remembers? Strange, I have this definite recollection...
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
What Do I Think?
I think we’re on the verge of a very long economic contraction. I think we have pretty much eaten our seed corn and are going to have many long cold winters ahead.
For many years, American businesses have relied as much on cost-cutting as they have on actual innovation and market expansion. There has been a steady drip-drip-drip of wealth being transferred from workers to shareholders. Whether via the on-going down-grading of working conditions (glamorous Manhattan offices to low-cost suburban-sprawl office parks, offices and desks to cubicles, lunches at nearby eateries to sandwiches at the desk, etc.), the slashing of financial compensation to workers (loss of pensions, loss of healthcare coverage, loss of wage increases), or just the introduction of numerous productivity enhancers (PCs/e-mail, cel phones, Nextel radios, etc.), the overall trend has been to squeeze value from workers – value that gets reflected in the company’s “performance.”
The problem with cost-cutting-as-growth is that it cannot go on forever. I heard a phrase a while ago that really stuck in my mind: “things that cannot go on forever don’t.” And I think we’re finding out the hard truth of that right now. American businesses can’t find much more to cut. There’s no place cheaper than rural China to out-source to. Low-cost reporters, paralegals and engineers in India are getting scarce. We already have our workers in cheap metal buildings with shaky heat/A/C. Businesses have gone to this well for likely the last time for quite some time.
So businesses must rely on innovation and market expansion for growth. But the problem is that it cannot come up with new products successfully. Besides making somewhat faster and cheaper laptops, what is Dell going to do? Sell TV’s? Refrigerators (see Blockbuster to Buy Circuit City)? The dread “service contracts”?
In considering what will our businesses do, we’re all inclined to think that through sheer power of will, good old American pluck, and a little bit of luck, we’ll pull through. After all, we’ve been slogging along for some time OK, and we’ve been OK. Plus, we’re optimistic people and tend to think things will work out OK just because it’s how we view the world. That doesn’t mean, however, that the world is going to conform to our perceptions of it.
We have spent that last 25 or more years squandering our future – a future that I believe is arriving now. We have decided to starve our government half-to-death, so that the majority of our social problems have as their root cause lack of adequate resources. I take this drive to “cut taxes” as another part of the general trend of transferring wealth from those with less (i.e., consumers of governmental services) to those with more (those who would otherwise be paying for those services).
We’ve gotten the idea into our heads that those with great wealth deserve every last penny of it, and have no real obligation to the rest of society. Reagan-Bush economic theory is that the more we give the best-off, the better off everyone else is. This is just plain wrong, but it’s easy to see why millionaires promote it as a serious political-economic philosophy.
We’ve failed to invest adequately in our education system, and now are falling behind because of it. We’ve failed to invest in our health, and are reaping the rewards in an epidemic of obesity and other treatable and preventable diseases and conditions. We have failed to invest in technology that would allow us to throw off oil dependency when it becomes no longer affordable.
We have weakened our governmental and public infrastructure so much that it will simply not be available to help its citizens when most needed. It will be years before our governments can be wrestled out of the hands of the super-rich and returned to the control of the majority of voters.
We have borrowed massively to pay for things we have merely consumed. It’s one thing to borrow $1,000,000 to build a factory. But to borrow $1,000,000 to pay for a huge picnic is quite another. And far too much of our borrowing has been for picnics, not enough for factories.
Perhaps worst of all, we have abandoned our sense of community. Ronald Reagan began the job of killing it when he announced that the relevant question is “are you better off today than you were 4 years ago.” He appealed to the divisions in our society, using fear of others as the basis for his politics. Wealthy people had always used some version of this “divide and conquer” approach, and Reagan breathed new life into it. He also ushered in an era when substance no longer mattered on any level, and hastened the “juvenilization” of our public discourse.
These same people have worked hard to ensure that America is isolated in the world. Americans have little interest in helping other nations. Americans have little interest in other nations, period. We’ve once again retreated to the castle keep and pulled up the drawbridges, hoping the world will leave us alone.
Our ability to be part of a meaningful community has been obliterated – taking away the one thing that Americans might otherwise use to weather the coming storm and make a better future.
For years, wags have warned that we were mortgaging our future. As a society, we mostly ignored these warnings. I think that the future is now, the bill is due, and we just don’t have the money to pay it.
I have hope that Sen. Obama will ascend to our leadership and be our generation’s FDR. But remember FDR didn’t make the crisis go away, he just helped us cope with it. And the crisis didn't end for 15 years -- and even then only following a catastrophic war.
For many years, American businesses have relied as much on cost-cutting as they have on actual innovation and market expansion. There has been a steady drip-drip-drip of wealth being transferred from workers to shareholders. Whether via the on-going down-grading of working conditions (glamorous Manhattan offices to low-cost suburban-sprawl office parks, offices and desks to cubicles, lunches at nearby eateries to sandwiches at the desk, etc.), the slashing of financial compensation to workers (loss of pensions, loss of healthcare coverage, loss of wage increases), or just the introduction of numerous productivity enhancers (PCs/e-mail, cel phones, Nextel radios, etc.), the overall trend has been to squeeze value from workers – value that gets reflected in the company’s “performance.”
The problem with cost-cutting-as-growth is that it cannot go on forever. I heard a phrase a while ago that really stuck in my mind: “things that cannot go on forever don’t.” And I think we’re finding out the hard truth of that right now. American businesses can’t find much more to cut. There’s no place cheaper than rural China to out-source to. Low-cost reporters, paralegals and engineers in India are getting scarce. We already have our workers in cheap metal buildings with shaky heat/A/C. Businesses have gone to this well for likely the last time for quite some time.
So businesses must rely on innovation and market expansion for growth. But the problem is that it cannot come up with new products successfully. Besides making somewhat faster and cheaper laptops, what is Dell going to do? Sell TV’s? Refrigerators (see Blockbuster to Buy Circuit City)? The dread “service contracts”?
In considering what will our businesses do, we’re all inclined to think that through sheer power of will, good old American pluck, and a little bit of luck, we’ll pull through. After all, we’ve been slogging along for some time OK, and we’ve been OK. Plus, we’re optimistic people and tend to think things will work out OK just because it’s how we view the world. That doesn’t mean, however, that the world is going to conform to our perceptions of it.
We have spent that last 25 or more years squandering our future – a future that I believe is arriving now. We have decided to starve our government half-to-death, so that the majority of our social problems have as their root cause lack of adequate resources. I take this drive to “cut taxes” as another part of the general trend of transferring wealth from those with less (i.e., consumers of governmental services) to those with more (those who would otherwise be paying for those services).
We’ve gotten the idea into our heads that those with great wealth deserve every last penny of it, and have no real obligation to the rest of society. Reagan-Bush economic theory is that the more we give the best-off, the better off everyone else is. This is just plain wrong, but it’s easy to see why millionaires promote it as a serious political-economic philosophy.
We’ve failed to invest adequately in our education system, and now are falling behind because of it. We’ve failed to invest in our health, and are reaping the rewards in an epidemic of obesity and other treatable and preventable diseases and conditions. We have failed to invest in technology that would allow us to throw off oil dependency when it becomes no longer affordable.
We have weakened our governmental and public infrastructure so much that it will simply not be available to help its citizens when most needed. It will be years before our governments can be wrestled out of the hands of the super-rich and returned to the control of the majority of voters.
We have borrowed massively to pay for things we have merely consumed. It’s one thing to borrow $1,000,000 to build a factory. But to borrow $1,000,000 to pay for a huge picnic is quite another. And far too much of our borrowing has been for picnics, not enough for factories.
Perhaps worst of all, we have abandoned our sense of community. Ronald Reagan began the job of killing it when he announced that the relevant question is “are you better off today than you were 4 years ago.” He appealed to the divisions in our society, using fear of others as the basis for his politics. Wealthy people had always used some version of this “divide and conquer” approach, and Reagan breathed new life into it. He also ushered in an era when substance no longer mattered on any level, and hastened the “juvenilization” of our public discourse.
These same people have worked hard to ensure that America is isolated in the world. Americans have little interest in helping other nations. Americans have little interest in other nations, period. We’ve once again retreated to the castle keep and pulled up the drawbridges, hoping the world will leave us alone.
Our ability to be part of a meaningful community has been obliterated – taking away the one thing that Americans might otherwise use to weather the coming storm and make a better future.
For years, wags have warned that we were mortgaging our future. As a society, we mostly ignored these warnings. I think that the future is now, the bill is due, and we just don’t have the money to pay it.
I have hope that Sen. Obama will ascend to our leadership and be our generation’s FDR. But remember FDR didn’t make the crisis go away, he just helped us cope with it. And the crisis didn't end for 15 years -- and even then only following a catastrophic war.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Things No One Says, Pt. 543
“My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants,” Mr. Obama said. "
I more or less agree, though I wonder whether HRC isn't getting more than the benefit of the doubt? Time for "Shoe On the Other Foot."
A. Hillary leads -- I think the pressure on Obama would be immeasurably greater. There'd be a kind of "Oh, let him run, for Gawd's sake, he's inspirational and healing -- it shows we care about the Black vote."
B. McCain leads over a rival -- say Huckabee. Pretty much see A above. We all agreed that the Huckabee thing was basically harmless and cute, and since he was such a hoot on Colbert and SNL and stuff, let him go."
To me, HRC is getting a break. Whether it's because of her gender, her "insider" bona fides, her actual smarts and charm and humor (which are considerable), I couldn't say. But I do think mouthing the platitude about "let her run" reflects a bit of a break.
Rumsfeld Book Title Contest
Former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld is reportedly releasing a memoir. Here are my suggestions for a title:
"Shit, I'm Sorry. I am So, So, So Very, Very Sorry."
"Buy This Book Or Don't -- I Already Got Paid"
"Bushed! How I Discovered that the 43d President of the United States Is Really Quite Dumb"
"It Was Cheney"
"Don: A Personal Journey to War Crimes And Back"
"Smokin! My Torrid Affair with Condi Rice"
"Ha! I've Got a God Damned Fortune. You?"
"Buy This Book Or Don't -- I Already Got Paid"
"Bushed! How I Discovered that the 43d President of the United States Is Really Quite Dumb"
"It Was Cheney"
"Don: A Personal Journey to War Crimes And Back"
"Smokin! My Torrid Affair with Condi Rice"
"Ha! I've Got a God Damned Fortune. You?"
Post your own in the comments. It's fun!
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Sporting Event
"I don't view the Olympics as a political event," Bush said this past week. "I view it as a sporting event." The White House has not yet said whether he will attend the opening ceremony on August 8.Mr. Bush thinks the Olympics are not political but only a sports event. I therefore propose that he not attend as his role as a former part-owner of a baseball team is an inadequate credential to represent American sports. I nominate Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong to attend in his stead.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Power of Groupthink
For many years after the Viet Nam war, TV and movies had a field day with a stereotype of the Viet Nam vet as a unstable, flash-back-prone and quite violent. Part of the appeal of this character as a plot device was that he was undeniably evil and violent, but it wasn't really his fault. It was because of the weird Asian war he had had to fight. In any case, we were told over and over again that Viet Nam vets were unstable mentally and emotionally. (There was certainly some truth to the idea behind that stereotype in the sense that many Vets were plagued with post-battle disorders of various kinds, plus when they came home it seemed nobody was really interested in them, whereas their fathers had returned to a grateful society prepared to help vets get back into civilian life.)
If you want to try a thought experiment, how about a little "shoe on the other foot." In today's edition, we're going to pretend that John Kerry was a Republican, and that John McCain was a Democrat. What would the press make of that?
Obviously, McCain would be deemed by the press as simply too unstable for the American people to trust. "Questions" about his fitness for office, especially in a moment of crisis, would "linger." Even if Democrats were foolhardy enough to actually nominate him, the press would persist in showing every old clip they could find of Viet Nam vets in the shadowy jungles, and feature every MD and PhD they could find to talk about the high levels of PTSD and other disorders faced by practically all Viet Nam vets.
Kerry, on the other hand, would be complimented for his height and overall "military bearing." We'd be shown clips of how he looked in uniform (and of course with his short hair), and we'd be told that his heroism and bravery in action were such that the Democrats would never look "strong" on "national defense."
"Shoe on the other foot" is one of my favorite games. It almost always helps to highlight the mental handcuffs that limit most mainstream press people from thinking independently and critically. On the next installment, maybe we'll do "If Hillary were a man," or "If Barack were white."
Dumber than Dirt
Patrick McHenry, a Republican kook representing a district in Virginia, is dumber than dirt.
If you can watch this whole thing, the only possible reaction is that this clown is an embarrassment to his district and his party. All I can think is that he never expected that anyone would see this drivel outside of the audience of supporters.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Forget "Issues" --Authenticity Is All That Matters
Jeff Feldman decries the rise of “authenticity.”
Americans, he says, should reject the very notion of authenticity in favor of that old traditional value, pragmatism. In fact, he has a highly pragmatic proposal for our leading Democratic Presidential contenders: they should call for “NATIONAL CONVENTION TO SOLVE AMERICA'S HEALTH CRISIS.” (Evidently, putting it in all-caps and in bold makes it more, um, pragmatic, I guess. Maybe it’s more “frame-shoppy.” I don’t really have a clue.)
Intending only to help a worthy cause, Jeff has managed to embody almost single-handedly why Democrats are so singularly unsuccessful – and unsuccessful they are, in light of the huge majorities of Americans who agree with what they say they want to do. Too bad because Jeff's a fighter on the side of the angels.
It’s often said that we Dems are left-brainers – verbal, analytical, plodding, meeting-holders. And on the whole I agree. The Right wants leaders, the Left wants a meeting.
Oh sure, it’s a grand and glorious tradition – and of course the reason why Democrats are so much better at “governing.” But it ain’t gonna get us the political movement we need. We don't lack for good ideas, or snappy labels (OK, maybe we do, but it's not what's killing us). And we surely don't lack for meetings, workshops, or national conventions.
FDR (and this next sentence always begins with FDR, doesn’t it?) was our last great leader. Of course, under 8+ years of his leadership, the nation remained more or less stuck in an economic depression. But what he offered the nation wasn’t successful government programs. He offered hope. He offered a sunny, upbeat personality that somehow let every American believe that we’d get through the crisis.
People who work on Madison Ave (as I sort-of do) know that commercials for Campbell’s Soup are not about soup. It doesn’t matter if it’s tomato-i-er, or higher in protein or lower in msg or sodium. What matters is that your mother loves you, and that you love your kids. “Lower Sodium” as a claim isn’t about sodium; it’s about showing how much you care.
Hillary Clinton is yet another in a long-line of deeply dislikable Democratic nominees. I believe she thinks the campaign is about health care, the war, improving education and the like. No matter how much she thinks that’s true, it isn’t. It just isn’t. The campaign is about which of these two candidates do we like better.
Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are by almost any reasonable measure not likely to be good for most Americans as President. But people will like whichever one prevails. They’ll seem jovial and confident. They’ll come across as reasonable people who want the right thing. They’ll have a very good chance of winning the election.
McGovern. Dukakis. Mondale. Kerry. Gore-2000. These people were deeply dislikable, and went down to defeat. Carter seemed likeable in76, but after 4 years of grappling with the issues of the day, seemed to lack confidence in himself. (As opposed to Reagan, a dreadful President revered to this day.) And consider what they did to Bill Clinton—a likeable sort. Their entire campaign was not to make us think his policies weren’t good, it was to make us hate him.
The Republicans know how to sell soup. If we don’t learn, we’ll just keep on making the best soup no one buys.
Americans, he says, should reject the very notion of authenticity in favor of that old traditional value, pragmatism. In fact, he has a highly pragmatic proposal for our leading Democratic Presidential contenders: they should call for “NATIONAL CONVENTION TO SOLVE AMERICA'S HEALTH CRISIS.” (Evidently, putting it in all-caps and in bold makes it more, um, pragmatic, I guess. Maybe it’s more “frame-shoppy.” I don’t really have a clue.)
Intending only to help a worthy cause, Jeff has managed to embody almost single-handedly why Democrats are so singularly unsuccessful – and unsuccessful they are, in light of the huge majorities of Americans who agree with what they say they want to do. Too bad because Jeff's a fighter on the side of the angels.
It’s often said that we Dems are left-brainers – verbal, analytical, plodding, meeting-holders. And on the whole I agree. The Right wants leaders, the Left wants a meeting.
Oh sure, it’s a grand and glorious tradition – and of course the reason why Democrats are so much better at “governing.” But it ain’t gonna get us the political movement we need. We don't lack for good ideas, or snappy labels (OK, maybe we do, but it's not what's killing us). And we surely don't lack for meetings, workshops, or national conventions.
FDR (and this next sentence always begins with FDR, doesn’t it?) was our last great leader. Of course, under 8+ years of his leadership, the nation remained more or less stuck in an economic depression. But what he offered the nation wasn’t successful government programs. He offered hope. He offered a sunny, upbeat personality that somehow let every American believe that we’d get through the crisis.
People who work on Madison Ave (as I sort-of do) know that commercials for Campbell’s Soup are not about soup. It doesn’t matter if it’s tomato-i-er, or higher in protein or lower in msg or sodium. What matters is that your mother loves you, and that you love your kids. “Lower Sodium” as a claim isn’t about sodium; it’s about showing how much you care.
Hillary Clinton is yet another in a long-line of deeply dislikable Democratic nominees. I believe she thinks the campaign is about health care, the war, improving education and the like. No matter how much she thinks that’s true, it isn’t. It just isn’t. The campaign is about which of these two candidates do we like better.
Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are by almost any reasonable measure not likely to be good for most Americans as President. But people will like whichever one prevails. They’ll seem jovial and confident. They’ll come across as reasonable people who want the right thing. They’ll have a very good chance of winning the election.
McGovern. Dukakis. Mondale. Kerry. Gore-2000. These people were deeply dislikable, and went down to defeat. Carter seemed likeable in76, but after 4 years of grappling with the issues of the day, seemed to lack confidence in himself. (As opposed to Reagan, a dreadful President revered to this day.) And consider what they did to Bill Clinton—a likeable sort. Their entire campaign was not to make us think his policies weren’t good, it was to make us hate him.
The Republicans know how to sell soup. If we don’t learn, we’ll just keep on making the best soup no one buys.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Shameless Self-Promotion
OK, it's time to promote Comedywise's newest adventure, DepressingThoughtofTheDay.com. Frank Santopadre has been percolating this idea for quite a while, and it finally burst forth on June 1. You can subscribe to get it in your e-mail via the site, or grab it via Twitter.
Try a taste -- here's today's Daily Dose of Downer (tm)
Enjoy! Tell your pals!
Try a taste -- here's today's Daily Dose of Downer (tm)
Cigarette mascot Joe Camel debuts on this date in 1987. Underage smoking soon increases.
Enjoy! Tell your pals!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Whither Immigration?
I've been hearing comments like this from our brethern on the right:
Normally, I am the first in line to support my party and the President. The Immigration fiasco/sellout that President Bush and others are pushing has caused me to rethink things. I declined to donate anymore until immigration is fixed. By fixed I mean border control first-funded, built and staffed, then legalization/visas as separate law next. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Posted By W. Brucker, MD, Eau Claire, Wisconsin : June 18, 2007 5:16 pm
This was over on CNN.com.
For the life of me, I cannot begin to understand immigration outside of a frankly racist context.
I do not understand what Dr. Brucker, of Eau Claire for heavens' sake, is so excited about. We have any number of flagrant law violations in our society, but the "failure to control our border" seems to be especially irksome. Don't know why this is so. It wasn't, say, 18 months ago, nor for the previous 400 years that Europeans have been here. So I'm not sure why this is so urgent. (But then again, I was never clear on the urgency to confront Saddam Hussein's failure to adhere to the UN's instructions either. It must be me.)
Nor can I see why English is so damn important. Folks on the right are happy with the market shaping our society, at least when it comes to who can afford health care or higher education or have job security, etc. (Some of the most extreme want the government to stop regulating the purity of foods or the safety of consumer products on the grounds that the markets provide more effective and more efficient protection than the hated government regulation.) But when it comes to speaking a language, or regulating who can have sex with whom, etc., all of a sudden the market is irrelevant and there is a moral imperative.
People have been not speaking English on this continent since humans first came here. Since the founding of our little Republic, there has been constant and in many cases uninterrupted non-English speaking. And we have all survived. Why is it now all of a sudden critical to somehow or other find a way to inflict some kind of painful consequence on those who do not speak this particular language?
I fear that too large a proportion of our population has gone round the bend for good, much as happened in the 1830s-1860, when nearly half of us were 110% certain that any tinkering with slavery would assuredly cause the loss of everything of value, so much so that nearly half of us were ready to fight and die for it. Whatever one's views of the causes of the Civil War, it is certainly undeniable that bloodshed was unavoidable or desirable. It was stupid then, and the same insistence on sticking our heads in the sand now is just as stupid now.
Vive la Revolution!
For the life of me, I cannot begin to understand immigration outside of a frankly racist context.
I do not understand what Dr. Brucker, of Eau Claire for heavens' sake, is so excited about. We have any number of flagrant law violations in our society, but the "failure to control our border" seems to be especially irksome. Don't know why this is so. It wasn't, say, 18 months ago, nor for the previous 400 years that Europeans have been here. So I'm not sure why this is so urgent. (But then again, I was never clear on the urgency to confront Saddam Hussein's failure to adhere to the UN's instructions either. It must be me.)
Nor can I see why English is so damn important. Folks on the right are happy with the market shaping our society, at least when it comes to who can afford health care or higher education or have job security, etc. (Some of the most extreme want the government to stop regulating the purity of foods or the safety of consumer products on the grounds that the markets provide more effective and more efficient protection than the hated government regulation.) But when it comes to speaking a language, or regulating who can have sex with whom, etc., all of a sudden the market is irrelevant and there is a moral imperative.
People have been not speaking English on this continent since humans first came here. Since the founding of our little Republic, there has been constant and in many cases uninterrupted non-English speaking. And we have all survived. Why is it now all of a sudden critical to somehow or other find a way to inflict some kind of painful consequence on those who do not speak this particular language?
I fear that too large a proportion of our population has gone round the bend for good, much as happened in the 1830s-1860, when nearly half of us were 110% certain that any tinkering with slavery would assuredly cause the loss of everything of value, so much so that nearly half of us were ready to fight and die for it. Whatever one's views of the causes of the Civil War, it is certainly undeniable that bloodshed was unavoidable or desirable. It was stupid then, and the same insistence on sticking our heads in the sand now is just as stupid now.
Vive la Revolution!
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Why Embrace Defeat?
The Democrats have reportedly agreed to drop timetables from their funding bill. And Democrats are claiming defeat. I can't for the life of me see why.
The Democrats should remove these timetables and declare it a Republican defeat. Not a Democratic one. We have not "caved." We brought pressure to bear in a situation where we lack the power to coerce a favorable result. There is not enough support from Republicans to force the President's hand. This failure to stop the war lies at the feet of Republicans unwilling to join us. Not with us.
To those who say we should simply stop funding the military, you will have to recognize that this is not a viable option. Our C-i-C would use that as a justification for all kinds of mischief. He'd put our troops into even further needless danger. He'd use the lack of funding as an excuse to blame the Democrats for losing the war -- a meme that could well find traction. After all, the Republicans are about to start a Presidential campaign in which they all are against the war, all are in favor of withdrawal as soon as possible, and united only by their belief that the problems we've had are the fault of Defeat-o-crats. And while we won a righteous victory in 06, do not expect your fellow Americans to suddenly stop buying the Republican line of crap. Nah. Gon. Hapn.
The Democrats should remove these timetables and declare it a Republican defeat. Not a Democratic one. We have not "caved." We brought pressure to bear in a situation where we lack the power to coerce a favorable result. There is not enough support from Republicans to force the President's hand. This failure to stop the war lies at the feet of Republicans unwilling to join us. Not with us.
To those who say we should simply stop funding the military, you will have to recognize that this is not a viable option. Our C-i-C would use that as a justification for all kinds of mischief. He'd put our troops into even further needless danger. He'd use the lack of funding as an excuse to blame the Democrats for losing the war -- a meme that could well find traction. After all, the Republicans are about to start a Presidential campaign in which they all are against the war, all are in favor of withdrawal as soon as possible, and united only by their belief that the problems we've had are the fault of Defeat-o-crats. And while we won a righteous victory in 06, do not expect your fellow Americans to suddenly stop buying the Republican line of crap. Nah. Gon. Hapn.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
This Nails it
I wish I had the talent of James Wolcott. In this post's 2d paragraph, he articulates my thought about 10 times better than I ever could my self. The master writes:
The ashy clouds over Mordor have parted, my friends. It was only a year or so ago that the Permanent Republican Majority seemed not only a grim possibility, but a stark near-inevitability. Karl Rove's master plan seemed to have a mortal lock on the political future. So downbeat was the daily news and so dispiriting the performance of the Democrats in 2004 that I had internalized liberalism's permanent underdog status, consoling myself that at least I lived in a liberal city in a liberal state and had plenty of company in the commisseration ward. But I also took heart in Emerson's insight that everything looks permanent until it's secret is known; that invisible cracks form deep in even the sturdiest structures and over time will not be denied. But "over time" can be a long time. Decades, even. And so much would not survive that long a wait.
He then goes on, of course, to herald the start of a new era of progressive ascendency, massive change on the near-horizon.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Interesting Essay on Outsourcing
There's an interesting essay on Salon.com today about outsourcing. Go read it and come back.
Some of the commenters say David is a big cry-baby for giving up steak dinners and ice cream ("CEO-ness," I think someone said) To them I say: you have no idea what David has given up. I'd guess he's lost quite a bit more than mere perks. Certainly his ego and self-esteem have taken a beating.
Secondly, to those who feel that David was a fool for putting in $2M to a dying business -- well, all I can say is, "nice hindsight, buddy." Why would you think David, his father, the SBA and the banks are such fools? Wait -- I know why.
In our post-Reagan society, people who experience loss DESERVE to. David isn't unlucky, or a victim of circumstance. No, out individual-centric worldview demands that his fate be somehow his fault. So to those who condemn David for looting his Dad, or his Dad for believing in him: shut up. You are simply wrong.
Finally, to the anti-globalization crowd: David's right, there is no stopping it. Not via tariffs, not via regulations, not via anything. Do you think the US government would have allowed Detroit to export all those jobs in the 70's and 80's if it had a choice?
The so-called "race to the bottom" is a fact of our market-based economy. In fact, the process of seeking ever cheaper production is what drives our economy and always has. It's why Europeans invested in North America in the 17th century. It's why Phildelphia is crowded with office buildings built for companies who have long ago moved out or closed. It's why India is finding that it's ability to attract jobs is being undercut by lower cost providers in Manilla and Malaysia.
The lesson to be learned from all this one that David is just beginning to grasp. Our market-based system has been one of the great creations of humankind. Of course it has limits, and it must be carefully regulated to work to society's advantage. What's missing now is not market mechanisms, or tariffs, or a soul. What's missing now is the simple faith that the future will bring us new opportunities and new rewards. And this faith is, in my experience, largely a product of a society's leaders.
It's what endeared FDR to a couple of generations of Americans. It's what made JFK seem cool. It's what makes Obama seem cool. It's even, God help my immortal soul, what made people like Reagan (the evil bastard!).
David's bankruptcy lawyer was right. He's a young man, with obvious gifts. He'll survive, maybe even thrive again. The future's like globalization: there's no stopping it.
We would do well not only to recognize that but to embrace it. One of the posters commented that the government has robbed us to give money to defense contractors, etc. I think this is right. What we should be doing instead is investing that same money in our future. We should be saying to David and everyone else who is trying make their way, "we've got your back. Your healthcare is on us. Your kids' education is on us. You won't starve or become homeless." And we should do that not because we're interested in creating a class of people addicted to a nanny-state. We should do that because we believe in David and in each other.
If David were a stock, I'd be ready to invest (if I had any money, that is!). Our future can be a great and wonderful thing, but only if we let go of the past and start to invest in it by investing in ourselves.
Some of the commenters say David is a big cry-baby for giving up steak dinners and ice cream ("CEO-ness," I think someone said) To them I say: you have no idea what David has given up. I'd guess he's lost quite a bit more than mere perks. Certainly his ego and self-esteem have taken a beating.
Secondly, to those who feel that David was a fool for putting in $2M to a dying business -- well, all I can say is, "nice hindsight, buddy." Why would you think David, his father, the SBA and the banks are such fools? Wait -- I know why.
In our post-Reagan society, people who experience loss DESERVE to. David isn't unlucky, or a victim of circumstance. No, out individual-centric worldview demands that his fate be somehow his fault. So to those who condemn David for looting his Dad, or his Dad for believing in him: shut up. You are simply wrong.
Finally, to the anti-globalization crowd: David's right, there is no stopping it. Not via tariffs, not via regulations, not via anything. Do you think the US government would have allowed Detroit to export all those jobs in the 70's and 80's if it had a choice?
The so-called "race to the bottom" is a fact of our market-based economy. In fact, the process of seeking ever cheaper production is what drives our economy and always has. It's why Europeans invested in North America in the 17th century. It's why Phildelphia is crowded with office buildings built for companies who have long ago moved out or closed. It's why India is finding that it's ability to attract jobs is being undercut by lower cost providers in Manilla and Malaysia.
The lesson to be learned from all this one that David is just beginning to grasp. Our market-based system has been one of the great creations of humankind. Of course it has limits, and it must be carefully regulated to work to society's advantage. What's missing now is not market mechanisms, or tariffs, or a soul. What's missing now is the simple faith that the future will bring us new opportunities and new rewards. And this faith is, in my experience, largely a product of a society's leaders.
It's what endeared FDR to a couple of generations of Americans. It's what made JFK seem cool. It's what makes Obama seem cool. It's even, God help my immortal soul, what made people like Reagan (the evil bastard!).
David's bankruptcy lawyer was right. He's a young man, with obvious gifts. He'll survive, maybe even thrive again. The future's like globalization: there's no stopping it.
We would do well not only to recognize that but to embrace it. One of the posters commented that the government has robbed us to give money to defense contractors, etc. I think this is right. What we should be doing instead is investing that same money in our future. We should be saying to David and everyone else who is trying make their way, "we've got your back. Your healthcare is on us. Your kids' education is on us. You won't starve or become homeless." And we should do that not because we're interested in creating a class of people addicted to a nanny-state. We should do that because we believe in David and in each other.
If David were a stock, I'd be ready to invest (if I had any money, that is!). Our future can be a great and wonderful thing, but only if we let go of the past and start to invest in it by investing in ourselves.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Abu G
Mr. Gonzales' performance yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee was by any standard preposterous.
Well, not by any standard. The President, the one person who matterswas pleased with the Attorney General’s testimony today.
I have this image of the President sitting in his office watching these old fuss-budget Senators fuming and sputtering and stewing and full of righteous indignation, and the President simply enjoying the fact that there is not one goddamned thing any of them can do about it.
Mr. Bush has nothing to fear from the electorate or even his own party. So long as Mr. Gonzales is willing, my bet is that the President continues what is for him a ritualistic humiliation of pompous blatherers.
Well, not by any standard. The President, the one person who matterswas pleased with the Attorney General’s testimony today.
I have this image of the President sitting in his office watching these old fuss-budget Senators fuming and sputtering and stewing and full of righteous indignation, and the President simply enjoying the fact that there is not one goddamned thing any of them can do about it.
Mr. Bush has nothing to fear from the electorate or even his own party. So long as Mr. Gonzales is willing, my bet is that the President continues what is for him a ritualistic humiliation of pompous blatherers.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Things We All Know
There are certain things We All Know. In fact, quite a lot of things. The best example of things We All Know is that we all know that there is not an old white man living in the sky who looks out for us specially. We All Know that there is not an invisible Jesus who tells us what to do if we just listen hard enough. Whenever I hear Jesus freaks ranting about religion, I think there is no one they are trying to convince as much as themselves. They know, deep down, the truth. Their religious talk is a desperate cover -- a cover they feel strongly about because they so want it to be true. Even the Rapture: what better fantasy than that any day – tomorrow, even – one might awake to find all earthly cares swept away and replaced by truly transcendent bliss.
When these folks see secular media, they see a world that mocks them. The people they see on TV, movies, etc., are well off, educated, part of a meaningful group doing meaningful things, etc. They feel excluded from that mainstream society, and understandably they scorn it, mock it. And their legitimate feelings are manipulated and exploited by conniving men and women who see these dispossessed souls as a pool of money and votes to be commandeered for their own nefarious purposes, generally involving big houses, swimming pools and the odd private jet.
We need to acknowledge that these folks are our fellow Americans, and that those of us still feeling part of the mainstream have failed them terribly. Perhaps we have blame for defining society in such a way that it doesn’t include them. Perhaps we deserve blame for not fighting to address their real needs. Perhaps we should be ashamed that we have not treated them with the respect they deserve. There’s no shortage of blame. Only a shortage of clear paths to a better future.
There are a lot of Things We All Know. We all know that our society has lost the will to address our most pressing problems, even to the point of allowing our fellow citizens to die for lack of a modicum of health care. We seem uninterested in preparing tomorrow’s citizens for the world as it will exist. We seem determined to treat the least of us as a pariah whose misfortune is morally justified and whose amelioration is surely not our responsibility.
We All Know that the current regime is not in the least bit interested in doing what’s best for the voters. We All Know that the conservative movement is not really interested in lowering taxes, or reducing the size of government, or for preserving individual liberty, or for walking softly and carrying a big stick. We All Know that too many Democrats and most Republicans are so enthralled with the comforts of access to plentiful cash that they cannot be counted on to turn their backs on their paymasters and take up the cause of the people they purport to represent. We All Know This.
For today, let me point out something We All Know. We All Know that the President and his party have absolutely corrupted the US Attorney corps, just like they corrupted every other part of the executive branch. We Also All Know that the Attorney General was and is no innocent victim in this. By shifting the story repeatedly, We All Know these people are showing a guilty conscience. Finally, We Also All Know that however satisfying it may be to see Mr. Gonzalez removed in disgrace, the truth is he was a dutiful soldier, carrying out the wrongful instructions of his principal, whose continuing presence in the Oval Office is an embarrassment to us all.
When these folks see secular media, they see a world that mocks them. The people they see on TV, movies, etc., are well off, educated, part of a meaningful group doing meaningful things, etc. They feel excluded from that mainstream society, and understandably they scorn it, mock it. And their legitimate feelings are manipulated and exploited by conniving men and women who see these dispossessed souls as a pool of money and votes to be commandeered for their own nefarious purposes, generally involving big houses, swimming pools and the odd private jet.
We need to acknowledge that these folks are our fellow Americans, and that those of us still feeling part of the mainstream have failed them terribly. Perhaps we have blame for defining society in such a way that it doesn’t include them. Perhaps we deserve blame for not fighting to address their real needs. Perhaps we should be ashamed that we have not treated them with the respect they deserve. There’s no shortage of blame. Only a shortage of clear paths to a better future.
There are a lot of Things We All Know. We all know that our society has lost the will to address our most pressing problems, even to the point of allowing our fellow citizens to die for lack of a modicum of health care. We seem uninterested in preparing tomorrow’s citizens for the world as it will exist. We seem determined to treat the least of us as a pariah whose misfortune is morally justified and whose amelioration is surely not our responsibility.
We All Know that the current regime is not in the least bit interested in doing what’s best for the voters. We All Know that the conservative movement is not really interested in lowering taxes, or reducing the size of government, or for preserving individual liberty, or for walking softly and carrying a big stick. We All Know that too many Democrats and most Republicans are so enthralled with the comforts of access to plentiful cash that they cannot be counted on to turn their backs on their paymasters and take up the cause of the people they purport to represent. We All Know This.
For today, let me point out something We All Know. We All Know that the President and his party have absolutely corrupted the US Attorney corps, just like they corrupted every other part of the executive branch. We Also All Know that the Attorney General was and is no innocent victim in this. By shifting the story repeatedly, We All Know these people are showing a guilty conscience. Finally, We Also All Know that however satisfying it may be to see Mr. Gonzalez removed in disgrace, the truth is he was a dutiful soldier, carrying out the wrongful instructions of his principal, whose continuing presence in the Oval Office is an embarrassment to us all.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Comedywise on Gothamist
The Gothamist.com has an interview up with yours truly and my partner Frank Santopadre. More press for Comedywise!
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Trouble We're In
Gary Kimaya writes a nearly perfect encapsulation of the thinking of many on the left, "Is There Life After Bush?"
Like so many, Kamiya has become so focused on the excesses of the Bush administration, he has a hard time seeing the bigger picture. Which unfortunately is quite grim.
Back when South Carolinians were electing the 90+ year old Strom Thurmond, I used to joke (mostly) that the problem wasn't Senator Thurmond but rather the people who kept voting for him. Indeed, I used to propose that states or other jurisdictions which made obviously foolish choices -- choices that were not merely unwise or foolish, but choices that bespoke a fundamental lack of judgment such as sending an obviously incompetent man to the Senate -- should be penalized by having the right to send a representative suspended for some time, say 10 years.
The point of this was to focus blame where it belonged: on the people hiring these guys. And as awful as these guys can be (I'm talking to you, Junior Bush), they aren't the problem. The problem is our fellow Americans who keep voting for them. And they're not going anywhere.
In some imporant ways, people like this have been here since the Puritans landed. There have been sporadic clashes between these forces and the rest of the nation as long as there has been a nation.
But what's happening lately takes this to a new level. This slice of America is becoming radicalized as it is becoming organized and entrenched. It is a religious phenomenon, but it is also unmistakably a political and cultural phenomenon. Alexandra Pelosi's Friends of God offers a compelling glimpse of the alternative society now growing withing our larger society: a distinctively militaristic and persecuted society, in which almost any measures are acceptable because they are mandated by God (whose word is delivered by humble servants like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell). It is a society that proclaims its commitment to Christianity while it actively works to thwart Christian values.
Unfortuantely, the harm is not confined to the many good people who have been fooled into buying into this nonsense. No, this pool of people is an ocean of gasoline waiting for a match. And the flames will threaten us all.
In "American Fascists," Chris Hedges describes this movement. Comparing it to movements he witnessed in other parts of the world, he told Salon
This build-up of fear and hate, of expressed longing for a cataclysm that will finally give their lives the meaning they now lack, will not just go away when Bush goes away. No, as Hedges told Salon
So the problem, friends, is not merely this or that horrendous politician or preacher. The problem is with our fellow Americans themselves. Bush didn't vote himself into office (Supreme Court or no, the man got a lot of votes.) Bush is the symptom of a much larger problem we will have to confront -- sooner or later.
Like so many, Kamiya has become so focused on the excesses of the Bush administration, he has a hard time seeing the bigger picture. Which unfortunately is quite grim.
Back when South Carolinians were electing the 90+ year old Strom Thurmond, I used to joke (mostly) that the problem wasn't Senator Thurmond but rather the people who kept voting for him. Indeed, I used to propose that states or other jurisdictions which made obviously foolish choices -- choices that were not merely unwise or foolish, but choices that bespoke a fundamental lack of judgment such as sending an obviously incompetent man to the Senate -- should be penalized by having the right to send a representative suspended for some time, say 10 years.
The point of this was to focus blame where it belonged: on the people hiring these guys. And as awful as these guys can be (I'm talking to you, Junior Bush), they aren't the problem. The problem is our fellow Americans who keep voting for them. And they're not going anywhere.
In some imporant ways, people like this have been here since the Puritans landed. There have been sporadic clashes between these forces and the rest of the nation as long as there has been a nation.
But what's happening lately takes this to a new level. This slice of America is becoming radicalized as it is becoming organized and entrenched. It is a religious phenomenon, but it is also unmistakably a political and cultural phenomenon. Alexandra Pelosi's Friends of God offers a compelling glimpse of the alternative society now growing withing our larger society: a distinctively militaristic and persecuted society, in which almost any measures are acceptable because they are mandated by God (whose word is delivered by humble servants like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell). It is a society that proclaims its commitment to Christianity while it actively works to thwart Christian values.
Unfortuantely, the harm is not confined to the many good people who have been fooled into buying into this nonsense. No, this pool of people is an ocean of gasoline waiting for a match. And the flames will threaten us all.
In "American Fascists," Chris Hedges describes this movement. Comparing it to movements he witnessed in other parts of the world, he told Salon
Those of us in New York, Boston, San Francisco or some of these urban pockets don't understand how radically changed our country is, don't understand the appeal of these buffoonish figures to tens of millions of Americans.
This build-up of fear and hate, of expressed longing for a cataclysm that will finally give their lives the meaning they now lack, will not just go away when Bush goes away. No, as Hedges told Salon
It takes time to acculturate a society to a radical agenda, but that acculturation has clearly begun here, and I don't see people standing up and trying to stop them.
So the problem, friends, is not merely this or that horrendous politician or preacher. The problem is with our fellow Americans themselves. Bush didn't vote himself into office (Supreme Court or no, the man got a lot of votes.) Bush is the symptom of a much larger problem we will have to confront -- sooner or later.
God in America
A lot of talk about religion in our society these days. The thing that always strikes me is that the people with the most passion in their assertions about God, Jesus and all the rest are mostly trying to convince themselves.
Watched Alexandra Pelosi’s “Friends of God” on HBO, and was struck by this with renewed force watching Ted Haggard, who was earnestly explaining how great it was to be a heterosexual Christian because of all the great sex within marriage. I can’t believe he was trying to convince anyone as much as he was himself.
Alexandra showed us all manner of Pharisees and scribes, all of whom were fixated on telling other people what God wanted. (Evidently, He is much consumed with marriage.) I seem to recall the New Testament as being fairly clear that faith is something that is personal and that the important part is what is between each person and God.
So I’m fairly certain that all this talk about God and religion is in fact not really connected to religion at all. If someone really has faith, I’m not sure what’s gained by talking about it.
Watched Alexandra Pelosi’s “Friends of God” on HBO, and was struck by this with renewed force watching Ted Haggard, who was earnestly explaining how great it was to be a heterosexual Christian because of all the great sex within marriage. I can’t believe he was trying to convince anyone as much as he was himself.
Alexandra showed us all manner of Pharisees and scribes, all of whom were fixated on telling other people what God wanted. (Evidently, He is much consumed with marriage.) I seem to recall the New Testament as being fairly clear that faith is something that is personal and that the important part is what is between each person and God.
So I’m fairly certain that all this talk about God and religion is in fact not really connected to religion at all. If someone really has faith, I’m not sure what’s gained by talking about it.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
U-Turn Coming!
It appears that Dear Leader is preparing for one of his trademarked long-overdue U-turns. Having bad judgment as a part of his fundamental nature, the President has often had to reverse his initial wrong positions. Lots of folks have to make frequent corrections to their views owing to mistakes out-of-the-gate, and it’s to their credit that they do so.
But the Current Occupant manages to couple this U-turn habit with a stubborn hubris that makes them long-overdue as well as a condescendingly dismissive attitude towards those who try to point out the error of his ways.
So folks, as we all await anxiously the release of the ISG report, let me tell you What To Think.
Bush has never hesitated to abandon previously held positions, even (especially?) when they were held with seeming certitude that he would never abandon them. Here’s some quick examples, many from this excellent list:
So one thing seems certain: Bush will almost certainly reverse course on Iraq. If I’m wrong, there are plenty of folks who can cry “I Told You So.” And my guess is that Bush will go into his “Stem Cell Decidin’” mode: he’s getting lots of advice from the best people, and will soon tell the press he is going to make a Decision, and he’ll go on national TV and announce that he has no intention of reversing course and anyone who says he does is a dirty liar, and then he’ll announce a series of steps that, taken together, amount to reversing the course.
We’ll see what happens. The move might even revive his flagging popularity. It's hard to believe -- as much as one might want to -- that a President's approval ratings could be so low for so long. But you never know.
And that, my friends, is What to Think.
But the Current Occupant manages to couple this U-turn habit with a stubborn hubris that makes them long-overdue as well as a condescendingly dismissive attitude towards those who try to point out the error of his ways.
So folks, as we all await anxiously the release of the ISG report, let me tell you What To Think.
Bush has never hesitated to abandon previously held positions, even (especially?) when they were held with seeming certitude that he would never abandon them. Here’s some quick examples, many from this excellent list:
CHIP Program (Texas Governor)
Patient Bill of Rights (Texas Governor)
Nation Building
Protecting Social Security Surplus
Steel Tariffs
Clean Air Standards for Power Plant Emissions
Storage of Nuclear Waste at Yucca Mountain
Assault Weapons Ban
McCain Feingold Campaign Finance Reform
Creation of Homeland Security Department
Creation of a 9/11 Investigation Commission
Testifying before 9/11 Commission
Rice Testifying before 9/11 Commission
Giving 9/11 Commission deadline extension
Creation of WMD Investigation Commission
Finding WMD’s in Iraq
Iraq connection to 9/11
Winning the War on Terror
Friendship with Enron CEO Ken Lay
Need to Capture Bin Ladn
Power of Intelligence Chief to control intelligence budgets
UN Approval of Iraq Invasion
Federal Government regulation of marriage
“Jawboning” OPEC to lower oil prices
Staying the course in Iraq
Warrants for Wiretapping
So one thing seems certain: Bush will almost certainly reverse course on Iraq. If I’m wrong, there are plenty of folks who can cry “I Told You So.” And my guess is that Bush will go into his “Stem Cell Decidin’” mode: he’s getting lots of advice from the best people, and will soon tell the press he is going to make a Decision, and he’ll go on national TV and announce that he has no intention of reversing course and anyone who says he does is a dirty liar, and then he’ll announce a series of steps that, taken together, amount to reversing the course.
We’ll see what happens. The move might even revive his flagging popularity. It's hard to believe -- as much as one might want to -- that a President's approval ratings could be so low for so long. But you never know.
And that, my friends, is What to Think.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
The Day After
Whew. My faith in my fellow Americans, sorely tested these last years, is restored. Our democracy lives. Maybe "survives," in light of the many blows it has taken.
The evil cretins who have control of the Republican party will always be with us. When I was younger, we referred to them as "John Birchers," and the Red States were called the "Bible Belt." These people are at the end of the day our fellow Americans, and will be with us moving forward.
When their influence is on the wane, we can progess. We they are ascendent, we go backwards. Their day, for now, has come and gone.
Sure, they'll continue to blame everything on Nancy Pelosi (funny how they didn't demonize Majority Leader Reid), Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. But their attacks won't work if Americans don't buy into their schtick.
And after this cycle, it seems clear that Americans are looking to move beyond the politics and fear and hatred that have marked our politics for the last 10 years.
A corner has been turned. We move forward from here.
The evil cretins who have control of the Republican party will always be with us. When I was younger, we referred to them as "John Birchers," and the Red States were called the "Bible Belt." These people are at the end of the day our fellow Americans, and will be with us moving forward.
When their influence is on the wane, we can progess. We they are ascendent, we go backwards. Their day, for now, has come and gone.
Sure, they'll continue to blame everything on Nancy Pelosi (funny how they didn't demonize Majority Leader Reid), Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. But their attacks won't work if Americans don't buy into their schtick.
And after this cycle, it seems clear that Americans are looking to move beyond the politics and fear and hatred that have marked our politics for the last 10 years.
A corner has been turned. We move forward from here.
Monday, November 06, 2006
What to Think...About the Election
Let it not be said ("Nay! Nay!") that I did not commit to electronic form my predictions for tomorrow's midterm elections. So, before they go into the mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall's back porch, here are the Answers in Advance(tm):
1. Eppes, in Sc-5th Senate, cruises to easy election. Frank's good humor and great common sense will be evident to the 97% of voters who have either met him or seen him from a distance, up to 1/4 mile depending on visibility. A win for the good folks of the SC's 5th Senate District. And a great relief to Frank's law partner, who will now have several good days a month in the office to himself.
2. The US House of Represenatives, where the good Dems will net gain 26 seats to re-claim the majority. This will allow Republicans a good chance to blame every thing that goes wrong -- including Alex Rodriguez' lack of clutch hitting -- on the Democratic House. Soon, everything that is not Bill Clinton's fault will be Nancy Pelosi's fault. Welcome to Scape-goat Land, Speaker Pelosi.
3. US Senate -- Repubs hang on by a thread. The brave and true Dems will pick up just 4 seats here, with Tenn and Mo (as well as Ariz) staying red.
4. NY Comptroller -- Alan Hevesi beats with several points of margin Republican Non-Criminal Chris Callaghan. I heard Mr. Callaghan this morning on WNYC, and he is in so far over his head it ain't funny. I'd prefer the vaguely comeptent criminal to the hubris, naivete and incompetence of Saratoga County's proudest fiscal officer.
5. Studio 60 -- Sorry, Charile, but this show's toast. An interesting and noble effort from Mr. Sorkin, but Sports Nite it ain't.
Well, I think that's enough, don't you? Stop by tomorrow and witness the amazing accuracy of my Answers in Advance(tm).
1. Eppes, in Sc-5th Senate, cruises to easy election. Frank's good humor and great common sense will be evident to the 97% of voters who have either met him or seen him from a distance, up to 1/4 mile depending on visibility. A win for the good folks of the SC's 5th Senate District. And a great relief to Frank's law partner, who will now have several good days a month in the office to himself.
2. The US House of Represenatives, where the good Dems will net gain 26 seats to re-claim the majority. This will allow Republicans a good chance to blame every thing that goes wrong -- including Alex Rodriguez' lack of clutch hitting -- on the Democratic House. Soon, everything that is not Bill Clinton's fault will be Nancy Pelosi's fault. Welcome to Scape-goat Land, Speaker Pelosi.
3. US Senate -- Repubs hang on by a thread. The brave and true Dems will pick up just 4 seats here, with Tenn and Mo (as well as Ariz) staying red.
4. NY Comptroller -- Alan Hevesi beats with several points of margin Republican Non-Criminal Chris Callaghan. I heard Mr. Callaghan this morning on WNYC, and he is in so far over his head it ain't funny. I'd prefer the vaguely comeptent criminal to the hubris, naivete and incompetence of Saratoga County's proudest fiscal officer.
5. Studio 60 -- Sorry, Charile, but this show's toast. An interesting and noble effort from Mr. Sorkin, but Sports Nite it ain't.
Well, I think that's enough, don't you? Stop by tomorrow and witness the amazing accuracy of my Answers in Advance(tm).
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Home Stretch
The die is likely already cast. Even a fake dust-up over john Kerry's typically obscure remarks is unlikely to make a difference.
The House seems in the bag at this point. As for the Senate, it seems that it's coming down to 3 races: Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri (Webb, Ford and McCaskell). We would need to get all three to win, barring an unforeseen upset elsewhere.
Even so, no doubt a Dem victory in the House will allow conservatives a wonderful opportunity to re-load. For the last six years, everything bad has been more or less Bill and/or Hillary Clinton's fault: 9/11, recession, stock market crash, poor job growth, the coddling of North Korea, Iran and Iraq, global warming, etc. But starting next Wednesday, everything can be the fault of Speaker Pelosi and the Obstructionist House.
So, we'll have all new vitriol and all-new hyperbole. Let's remember, even if we get the White House and the Senate in 08, these clowns will continue to bitch and moan that everything we are and everything we do is wrong, un-American, etc. They did that when they were the kooky John Birchers, and they'll do that long after George W. Bush has been unanamously elected Worst President Ever. It's what they do. It's our challenge to ignore them and marginalize their impact as much as we can.
P.S. This November 7th, lucky residents of SC's 5th Senate District get the honor of casting their votes for the estimable Frank Eppes. Those lucky dogs!
The House seems in the bag at this point. As for the Senate, it seems that it's coming down to 3 races: Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri (Webb, Ford and McCaskell). We would need to get all three to win, barring an unforeseen upset elsewhere.
Even so, no doubt a Dem victory in the House will allow conservatives a wonderful opportunity to re-load. For the last six years, everything bad has been more or less Bill and/or Hillary Clinton's fault: 9/11, recession, stock market crash, poor job growth, the coddling of North Korea, Iran and Iraq, global warming, etc. But starting next Wednesday, everything can be the fault of Speaker Pelosi and the Obstructionist House.
So, we'll have all new vitriol and all-new hyperbole. Let's remember, even if we get the White House and the Senate in 08, these clowns will continue to bitch and moan that everything we are and everything we do is wrong, un-American, etc. They did that when they were the kooky John Birchers, and they'll do that long after George W. Bush has been unanamously elected Worst President Ever. It's what they do. It's our challenge to ignore them and marginalize their impact as much as we can.
P.S. This November 7th, lucky residents of SC's 5th Senate District get the honor of casting their votes for the estimable Frank Eppes. Those lucky dogs!
Thursday, October 19, 2006
I've Just Got To Say This...
You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.
-- A. Lincoln.
Doesn't this explain perfectly the implosion of the conservative movement that is underway? The whole thing is a con job, and it can work on some people all the time (the 30+5 who will always think GWB is a great man), and it can even work on all of the people some time (all those who voted for the movement these past five years), but at the end of the day, the body politic ain't that stupid and will wake up.
I've long maintained that when this movement failed it would be all at once, in a kind of "emperor has no clothes" moment.
That moment may be at hand. (It may not.) But the forces of light, reason and righteousness will have their day, and in the end, as ever, will triumph.
Now if we could just get this idiot Tom Kean Jr. to lose...
-- A. Lincoln.
Doesn't this explain perfectly the implosion of the conservative movement that is underway? The whole thing is a con job, and it can work on some people all the time (the 30+5 who will always think GWB is a great man), and it can even work on all of the people some time (all those who voted for the movement these past five years), but at the end of the day, the body politic ain't that stupid and will wake up.
I've long maintained that when this movement failed it would be all at once, in a kind of "emperor has no clothes" moment.
That moment may be at hand. (It may not.) But the forces of light, reason and righteousness will have their day, and in the end, as ever, will triumph.
Now if we could just get this idiot Tom Kean Jr. to lose...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)