Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The old creed no longer leads to redemption
American Dreams - The Nation
Amen.
There is no comfortable role in American iconography for the poor. The myth of inevitable mobility leaves little room for acknowledging the existence of the dispossessed. Poverty is shrugged off like foreignness when you step off the boat and sashay down the golden bricks of Main Street. We Americans believe in pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, but in case you've never tried it, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps pitches you forward, flat onto your face. As our industrial base moves offshore and our fruited plains are taken over by agribusiness, the trope of the blissful drone inspired by promises of phantasmagorical wealth is revealed as unsustainable. The creed by which we profess ourselves a classless society no longer leads to redemption.
Americans are the hardest workers among industrialized nations. We grind ourselves down with the longest workweek and the fewest social protections. No pint in the pub, no rest for the weary. The very idea of being "weary" has been displaced by images of the relentlessly able-bodied bionic economic man who never stops until the body is genuinely and visibly broken. Disability checks come only when you have the marks to prove it--a bit like the way the Bush administration defines torture.
And so I think it's time we consciously craft new prayer totems. If I were to bring an offering to the altar of the American Dream, I'd haul in an electric tram, two intercity railroad cars and a bouquet of bicycles. I'd garnish them with copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I'd hand out praise songs for the concept of human dignity and for economic rights. We ought to recognize the basic need for sustenance as a right, not bury the larger question in the vexed vocabulary of "bailouts" and "handouts." We the people have a right to a home, to healthcare, to untainted food, clean water, a living wage and time to rest, time to develop the personal ties and social engagements that sustain the best and most pleasurable parts of a civilization.
Amen.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Unions aren't the problem. They're the solution
Unions Aren’t the Problem - TruthOut
Exactly.
Cutting Wages Won't Solve Big Three's Problems - Labor Notes
Strip away the financial mumbo jumbo and the credit crisis comes down to this: For decades, as wages and benefits for working and middle-class people stagnated or fell, the only way for them to purchase the goods that make the economy hum was through credit. This was true whether the item purchased was a home, a car—or all the unnecessary gizmos that retailers have been more than happy to tell consumers were the must-haves of the day. Until we understand that we are in the midst of two crises—one the short-term credit crisis and one the longer-term crisis in the failure to pay workers what they need to sustain themselves—we are doomed to repeat this horror.
“If you are a man with only a high school education ... your chances of making a wage or salary as good as what your father was making in the late 1970s are not good,” says Gary Gerstle, a Vanderbilt University historian. “We are looking at a deterioration in their life opportunities and living standards, at the same time that an enormous amount of wealth has accumulated at the top of the income ladder.”
It is true that some individuals were reckless in taking on debt. But it is equally valid that American workers simply haven’t been paid what it takes for them to spend enough to keep the American economy growing. “The economy needed levels of expenditure and consumption that most Americans literally could not afford,” Gerstle says.
What do unions have to do with this? To start with, unionized workers make about $200 more per week than do nonunion workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The great expansion of the American middle class and an unprecedented rise in living standards occurred between the end of World War II and the 1970s—when unions were far more common and powerful than they are today. Beginning in the 1980s, an ideology of deregulation and anti-unionism took hold, with free-market capitalists arguing that no intervention in the markets—including labor’s intervention—was ever beneficial.
“The promise of deregulation was that this would create so much energy and dynamism at the top that it would all trickle down,” Gerstle says. “Not only would people on Wall Street make all kinds of money, but people on Main Street would find that there would be more dynamism in their lives, more opportunity, more wages.”
Well, people on Wall Street did make all kinds of money. People on Main Street got depressed wages, the demise of guaranteed pensions and 401(k)s that crashed with the stock market. They got health insurance that is barely affordable, if they’ve got insurance at all.
Exactly.
Cutting Wages Won't Solve Big Three's Problems - Labor Notes
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Maybe we should all send the White House a case of Excedrin
Obama's picks: deep experience or deep disappointment?
And just how do you combine the experience we need with the change we want?
Overview:
The largely delighted:
The largely disgusted:
In short, no one knows what it all amounts to, and neither to I. Under the circumstances, I think the shrewedest observation comes from Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher:
LATE ADDITIONS:
Barack Obama, Honeymoon Killer? - Salon
Ghettoization & The Difference Between Politics & Policy - OurFuture.org
A Market-Oriented Economic Team - Washington Post
Obama Assigns Centrists to Make Radical Economic Moves - LA Times
Overview:
- Obama's Economic Team: Reactions Roundup - The Huffington Post
- Rubinomics Recalculated - The New York Times
- Obama Sends Strong Signals from the Sidelines - LA Times
The largely delighted:
- Get Over It, Clinton Haters - Salon
- Serious People - Slate
- The Un-Paulson - Slate
- Why the Geithner Pick Is Even Better Than You Think - The New Republic
The largely disgusted:
- Obama Crushes Hopes of Progressives with Rubinesque Economic Team - The Progressive
- Past and Future - The Nation
- As Obama Taps Larry Summers, Recalling Summers' Days as a Regulation Foe - Mother Jones
- Obama and a Paucity of Progressives - Firedoglake
In short, no one knows what it all amounts to, and neither to I. Under the circumstances, I think the shrewedest observation comes from Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher:
[T]he proof will be in what [Obama] actually does....
[F]or people who convinced themselves that Obama was the second coming of Saul Alinsky -- wake up. He never was. He may, however, be the most progressive person we could have possibly hoped to elect as President of the United States.
Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to help keep the obstructionists off his back and push him to fulfill his campaign promises to end the war, pass health care legislation and the Employee Free Choice Act, clean up the environment, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, repair our infrastructure, create good jobs and restore the middle class.
That's what he promised us, and while I'm obviously not wild about the dearth of progressives in his administration..., I'm less concerned with who he chooses to implement his policies than with his ability to ultimately do so.
LATE ADDITIONS:
Barack Obama, Honeymoon Killer? - Salon
Ghettoization & The Difference Between Politics & Policy - OurFuture.org
A Market-Oriented Economic Team - Washington Post
Obama Assigns Centrists to Make Radical Economic Moves - LA Times
Friday, November 21, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Something new is happening
The New Liberalism - The New Yorker
An honest conservative (mark your calendars):
The Center-Right Nation Exits Stage Left - Washington Post
An honest conservative (mark your calendars):
The Center-Right Nation Exits Stage Left - Washington Post
Friday, November 14, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Alien autopsy
The Anatomy of Conservative Self-Deception - TPM Cafe
Kilgore nails the conservatives' core political problem dead-on: they believe a majority of Americans actually agree with their agenda.
In the same vein, these same conservatives have convinced themselves that an ideologically rigid and reactionary candidate like Sarah Palin is their ticket to victory -- a belief that's so far removed from reality that you'd expect it to be a prominent symptom in the DSM IV. Palin in 2012? Bring it on! Please! Poor delusional bastards.
Kilgore nails the conservatives' core political problem dead-on: they believe a majority of Americans actually agree with their agenda.
[C]onservatives don't seem to have internalized the fact that every major conservative assault on the heart of the New Deal/Great Society legacy (Ronald Reagan's and George W. Bush's efforts to "reform" Social Security, and Newt Gingrich's drive to "contain costs" in Medicare) has failed dismally in the court of public opinion.
[Moreover], during both the Reagan and Bush years, public support for conservative efforts to make the tax system more regressive has declined steadily once the free-lunch assumptions of supply-side economics proved to be a fraud. And there has never, for a moment, been anything like a popular majority supporting the sort of broad-scale reductions in government services that could eliminate the fiscal problems associated with the conservative tax-cutting agenda. There's a reason John McCain's campaign based his fiscal-discipline message on the small but symbolic issue of appropriations earmarks, rather than the big-ticket "entitlement reform" that virtually all movement conservatives support. And for that matter, George W. Bush's "Big Government Conservatism," like its Reaganite predecessor, was an accommodation to public opinion rather than a gratuitous betrayal of conservative principle.
If today's conservatives succeed in convincing each other to embrace a more forthright message assaulting entitlements, progressive taxation, public education, regulation of corporations and Wall Street, just to cite a few domestic policy examples, they are almost certainly cruising for more electoral bruising.
In the same vein, these same conservatives have convinced themselves that an ideologically rigid and reactionary candidate like Sarah Palin is their ticket to victory -- a belief that's so far removed from reality that you'd expect it to be a prominent symptom in the DSM IV. Palin in 2012? Bring it on! Please! Poor delusional bastards.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The right wants to hold on to its anger
Entertainingly (for the rest of us), their enemy is fictitious.
Right-wing Media Feeds Its Post-Election Anger - LA Times
Right-wing Media Feeds Its Post-Election Anger - LA Times
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
CLOWNTIME IS OVER!
Eight years of radical Republican misrule, finally, finally coming to a close.... The taste is sweet.
Obama Wins Historic Presidential Victory - Washington Post
Obama Wins Historic Presidential Victory - Washington Post
Monday, November 3, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Who are these people?
I was reading an article in today's NYT about undecided voters. As a political junkie, I've always been baffled by them -- particularly in years like this one, where there are such sharp contrasts between the candidates, and when the party in power has made such a patently spectacular mess of things.
Before reading the article, I rather tongue-in-cheekishly characterized the thought process of the undecideds this way: either they had no guiding principles regarding the proper role and responsibilities of government, or they were incapable of ascertaining which party (hence which candidate) best matches those principles. Hence they were forced into overreliance on the meaningless, contradictory sturm und drang of the political ads and TV pundits.
This year, I thought, it could be boiled down even further: either they have been unconscious for the entirety of the current Administration, or they are incapable of recognizing the flamingly obvious: that it is the Republicans who have screwed things up so badly, and therefore it would be a very bad idea to put them in charge again.
But after reading the article, I think the problem is as much a symptom of the present tendency in the culture to overpersonalize and overpsychologize. Call it the cult of celebrity, or the Oprahtization of the culture, or classic American hyperindividualism. Whatever it is, people tend to forget that a president is enmeshed in, and exercises power within, a system -- that, to achieve his or her goals, the executive must work with allies in Congress and elsewhere. In practice, this means that party principles and priorities tend to be as or more determinative than the individual leader's personality and preferences -- the very characteristics around which many voters' choices pivot (and, after all, that leader chose his party for a reason; the choice is a telling one).
This doesn't mean one ought to be an unthinking straight-ticket voter. But it does mean that party, and the bigger picture, count for more than many people -- particularly the undecideds -- tend to recognize.
Before reading the article, I rather tongue-in-cheekishly characterized the thought process of the undecideds this way: either they had no guiding principles regarding the proper role and responsibilities of government, or they were incapable of ascertaining which party (hence which candidate) best matches those principles. Hence they were forced into overreliance on the meaningless, contradictory sturm und drang of the political ads and TV pundits.
This year, I thought, it could be boiled down even further: either they have been unconscious for the entirety of the current Administration, or they are incapable of recognizing the flamingly obvious: that it is the Republicans who have screwed things up so badly, and therefore it would be a very bad idea to put them in charge again.
But after reading the article, I think the problem is as much a symptom of the present tendency in the culture to overpersonalize and overpsychologize. Call it the cult of celebrity, or the Oprahtization of the culture, or classic American hyperindividualism. Whatever it is, people tend to forget that a president is enmeshed in, and exercises power within, a system -- that, to achieve his or her goals, the executive must work with allies in Congress and elsewhere. In practice, this means that party principles and priorities tend to be as or more determinative than the individual leader's personality and preferences -- the very characteristics around which many voters' choices pivot (and, after all, that leader chose his party for a reason; the choice is a telling one).
This doesn't mean one ought to be an unthinking straight-ticket voter. But it does mean that party, and the bigger picture, count for more than many people -- particularly the undecideds -- tend to recognize.
Just give us your cash and shut up
Wall Street Banks in $70bn Staff Payout - The Guardian
Banks Take The Money And Sit - Forbes
I really enjoyed reading the Brits' comments after the Guardian article. It always seems that Europeans are much more skeptical, and much less naive, than many Americans about the motives and machinations of the financial Masters of the Universe. I think it has much to do with the fact that European political life is far better balanced than ours, inasmuch as they have an active and vocal left to audibly contradict the conservative narrative (which is substantively the only story Americans have been told for the past 28 years, even during the Clinton '90s -- an interregnum that merely embodied the squishy, pro-corporate centrism of the DLC).
LATE ADDITION: A Question for A.I.G.: Where Did the Cash Go? - The New York Times
Banks Take The Money And Sit - Forbes
I really enjoyed reading the Brits' comments after the Guardian article. It always seems that Europeans are much more skeptical, and much less naive, than many Americans about the motives and machinations of the financial Masters of the Universe. I think it has much to do with the fact that European political life is far better balanced than ours, inasmuch as they have an active and vocal left to audibly contradict the conservative narrative (which is substantively the only story Americans have been told for the past 28 years, even during the Clinton '90s -- an interregnum that merely embodied the squishy, pro-corporate centrism of the DLC).
LATE ADDITION: A Question for A.I.G.: Where Did the Cash Go? - The New York Times
No, not McSame -- McWorse
Imagine the unerring economic savvy of Herbert Hoover combined with the sensible foreign-policy instincts of Curtis LeMay.
John McCain: Not More of the Same - The American Prospect
John McCain: Not More of the Same - The American Prospect
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Adviser acknowledges slight flaw in McCain health-care plan: the individual market sucks
McCain's Healthcare Contradiction - Washington Monthly
LATE ADDITION: In support of the sucking thesis....
Big Insurance Shows Its Hand – Or at Least Its Finger - CommonDreams
If that Cigna punk ever has the intestinal fortitude to identify himself, he's going to need insurance (although, in his defense, he did convey the company's philosophy quite clearly)....
LATE ADDITION: In support of the sucking thesis....
Big Insurance Shows Its Hand – Or at Least Its Finger - CommonDreams
If that Cigna punk ever has the intestinal fortitude to identify himself, he's going to need insurance (although, in his defense, he did convey the company's philosophy quite clearly)....
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
We may even learn some compassion for each other
How Universal Health Care Changes Everything - OurFuture.org
Nicely observed. It's precisely this conscience-cleansing and ego-enforcing contempt for frailty, for human fallibility, for the inability of some to fit the narrow norms or meet the high demands of well-paid work, that our nation needs to abandon to become a more civilized place.
In the conservative era, America's hypercompetitive society has been very quick to throw away people who haven't made the cut in some way—people without money, connections, or education; people with disabilities that make them economically less viable; people who come from the wrong racial or religious group or the wrong part of the country. You only deserve what you, personally, are capable of earning. If you're badly equipped to do that, it's your own damned fault. If you can't afford health care, you deserve to die. In no case is it the taxpayers' job to step in and make it right.
Nicely observed. It's precisely this conscience-cleansing and ego-enforcing contempt for frailty, for human fallibility, for the inability of some to fit the narrow norms or meet the high demands of well-paid work, that our nation needs to abandon to become a more civilized place.
Monday, October 27, 2008
For Republicans, the difference between capitalism and socialism is 4.6%
...i.e., a 4.6% higher top marginal tax rate for the richest 2% of the population. The same rate that prevailed during the prosperous '90s. Shocking! The next thing you know, we'll all realize that living in a society that models itself after "The Lord of the Flies," that makes life as burdensome as possible for as many as possible, is a bad idea. Likewise, we'll see that the imperceptible dip in the height of Thurston Howell's horde is no burden at all.
And that's what they're really afraid of.
Like, Socialism - The New Yorker
LATE ADDITIONS: Banking On a Confederacy of Dunces - Credo Action
John McCain Is Barack Obama's New Deal Mandate-Maker - OurFuture.org
And that's what they're really afraid of.
Like, Socialism - The New Yorker
LATE ADDITIONS: Banking On a Confederacy of Dunces - Credo Action
John McCain Is Barack Obama's New Deal Mandate-Maker - OurFuture.org
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
When McCain was sane
Or at least honest. From a 2000 town-hall meeting:
(A shorter answer to this spoiled girl might be, "Because we live in a society." Or how about that long-recognized reality of democracy, summarized nicely by David Bromwich: "that stupendous inequalities of wealth produce an undemocratic inequality of power." On the other hand, she's probably not interested in a serious answer; she's just sulking because her daddy blames taxes for not buying her the really nice Porsche.)
LATE ADDITION: Remembering When McCain Was Accused of Class Warfare - Mother Jones
(A shorter answer to this spoiled girl might be, "Because we live in a society." Or how about that long-recognized reality of democracy, summarized nicely by David Bromwich: "that stupendous inequalities of wealth produce an undemocratic inequality of power." On the other hand, she's probably not interested in a serious answer; she's just sulking because her daddy blames taxes for not buying her the really nice Porsche.)
LATE ADDITION: Remembering When McCain Was Accused of Class Warfare - Mother Jones
There's no recovery from moral bankruptcy
Here's some nice observations from Tim Rutten's LA Times column today:
Yes, indeedy.
What Greenspan and the rest of the aiders-and-abettors of Wall Street's greed spree don't want to admit is that there's something wrong in the economy and financial system that new regulations on trading and disclosure won't correct. Long before the financial system melted down, American business' share of the social compact melted completely away. The corrosion didn't begin at the top but at the bottom -- with the renunciation of any corporate loyalty toward working men and women. For nearly as long as Greenspan has hovered in the financial stratosphere, U.S. companies have been encouraged to treat their workers like any other "expense." Wall Street has rewarded -- indeed, lionized -- companies "tough enough" to treat workers like the electric bill. Presto! Layoffs became "cost management."....
Societies in which the few are allowed to fatten themselves without limit on the labor of many are not just; they aren't even particularly productive for very long. Countries -- like companies -- that cling to notions that allow some to pursue their own interests by behaving indecently toward others come to bad ends.
Yes, indeedy.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Vote for Obama, get a $13,000 raise!
Your Salary in 2016 - Washington Monthly
Perhaps this prediction is too optimistic. Still, it's fair to say that an Obama victory, plus the projected Democratic (super)majority in Congress, will mean less financial struggle for the average American. Given the present trajectory of things, even that will be a welcome relief.
Perhaps this prediction is too optimistic. Still, it's fair to say that an Obama victory, plus the projected Democratic (super)majority in Congress, will mean less financial struggle for the average American. Given the present trajectory of things, even that will be a welcome relief.
If we don't "spread the wealth," the system will not survive
Let's see -- a life that is meager for most of us, but in which a handful of Paris Hiltons have the "freedom" to buy all gold-plated fingernails they want. Wonderful. Seriously, how self-indulgent, self-absorbed, and just plain selfish must one be to think that this is our best alternative as a society? (We're not there yet -- quite -- but it's definitely the direction the last eight years have pointed us.)
The alternatives are not, as some would have us believe, a stifling socialism versus a free-market free-for-all. We are constantly touting the "freedom of opportunity" America offers when we have so much less of it than other advanced nations -- nations whose citizens aren't sidelined by illnesses they can't afford to treat, whose workers have greater job security and benefits, and whose children follow an educational path determined by their drive and ability, not by the size of their parents' bank accounts. These countries have found an intelligent and moral middle ground. Why can't we?
The answer, in large part, is g-r-e-e-d, along with the relentless conservative p.r. campaign that reinforces and endorses it. (Note that, from the 1930s on, this country was making great strides toward decency until Reagan's barbarity promotion program largely halted our progress.)
Incidentally, in my darker moments, I really do suspect that the average conservative's vision of utopia is an America comprised of 12 mega-multi-billionaires (a group in which they inevitably imagine themselves) and 300 million peasants begging them for food and dying on the sidewalk at their feet. The chance to tell people who have no hope of landing a job (or, in this scenario, of living through the day) to get a job/life/heart transplant really gives them a self-righteous thrill.
Maybe the Rich are the Problem - Toronto Star
Spreading the Wealth Around? Why Not? - CommonDreams
LATE ADDITION: Obama the Philosopher - The Nation
The alternatives are not, as some would have us believe, a stifling socialism versus a free-market free-for-all. We are constantly touting the "freedom of opportunity" America offers when we have so much less of it than other advanced nations -- nations whose citizens aren't sidelined by illnesses they can't afford to treat, whose workers have greater job security and benefits, and whose children follow an educational path determined by their drive and ability, not by the size of their parents' bank accounts. These countries have found an intelligent and moral middle ground. Why can't we?
The answer, in large part, is g-r-e-e-d, along with the relentless conservative p.r. campaign that reinforces and endorses it. (Note that, from the 1930s on, this country was making great strides toward decency until Reagan's barbarity promotion program largely halted our progress.)
Incidentally, in my darker moments, I really do suspect that the average conservative's vision of utopia is an America comprised of 12 mega-multi-billionaires (a group in which they inevitably imagine themselves) and 300 million peasants begging them for food and dying on the sidewalk at their feet. The chance to tell people who have no hope of landing a job (or, in this scenario, of living through the day) to get a job/life/heart transplant really gives them a self-righteous thrill.
Maybe the Rich are the Problem - Toronto Star
Spreading the Wealth Around? Why Not? - CommonDreams
LATE ADDITION: Obama the Philosopher - The Nation
Their profit is our bankruptcy, our untreated pain, our early death
Note that this sick fraudfest is at the heart of McCain's health-care "solution." While Obama's plan also relies too much on the private sector, his at least includes a sane, humane, government-funded option.
An Eroding Model for Health Insurance - LA Times
I Vote for Universal Healthcare - The Guardian
LATE ADDITION: Americans See Health Care as a Right - OurFuture.org
An Eroding Model for Health Insurance - LA Times
I Vote for Universal Healthcare - The Guardian
LATE ADDITION: Americans See Health Care as a Right - OurFuture.org
Monday, October 20, 2008
Get ready for the pushback
Here Comes the Onslaught - OurFuture.org
LATE ADDITION: Heads They Win, Tails You Lose: For the Beltway Media, Even Democratic Victories Prove the Country is Conservative - The Huffington Post
LATE ADDITION: Heads They Win, Tails You Lose: For the Beltway Media, Even Democratic Victories Prove the Country is Conservative - The Huffington Post
[W]hen Republicans win, we're told that Democrats need to move to the center, because the country is too conservative for them. When Democrats win, on the other hand, we're told that... Democrats need to move to the center. Their victory must have been some kind of accident -- it couldn't have been because the public actually agreed with what they want to do....
[A] look at the issue terrain at the moment shows a public firmly in the progressive camp. On foreign policy, on economic policy, on social policy, on just about everything, it's the progressive position that is more popular. The median voter in 2008 is pro-choice, supports civil unions for gay Americans (a position that seemed insanely radical only a decade ago), rejects the Bush foreign policy, supported the recent increase in the minimum wage, wants strong environmental protections, favors reasonable restrictions on gun sales, thinks the wealthy and corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes, and wants the government to guarantee universal health coverage. Does that sound conservative to you?
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Powell endorses Obama
Not only is the general right on McCain, he also appears to be the last Republican living who understands that, as a fundamental right, "freedom of religion" applies to everyone, not simply to Christians (or the mythical "Judeo-Christians"), to theists, or to whoever happens to be in the majority this week.
A Devastating Blow to John McCain - Salon
Colin Powell Condemns the Ugliness of the Republican Party - Salon
And of course let's not forget the Sunday gasbags:
Unease in the Conservative Commentariat - The New York Times
LATE ADDITION: Powell’s Endorsement Puts Spotlight on His Legacy - The New York Times
I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said such things as: "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is: he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian.
But the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is: No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be President?
Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion: he's a Muslim, and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
A Devastating Blow to John McCain - Salon
Colin Powell Condemns the Ugliness of the Republican Party - Salon
And of course let's not forget the Sunday gasbags:
Unease in the Conservative Commentariat - The New York Times
LATE ADDITION: Powell’s Endorsement Puts Spotlight on His Legacy - The New York Times
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Like many other economists, Greenspan misunderstood humans
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
Financial Boom, Financial Bust: What Happened? - LA Times
LATE ADDITIONS:
Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy - The New York Times
What Went Wrong - Washington Post
See? It's the psychology, stupid: We Forgot Everything Keynes Taught Us - Washington Post
Financial Boom, Financial Bust: What Happened? - LA Times
LATE ADDITIONS:
Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy - The New York Times
What Went Wrong - Washington Post
See? It's the psychology, stupid: We Forgot Everything Keynes Taught Us - Washington Post
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Note to McCain: NOTHING TRICKLES DOWN (not that you actually want it to)
McCain Is Not Bush? - The Failed Economics of Reagan, Bush and McCain - The Huffington Post
The Nation's Eric Alterman also offers us this historical review:
The Nation's Eric Alterman also offers us this historical review:
The supply-side experience taught conservatives they could create their own reality. They never admitted that their fly-by-night doctrine had anything to do with the deficits it created and continued to pummel liberals as fiscally irresponsible. Even after David Stockman revealed to William Greider that the entire exercise had been a hoax designed to cut taxes on the wealthy and spending for the poor and the middle class, the charade continued uninterrupted. (The Reagan administration even concocted a separate lie--that story about the president taking Stockman to "the woodshed" when the first lie was discovered--and that worked just as well.)
You're wrong, Joe
In an interesting follow-up interview today, ABC's Diane Sawyer asks Joe Wurzelbacher -- a.k.a., "Joe the Plumber" -- about his response to last night's debate and his thoughts on the tax issue he raised with Obama. In his remarks, Wurzelbacher repeated a common conservative trope, that it's "wrong" to tax higher-earners at higher rates "for being more successful."
Well, Joe, you're wrong on both counts. High earners aren't being taxed more "for being successful;" nor, more generally, it is wrong to charge a higher rate. Indeed, this kind of progressive taxation is eminently just, for two reasons. First is that these folks have benefited more from the American system. You can't on the one hand praise America as the "land of opportunity" and on the other hand say -- however hard you may have worked for your success -- that you did it all yourself. The system obviously contributed. Otherwise why single out America? (Incidentally, people have been achieving great wealth here at tax rates far higher than exist today, or at the fractionally higher rates for a few that Obama proposes.)
The second reason it's just is that the wealthy use more of the system's "goods" that the rest of us: the businesses that generate the money make more use of the public infrastructure (roads, sewer, water), police and fire protection, the public schools to train workers, and the court system to enforce contracts (the vast majority of civil court activity is business to business), among other public resources. I don't think Joe and those who agree with him necessarily want a free (or reduced-rate) ride -- but that's what they'd be getting if they didn't pay their fair share in full.
A side note: if you include local taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, etc., the overall tax system is actually quite flat -- perhaps unfairly so.
Is Joe the Plumber the Same as Joe Six-pack? - The New Republic
Well, Joe, you're wrong on both counts. High earners aren't being taxed more "for being successful;" nor, more generally, it is wrong to charge a higher rate. Indeed, this kind of progressive taxation is eminently just, for two reasons. First is that these folks have benefited more from the American system. You can't on the one hand praise America as the "land of opportunity" and on the other hand say -- however hard you may have worked for your success -- that you did it all yourself. The system obviously contributed. Otherwise why single out America? (Incidentally, people have been achieving great wealth here at tax rates far higher than exist today, or at the fractionally higher rates for a few that Obama proposes.)
The second reason it's just is that the wealthy use more of the system's "goods" that the rest of us: the businesses that generate the money make more use of the public infrastructure (roads, sewer, water), police and fire protection, the public schools to train workers, and the court system to enforce contracts (the vast majority of civil court activity is business to business), among other public resources. I don't think Joe and those who agree with him necessarily want a free (or reduced-rate) ride -- but that's what they'd be getting if they didn't pay their fair share in full.
A side note: if you include local taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, etc., the overall tax system is actually quite flat -- perhaps unfairly so.
Is Joe the Plumber the Same as Joe Six-pack? - The New Republic
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
McCain's bigger truth
The first article's a bit dated (I missed it when it was posted), but I think it offers a key insight into McCain's moves throughout the campaign.
Liar's Poker - The New Republic
McCain Misunderstands the Meaning of Honor - Credo Action
Liar's Poker - The New Republic
McCain Misunderstands the Meaning of Honor - Credo Action
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Why did the answer have to come from London?
Could it be...ideology?
Gordon Does Good - The New York Times
Let's also give the K-man a hearty round of applause for his well-deserved Nobel. I think I've got a couple of those in the cupboard somewhere....
Gordon Does Good - The New York Times
Let's also give the K-man a hearty round of applause for his well-deserved Nobel. I think I've got a couple of those in the cupboard somewhere....
Sunday, October 12, 2008
More on Palin's wingnut "pals"
Meet Sarah Palin's Radical Right-Wing Pals - Salon
And here's an interesting observation from today's Frank Rich column in the NYT:
And here's an interesting observation from today's Frank Rich column in the NYT:
No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin’s convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago’s mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was “regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man.” In the ’60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: “Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls.”
This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential vice president at a national political convention. It’s astonishing there’s been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis Farrakhan — or William Ayers — in Denver.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Voting has consequences
The Mask Slips - The New York Times
Exactly. Voting Republican is like choosing the world's worst surgeon just to spite the good ones, what with their fancy medical degrees and competence and all. Not to mention some of them have Arab-sounding names -- and you know what that means. Hell, one of 'em was even born in Hawaii, which is right next to Iraq*. You probably didn't know that. Think about it.
*if you draw a straight line through the Earth
Heck, if you could reach all the way back there, you'd do the operation yourself. You're a Self-Made Man (sorry, parents)! You don't need other people! You sure as hell don't need those terrorist-loving, taxpayer-supported commie paramedics taking away your freedoms!
Just be sure you question everybody's patriotism as they fix you up. And refuse that socialist Medicare coverage! Too bad your private insurance dropped you 10 years ago for the sprain you got flipping Clinton the bird.
[T]here are two things I find remarkable about the G.O.P., and especially its more conservative wing, which is now about all there is.
The first is how wrong conservative Republicans have been on so many profoundly important matters for so many years. The second is how the G.O.P. has nevertheless been able to persuade so many voters of modest means that its wrongheaded, favor-the-rich, country-be-damned approach was not only good for working Americans, but was the patriotic way to go.
Exactly. Voting Republican is like choosing the world's worst surgeon just to spite the good ones, what with their fancy medical degrees and competence and all. Not to mention some of them have Arab-sounding names -- and you know what that means. Hell, one of 'em was even born in Hawaii, which is right next to Iraq*. You probably didn't know that. Think about it.
*if you draw a straight line through the Earth
Heck, if you could reach all the way back there, you'd do the operation yourself. You're a Self-Made Man (sorry, parents)! You don't need other people! You sure as hell don't need those terrorist-loving, taxpayer-supported commie paramedics taking away your freedoms!
Just be sure you question everybody's patriotism as they fix you up. And refuse that socialist Medicare coverage! Too bad your private insurance dropped you 10 years ago for the sprain you got flipping Clinton the bird.
Friday, October 10, 2008
A modest proposal
I'm well aware of the dangers and of the sordid history of imposing any kind of "test" as a qualification to vote. At the same time, it is absolutely unacceptable that the votes of these people count as much as the votes of those who actually know things. So here is my proposal: everyone who votes takes a current-affairs quiz. The votes of those who pass it count double. It's the only sane solution.
Parenthetically--don't these people have Google? Are they so lazy, intellectually or physically, that they can't look this stuff up? Of course, factual knowledge isn't really the issue here. For most of these goons, "Arab" and "terrorist" are just more socially acceptable ways of saying the "n" word.
Parenthetically--don't these people have Google? Are they so lazy, intellectually or physically, that they can't look this stuff up? Of course, factual knowledge isn't really the issue here. For most of these goons, "Arab" and "terrorist" are just more socially acceptable ways of saying the "n" word.
Even McCain can't control these idiots
I don't know if the bad press was getting to him or if he was overcome by an unaccustomed bout of conscience, but McCain did finally make an effort today to calm his rabid, wildly misinformed followers. Of course, this comes after an extensive effort by the McCain camp to lather them up and misinform them. The irony is, it didn't work. The attack dogs have tasted blood, and the trainer has lost control.
McCain Booed After Trying to Calm Anti-Obama Crowd - The Examiner
Significantly, my sense of alarm and disgust is shared by many on the GOP side:
Bipartisan Concern About the Dangers of McPalin’s Hate-Mongering - AlterNet/Firedoglake
McCain Booed After Trying to Calm Anti-Obama Crowd - The Examiner
Significantly, my sense of alarm and disgust is shared by many on the GOP side:
Republican Frank Schaeffer:
John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.
Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs.
John McCain, you're walking a perilous line. If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters when they scream out "Terrorist" or "Kill him," history will hold you responsible for all that follows.
John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations.
Change the atmosphere of your campaign. Talk about the issues at hand. Make your case. But stop stirring up the lunatic fringe of haters, or risk suffering the judgment of history and the loathing of the American people - forever.
We will hold you responsible.
Andrew Sullivan:
McCain and Palin have decided to stoke this rage, to foment it, to encourage paranoid notions that somehow Obama is a "secret" terrorist or Islamist or foreigner. These are base emotions in both sense of the word.
But they are also very very dangerous. This is a moment of maximal physical danger for the young Democratic nominee. And McCain is playing with fire. If he really wants to put country first, he will attack Obama on his policies - not on these inflammatory, personal, creepy grounds. This is getting close to the atmosphere stoked by the Israeli far right before the assassination of Rabin.
For God's sake, McCain, stop it. For once in this campaign, put your country first.
Bipartisan Concern About the Dangers of McPalin’s Hate-Mongering - AlterNet/Firedoglake
Thursday, October 9, 2008
We're mad. They're a mob. There's a difference
- A Republican Mob Scene - Slate
- McCain Supporter Rants About "Hooligan" Obama And "Socialist" Takeover -- And McCain Agrees - The Huffington Post
- McCain's Ayers Attacks Backfire - The Nation
You know how I keep harping on the claim that liberals are just more decent people than conservatives? You're probably tempted to argue that such a claim is simplistic, painting a large and diverse group of people with too broad and partisan a brush. Which is an eminently reasonable response--for which reason I'm eminently tempted to agree with it, and to withdraw my overstatement. But then certain...things...happen, and I can't help but believe that Democrats would never act this way. It's as if we libs are the grown ups of the polity, and conservatives are the self-centered, emotionally volatile, low-information teens -- not to overgeneralize.
LATE ADDITION: Dan Balz’s Corrupted Journalistic “Balance” - Salon
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Disposing of a toxic ideology
9/11 Was Big. This Is Bigger - Washington Post
End of an Error - The New Republic
In critical theory, it's called "reification" -- getting people to think of an invented, abstract idea as a fact of nature. The intended consequence of reification is to make opposition to the idea -- laissez-faire economics, let's say -- appear as ridiculous and futile as opposing the laws of thermodynamics or the effects of gravity. The act of revealing the idea as an idea, and not as an inevitability -- that is, revealing it as changeable -- is called "demystification." I think it's fair to say that, over the past few weeks, laissez-faire has been pretty well demystified.
End of an Error - The New Republic
The Depression--as my colleague John B. Judis put it in The Paradox of American Democracy--"destroyed in one stroke the edifice of wisdom and invincibility that businessmen had erected for themselves."
In critical theory, it's called "reification" -- getting people to think of an invented, abstract idea as a fact of nature. The intended consequence of reification is to make opposition to the idea -- laissez-faire economics, let's say -- appear as ridiculous and futile as opposing the laws of thermodynamics or the effects of gravity. The act of revealing the idea as an idea, and not as an inevitability -- that is, revealing it as changeable -- is called "demystification." I think it's fair to say that, over the past few weeks, laissez-faire has been pretty well demystified.
An "association" that actually matters
Keating Economics: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis
Monday, October 6, 2008
The McCain plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking
Health Care Destruction - The New York Times
John McCain's 'Underwear Gnome' Health Care Plan Will Leave You Feeling Naked - AlterNet
And I'm quite sick of hearing, by the way, the McPalin campaign's B.S. about Obama's so-called "government-run" health plan. The closest Obama's plan comes to "socialized medicine" or government "control" is a Medicare-like option in which government would act as the insurance company. The primary difference between this plan and traditional private insurance is that the public plan won't be motivated to turn away sick people and deny valid claims to maximize profit. Undoubtedly this is why the McCainiacs object--Obama's plan has an actual shot at helping people. And helping people is the last thing Republicans want government to do.
LATE ADDITION: Obama Versus McCain: "Fundamental Difference" on Health Care - The Nation
John McCain's 'Underwear Gnome' Health Care Plan Will Leave You Feeling Naked - AlterNet
And I'm quite sick of hearing, by the way, the McPalin campaign's B.S. about Obama's so-called "government-run" health plan. The closest Obama's plan comes to "socialized medicine" or government "control" is a Medicare-like option in which government would act as the insurance company. The primary difference between this plan and traditional private insurance is that the public plan won't be motivated to turn away sick people and deny valid claims to maximize profit. Undoubtedly this is why the McCainiacs object--Obama's plan has an actual shot at helping people. And helping people is the last thing Republicans want government to do.
LATE ADDITION: Obama Versus McCain: "Fundamental Difference" on Health Care - The Nation
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Not to belabor the point...
The Omen In My Mail - Washington Post
...but again I'm forced to point out that, while our team's angry whackos may want to whip out some crystals and purify your "aura," conservative whackos want to whip out a .44 Magnum and blow your brains out. It's hard not to conclude that one of the things that separate liberals and conservatives is that liberals are just more decent human beings.
...but again I'm forced to point out that, while our team's angry whackos may want to whip out some crystals and purify your "aura," conservative whackos want to whip out a .44 Magnum and blow your brains out. It's hard not to conclude that one of the things that separate liberals and conservatives is that liberals are just more decent human beings.
A plainly inferior plan
Wash Post's Pearlstein: Anyone Opposing the Bailout is Ignorant - Salon
Hey, Rick, don't forget the objections of bailout critic/ignoramus Joseph Stiglitz. I understand he also won a certain prize.
Hey, Rick, don't forget the objections of bailout critic/ignoramus Joseph Stiglitz. I understand he also won a certain prize.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Find, prosecute, imprison
Bring Wall Street Crooks to Justice - Credo Action
As part of the prosecutorial effort, investigators may want to pose these questions, raised by the NYT's David Cay Johnston:
Hmmm. Hmmmmm.
And while Johnston and Salon's Glenn Greenwald rightly celebrate the emergence of ACTUAL DEMOCRACY in Monday's rejection of the bailout bill, it's worth noting that an almost identical rescue package will likely pass the House on Friday.
As part of the prosecutorial effort, investigators may want to pose these questions, raised by the NYT's David Cay Johnston:
--Why was the CEO of Goldman Sachs in the room when government officials decided to bailout the insurer AIG, especially since Goldman has about $20 billion, half of its shareholder equity, at risk on AIG? Keep in mind that Treasury Secretary Paulson is the immediate former CEO of Goldman.
--Why was Lehman Brothers, a Goldman competitor, the only Wall Street firm in trouble so far left to collapse on its own? The Wall Street Journal reports today that it was the collapse of Lehman (which because of its structure may not have been an attractive firm for purchase) that "triggered cash crunch around the globe."
Hmmm. Hmmmmm.
And while Johnston and Salon's Glenn Greenwald rightly celebrate the emergence of ACTUAL DEMOCRACY in Monday's rejection of the bailout bill, it's worth noting that an almost identical rescue package will likely pass the House on Friday.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
This is enemy action
"That's a lot of money, Bob."
- John McCain: Crisis Enabler - The Nation
- Why Wall Street Is Burning - OurFuture.org
- Seven Deadly Sins of Deregulation -- and Three Necessary Reforms - The American Prospect
- Bush and Bailout Package Refuse to Get at Root Causes - The Progressive
- A Wall Street Bailout Wouldn't Help Anyone But Rich Investors - AlterNet
- Whatever Happened to Personal Responsibility? - TruthDig
- The Moral Subtext of the Bailout Debate - Huffington Post
- Acts of Contrition - The Nation
Friday, September 26, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The worst cause
'Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency' by Barton Gellman' - LA Times
On the question of the war in Iraq and why Cheney pushed for it as he did, Gellman adds critical insight. Whether the vice president believed that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction is an open question, though it is clear that he knowingly lied about U.S. intelligence in this regard. What he did believe was that the war was winnable and, therefore, would make a valuable "demonstration" of U.S. power that would deter any other hostile nation from allowing itself to become a "nexus" of common purpose with the Islamic extremists who attacked New York and suburban Washington, D.C., on 9/11. The possibility of such a "nexus" was, in Cheney's view, the great threat to American security. He embraced the neo-conservatives' notion of the U.S. as liberator, bringing democratic regime change to the Mideast, as a convenient rhetorical counterweight to Jihadist propaganda. Personally, he doubted democracy even was possible in the Middle East.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Manufacturing consensus
The Complete (Though Ever-Changing) Elite Consensus Over the Financial Collapse - Salon
What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism -- where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We've retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded.
More amazingly, they're free to walk away without having to disgorge their gains; at worst, they're just "forced" to walk away without any further stake in the gamble. How can these bailouts not at least be categorically conditioned on the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains from those who are responsible? The mere fact that shareholders might lose their stake going forward doesn't resolve that concern; why should those who so fantastically profited from these schemes they couldn't support walk away with their gains? This is "redistribution of wealth" and "government takeover of industry" on the grandest scale imaginable -- the buzzphrases that have been thrown around for decades to represent all that is evil and bad in the world. That's all this is; it's not an "investment" by the Government in any real sense but just a magical transfer of losses away from those who are responsible for these losses to those who aren't.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Will the free-market fanatics please shut up?
The Corporate Financiers Are Wrong - Salon
LATE ADDITION: Free Market Ideology Is Far From Finished - The Guardian
All good questions. And Klein's right, of course. The free-market fundies will never give up, no matter how great a catastrophe they create. They are the Energizer bunnies of sociopathy. There's still more money to be stolen, after all!
Meanwhile, once the smoke has cleared, a learning-impaired public will be all too willing to let it happen again. Perhaps one useful new branch for a reinvigorated government would be a department of institutional memory. Then, the next time Americans start falling prey to these self-serving robber barons and their attractive propagandists, there will someone standing by to say, "Cue the 9/08 tape, Charlie. Okay now, people, remember this. This is what they do."
LATE ADDITION: Free Market Ideology Is Far From Finished - The Guardian
During boom times, it's profitable to preach laissez faire, because an absentee government allows speculative bubbles to inflate. When those bubbles burst, the ideology becomes a hindrance, and it goes dormant while big government rides to the rescue. But rest assured: the ideology will come roaring back when the bailouts are done. The massive debts the public is accumulating to bail out the speculators will then become part of a global budget crisis that will be the rationalisation for deep cuts to social programmes, and for a renewed push to privatise what is left of the public sector. We will also be told that our hopes for a green future are, sadly, too costly.
What we don't know is how the public will respond. Consider that in North America, everybody under the age of 40 grew up being told that the government can't intervene to improve our lives, that government is the problem not the solution, that laissez faire was the only option. Now, we are suddenly seeing an extremely activist, intensely interventionist government, seemingly willing to do whatever it takes to save investors from themselves.
This spectacle necessarily raises the question: if the state can intervene to save corporations that took reckless risks in the housing markets, why can't it intervene to prevent millions of Americans from imminent foreclosure? By the same token, if $85bn can be made instantly available to buy the insurance giant AIG, why is single-payer health care – which would protect Americans from the predatory practices of health-care insurance companies – seemingly such an unattainable dream?
All good questions. And Klein's right, of course. The free-market fundies will never give up, no matter how great a catastrophe they create. They are the Energizer bunnies of sociopathy. There's still more money to be stolen, after all!
Meanwhile, once the smoke has cleared, a learning-impaired public will be all too willing to let it happen again. Perhaps one useful new branch for a reinvigorated government would be a department of institutional memory. Then, the next time Americans start falling prey to these self-serving robber barons and their attractive propagandists, there will someone standing by to say, "Cue the 9/08 tape, Charlie. Okay now, people, remember this. This is what they do."
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