A Times article advances the notion that such things as Barry Bonds' steroid use and sharp, cheating tax accounting arise in part out of a sense of fairness/unfairness, and not just simple greed and sociopathy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/weekinreview/17chump.html?ref=weekinreview
It's an old observation that you're stuck playing at the gaming table of the world, that, while you're responsible for playing your hand as best you can, you don't deal, you don't cut the deck, you don't make the rules and you can't leave the game. That the rules might just have been written without your interests in mind, whether by Job's God or a legislator who, having been bought by Commodore Vanderbilt, stays bought, is as old as humanity. The question is whether those rules are themselves so unjust, so unfair, as to be illegitimate and therefore exert no moral authority over human action and can be ignored.
This was a common stance on the New Left of the SDS etc. in the 1960s, which evolved towards a stance advocating revolutionary change--'Steal This Book' comes to mind, as does the abuse of police authority and the epithet 'pig' in response covering all police. This is now common amongst the militia types, and those holding that much current government deviates fatally from any possible Constitutional justification. Meanwhile, such as Thoreau ('Civil Disobedience') and ML King ('Letter from the Birmingham Jail') accepted civil punishment, even while rejecting its underlying moral base.
The proper response, seems to me, is to accept the current government as legitimate, while seeking to change it, and seeking to correct the unreasonable, sometimes unconscionable, legal and economic barriers to necessary change from within current structures rather than in revolt against and destruction of them. The former risks legitimizing that which should not be accepted--the Citizens United decision comes to mind. The latter risks replacing the current unsatisfactories with even less satisfactory change, sometimes with horrific consequences. There are ample historical examples on both sides. I consider the risks of revolutionary change, even allowing for their possibility, far greater than those attendant on awaiting another swing of the pendulum, giving it a gentle push on occasion. The most benign interpretation of Obama's presidency after the Busherdammerung is along these lines. I haven't always agreed with Obama across the board, and doubtless won't. But I too have seen an attempt to delegitimize a deeply flawed system yield nothing other than reaction and rejection.
So there. Hrmphf. Get off my lawn, and turn that noise you call music down...
Monday, April 18, 2011
Maybe Bipartisanship really Is Date Rape
By now, it should be obvious that Paul Ryan's budget--widely praised despite its Draconian cuts on long-standing programs people depend for their live upon, and have for decades--is far more an ideological rant than a serious macroeconomic and fiscal proposal. Since its release, Obama has defended the programs Ryan attacks, demanding that they be saved in essence. The Republican response to Obama, predictably, tries to deny him legitimacy in the debate, as neither willing to face reality as they define it, nor being appropriately civil. Seems that voicing an opinion differing from Republican orthodoxy is shrill. Paul Krugman, who has long been recognized as shrill wherever civilized tongues are spoken, calls them out today:
Sorry to be cynical, but right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution.
This would be a corrupt, undemocratic way to make decisions about the shape of our society even if those involved really were wise men with a deep grasp of the issues. It’s much worse when many of those at the table are the sort of people who solicit and believe the kind of policy analyses that the Heritage Foundation supplies.
So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/opinion/18krugman.html?hp
All of which assumes that even Obama is correct in joining the regnant narrative placing the deficit at the very center of the nation's problems.
I'd argue that civity and frank disagreement can, in fact, coexist, and that people other than True Believers all know it. The distinction between, 'I disagree with you, holding, rather that .......... is the case and what should be done. Here are the facts, logic, history, economics and politics I used to reach those conclusions. What do you think?' and 'You fucking idiot' remains an important distinction. The 'Moi? They do it, too' defense, advanced against an accusation of incivility, won't wash. But, as many including yr. obdt. svt. have noted, a vain search for 'bipartisanship' clouding one's own positions in compromise after compromise with an opponent calling bipartisanship 'date rape' (Norquist) is bad politics and bad governance.
Obama going into 2012 will find himself fortunate in the timing of economic recovery, and in the astounding lack of plausible challengers. It'd be nice, too, were a stiff breeze from the left to fill his sails. He might even find himself enjoying it.
Sorry to be cynical, but right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution.
This would be a corrupt, undemocratic way to make decisions about the shape of our society even if those involved really were wise men with a deep grasp of the issues. It’s much worse when many of those at the table are the sort of people who solicit and believe the kind of policy analyses that the Heritage Foundation supplies.
So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/opinion/18krugman.html?hp
All of which assumes that even Obama is correct in joining the regnant narrative placing the deficit at the very center of the nation's problems.
I'd argue that civity and frank disagreement can, in fact, coexist, and that people other than True Believers all know it. The distinction between, 'I disagree with you, holding, rather that .......... is the case and what should be done. Here are the facts, logic, history, economics and politics I used to reach those conclusions. What do you think?' and 'You fucking idiot' remains an important distinction. The 'Moi? They do it, too' defense, advanced against an accusation of incivility, won't wash. But, as many including yr. obdt. svt. have noted, a vain search for 'bipartisanship' clouding one's own positions in compromise after compromise with an opponent calling bipartisanship 'date rape' (Norquist) is bad politics and bad governance.
Obama going into 2012 will find himself fortunate in the timing of economic recovery, and in the astounding lack of plausible challengers. It'd be nice, too, were a stiff breeze from the left to fill his sails. He might even find himself enjoying it.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Unstable Equilibria
Henry Kissinger this morning, in reviewing a biography of Bismarck, waxes metaphorically this:
Bismarck’s opponents were still wedded to the 18th-century concepts of the international system as a great clockwork with intricately meshed parts: the science of Newton. Bismarck foreshadowed an age whose equilibrium was an ever-changing interaction of forces, themselves in constant flux, like later atomic physics. Its appropriate philosopher was not Descartes but Darwin; not “I think, therefore I am,” but the “survival of the fittest.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/books/review/book-review-bismarck-by-jonathan-steinberg.html?pagewanted=2&ref=books
Now, it's just possible that balance of power politics and diplomacy predated Bismarck. It's also odd that Descartes and Darwin are contrasted as opposites. Too, it's been a while since the teleological 'survival of the fittest' credibly summarized evolution.
The most fun, though, can be had with Kissinger's notion of 'equilibrium' and 'constant flux' presaging 'atomic physics'. The nineteenth century saw Ludwig Boltzmann and J. Willard Gibbs, and others, elaborate statistical thermodynamics, in which macroscopic phenomena were linked to microscopic interactions using Netwonian mechanics. Equilibrium is a basic concept in thermodynamics, used to such brilliant effect that economists, envious of physicists' successes and imagining themselves capable of replicating it by reducing human beings to molecules, borrowed the notion for their market models. Perhaps Kissinger's referring to thermodynamics, in which case it isn't 'later'. Or, he's referring to quantum mechanics, which is not only later but entirely inapposite to the point he's making. Either way, he's wrong.
Whatever you think of Kissinger, he's neither stupid nor uneducated. It's fascinating to see such a person pack so much crap about science into such a small space. And, at that, crap touching on scientific theories of wide and deep significance in intellectual history: you can't understand contemporary thought without having a grasp of evolution or thermodynamics. So not only can I have sport with Kissinger, and his editor, on this. I can safely assume that the vast majority of people reading this review won't even stop to scratch their heads.
Maybe Bishop Ussher was right, after all...
Bismarck’s opponents were still wedded to the 18th-century concepts of the international system as a great clockwork with intricately meshed parts: the science of Newton. Bismarck foreshadowed an age whose equilibrium was an ever-changing interaction of forces, themselves in constant flux, like later atomic physics. Its appropriate philosopher was not Descartes but Darwin; not “I think, therefore I am,” but the “survival of the fittest.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/books/review/book-review-bismarck-by-jonathan-steinberg.html?pagewanted=2&ref=books
Now, it's just possible that balance of power politics and diplomacy predated Bismarck. It's also odd that Descartes and Darwin are contrasted as opposites. Too, it's been a while since the teleological 'survival of the fittest' credibly summarized evolution.
The most fun, though, can be had with Kissinger's notion of 'equilibrium' and 'constant flux' presaging 'atomic physics'. The nineteenth century saw Ludwig Boltzmann and J. Willard Gibbs, and others, elaborate statistical thermodynamics, in which macroscopic phenomena were linked to microscopic interactions using Netwonian mechanics. Equilibrium is a basic concept in thermodynamics, used to such brilliant effect that economists, envious of physicists' successes and imagining themselves capable of replicating it by reducing human beings to molecules, borrowed the notion for their market models. Perhaps Kissinger's referring to thermodynamics, in which case it isn't 'later'. Or, he's referring to quantum mechanics, which is not only later but entirely inapposite to the point he's making. Either way, he's wrong.
Whatever you think of Kissinger, he's neither stupid nor uneducated. It's fascinating to see such a person pack so much crap about science into such a small space. And, at that, crap touching on scientific theories of wide and deep significance in intellectual history: you can't understand contemporary thought without having a grasp of evolution or thermodynamics. So not only can I have sport with Kissinger, and his editor, on this. I can safely assume that the vast majority of people reading this review won't even stop to scratch their heads.
Maybe Bishop Ussher was right, after all...
Friday, April 1, 2011
Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On
The hedge fund managers take home real money. Last year, 25 of them took home $22 billion in salaries. They trade in toilet paper with ridiculously high nominal values. In New York City alone, assets nominally valued at well over a trillion dollars are traded daily. The Treasury Dept. estimates the nominal value of derivative securities held in American portfolios at over $600 trillion. That's roughly 50 times American GDP.
So, they take commissions in real money off of trades in toilet paper, and, as long as everyone agrees to keep the obscene game of musical chairs going, all is sort of well. But they can't do that unless they restrict their markets to a self-referential acceptance of asset valuation at wild, impossible remove from reality. A recipe for disaster, that. And the hedge fund managers' income, and countless other exactions of real money from toilet paper, are extraordinary diversions of real resources, while those receiving them perpetuate the illusion, keep the game going. When the inevitable catastrophe recurs, it won't be the real-money people that'll get hurt.
But, then, you knew that....
Shakespeare's Prospero, on derivative securities, presciently:
These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.
So, they take commissions in real money off of trades in toilet paper, and, as long as everyone agrees to keep the obscene game of musical chairs going, all is sort of well. But they can't do that unless they restrict their markets to a self-referential acceptance of asset valuation at wild, impossible remove from reality. A recipe for disaster, that. And the hedge fund managers' income, and countless other exactions of real money from toilet paper, are extraordinary diversions of real resources, while those receiving them perpetuate the illusion, keep the game going. When the inevitable catastrophe recurs, it won't be the real-money people that'll get hurt.
But, then, you knew that....
Shakespeare's Prospero, on derivative securities, presciently:
These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.
Friday, March 11, 2011
The Government is Here To Help You
Their policies will not work. A lot of people have heard lots of bloviation about the deficit, and accepted it at face value because it's presented in a manner that confirms their prejudices while denying common humanity to others during tough economic times. Traditional, all this, happens again and again. But implement those policies, and a lot of people are going to notice that, in fact, government supplies a lot of things they need and count upon. People will get hurt. It'll be a lot less abstract. That, too, is traditional, and will result in change, as it has in the past. But many people will be hurt, for years if not decades. And they should meet far more resistance than they are.
The Wisconsin affair, and those such as in Michigan who emulate Walker's program, will mobilize opposition, perhaps revitalize the labor movement, which has historically been a wellspring of the left. If it doesn't, then we'll just have to wait until the consequences become so unendurable that it'll happen. People forget that liberal social policies didn't come out of thin air, or out of a malevolent socialist conspiracy, but in response to actual social needs. It'd be nice were it not to take catastrophe to remind them of the fact.
The Wisconsin affair, and those such as in Michigan who emulate Walker's program, will mobilize opposition, perhaps revitalize the labor movement, which has historically been a wellspring of the left. If it doesn't, then we'll just have to wait until the consequences become so unendurable that it'll happen. People forget that liberal social policies didn't come out of thin air, or out of a malevolent socialist conspiracy, but in response to actual social needs. It'd be nice were it not to take catastrophe to remind them of the fact.
The Japanese Eathquake/Tsunami
Japan still has a social contract, effective government and a world-class infrastructure. Imagine if it happened here. We'd be hearing about all those nasty poor folk looting, and how they deserved to drown because they didn't prepare for it. Not the government's responsibility. Nebraskans shouldn't have to pay for it.
Sad, isn't it?
Oh, and let's remember that the average life span in Japan is amongst the world's longest. Primary care is freely available in Japan, where docs make some of their money by selling prescription medications as well. Japan's per capita health expenditure was $2293 in 2007. That year, America's was $6096. So Japan has more money to spend on infrastructure, even before America's military spending is taken into account, while maintaining a responsive, inclusive health care system. And you don't hear about their governments being bankrupted by rapidly escalating medical expenses.
Odd, that...
Sad, isn't it?
Oh, and let's remember that the average life span in Japan is amongst the world's longest. Primary care is freely available in Japan, where docs make some of their money by selling prescription medications as well. Japan's per capita health expenditure was $2293 in 2007. That year, America's was $6096. So Japan has more money to spend on infrastructure, even before America's military spending is taken into account, while maintaining a responsive, inclusive health care system. And you don't hear about their governments being bankrupted by rapidly escalating medical expenses.
Odd, that...
Modesty, Blazing
So here's David Brooks this morning:
Citizenship, after all, is built on an awareness that we are not all that special but are, instead, enmeshed in a common enterprise. Our lives are given meaning by the service we supply to the nation. I wonder if Americans are unwilling to support the sacrifices that will be required to avert fiscal catastrophe in part because they are less conscious of themselves as components of a national project...
It’s possible... that some of the current political problems are influenced by fundamental shifts in culture, involving things as fundamental as how we appraise ourselves. Addressing them would require a more comprehensive shift in values.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/opinion/11brooks.html?hp
Now, you might ask, did Brooks take note at all in his column of the increasingly insane, reality-challenged, narcissistic dismissal of a common humanity with the less fortunate, or merely different, that ever more obviously undergirds right wing politics in this country? And does he observe that possibly, just possibly, that economic thinking alone, exalting profit and a mythical freedom arising out of an equally mythical 'free market', might be insufficient in understanding or bettering the human condition?
Not so fast, class, not so fast...
Citizenship, after all, is built on an awareness that we are not all that special but are, instead, enmeshed in a common enterprise. Our lives are given meaning by the service we supply to the nation. I wonder if Americans are unwilling to support the sacrifices that will be required to avert fiscal catastrophe in part because they are less conscious of themselves as components of a national project...
It’s possible... that some of the current political problems are influenced by fundamental shifts in culture, involving things as fundamental as how we appraise ourselves. Addressing them would require a more comprehensive shift in values.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/opinion/11brooks.html?hp
Now, you might ask, did Brooks take note at all in his column of the increasingly insane, reality-challenged, narcissistic dismissal of a common humanity with the less fortunate, or merely different, that ever more obviously undergirds right wing politics in this country? And does he observe that possibly, just possibly, that economic thinking alone, exalting profit and a mythical freedom arising out of an equally mythical 'free market', might be insufficient in understanding or bettering the human condition?
Not so fast, class, not so fast...
Monday, March 7, 2011
Godwin's Law: You Are What You Wear
A fascinating piece in the Times this morning linking fashion with fascism, in the context of Dior's firing of John Galliano for drunken anti-Semitic ranting:
The link is clear: like a fascist demagogue of yore, he was declaring that she did not belong to the gilded group who wear the right boots, and from this Mr. Galliano slid effortlessly to a condemnation of her very flesh, and a wish for her death.
Last week the French daily Le Monde declared that by firing Mr. Galliano, Dior had sounded the “death knell for the myth of the omnipotent designer.” That may be premature, given the myth’s deep roots. But the drunken ramblings of one man in a bar may have set off an important discussion about a less pretty undercurrent in a multibillion-dollar industry. Happy Fashion Week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/opinion/07Garelick.html?hp
The reason Godwin's Law resonates as truth is that fascism/Naziism are entirely, totally human, Nazi acts were perpetrated by humans, and that, once you accept that, you find acts compatible with fascism far more widely scattered than is usually assumed. I was astonished, on rereading space operas I loved as a kid, to find them sometimes outright fascist. Consider the two most influential and popular science fiction universes, for instance: the 'Star Trek' United Federation of Planets with 'Star Wars' Jedi Knights, wearing brown shirts, keeping the peace in the galaxy via an unaccountable triumph of the trained will, most effective when used against the 'weak minded'.
And the reason it's crucially necessary to think of fascism in broader contexts is that we're all capable of it, being human, and have to fight it in ourselves. You are what others make you think you are, and what you're willing to accept in yourself. If we, as individuals and as a society, question neither of those, we're in for it.
The link is clear: like a fascist demagogue of yore, he was declaring that she did not belong to the gilded group who wear the right boots, and from this Mr. Galliano slid effortlessly to a condemnation of her very flesh, and a wish for her death.
Last week the French daily Le Monde declared that by firing Mr. Galliano, Dior had sounded the “death knell for the myth of the omnipotent designer.” That may be premature, given the myth’s deep roots. But the drunken ramblings of one man in a bar may have set off an important discussion about a less pretty undercurrent in a multibillion-dollar industry. Happy Fashion Week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/opinion/07Garelick.html?hp
The reason Godwin's Law resonates as truth is that fascism/Naziism are entirely, totally human, Nazi acts were perpetrated by humans, and that, once you accept that, you find acts compatible with fascism far more widely scattered than is usually assumed. I was astonished, on rereading space operas I loved as a kid, to find them sometimes outright fascist. Consider the two most influential and popular science fiction universes, for instance: the 'Star Trek' United Federation of Planets with 'Star Wars' Jedi Knights, wearing brown shirts, keeping the peace in the galaxy via an unaccountable triumph of the trained will, most effective when used against the 'weak minded'.
And the reason it's crucially necessary to think of fascism in broader contexts is that we're all capable of it, being human, and have to fight it in ourselves. You are what others make you think you are, and what you're willing to accept in yourself. If we, as individuals and as a society, question neither of those, we're in for it.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Economics as Synecdoche
The primacy, urgency and existence of the need for fiscal sanity amongst all human needs can be questioned. The primacy of dollars and cents, in general, over other measures of human life can be questioned. And the compromise of a union's freedom to contract with an equally free employer, in government or private sector, is, superficially, a passing strange position for someone to take who, as a matter of fundamental political philosophy, above all fears government power against private actors. More than revealing, though, when thought about, because those who deny the necessity for government at all deny explicitly the notion that an individual and a large multinational corporation can't bargain as equals, or that an individual needs any protection at all other than the ability to make choices in a market. Unwonted government power against unions. Unchecked corporate power against individuals. These positions precisely contradict each other if taken at face value. On a deeper level, sadly, they do not.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Humans In Name Only (HINOs)
Paul Krugman, on his blog, today wonders about birthers, and other crazed beliefs common on the right, through a discussion between John Quiggin and Jonathan Chait:
An interesting exchange between John Quiggin and Jonathan Chait on right-wing agnotology — that is, culturally-induced ignorance or doubt. The specific issue is birtherism, the claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya or anyway not in America, which polls indicate is a view held by a majority of Republican primary voters.
Quiggin suggests that right-wingers aren’t really birthers in their hearts; it’s just that affirming birtherism is a sort of badge of belonging, a shibboleth in the original biblical sense. Chait counters that much of the modern right lives in a mental universe in which liberal elites hide the truth, and in which they, through their access to Fox News etc., know things the brainwashed masses don’t.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
Such beliefs as the birthers', the Laffer curve, global warming denial, creationism, the 'Cloward-Piven conspiracy', the Aztlan and Caliphate/Sharia threats--there are an astounding number of examples from which to choose--are immune from challenge by recourse to facts and logic precisely because they are social markers, identifying members of an elect group, rather than any attempt to understand and characterize reality. And that flows from a political philosophy which, at its most fundamental level, reflects a division between a virtuous, besieged, deserving Self and a parasitic, evil, dehumanized Other. Questioning of any of these beliefs demonstrates that you are of the Other, and therefore must be rejected, as, perhaps, a Human In Name Only (HINO)--an elitist, liberal, out-of-touch, America hating, Constitution-shredding foe of all that's noble in the human spirit, and, therefore not to be even admitted to the debate. Some of the politicians are fellow true believers. Some, of course, will treat us to the disgusting spectacle of kissing Glenn Beck's, er, ring to be accepted as sufficiently pure to compete in the primaries. But there it is, and to the extent that they're holding the world hostage, they're dangerous. And I also agree that the health insurance reform bill,though flawed, has more merit that the left grants it, and should be supported more vigorously both for its own merits and in the larger context.
An interesting exchange between John Quiggin and Jonathan Chait on right-wing agnotology — that is, culturally-induced ignorance or doubt. The specific issue is birtherism, the claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya or anyway not in America, which polls indicate is a view held by a majority of Republican primary voters.
Quiggin suggests that right-wingers aren’t really birthers in their hearts; it’s just that affirming birtherism is a sort of badge of belonging, a shibboleth in the original biblical sense. Chait counters that much of the modern right lives in a mental universe in which liberal elites hide the truth, and in which they, through their access to Fox News etc., know things the brainwashed masses don’t.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
Such beliefs as the birthers', the Laffer curve, global warming denial, creationism, the 'Cloward-Piven conspiracy', the Aztlan and Caliphate/Sharia threats--there are an astounding number of examples from which to choose--are immune from challenge by recourse to facts and logic precisely because they are social markers, identifying members of an elect group, rather than any attempt to understand and characterize reality. And that flows from a political philosophy which, at its most fundamental level, reflects a division between a virtuous, besieged, deserving Self and a parasitic, evil, dehumanized Other. Questioning of any of these beliefs demonstrates that you are of the Other, and therefore must be rejected, as, perhaps, a Human In Name Only (HINO)--an elitist, liberal, out-of-touch, America hating, Constitution-shredding foe of all that's noble in the human spirit, and, therefore not to be even admitted to the debate. Some of the politicians are fellow true believers. Some, of course, will treat us to the disgusting spectacle of kissing Glenn Beck's, er, ring to be accepted as sufficiently pure to compete in the primaries. But there it is, and to the extent that they're holding the world hostage, they're dangerous. And I also agree that the health insurance reform bill,though flawed, has more merit that the left grants it, and should be supported more vigorously both for its own merits and in the larger context.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Wisconsin: Walker Calls Himself A Governor
'mornin'
Walker's going to hurt a lot of people. Every last one of the rightie crazies will hurt a lot of people
They all not only forget, but deny, the absolute truth that progressive government interventions, however mild and inadequate to the actual needs, however much left to do even after implementation,did not arise from a vacuum in which they were unnecessary. They were not superfluous. They were not motivated solely by a desire for government power. They were not pushed by those motivated solely by a desire for government power. They were not pushed by those looking for the triumph of jackbooted socialism. They evolved from the reality that that there were needs and problems in people's lives, big ones, urgent ones, that weren't being met by the private sector. They emerged from fundamental changes in economic, social and political life, as ever huger private entities accumulated vast amounts of power which they heretofore had not. Ant that power was exercised solely for their profit and to their advantage, and, at that, frankly celebrated as not only economically but morally, ethically and socially the right thing to do. And, further, the only right thing to do. Any other position on the causes of the appalling results, and potential remedies for them, is dismissed as not only wrong but evil, and excluded from the debate they would like to have.
The needs of the people were seen and acted upon before; they will be again. The questions are how long it'll take, and how many will be hurt. The ever clearer answer, I'm afraid, is way the hell too long, and way the hell too many.
Walker's going to hurt a lot of people. Every last one of the rightie crazies will hurt a lot of people
They all not only forget, but deny, the absolute truth that progressive government interventions, however mild and inadequate to the actual needs, however much left to do even after implementation,did not arise from a vacuum in which they were unnecessary. They were not superfluous. They were not motivated solely by a desire for government power. They were not pushed by those motivated solely by a desire for government power. They were not pushed by those looking for the triumph of jackbooted socialism. They evolved from the reality that that there were needs and problems in people's lives, big ones, urgent ones, that weren't being met by the private sector. They emerged from fundamental changes in economic, social and political life, as ever huger private entities accumulated vast amounts of power which they heretofore had not. Ant that power was exercised solely for their profit and to their advantage, and, at that, frankly celebrated as not only economically but morally, ethically and socially the right thing to do. And, further, the only right thing to do. Any other position on the causes of the appalling results, and potential remedies for them, is dismissed as not only wrong but evil, and excluded from the debate they would like to have.
The needs of the people were seen and acted upon before; they will be again. The questions are how long it'll take, and how many will be hurt. The ever clearer answer, I'm afraid, is way the hell too long, and way the hell too many.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Rightie Horror at Social Security
The right offers four objections to Social Security, each nonsense:
1. It's fiscally irresponsible and will bankrupt the country if not fixed. False.
2. Recipients are greedy geezers who'll bear the brunt of any fix without trouble, as they luxuriate in Florida or Arizona at our expense, while their families/children avoid responsibility for supporting them. False.
3. It's an investment program, ,rather than a transfer program, and, at that, a Ponzi scheme, fraudulent at its core and invariably bested by private, self-directed investment in equities. False.
4. It's the first step on a slippery slope to Soviet communism. False.
Other than that, they're right all the way...
1. It's fiscally irresponsible and will bankrupt the country if not fixed. False.
2. Recipients are greedy geezers who'll bear the brunt of any fix without trouble, as they luxuriate in Florida or Arizona at our expense, while their families/children avoid responsibility for supporting them. False.
3. It's an investment program, ,rather than a transfer program, and, at that, a Ponzi scheme, fraudulent at its core and invariably bested by private, self-directed investment in equities. False.
4. It's the first step on a slippery slope to Soviet communism. False.
Other than that, they're right all the way...
The Wombat Theory of Federal Spending: Paul Krugman Supports
Krugman today:
Republican leaders like to claim that the midterms gave them a mandate for sharp cuts in government spending. Some of us believe that the elections were less about spending than they were about persistent high unemployment, but whatever. The key point to understand is that while many voters say that they want lower spending, press the issue a bit further and it turns out that they only want to cut spending on other people.
That’s the lesson from a new survey by the Pew Research Center, in which Americans were asked whether they favored higher or lower spending in a variety of areas. It turns out that they want more, not less, spending on most things, including education and Medicare. They’re evenly divided about spending on aid to the unemployed and — surprise — defense.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/opinion/14krugman.html?hp
Always willing to be supported by an eminent thinker, I remind my readers of the Wombat Theory of pork:
pork: waste, fraud and abuse resulting from government spending in somebody else's district. Cut it. They don't deserve it. Parasites, robbed of free will and initiative, sucking on government teat.
effective governance: any federal funds spent in my district. Only our just due for our taxes, and necessary for building a bridge to the 21st century.
See how easy it is? Glad I could clear that up...
Republican leaders like to claim that the midterms gave them a mandate for sharp cuts in government spending. Some of us believe that the elections were less about spending than they were about persistent high unemployment, but whatever. The key point to understand is that while many voters say that they want lower spending, press the issue a bit further and it turns out that they only want to cut spending on other people.
That’s the lesson from a new survey by the Pew Research Center, in which Americans were asked whether they favored higher or lower spending in a variety of areas. It turns out that they want more, not less, spending on most things, including education and Medicare. They’re evenly divided about spending on aid to the unemployed and — surprise — defense.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/opinion/14krugman.html?hp
Always willing to be supported by an eminent thinker, I remind my readers of the Wombat Theory of pork:
pork: waste, fraud and abuse resulting from government spending in somebody else's district. Cut it. They don't deserve it. Parasites, robbed of free will and initiative, sucking on government teat.
effective governance: any federal funds spent in my district. Only our just due for our taxes, and necessary for building a bridge to the 21st century.
See how easy it is? Glad I could clear that up...
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Good Things: Always From The Right
An easy prediction I made was that positive outcomes in Egypt would be cast as out of rightie virtue, and negatives as another failure of the Marxist Kenyan Americ-hating Constitution shredding metrosexual poopyhead we have for president. That didn't take long:
Who is the hero of the Egyptian revolution? Wael Ghonim? Mohamed ElBaradei? Twitter? The ubiquitous Egyptian man (and woman) in the street?
All good nominees, but there’s one more who’s getting increasing support: George W. Bush. Scoff if you will, but the debate is heating up.
It started with the former State Department official Elliott Abrams at The Washington Post on Jan. 29:
In November 2003, President George W. Bush laid out this question: “Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?”
The massive and violent demonstrations underway in Egypt, the smaller ones in Jordan and Yemen, and the recent revolt in Tunisia that inspired those events, have affirmed that the answer is no and are exploding, once and for all, the myth of Arab exceptionalism … All these developments seem to come as a surprise to the Obama administration, which dismissed Bush’s “freedom agenda” as overly ideological and meant essentially to defend the invasion of Iraq. But as Bush’s support for the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon and for a democratic Palestinian state showed, he was defending self-government, not the use of force.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/egypts-revolution-bushs-victory/?hp
The author seeks credibility for his views in vain, methinks, by quoting as a lead off source the egregious Elliot Abrams, a convicted liar to Congress. Note the absence of any mention of, er, that man in the list of those who helped on the revolution, his great Cairo speech, his restraint in the past weeks. Note, too, the absence of any criticism of Bush's Iraq war, out of a dubious casus belli, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of refugees while strangthening the (non-Arab) hand of Iran. And Bush's uncritical support of Israel, his applause for Israel's violence in Gaza and Lebanon. And...
Never mind...
Who is the hero of the Egyptian revolution? Wael Ghonim? Mohamed ElBaradei? Twitter? The ubiquitous Egyptian man (and woman) in the street?
All good nominees, but there’s one more who’s getting increasing support: George W. Bush. Scoff if you will, but the debate is heating up.
It started with the former State Department official Elliott Abrams at The Washington Post on Jan. 29:
In November 2003, President George W. Bush laid out this question: “Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?”
The massive and violent demonstrations underway in Egypt, the smaller ones in Jordan and Yemen, and the recent revolt in Tunisia that inspired those events, have affirmed that the answer is no and are exploding, once and for all, the myth of Arab exceptionalism … All these developments seem to come as a surprise to the Obama administration, which dismissed Bush’s “freedom agenda” as overly ideological and meant essentially to defend the invasion of Iraq. But as Bush’s support for the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon and for a democratic Palestinian state showed, he was defending self-government, not the use of force.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/egypts-revolution-bushs-victory/?hp
The author seeks credibility for his views in vain, methinks, by quoting as a lead off source the egregious Elliot Abrams, a convicted liar to Congress. Note the absence of any mention of, er, that man in the list of those who helped on the revolution, his great Cairo speech, his restraint in the past weeks. Note, too, the absence of any criticism of Bush's Iraq war, out of a dubious casus belli, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of refugees while strangthening the (non-Arab) hand of Iran. And Bush's uncritical support of Israel, his applause for Israel's violence in Gaza and Lebanon. And...
Never mind...
An Interesting Exercise
Anthony Shadid in the Times, a consistently excellent reporter, on Egypt:
The months and years ahead will determine whether the fervor and community of Tahrir Square can translate into a new notion of citizenship, a truce between the state and Islamists and the curbing of the entrenched power of militaries, the police and suffocating bureaucracies that have failed to deliver young people a better life in an Arab world that is becoming ever younger. “It’s not the end,” said Nadia Magdy, a protester in the square. “It’s the beginning.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/world/middleeast/12revolution.html?hp
Here's what strikes me about this paragraph:
1. It's true.
2. Join me in the exercise of substituting 'Obama's election' for 'Tahrir Square', 'fundie Christians' for 'Islamists', 'the United States' for 'an Arab world' and (any left winger in the country) for 'Nadia Magdy'. Provoke a little thought, does it?
The months and years ahead will determine whether the fervor and community of Tahrir Square can translate into a new notion of citizenship, a truce between the state and Islamists and the curbing of the entrenched power of militaries, the police and suffocating bureaucracies that have failed to deliver young people a better life in an Arab world that is becoming ever younger. “It’s not the end,” said Nadia Magdy, a protester in the square. “It’s the beginning.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/world/middleeast/12revolution.html?hp
Here's what strikes me about this paragraph:
1. It's true.
2. Join me in the exercise of substituting 'Obama's election' for 'Tahrir Square', 'fundie Christians' for 'Islamists', 'the United States' for 'an Arab world' and (any left winger in the country) for 'Nadia Magdy'. Provoke a little thought, does it?
Obama and Our Discontents
Many on the left (the eschaton commenters, for instance) despair of Obama, and seem to spend as much, if not more, time denouncing him than they do Republicans. In response:
At the risk of seeming too charitable:
1. The Cairo speech wasn't only a great speech. It was a significant break from the past. He restated one of Bush's few decent positions, that not all Muslims were terrorists and that he'd fight terror without fighting all Islam. He acknowledged prior American wrongdoing in the context of Iran; every last person in the audience knew about Mossadegh and understood what he was saying. He indeed, though far too slowly, without not entirely finishing the withdrawal, ended most of our military action in Iraq. He publicly opposed Netanyahu on settlements. These aren't trivial things. Not, to be sure, enough in a vacuum otherwise devoid of positive action. Perhaps not nearly enough. But real, nonetheless.
2. I'm going to get really charitable here: the attempt at bipartisanship, in the face of Republican obstruction and the capture of the party by its most extreme elements, will increase Democratic credibility amongst the centrist and mildly right voters the Democrats need to win.
3. Again, being charitable, but, I think more concretely: the health care bill, for all its flaws, improves on anything we've had, both substantively and as an assertion, at long last, that health care for all Americans is a properly asserted federal responsibility, asit is for every other industrialized nation in the world. That, too, is a substantive break with the past, when every such bill got dismissed out of hand or died in the duck pit.
4. Sotomayor and Kagan are substantive improvements over Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Roberts. One of the only hopes for change long term is a court majority that won't emit the egregious jurisprudential and political offal of which the Citizens United decision is perhaps the most exemplary.
5. The repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' and the confirmation of the new START treaty are also substantive achievements. And better, that's how they were seen by majorities in the country, who responded with approval rather than rejection.
6. Biden is a better human being than Cheney. And Obama remains better, far better, than any conceivable Republican candidate at this point. Anger at, disappointment with, or rejection of Obama's policies--which I understand, acept and share--doesn't alter this point. I accept that many of you disagree with me on that. But there it is.
All of that said, here's Bob Herbert from the Times today, talking mostly about economic and political concessions to the rich:
The Egyptians want to establish a viable democracy, and that’s a long, hard road. Americans are in the mind-bogglingly self-destructive process of letting a real democracy slip away.
I had lunch with the historian Howard Zinn just a few weeks before he died in January 2010. He was chagrined about the state of affairs in the U.S. but not at all daunted. “If there is going to be change,” he said, “real change, it will have to work its way from the bottom up, from the people themselves.”
I thought of that as I watched the coverage of the ecstatic celebrations in the streets of Cairo.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/opinion/12herbert.html?_r=1&hp
I agree with Herbert, too.
At the risk of seeming too charitable:
1. The Cairo speech wasn't only a great speech. It was a significant break from the past. He restated one of Bush's few decent positions, that not all Muslims were terrorists and that he'd fight terror without fighting all Islam. He acknowledged prior American wrongdoing in the context of Iran; every last person in the audience knew about Mossadegh and understood what he was saying. He indeed, though far too slowly, without not entirely finishing the withdrawal, ended most of our military action in Iraq. He publicly opposed Netanyahu on settlements. These aren't trivial things. Not, to be sure, enough in a vacuum otherwise devoid of positive action. Perhaps not nearly enough. But real, nonetheless.
2. I'm going to get really charitable here: the attempt at bipartisanship, in the face of Republican obstruction and the capture of the party by its most extreme elements, will increase Democratic credibility amongst the centrist and mildly right voters the Democrats need to win.
3. Again, being charitable, but, I think more concretely: the health care bill, for all its flaws, improves on anything we've had, both substantively and as an assertion, at long last, that health care for all Americans is a properly asserted federal responsibility, asit is for every other industrialized nation in the world. That, too, is a substantive break with the past, when every such bill got dismissed out of hand or died in the duck pit.
4. Sotomayor and Kagan are substantive improvements over Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Roberts. One of the only hopes for change long term is a court majority that won't emit the egregious jurisprudential and political offal of which the Citizens United decision is perhaps the most exemplary.
5. The repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' and the confirmation of the new START treaty are also substantive achievements. And better, that's how they were seen by majorities in the country, who responded with approval rather than rejection.
6. Biden is a better human being than Cheney. And Obama remains better, far better, than any conceivable Republican candidate at this point. Anger at, disappointment with, or rejection of Obama's policies--which I understand, acept and share--doesn't alter this point. I accept that many of you disagree with me on that. But there it is.
All of that said, here's Bob Herbert from the Times today, talking mostly about economic and political concessions to the rich:
The Egyptians want to establish a viable democracy, and that’s a long, hard road. Americans are in the mind-bogglingly self-destructive process of letting a real democracy slip away.
I had lunch with the historian Howard Zinn just a few weeks before he died in January 2010. He was chagrined about the state of affairs in the U.S. but not at all daunted. “If there is going to be change,” he said, “real change, it will have to work its way from the bottom up, from the people themselves.”
I thought of that as I watched the coverage of the ecstatic celebrations in the streets of Cairo.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/opinion/12herbert.html?_r=1&hp
I agree with Herbert, too.
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Christian Thing To Do
My daughter shares with me this picture of Christians in the square protecting Muslims at prayer in Egypt:
http://yfrog.com/h02gvclj
The divergence from the intolerance, fear and bigotry so oft expressed in this country is enormous. All the more remarkable for it happening in a Muslim majority country where Coptic Christians have been under threat. And, too, an example of decency, tolerance and courage amongst the religious, at a time when strident atheists deny even the possibility.
http://yfrog.com/h02gvclj
The divergence from the intolerance, fear and bigotry so oft expressed in this country is enormous. All the more remarkable for it happening in a Muslim majority country where Coptic Christians have been under threat. And, too, an example of decency, tolerance and courage amongst the religious, at a time when strident atheists deny even the possibility.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Ron Paul: Wolves Agreeing on the Dinner Menu
It surprised some people more than it should have that Ron Paul's first witness was an outright racist celebrator of 'states' rights'. It's yet another display, for those who still need it, of the utter emptiness of libertarianism as political or moral doctrine, as philosophy, and as a basis for policy making.
Paul's take on human liberty amounts to nothing more nor less than that the liberty of the strong to act is a meaningless and empty illusion unless it trumps that of the weak to live without somebody beating the living shit out of them. Citing the fact that government power needs restraint, he refuses to accept that other actors, too, have power requiring restraint, which is one of the raisons d'etre of government in the first place. He basically demands that cigar smokers should feel free to light up in a room full of asthmatics.
The parallel to free speech comes to mind: a First Amendment absolutist refuses to let government censor, say, the right of Nazis to parade through a Jewish neighborhood, lest that same power be asserted to suppress any dissenting voice at all. It's entirely potted to view a citizen's relationship with government similarly; government is nothing if not a creature of its citizens, or, at least, that's what them there Founders' Original Intent was. And without some sort of restraint, or a human nature radically different from that seen throughout history and today, you're left with the strong contending with the weak. Not all that desirable, that, not even, in the long run, for the strong. You'd think the word would have got around...
Paul's take on human liberty amounts to nothing more nor less than that the liberty of the strong to act is a meaningless and empty illusion unless it trumps that of the weak to live without somebody beating the living shit out of them. Citing the fact that government power needs restraint, he refuses to accept that other actors, too, have power requiring restraint, which is one of the raisons d'etre of government in the first place. He basically demands that cigar smokers should feel free to light up in a room full of asthmatics.
The parallel to free speech comes to mind: a First Amendment absolutist refuses to let government censor, say, the right of Nazis to parade through a Jewish neighborhood, lest that same power be asserted to suppress any dissenting voice at all. It's entirely potted to view a citizen's relationship with government similarly; government is nothing if not a creature of its citizens, or, at least, that's what them there Founders' Original Intent was. And without some sort of restraint, or a human nature radically different from that seen throughout history and today, you're left with the strong contending with the weak. Not all that desirable, that, not even, in the long run, for the strong. You'd think the word would have got around...
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Health Savings Accounts: For Me, And Not For Thee
Health savings accounts are theoretically flawed, even if globally applied and available to all in the way that their advocates envision. They proceed out of individual savings and affect or help not at all those who can't save. More generally, they abstract money from the system which is thereby less able to provide care for the poor and unemployed.
The positive social good of insurance is a broadened risk pool's capacity to absorb catastrophic risk. This requires a risk pool composed of those less likely, as well as more likely, to need help. The profit imperative, on the other hand, demands a risk pool restricted to those less likely to file claims, and as much parsimony and delay as possible in meeting claims. Those are in conflict, and, in my view, fatally so for those looking to private insurers for solutions to health care problems. Those advocating health savings accounts play into the companies' goal of restricting risk pools, rather than a public interest in broadening them. They might be good for low-risk individuals who can save their otherwise higher insurance premiums. Not so more generally.
Another example of placing individual priorities above those of the larger polity--selfishness, some might call it--in service of the false and morally questionable notion that We're virtuous and deserving, and Their misfortunes, being Their Fault, have nothing to do with us, and We shouldn't help Them. Demonstrably false, even pragmatically, much less as a belief system which might underlie a better world, or better policy.
The positive social good of insurance is a broadened risk pool's capacity to absorb catastrophic risk. This requires a risk pool composed of those less likely, as well as more likely, to need help. The profit imperative, on the other hand, demands a risk pool restricted to those less likely to file claims, and as much parsimony and delay as possible in meeting claims. Those are in conflict, and, in my view, fatally so for those looking to private insurers for solutions to health care problems. Those advocating health savings accounts play into the companies' goal of restricting risk pools, rather than a public interest in broadening them. They might be good for low-risk individuals who can save their otherwise higher insurance premiums. Not so more generally.
Another example of placing individual priorities above those of the larger polity--selfishness, some might call it--in service of the false and morally questionable notion that We're virtuous and deserving, and Their misfortunes, being Their Fault, have nothing to do with us, and We shouldn't help Them. Demonstrably false, even pragmatically, much less as a belief system which might underlie a better world, or better policy.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Who Lost Egypt?
Roger Cohen, in today's Times, is OK on Egypt as far as he goes, calling on Israel to transcend rejection and fear. But he doesn't once mention the fact that much foreign policy, especially that based on fear rather than engagement, arises as much from domestic political imperatives--both in Israel and the United States--as it does from a sober assessment, even a wrongheaded one, of foreign issues based on national interests.
True during the Cold War. True of the national security state and its assumptions which both parties have embraced here since the end of World War II. And, perhaps most nakedly, true of American politics after 9.11 and Israeli politics since the Rabin assassination.
Which sets up the question, should current events play out poorly, of 'who lost Egypt', paralleling a prior era's 'Who lost China?' When Mao prevailed, his victory was blamed on the small group of American diplomats who actually knew something about China, as if they were capable of influencing events in a country of 600 million people half a world away. If Egypt turns for the worse, of course, it'll be Obama's fault. If, on the other hand, things go well, it'll be part of the Reagan legacy. But in either case, it'll be played out with an eye as much on domestic politics as on actual events.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/opinion/08iht-edcohen08.html?hp
True during the Cold War. True of the national security state and its assumptions which both parties have embraced here since the end of World War II. And, perhaps most nakedly, true of American politics after 9.11 and Israeli politics since the Rabin assassination.
Which sets up the question, should current events play out poorly, of 'who lost Egypt', paralleling a prior era's 'Who lost China?' When Mao prevailed, his victory was blamed on the small group of American diplomats who actually knew something about China, as if they were capable of influencing events in a country of 600 million people half a world away. If Egypt turns for the worse, of course, it'll be Obama's fault. If, on the other hand, things go well, it'll be part of the Reagan legacy. But in either case, it'll be played out with an eye as much on domestic politics as on actual events.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/opinion/08iht-edcohen08.html?hp
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