Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The New Party System, continued.

One of the main criticisms made about liberalism by William F. Buckley, Jr. in the late 1950s was its fetishization of democracy. Process, not good governance, was the end sought. The corrollary by his colleague at National Review, James Burnham, was that liberalism was so committed to process that it would cheerfully grant a free hand to its assassins. What he meant was that liberalism was obsessed with rights and would have no defense against forces that did not share liberalism's values. Burnham presented a metaphorical illustration of a referree's dillemma in officiating a game where one team is biting, gouging, and just trying to break up the game. What to do? Ignore the rules and eject the team that does not give a damn about the rules? Or ignore the bad behavior?
These were observations of an old order, a time when there were liberals in both parties. These ideas about rules were not about partisanship or policy, just an American sense of fair play and the importance of the individual. Despite what you may have heard, there was plenty of partisanship in the 1950s. McCarthy's entire crusade of vicious red-baiting was about attacking liberals, not finding actual communists. And communists were the disruptive team Burnham had in mind.
It is ironic that Burnham's conservatives have morphed into using the same disruptive tactics as their rightly-reviled communist witch agents. They undermine faith in our institutions, intentionally lie about their intentions to sow chaos, all to hasten the inevitable revolution. It is not that Burnham did not understand this, in his early days he was a Trotskyist, he just could not see the enemies to his right. Burnham even titled an essay (I don't remember the original French) "no enemies to the left." Liberals, he argued, could not see communists as bad because they were on the same side of the ideological spectrum. Nonsense of course, plenty of influential liberals such as Reinhold Niebuhr and Arthur Schlesinger understood that communists were antithetical to their ideas, but fascism and theocracy had been thoroughly discredited and not thought to be of any concern.
These guys... are all dead now. There are no ideas in politics anymore, just soundbites and slogans. The once proud Democratic Party... what do they stand for today? Perhaps some vague references to education and healthcare, but no continuing narrative. Those political consultants that get such big paydays for coming up with "Hope and Change" should really read Drew Westen. What is even the core constituancy for the Democratic Party? Educated professionals?
http://www.amazon.com/Pity-Billionaire-Hard-Times-Unlikely-Comeback/dp/0805093699
http://nymag.com/news/features/gop-primary-heilemann-2012-3/
http://www.alternet.org/election2012/154242/Agenda_for_the_Dark_Ages%3A_GOP_Frontrunner_Rick_Santorum%27s_5_Most_Extremist_Themes_/?page=3
http://www.theprovocation.net/2012/02/fractured-republican-party-could-go-way.html
http://crooksandliars.com/tina-dupuy/gop-2012-pro-fiction-campaign
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/08/will-tea-get-cold/

Monday, February 27, 2012

The New Party System

American history has been marked by alignments, realignments, and transitions in party coalitions. It is untidy, but given the varied interests and social groups backing either party, the process functioned remarkably well over an inclusive timespan. When the aggregate interests represented by a political party becomes too narrow to be competetive nationally, it dies with a whimper. The Democratic party started as the Republican party, then they became the Democratic-Republicans, and finally just the Democratic party. While the name remained the same after the early Nineteenth Century, Democrats have restructured their coalition of groups several times in the last two hundred years. By contrast, the opposition Federalists and Whig parties fell apart before finally incorporating as the Republican party with a lasting legacy. The ideology or guiding philosophy changes over time as well.
The first of these was the transmogrification of the Federalists, the only genuinely aristocratic and conservative force in American history, into the Whigs. This reversed the alignment from aristocratic defenders of privilege as the responsible statesmen into the opposition of perceived royalism of "King" Andrew Jackson. The Age of Jackson is known to most historians as the age of the common man, an extension of democracy and the franchise to white men who hadn't had a stake in government before. But, in an alternate perception that is the thesis of this post, the opposition viewed Jackson and his Democrats as both an enthronement of a monarch and rule by mob. Thus the Whigs took their name for the British faction opposing royal power. After Jackson, the Democratic Party reconfigured as well, from Jefferson's yeomanry and Jackson's craftsmen and traders, slowly and inexorably into the southern party that reinterpreted slavery as a positive good.
As the Democratic Party became the representatives of southern privilege, often electing "Doughfaces" to the Presidency who were Northern men with Southern principles, it became radical as well. Fireaters were passionate defenders of slave power and pushed relentlessly to expand that power and the reach of slavery. The regional balance unraveled in this radicalization as well as the disorganization of opposition, leading to the Civil War. The Republican party emerged from a decade of chaos outside of the ruling Democrats, unifying opponents of slavery behind a rather moderate and inclusive platform.
These are just a few examples of the shifting political landscape in America. The ironic fact is that differing perceptions of where power actually lies drives the party structure more than tangible principles. Irony extends when the diversity of America is recognized, distilling the many viewpoints into two parties, one in power and one in opposition. The stability of our system is well-served by the two-party system, but woefully inadequate to address issues we portend to honor. As vehicles to peacefully transfer power however, the two-party system is an admirable accomplishment. An historian with the long-view can testify to the horror of intrigue, conspiracy, plots, coups, assasinations, and bloody civil wars that were a regular part of human politics before the republican experiment.
The very enshrinement of peaceful transfer of power as tradition has brought about its own troubles in modern America. Perception by partisans, regardless of facts or any kind of empirical evidence, of absolute evil in the other side has increasingly stratified American politics. This is especially true on the Republican side by the simple smell test. When president g. w. bush passed the Patriot Act and other measures that gave government unprecedented, LEGAL, authority to intrude and interfere with the lives of regular citizens, conservatives applauded. But they reacted with horror and delusions of self-pity and perceived victimization when these new powers were retained by the new Democratic administration.
Perception for independents is actually even more ominous. Because if one side is seen to screw up, there is only one alternative to turn to. However, Democrats and Republicans are not equivalent. There is no real Yin and Yang quality to the right and left. Democrats actually believe in governing and the public sector, they do want society to function even if they are almost completely unable to explain why. Democrats believe in democracy and understand at some level that power corrupts. It is not simply belief that drives regulation, but empirical evidence that private business will cut corners and harm people if not restrained by law. Too often they accept the false premises of the right and business power, however, and go along with the stripping of laws to protect "externals."
Republicans have no constraining sense of public duty or service. They can and will sabotage anything they cannot privatize for profit, even turning important elements of national defense over to private companies. Where Democrats feel some sense of responsibility for the public sector, Republicans have proved over and over that they are willing, in fact eager, to shoot the hostage. John Dewey once said that government (or politics) is the shadow cast over society by business. It is the singular achievement of Republicans not only to convince conservatives that the opposite is true, but to focus all anger at real injustice upon the government. Then, convince conservatives to send Republicans to government so they can do battle with the beast. When in reality, what Republicans have reconfigured government to do is closer to what Mussolini described as the purpose of fascism, the conscious alignment and blending of government and business power.
Perceptions of the parties themselves by their leaders, or establishment, however it may be termed, is also important. Republicans are idealists, in the most cynical way possible. They have demonstrated time and again that shrinking government, their professed goal, is not their true objective. The objective is to capture the beast government, crack it open, and distribute the goodies to their real constituancy, loyal businesses. Their idealism lies in an absolute belief in their natural right to rule, ends justify the means and no level of deceit or manipulation is beyond their moral system in this pursuit. Democrats, on the other hand, perpetually see themselves as an endangered species. This is the reason for the schitzophenic words and actions of the Democratic party whether in power or opposition. They have no natural constituancy the way Republicans do, having jettisoned labor and any coherent ideological system. So, in defending the public sector that some instinct drives them to feel responsibility for, they consistantly try to appease the opposition and salvage crumbs of the once proud New Deal.
This is the party system of the twenty-first century, one side divinely inspired to destroy and wreck all aspects of civilization while sincerely believing they are the just, another side whimpering all alone and completely bewildered. The Republican party knows that no matter how insane they are, or appear to be, if they lie, cheat, and steal hard enough they will always get back into the driver's seat of power. The Democratic party treads lightly, knowing that at any time business and conservative power can stomp on them and finish the job of crushing democracy once and for all.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Distress, flags and West Bend, WI

Some days you just can't make these things up. Other days, things happen and the response is so predictable it makes you think life has been reduced to caricature. Dateline: Dumbassville, WI from Monday, Feb. 13.

School’s upside-down flag was no protest

‘Distress’ display waves red flag for some

The West Bend School District wants everyone in the community to know there was no symbolic protest Monday involving the United States flag at Badger Middle School.
What was an inadvertent mishap, district officials said, was perceived by some to be a political act.
Several residents complained when they saw the flag apparently at half staff and upside down when they dropped off their children to
start the school day.
And in what could be construed as a commentary on the strained relationship between members of this Republican-majority community and its teachers, some jumped to the conclusion the flipped flag must have been an intentional protest by at least one member of the school staff. Monday marked the one
year anniversary of Gov. Scott Walker’s “Act 10” bill, which restricted the ability of public employee unions to negotiate contracts.
The United States Flag Code requires a “flag shall be flown at half-staff upon the death of principal figures of the United States Government and the Governor of a state, territory, or possession, as a mark of
respect to their memory” ... and “should never be displayed with union (the blue field of stars) down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property,” wrote district resident Mary Pat Roth in an email sent to the Daily News and District Superintendent Ted Neitzke.
“To display the flag in this manner for any other reason is disrespectful to the flag, our country and to the men and women who fought to keep our country safe.”
Roth called seeing the flag in that state a “disturbing sight.”
This flag flap was an accident caused by wear and tear, Neitzke said.
The flag pole at Badger is lighted, so the flag is always flying, the district superintendent said. “Over the weekend, a grommet wore out” and “a clasp wore through” the flag, he said.
That dropped the flag down and it ended up fluttering in the wind upside down because it “was only hanging from the bottom,” he said.
“By 8 a.m. it was down, repaired and back up,” he said, flying right-side up and at full mast.

Since there was a Saturday event at Badger and no one noticed anything wrong with the flag, Neitzke said, the best guess is the flag flipped sometime Sunday or early Monday morning.
“I have no reason in the world to believe it was anything else than that,” he said.
However, that explanation was not good enough for some, including Roth, who wrote:
“I immediately placed a call to Badger Middle School, and spoke with Andi Pintens (an office assistant) to inquire as to the reason for this inappropriate dis
play. She informed me that ‘the wind turned the flag upside down and lowered it half staff’ and that ‘it was now fixed.’
“Mr. Neitzke, you and I both know the wind can do many things. One thing it cannot do is fly a flag upside down at half staff.

“Considering this is the one-year anniversary of the budget war between Gov. Walker and the unions, with the unions allegedly planning to demonstrate at the Capital and at his home, it is my belief that ‘someone’ decided to use the flag at Badger Middle School to make a statement.”
Neitzke said there is a locked box protecting the flag pole rope and pulley from vandalism, which only one member of Badger’s maintenance staff can unlock.
“I am proud to have many family members who have fought to keep our nation free,” Roth wrote. “I do not want my children to go to school and learn that teacher’s collective bargaining privileges are a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

She concluded her email: “Consider this letter a formal complaint. I ask that you look into this situation, learn who the responsible person(s) are, discipline accordingly, and respond to this email with the affirmation of these requests. I await your response.”
Neitzke said besides receiving similar emails from Roth and others, he was also contacted by Scott [sic, Mark] Belling, a conservative radio personality in Milwaukee, asking about the flag protest. On his blog Boots & Sabers, Daily News columnist Owen Robinson had this to say under the heading “Distress Call” Monday afternoon: “I’ve heard that the American Flag was being flown at half mast and upside down in front of Badger Middle School in West Bend this morning. Today is the anniversary of the introduction of Act 10. Does anyone have a picture?”  Responding to Robinson’s request, Kewaskum’s prominent conservative, Kevin Scheunemann, a village trustee, responded: “Even if you catch a picture ... school district may say its (sic) honor to Whitney Houston, which may be worse than if it was done for Act 10.
“Balancing the state budget, getting control over the out of control union rules and benefits for local units of government is now a tragedy?
“If it is, the public school is truly failing to educate, just on this issue alone.”
Other blog viewers expressed similar doubts Monday’s flag display was an accident.
Neitzke said the district’s teachers are professionals and would not do such a thing.
Displaying the American flag at Badger 24/7 on weekends might have to end, just to avoid any future misunderstanding like this, Neitzke said.
While he understands people’s suspicions in today’s political climate and accepts their right to email anyone they choose, Neitzke said, it is disappointing people “just assumed it was a protest.”
He said, “It broke and now no one believes me. It’s sad.” 

   

If you can stomach it, I invite you to look at the comments for "concerned citizens" at BS (linked). Then, if you haven't already, read Richard Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Here is the essay in PDF format that is expanded and unabridged.
It is rather difficult to find a relevent analogy for what this situation is. As is the norm, most denizens of West Bend are pretty aloof to politics. On the one hand there is a minority of extremists who feel the town's librarians, teachers, social workers, and so on are an occupation army indoctrinating the young. On the other, a small number of residents who support the efforts of these professionals to educate and enlighten. Most of these fine citizens are not native to Washington County, as are the educators. Perhaps the situation is more akin to missionaries in a hostile land, trying to civilize the barbarians. It is suprizing that ginny, mary, kevin, and the other barbarian chieftains are able to use a computer but they must have been receptive to some sort of education at some point. Given their vicious, paranoid attitude toward the "outsiders" where everything is a conspiracy to pry them away from their backward beliefs, it is suprizing they can communicate at all.
Any rational educator would look at this hostile environment and immediately abandon them to clicking and grunting their way back to barbarism, living in mud huts and wearing only the hides of animals they can catch. This is a city so hostile to public services that simple maintenance of things they supposedly care about, like the flag, has become difficult. And when entropy sets in, it is not the result of starving schools of the resources they need to even minimally function because of hostility to taxes, but those bad, greedy teachers feebly protesting our fearless leader.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Because last year's models are already obsolete.

A handy guide for all of you who believe the woman in the toothpaste ad is really jumping up and down excited over that "just from the dentist feeling." Or that this brand of beer will cause loads of bikini-clad young women to spontaneously show up to party with you. Or that the gas-guzzling SUV really can climb the sheer cliff. Lying in creative ways is the American way. So the next time you see a political campaign ad, remember that the same people who have been lying about how great this product is to sell it to you has had over a century now to package and manipulate the electorate in excitingly deceitful ways.

What Republicans Say:

What Republicans Mean:

We believe in building a more prosperous America and in the concept of trickle-down economics.We believe in allowing the richest 1% of Americans to manipulate the tax code and judicial rulings in their favor so that they can grow wealthier.

We know increased profits don’t lead to job creation, but our attitude is “So What! Survival of the Fittest.”
Corporations are people.While this is obviously a false statement (it’s like saying trees are birds), shielding corporations with Constitutional rights granted to people lets them hide in the shadows while they game the system – and buy elections.
I will do everything within my power to make Barack Obama a one-term president.It’s really getting to be a drag the way Obama is trying to protect the middle class from steep cuts to health programs and education. It’s us or them.

We need to make entitlement cuts in order to keep the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% (which, through next year, will have cost the nation more than double the sum of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.) It will be much easier to eliminate Medicare and preserve tax breaks for the rich with a Republican in the White House.
Raising the debt ceiling is irresponsible fiscal policy and it writes Obama a blank check.The best way to gut social services and cut big government off at the knees is by triggering a default – or at least taking it hostage. The money will run out and the cuts will come.

Moreover, some voters will be easily fooled into blaming the credit downgrade on the sitting President – and not the GOP no-compromise brinksmanship which actually caused it.Congress has to approve spending allocations so there’s no “blank check” (Listen up, Bachmann.) But since wiser lawmakers did vote to raise the debt limit in August, we’re stuck paying on our existing debt, funding departments like the FDA, and mailing Social Security and veterans’ checks – at least for the time being.
We want to preserve Medicare for future generations.We want to ensure that the wealthy and their heirs can benefit from more tax breaks, now and in future generations.To adjust for decreased revenue we’ll have to cut government spending, so we’ll pick-pocket from seniors’ Medicare benefits to make our cushy financial cushion.

We’ll start by giving seniors a $6,000 voucher to buy private insurance, which is enough to cover the yearly premium for a healthy 40-year-old in 2011, and then eventually wean them offthat crutch.
We will not accept any tax hikes on job creators or the American People – for any reason.All high-income earners are automatically job creators, it doesn’t matter if the companies they own are cutting jobs as profits increase, or if they’re outsourcing jobs rather than employing Americans.

Let’s pretend that the statutory tax rate is what corporations pay and ignore that our effective corporate tax rate (25.2% in 2004 before stimulus cuts) is lower than corporate rates in countries like Germany, Canada, India, China, Brazil, Japan and Italy. As long as we focus on the “job creator” talking point, most of America won’t check our math – or call our bluff that tax reform will cause more businesses to move abroad.
Obama’s idea of a balanced budget will bankrupt America.The Republican idea of balance is when the rich and powerful pursue a life of luxury while their employees labor for stagnant wages and decreasing benefits.

The rich of this nation shall not continue to open their pocketbooks to help fund programs like nutrition assistance for low-income women and children, children’s health insurance programs, Medicaid, Medicare, public schools, and health and retirement benefits for public workers.We can just cut that stuff. It’s not important.
Democrats are trying to corrupt our fair election process. Voter fraud is rampant and we must enact restrictive voting laws to stop Democrats from stealing the election.We heard that an analysis of all 250 claims of voter fraud alleged in the SCOTUS photo ID case (Crawford v. Marion County Election Board) found absolutely no proven cases of fraudulent votes that could be prevented by restrictive ID laws. (Meanwhile, no one’s paying attention to the proof that we stole the 2004 election.)

We’re coordinating a Jim Crow-type voter suppression effort to disenfranchise youth, elderly, disabled and minority voters. We hope to achieve a drop-off in legitimate Democratic voters that will add 3% to the Republican vote. While unethical, voter ID laws will help us to beat tight spreads in precinct after precinct on election night.
Gay people receiving the same recognition, protection and benefits as you and your spouse threatens your marriage – and endangers your children.What other people do in their relationship doesn’t impact your own relationship, and openly gay adults won’t turn your children gay if they weren’t already born gay.

But since being gay is openly stigmatized (like being black once was) we use anti-gay rhetoric to rally the conservative base. The longer Republican voters are ignorant of the fact that being gay is okay, the more often they’ll vote Republicans at the polls.
Obama is the reason unemployment is surging above 9%.We’re driving job losses in the public sector with GOP-backed budget cuts on federal and state levels. Meanwhile, the private sector is slowly but consistently adding jobs, more than 2 million in the past two years.

Also, we don’t regret that 2.4 million American jobs were outsourced from 1999-2009. Cheap labor is a big profit-booster.All that being said, blaming Obama for a weak jobs recovery is our best strategy for defeating him.
I am the most pro-life candidate.This is us rallying around another conservative flagpole that paradoxically takes a big-government, heavy-handed approach to personal family issues.

If I describe myself as the “most pro-life candidate” (like Rick Santorum or Tim Pawlenty), I want to ban abortion even in cases of child rape and incest.
I am against a government take over of health care and against death panels.The government shouldn’t advocate for consumers with health insurance companies or help keep premium costs low – those interventions restrain health industry profits.

I don’t believe health care is a right – it is a privilege for those who can afford it. I use false premises like “death panels” to manipulate people into voting the way I want.
Anything not listed aboveVote for me on election day. If you’re too slow to figure out I’m lying to you, screw you. Survival of the fittest.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Goodbye zombie, hello rocklobster

I was informed recently that there is some confusion over who has been writing this blog. Sorry about that, it did not occur to me to make some changes in the profile. I am not zombie377. I knew him back in the day, good guy, nice looking kid he's got, but he doesn't have the stomach to keep up with our continuing downward spiral. We reconnected a while back and I volunteered to take over as GH. Like the Dread Pirate Roberts from the Princess Bride. Besides, I gave him every academic's dream. To pass off someone else's work as your own. No, not really. For Christ's sake, let the boy mow your lawn.
Anyway, he's less like a zombie than a bear, so I don't know what was up with that. I'm the real zombie. My thesis was done when he started his and I'm done with the "whole navigating the academic swamp" thing for a while. That is why I am the rocklobster, scurrying about on the bottom and sifting through the crumbs.
Just thought you should know.

Bizzaro takes a holiday

The economy is terrible. But this is a major improvement over what it was when bush left office. There is simply no accurate term to define the state of the economy in December 2008, maybe fall of Rome or black death could come close. In bizzaro world however, time began in January 2009 though and any attempt by reality-based commentators to point out that republicans blamed the first bush 43 recession (and every other calamity) on President Clinton is met with eyerolls from the tea bag crowd. Their excuses never really stick in anyone's mind, mostly because the same self-victimization/bullying/lying strategies are used any time these trolls need to explain something away and try to "revise" history. "Just keep lying, eventually they'll see things our way." Unlike hysterical humans in the present though, historical humans leave a trail. Just use a condescending tone and pretend everybody knows that 2+2=5 and the objectors will wander off to a Starbucks. If you never let reality intrude, this big lie formula is the gift that keeps on giving.
So what happens when they slip up and a little reality does enter the conversation? Steve K at Salon.com wrote a bit on this inconvenient event today, while his usual hack job leaves holes big enough to drive a supertanker through, the sliver of sunlight is worth checking out.
Basically, Romney's mole people have been pulling his strings to say "Obama bad, Obama not doing anything about it" for every issue. Let's leave aside republican obstructionism for a moment and state flat out that no, Obama hasn't done nearly enough to change the permanent depression faced by the 99%. "It’s a simple game plan: Take whatever issue is on the table, connect it to the economy, and blame Obama for not fixing it. Rinse and repeat." Thanks Kornacki, you're worth every penny for that analysis.
But if the president is presiding over an economy that voters believe is improving, the magic vanishes. Which explains the awkwardness the Romney campaign faced this morning, when the most encouraging jobs report of Obama’s presidency was released. With a net increase of 243,000 jobs in January, the unemployment rate is now down to 8.3 percent, marking the fifth straight month it fell and bringing it to its lowest level since Obama’s first full month in office.
Faced with such obviously good economic news, the Romney team took its time responding, first churning out a press release on an unrelated topic (“President Obama’s attack on religious liberty”) then finally putting out a statement that read in part: “We welcome the fact that jobs were created and unemployment declined. Unfortunately, these numbers cannot hide the fact that President Obama’s policies have prevented a true economic recovery. We can do better.” A series of negative economic statistics then followed.
Besides the acknowledgement that “jobs were created,” the statement was no different than anything Romney has been saying for the entire campaign. But juxtaposed against the big news of the morning, it read as petty, and almost absurdly comical. If — and, to be clear, it’s a very big if — the good economic news continues in the months ahead, Romney’s rhetoric will only fall flatter.
Clearly, Leviathan got wired crossed somewhere. MMFA reported that the right wing water carriers stayed on message, but Romney's people let a squeaker out in the crowded elevator. Though I'm sure it will get cleaned up in the spin cycle. For bizzaro world to work, THE PUPPETEER MUST NEVER ADMIT HE DOESN'T CONTROL ALL THE STRINGS. The passive voice "jobs were created" is really puzzling, why did they spend all that time prattling on about "job-creators and their onerous taxes" if you attribute job growth to nature?
So what is a gloomy historian to do? My first thought was that "holy cow, in spite of everything the business cycle still exists." It seemed for a moment that jobs were actually being created despite the best efforts of the "job creators." After all, for a couple years it looked like the fortune 500 finally and for all time had the economy locked down. DC was open for business, even if the Ds were superficially in charge, and handouts for billionaires were forthcoming aplenty with borrowed money. Profits were stratospheric and the astroturf pitchforks were aimed at... teachers. Huh? Government spending is the problem, unemployment insurance makes people lazy and not yet desperate enough to sell themselves into slavery, and the financial collapse was the fault of unions. "Look at all these redneck beerbellies with tea bags on their silly costumes, it must be how the whole country feels, maybe I just don't get it."
Back to the real world. Coincidentally, the water carriers have had no trouble remaining in lockstep on this aspect of bizzaro world. The emergence of OWS, a movement that may be disorganized but at least they have their pitchforks pointed in the right direction, has the scaredy-cats going into paroxysms of horror. Evidenced by the massive misinformation campaign (no, they really aren't all pooping on cop cars) and intense police brutality. What if it is not enough?
If I am to maintain my rep as the gloomiest member of OAH this situation calls for some heavier speculation. It came to me as I recalled how gas prices magically went down just in time for election day the last few times around. What if, and I am simply trying to place myself in the 1%'s sinister shoes for a moment, the positive economic news is just a concession to defuse all the real anger out there? If we employ a few ringleaders, the rest of the serfs will simply melt away. The right-wing noise machine can drown out any residuals.
Alternatively, these positive jobs numbers could just be a way of raising expectations before crushing them again. Marlin fishing. Let the monster run after you've hooked him so he's all tired out before you pull him in. So many OWS protestors have a protrusion of barbed steel somewhere, bad health, credit cards, underwater mortgage, student loans on their final deferral. Sometimes the angler lets you run a bit; feel a bit of confidence that this time the job is real, stable, and long-term; before crushing your head agains the rocks. Repeat this cycle long enough and we'll be begging to sell ourselves into slavery.
At least I can laugh at how clueless Romney and his minions are today.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

"The Cold War's over, it was all a mirage."

Jello Biafra spoke those words on his seminal "Die for oil, sucker" spoken word piece. Like many things he said back then, a response to the 1991 Gulf War, it is more poignant today then when he first said it. One of the many conventional wisdom sayings of the Cold War era was that "politics stops at the water's edge" or that foreign policy was nonpartisan, and Democrats and responsible Republicans agreed on the basic idea that communism was a threat that needed to be confronted. They may disagree over strategy and tactics, containment versus rollback and so on, but national security was an issue that needed to be taken seriously and not a partisan club to thump your opponents.
But like all sayings and slogans, bipartisan foreign policy was something that sounds good but is more of an aspiration than a rule. In relative terms though, especially compared to years before and after the Cold War, the saying did hold up fairly well. It was only during times of crisis, and usually by inexperienced, opportunistic, or generally psychopathic politicians that the long knives came out. JFK's "missile gap," and refusal to condemn Joe McCarthy was somewhat due to the first, mostly to the second, but certainly not the third. McCarthy's reign of terror leaned on the third heavily, but he was mostly a drunken bully who resembled the first two as well.
It is appropro that Matt Duss, policy analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, dragged ole tailgunner joe in to introduce our latest "stab in the back" refutation of grown-up politics aspiring to live up to bipartisan foreign policy. "Who lost China?" is certainly a good comparison, but Duss neglects the more poigant comparison that still colors what passes for political debate in America, namely the aftermath of Vietnam.
Iraq's legacy is likely to have less real impact than China, but more than Vietnam. It may even show signs of undeniable reality that can pull goldfish bowl-dwelling teabags out from their world of make believe, or at least the more sober members of the republican establishment.We have heard an awful lot about this fabled establishment lately. It would be an incredible coup at this point to get some of the clowns in high places to realize the limits of American military power. At the very least, they would have to make a choice. The free ride is over. You can pursue the unadulterated tax cuts and hollowing out the economy course, or you can pursue the imperialist perogative, but not both. A decade of massive deficits has all but ensured this. Eventually you reach the limit of social program spending cuts that the public will stand, and raising taxes on the vestiges of middle-class America won't go over very well, nor would it raise enough revenue to expand the empire.
Excuse the digression. There are some superficial similarities between Iraq and Vietnam. I like to think I am a good enough historian to avoid bad generalizations though. After all, Iraq was engineered by very smart, if short-sighted and evil, draft-dodgers to avoid the pitfalls of Vietnam. That is another story however. Vietnam's legacy in public consciousness and political calculation is the relevant comparison here.
While in the 1970s there was a generalized warweariness that restrained politicians from more open-ended military adventures. Concurrently, there was an underground feeling among many that Vietnam could have been won and this manifested itself most openly in the slew of "revenge" films in the 1980s such as "uncommon valor," "missing in action," and "rambo: first blood part II." It was evidence of the enduring power of nationalism in certain parts of the populace. In Vietnam as in Iraq it was a minority that actively opposed war. Much ink has been spilled to this day for the self-interest involved in Vietnam protestors, which leads into accusations of cowardice and anti-Americanism in the "stab in the back crowd." Iraq was carefully engineered with that in mind, to keep as few people as possible from fearing the return of the draft and all it entails for loss of personal liberty. Actually, given population increases, the number of people directly affected by the war was not that much smaller than during Vietnam, but the perception that the evil king would yank you out of your personal life to fight for his oil was much lower. Accusations of cowardice and anti-Americanism were less relevant but they were joined by the lovely and classy accusation of sympathizing with terrorists.
The strength of this stab in the back faction was shown during the 2004 election where draft-dodging bush was shielded by tapping into the perception of betrayal by John Kerry. It was incredibly silly but is evidence of how complex the myth is and how much it endures. Duss points out that so far, the myth hasn't gained much traction in the larger electorate. That may change, however, as the propagandists continue to cement the idea that Iraq was won. It may take a generation, but if there is money in keeping the nationalist/imperialist myth alive you know it will continue until the worm turns again.
To close the circle, I did not mean to imply that the Cold War wasn't real, or that there wasn't a threat to freedom presented by Communism. Just that communism was a convenient excuse to justify an imperialist agenda that long predates the US. The war in Iraq is evidence that overseas interventionism and using foreign policy to bash liberals outlived the Cold War.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.

My how things change. When Will Rogers said those words above nearly ninety years ago the times really were not so different from today. There was an interregnum with the New Deal until the 1970s where, disorganized or not, Democrats at least had a purpose and were able to get elected, write laws, and tried to address problems facing the country. They were so effective that when Republicans like Eisenhower and Nixon were president they operated much the same way to defend the mish-mash hybrid system of public programs and regulated but still largely free enterprize that made the US a great and relatively just society. Regular working people were able to see the fits and tantrums thrown by business for what they were, a simple case of political "delirium tremems" as the historian Arthur Schlesinger called them. And when reforms proved not to destroy capitalism but make it more humane, the wailers who screamed that the sky was falling were ridiculed and dismissed as the crackpots they were.
So what happened? Why is the US back to being ruled by a business oligarchy exclusively and a good deal of the electorate actually believes the wails of that oligarchy's spokespeople? Is it simply the effectiveness of their propaganda? The breakdown of social bonds that used to reinforce common feelings of mutuality and support? Racial and ethnic tensions? The acceleration and increasing complexity of everyday life? Or just the lack of any organized, genuine resistance from an opposition party?
The Democrats, even when in power, for most of my lifetime have been part of the problem. Politics in America have moved on from the divisive social questions of the 1960s, yet that is the extent of issues and contention in our politics. So much energy is poured into simply defending the progress made for civil rights, women's rights, and so on that crucial economic questions just keep getting glossed over. And regular people on the right are continuously fighting the ghost of Lyndon Johnson.
So here we are again in our quaddrenial circus show. At least there is some entertainment on the republican side this year. The primaries are actually kind of interesting now that most states are awarding delegates proportionately. The longer they fight the better. On the Democratic side, the lines seem to be drawn between lukewarm support for President Obama and outright bitter hatred of him.
Bob Cesca wrote a great plea for compromise and tentative unity in the party that kind of evokes Rodgers, though I don't think Cesca can work a lasso as well.
Cesca opens by writing: "There comes a time during just about every general election cycle when a faction of progressive Democratic voters begin to harrumph and gripe about the two party system. Specifically, the following remark jumps back into popular discourse: 'we're choosing between the lesser of two evils.'" Yes, but if we could all just step back for a second and use a little reason. Who dumped who first, and does it really matter? Did Obama use and abuse the hopes of liberal activists to get into office, then toss them under the bus at the first opportunity? Did the activists simply project what they wanted to see on Obama, when he was a spineless capitulator and risk-averse wimp all along? I guess who shot first is not that important and probably would have splintered the elected from the electors in any case. Cesca argues that it is frustration with the two-party system that leads some liberals to kick out the support poles from the "big tent." Historically, he's right. No one was really happy with the scattershot reforms of FDR at the time, nor with LBJ's Great Society. It is only later, when those reforms become conservative tradition do people forget that they opposed the imperfect solutions.
"Whenever the Republicans are in charge, progressives unite to defeat and replace the Republican leadership with Democrats. But when the Democrats are in charge, progressives have a tendency to hypnotically lapse into contrarian, too-hip-for-the-room ambivalence, apathy and an 'everyone is evil' defeatism. Thus, support for Democratic Leader X is weakened -- often with disastrous consequences, the least tragic of which being a reemergence of the previously ousted Republican leadership."
Boy, if that isn't the truth. Circular firing squad comes to mind. Perfect being the enemy of the good. The sense of betrayal is particularly strong this time around, there was a strong feeling that more could have been done. After all, strong progressive moves would have simply been reversing the grosser excesses of eight years of bush [string of expletives deleted]. At this rate America will be stuck in her new gilded age for a long, long time. To say nothing of actually moving forward with progress.
Cesca recalls how Ross Perot's third party bid gave Clinton an electoral victory but not a mandate. It is difficult to say what would have happened in a strictly two way race but Perot, as Cesca advises all political activists, could have had greater influence on the inside. I remember some of the 1992 election, but mostly I remember my Dad lamenting how the Democrats were no longer the party of the working man. It was kind of a shock because he rarely talked about politics. So when 2000 came along and I was finally able to participate, that was my frame of reference and nothing during the Clinton years changed my mind.
Eight years of fraud, sabotage, eye-popping deficits, wars of aggression, corruption beyond measure later and my overarching goal now to never let that happen again. Nader may have wrote about how Democrats do not have a monopoly on progressive votes. To paraphrase, he said he "wasn't stealing votes, they weren't the Democrats' property." It is pretty easy to see how a young man could believe in a magic bullet to fix things overnight. Even if little has changed for the better since then. After all the hubbub of election entertainment, the act of voting is fairly painless. So, regardless of the perceived betrayal, I can do that little thing for the President. It is proportionately the same effort he has made on behalf of all of us. If a gloomy bum like me can make that decision ten months before election day and now have all that time to work on local stuff, can't you?

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

The Irony of Newt Gingrich

One of the first interesting lessons I learned in college was that professors with Ph.Ds were neither omniscient nor omnipotent. It was a pleasant suprize that these people whom I had built up in my mind as perfect and beyond talking to mere mortals such as myself turned out to be fallible at times, approachable, usually more than happy to talk at length with me, and generally a lot like everyone else.
Therefore, I had the slightest tinge of sympathy for Newt. However, I have also spent the better part of a year researching ethics, morality, and the responsibility of intellectuals in public life. One thing the professors I know do not do is change their views contingent on their audience. It is the nature of tenure I suppose that one can stand by their beliefs with conviction. Politics, of course, is not like that. And this may explain the dearth of true intellectuals holding or even running for office.
Tenure and the confidence it endows a professor with should not be confused with the hypocrisy, self-centered arrogance, and general conviction of invincibility that oozes from people like Newt. Tenure is supposed to be a tool allowing intellectuals with little power the ability to pursue truth wherever it may lead, not the impunity to pursue personal aggrandizement. Human nature is by definition flawed, some people can rise above self-interest to pursue greater goals, others cannot.
The irony of a conservative movement that sees all protections for those with the wrong ideas as needing to be confronted and destroyed is that they will not see the danger in protections for people on their side who seek to harm them. Newt's career has really been an ultimate expression of irony for privilege and power in the hands of the worst people imaginable.
Then there is the irony of a "movement" that supposedly prizes freedom above all backing Newt. David Neiwert, whose book The Eliminationists is a great primer for getting a grip on the "para-fascist" tendencies in the extreme right in America, points the irony out of redefining freedom in such an obtuse way.
So, I used to have some respect for Newt because getting a Ph.D is not easy. Then I read this story about his work averse path to a doctorate, and well, throw that out the window as well. This is close to the most dispicable man alive. That anyone can enthusiastically support his candidacy for office is an incredibly sad commentary on the state of the republic.