Rob Rites

Karl Rove, Master Psychologist

2012-01-02T16:36:00.000-08:00

I'm a big fan of Steven Pinker, the Harvard cognitive scientist who's given us such great books as The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, and his latest, The Better Angels of Our Nature. All highly recommended if you're interested in what makes us humans tick.

One of Pinker's core tenets is that evolution has equipped us with a set of "mental modules"—specialized bits of programming that endow us with basic human traits. There's one for simple math, another for finding our way home, another for detecting when other people are lying, one for handling language, and so on. Since these modules have essentially been layered on top of each other through the eons, they don't always mesh very well, and sometimes are in outright opposition (which can explain why we often feel conflicted about things).

The sum total of all these modules is what Pinker calls "human nature," and it's remarkably constant through (recent) time and throughout cultures worldwide. You can study it, figure out how it works, and use it to make predictions about how people will react in a given situation. One simple example will suffice: everywhere in the world, people have sensitive "unfairness detectors," and if they perceive that someone is being greedy, they will try to punish that person—even if it costs them something personally. (The technical term for this trait is "altruistic punishment".)

All of which is a long setup for my recent thought about that guy progressives love to hate: Karl Rove. The master political strategist responsible for putting George W. Bush in the White House and keeping him there for 8 years.

Here's the puzzling thing about Rove: how does he get away with the stunts he pulls? He promotes outright falsehoods with impunity, and never seems to pay a price for it. He attacks his political enemies viciously and generally leaves them with their jaws wagging, babbling incoherently and ineffectually. He seems immune to counterattacks. How does he do it?

Well, I was reading some blog yesterday and came across something called Karl Rove's 3 Principles of Politics (I'd provide a link but don't have one). And it made me think of Pinker and his notion that humans are essentially pre-programmed to respond in certain ways to situations.

So I dropped Steve an email. And here it is (minus some irrelevant chitchat):

Dear Dr. Pinker, 

This message is prompted by something I just saw on a blog,
called "Karl Rove's 3 Principles of Politics". They are: 
1. Attack your opponent's strength from your weakness. 
2. Accuse your opponent of doing what you're doing. 
3. Be worse than anyone can imagine.

It seems to me this gets it about right. Rove's remarkable
success is mystifying, since by all normal standards he
"shouldn't" be able to get away with saying the things he
does. Pondering the above principles, it occurs to me that
Rove has figured out how to use our innate cognitive
faculties against us.

An example of what I mean: let's posit that humans innately
(and in this case, rationally) believe that an opponent
would normally only attack from a position of strength
(barring cases of "backs against the wall" desperation).
So if Rove accuses, say, Democrats of being captive to
special interests, we intuitively feel "He wouldn't say
that if he was himself vulnerable to the same accusation."
And therefore we tend to lend undeserved credence to his
claim. Outraged Democrats may attempt to point out the
deception (though they too seldom do), but Rove has already
won the argument.

Same general idea with the "Be worse than anyone can imagine"
principle: when Rove says something particularly outrageous,
our innate tendency is to think "Wow, nobody would say such a
terrible thing if there wasn't some truth to it!" We literally
can't imagine that it could be a total fabrication—nobody is
that brazenly dishonest. So once again he wins before the
argument even starts. And of course he phrases his attacks in
such a way that the victim is forced to respond with sometimes
complicated explanations of the actual facts, and as they say
in politics, if you're explaining, you're losing.

So I'll end by restating the premise/question: Can Rove's
remarkable and seemingly unlikely success be explained by the
fact that he has learned how to hijack human cognitive biases
and use them against us to advance his positions? And if this
is right, how could anyone effectively answer him, hopefully
without sinking to his level?

I haven't heard back yet; if I do I'll update this.

You heard it here first: Occupygate

2011-11-17T16:18:00.000-08:00

Just as, after the Watergate episode, every scandal now ends with the nonsensical "gate", it now appears that every political or even quasi-political protest involves "occupying" something—I just read about "Occupy Flash"—referring to an obscure bit of computer technology.

So the first time one of these protest movements gets embroiled in a scandal, we'll be seeing—you guessed it—Occupygate!

The problem with conservative arguments

2011-09-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

Many years ago I read a quote (no idea by whom) that went approximately like this:

The fundamental, fatal problem with conservative arguments is that they address a reality that no longer exists.

My favorite example is the fond desire among conservatives for "abstinence-only" sex education. The raw fact is that, no matter what some moralizing preacher may say, kids today don't practice strict abstinence (if they ever did), and there is no realistic scenario under which they will start. So arguing that we should rely on teaching it is just whistling in the wind: you might as well argue that we should all live like Amish people.

Now, living like the Amish might be a fine idea, but the fact is that it just ain't going to happen. Staking your worldview on something like abstinence is doomed to fail, is a waste of time, and in fact, relying on it would only increase the demand for the social conservatives' biggest target: abortion.

I guess what you could perhaps say is that adhering to these reactionary positions may serve to "move the Overton window," in other words, may shift the center of gravity of the debate in their desired direction. Maybe some conservatives are realistic enough to realize that they are advocating hopeless positions for strategic reasons. But I tend to doubt it.

5-Hour Energy to the rescue!

2011-09-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

I was struck by a TV commercial for "5-Hour Energy" that I saw recently. It showed a woman fighting off sleep at her desk, eventually rescued by downing a little bottle of this stuff, which I think is the typical mix of caffeine, sugar and such. Thusly perked up, she's able to get through her afternoon. What a relief! Thank you, 5-Hour Energy!

How great. She's probably exhausted from working two minimum-wage jobs to try to make ends meet, and I'll bet you she doesn't get sick days or vacation. Pension? Don't make me laugh.

The best part is, from the employer's standpoint, that she has to buy her own dope to keep going. The boss doesn't even have to provide it.

Is the whole "energy drink" phenomenon a symptom of our oppression? Nothing like making huge profits off social pathology, eh?

Financial transparency isn't enough

2011-05-12T08:02:00.000-07:00

It was good to hear Obama today continuing to fight (well, OK, it's the Obama version of "fighting," which isn't likely to leave any lasting marks) for financial reform. He noted that greater transparency of financial transactions might have prevented the meltdown.

Well, transparency is a very worthy goal, but it isn't enough. I've just read Ha-Joon Chang's 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (recommended), and he makes this point very strongly (Chang is the Oxford economics professor well known for pointing out the hypocrisy of rich countries who lecture developing countries about the need to "open their markets.")

Chang's argument is simply this: even if we had perfect transparency, today's financial markets are just far too complicated for any person—even the economist's mythical "rational man"—to fully understand and deal with. This was dramatically illustrated by the meltdown, when it became obvious that even the top executives of financial firms had only the dimmest understanding of the hypercomplex investments their underlings were trading by the hundreds of billions.

As Chang says, the only hope we have of dealing with this complexity is to make simplifying assumptions: to "deliberately restrict our freedom of choice in order to reduce the complexity of problems we have to face."

This leads directly to the money quote:

Often, government regulation works, especially in complex areas like the modern financial market, not because the government has superior knowledge but because it restricts choices and thus the complexity of the problems at hand, thereby reducing the possibility that things may go wrong.

An example: it was a choice of the banksters to operate with 30X leverage. Given their confidence that they were too big to fail, you could even argue that it was a rational choice (further encouraged, let's admit, by the irrational glory of being the baddest gunslinger in town). Had the government regulators simply restricted this choice (and perhaps a few other similarly irresponsible ones), we wouldn't have had to do the hated bailouts or cope with the Great Recession.

And one final key point: even if you grant the free marketeers that an unregulated market works best for that market, there is obviously no guarantee that what's best for that market is best for the society as a whole.

Free marketeers argue that government regulation can only gum things up, since the gummint can't possibly know the workings of the market as well as the players in it. Chang's point is that sometimes that's a good thing.

So: transparency, yes. But watchful regulation too.

Time for the charts and graphs, Mr. President?

2009-11-14T10:24:00.000-08:00

Anyone old enough to have followed the candidacy of Ross Perot probably remembers how the media mocked and smirked at him for using charts and graphs in his TV addresses to the voters. How could anyone be so dense? The public doesn't have enough attention span to even look at, much less understand, your slides!

Then someone actually polled this and discovered that the public liked the charts and graphs. Of course, the media studiously ignored that finding. Presumably the talking heads were bored by actual information, so they naturally assumed that the "common people" they claim to represent must be also. And in the meantime, Perot's candidacy went down in flames for other reasons.

Fast forward to today. The issues that Obama is grappling with are big and complex. Before the public can get behind any solutions, they have to understand the problems. The media are useless for this: they'll provide nothing but "he said, she said" (i.e., "balanced") reporting. If Obama says one thing and John Boehner says the opposite, they'll give equal weight to both claims.

Maybe it's time to bring out the charts and graphs.

If you saw "An Inconvenient Truth," I'll bet the same image sticks in your mind that stuck in mine: Gore's simple trend line graph showing the rise in atmospheric CO2 over the years. It was a dramatic illustration of the problem, and it's very hard for Inhofe and the other deniers to just dismiss it. It was, in short, persuasive!

I think that similar kinds of hard data, graphically presented, could be equally persuasive on the economy, education, financial reform—all the big issues that Obama has to argue about with idiots.

If it's "I claim this" and "You claim that", it's easy for voters to dismiss it as just politics. But if it's "I claim this, and here's a dramatic illustration that proves it," it's much harder to ignore. And educational experts will tell you that the most effective way to communicate is with words and pictures.

So how about it, Mr. President? Why not try backing up your great rhetoric with equally great illustrations? What could it hurt?

(A really good way to start: bring in Edward Tufte, the guru of visual presentation of data, as a consultant.)

This Time, We Can't Leave the Middle Class Behind

2009-08-12T14:09:00.001-07:00

Another sad example of what passes for economic thinking ("We've got to get the GDP up!")

Eric Zencey is only the latest person to deconstruct the notion that GDP measures anything useful or important, writing in last Sunday's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/opinion/10zencey.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

When the GDP blips up, all the pundits say "we're in recovery." As Zencey notes, this is like holding a match to a thermometer and concluding that the room is getting warmer. Or, put far more elegantly, it's a "fallacy of misplaced concreteness."

GDP has to go. It contributes enormously to the destruction of the environment by failing to account for the costs of the loss of natural capital. If we want to keep it around for sentimental reasons, it should be renamed "Gross Domestic Transactions."
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

My Personal Physician

2009-06-28T23:37:00.000-07:00

If I should ever in this life reach that benighted state where I both desire and can afford my very own "personal physician," I hope someone will do me the favor of just shooting me right then and there.

The recent death of Michael Jackson made me think: doesn't it seem like those celebrities and other rich folk who find it convenient to keep a sawbones on staff tend to die (a) young, (b) under somewhat dodgy circumstances, or (c) both of the above? I'll bet there's a negative correlation between longevity and how easily accessible your doctor is (only up to a point, of course; poor people obviously have the opposite problem, and they too often die young too).

It's not really hard to understand what happens. In medical school, young doctors-in-training are provided with a toolkit and taught how to use it. Once it was a little black bag, but increasingly these days, it's a prescription pad. It seems there's a drug for just about everything, and they're meant to be prescribed and used, by golly (my all-time personal favorite is the drug that was flogged on TV as a cure for "social anxiety disorder": basically an anti-shyness pill, as if a couple of shots of Tequila couldn't do the trick. In my youth I probably would've popped those things like jelly beans, but somehow I muddled shyly through without chemical aids.)

Now take a self-absorbed, narcissistic star, add a captive physician just down the hall, and you've got a recipe for massive pharmacological intervention. "Doc, I've got a headache!" "Doc, my back hurts!" "Doc, I couldn't sleep last night!" Out comes the scrip pad yet again, and into the star's body goes yet another powerful chemical—often an addictive one. Soon you're taking drugs to combat the undesirable side effects of other drugs. And it's all perfectly legal, thanks to your Personal Physician.

It's a slippery slope indeed, and once you're on that path, it seems to be just about impossible to get off it. In a sense, the doctor is as trapped as the patient—hired like any other employee to keep the employer happy, and using the only methods he or she knows. Typically, the cocktail of medications continues to get more potent, until the patient's body simply can't take it any more.

Most people have their good days and their bad days. But if you're a star of the caliber of Michael Jackson or Elvis, you may come to expect, and demand, that every day should be a good day. After all, you're special. You deserve it.

And if you have to hire your own doctor to get it, so be it.

An Odd Email Phenomenon

2009-04-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

For the last year or two, I've been conducting a sort of informal experiment with my email. I'm kind of old-school, and while I try to keep my messages telegram-short in respect of Internet-age attention spans, sometimes a message just takes whatever it takes to communicate. Sort of like those, you know, letters from ancient times.

I've always been liberal with the use of postscripts (no, not the printing language!) in my letters. Where else are you going to put those "oh, by the way" tidbits? In fact, I confess that in my passive-aggressive mode, sometimes the most important (or controversial) part of my messages is saved for the "P.S."

Here's the deal: I can't offhand recall a single time when anybody has responded to a comment or question I've put in the postscript of an email. It's like they're invisible! This is extraordinary to me. I mean, come on, people, are you really so time-stressed that you almost unconsciously decide that anything in a P.S. can't be that important, and it's OK to just ignore?

The experiment continues, but I'm not optimistic.

P.S. Gotcha!

It's the usury, stupid.

2009-04-28T15:02:00.000-07:00

(cross-posted here)

Labor lawyer, progressive activist, and recent candidate for Rahm Emanual's House seat Tom Geoghegan has a great article in April Harper's, entitled Infinite Debt: How unlimited interest rates destroyed the economy.

I tend to be skeptical of "All-our-problems-are-due-to-(insert favorite bugaboo here)" screeds, but Geoghegan make a pretty convincing case that the removal of interest rate ceilings was the main trigger for the runaway expansion of the financial industry that got us where we are today.

The nut of the argument is pretty basic: as long as the government capped interest rates at something reasonable, financial services wasn't the most exciting place to be: the real action was in manufacturing.

And then we dismantled the most ancient of human laws, the law against usury, which had existed in some form in every civilization from the time of the Babylonian Empire to the end of Jimmy Carter's term…that's when we found out what happens when an advanced industrial economy tries to function with no cap at all on interest rates.

Here's what happens: the financial sector bloats up…capital gushes out out of manufacturing and into banking. When banks get 25 percent to 30 percent on credit cards, and 500 or more percent on payday loans, capital flees from honest pursuits, like auto manufacturing. Sure, GM is awful. Sure, it doesn't innovate. But the people who could have saved GM and Ford went off to work at AIG, or Merrill Lynch, or even Goldman Sachs.…we shrank manufacturing. We got rid of labor. Now it's just the banks.

Geoghegan points out that when Reagan left office (when interest rates were just beginning to really take off), the financial sector was "earning" 18% of all U.S. corporate profits. By 2002–2003, that had climbed to over 40%.

Everything followed from this. The bloating of the financial sector helped create the growing U.S. trade deficit, which brought in a flood of cheap money for borrowing—which helped further bloat the financial sector…Capital flowed out of manufacturing, with its "low" profits, and into the financial sector, where profits were much higher. We became less competitive in manufacturing because we could not accept the lower rate of profit—not vis-a-vis our competitors in Mexico, but vis-a-vis our competitors in New York City.

Geoghegan places the blame on three major changes:

The stripping of the power of labor. Since 1972, worker productivity has nearly doubled, but wages have remained flat or declined. This isn't supposed to happen, and led to a paradoxical situation in which, as the economy grew, individuals were actually becoming worse off: working harder, with less leisure, they tried to fill the hole in their lives by buying things they couldn't afford.
The ability of corporations to walk away from their obligations to their current and former employees. "…[R]ight around the time Reagan took office, companies began to figure out that they could go in and out of Chapter 11 in order to dump their obligations…Sure people stopped saving. Planning for the future no longer made much sense.…as they lost their rights as creditors [to their employers] in court, they were just in time to trade in their union cards for credit cards."
The legalization of usury, a process that happened over several years around the start of the Reagan era. With no cap on rates, millions of consumers became permanent prisoners of debt, and with lending so incredibly profitable, banks abandoned the ancient moral principle that loans must be repaid. This made the worst credit risks suddenly the most attractive customers, and led to the deluge of credit card offers that clog our mailboxes.

To maintain the obscene profits it had become addicted to, the bloated financial industry needed a continuous stream of new and highly profitable "products" to sell. So they dreamed up credit default swaps and all the other alphabet soup that are now sinking the economic ship.

What to do? Geoghegan has a number of ideas, including the establishment of state-owned banks, the cancellation of some consumer debt (especially in cases where the borrower has already paid more in interest than the amount of the principal), and an increase in Social Security benefits to "inject equity" directly into the accounts of working people and help make up for defaulted private pensions.

We could aim to reach that goal gradually, over the next twenty years, but even announcing the goal encourages future-oriented thinking. It would encourage people to believe that they could invest in real things again, instead of pinning their hopes on the false and predatory promise of a big, Vegas-style payout. The promise of a real public pension that people can live on would lead fewer of us to chase bubbles in good times, even as it gave all of us the confidence to keep spending when times were bad.

Geoghegan's bottom line: European-style social democracy beats America's casino economy.

Letter to a Friend

2009-03-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

Background: I received an email yesterday from a friend. It was a forwarded "petition to Obama" to stop the granting of Social Security benefits to illegal aliens(!) Supposedly Congress voted for this and now Obama was being called upon to stop it.
I smelled a rat and Googled "social security illegal aliens". The very first hit was the expected item on Snopes.com debunking this bogus campaign, which has apparently been in circulation for going on 3 years (it long predates Obama). Below is my response to my friend.

You have to ask yourself how plausible claims like this are. Why would a Senator vote for something like they claimed in that email? To win the votes of some illegal aliens? But illegal aliens can't vote*. All the Senator would be doing is handing his or her opponent a knife to stab them with in the next re-election campaign. Most politicians are smart enough to figure that out (although I must say that watching the recent antics of the Limbaugh-worshipping Republicans is making me wonder).

I believe that the people who pass these emails around have a very clear agenda: to destroy the citizens' faith in any and all government. This is one of the biggest things that Obama, bless him, has to fight against: ever since Reagan started campaigning 30 years ago, the public has been bombarded with the message that government is inherently inept, corrupt, and incapable of getting anything right. The Republicans' eternal solution is deregulation and tax cuts: programs that benefit the rich and screw everybody else. (This is the inherent contradiction in Republican ideology: why would you entrust the operation of the government to people who don't believe that government can work? For the answer, see Bush, George W.)

The Republicans have flat-out admitted that their strategy is to obstruct everything Obama tries to do. Rush hopes he fails, remember? And yet they wave the flag and brag about their "patriotism."

Don't help the bastards, OK?

(I wish you'd send this to your list.)

--Rob

*The nonexistent problem of "voter fraud" is another big Republican lie.

The lights burn late into the night in Manhattan

2008-09-22T09:22:00.000-07:00

Don't you just know that all over Manhattan this past weekend, the swells in their Armani suits were burning the midnight oil? They were combing through the language of the government's proposed bailout plan, looking for an angle…

No doubt a number of them had similar "Aha!" moments. Let's see: if we package some of these new government bailout bonds, mix in a little heavily-discounted bad paper, apply 20X leverage, and come up with a fancy new acronym, why, we just might be able to create—wait for it—A BRAND-NEW DERIVATIVE "PRODUCT"! Think of the commissions! Think of the easy profits! And hell, if it all goes south, the Feds will bail out the bailout! I'll be able to afford that summer place in the Hamptons after all!

Don't you just know it?

The Gasoline Tragedy, Revisited

2008-04-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

The letter I just sent to the Seattle Times:

Nearly four years ago, with gas prices touching the unheard-of level of two dollars per gallon, the Times published the following letter from me:

The tragedy of the current (and likely permanent) runup in gas prices is one of a gigantic missed opportunity. When prices zoom, we dumbly open our wallets and say "Gee, guess we have no choice"--while more billions go to multinational oil companies and the corrupt governments that finance terrorism against us.

Had we chosen--say, back in 1993, when President Clinton proposed a modest fossil fuel tax--to set aside a few cents per gallon for energy research, we could be well on our way to a future where oil doesn't destroy the environment and make us hostages to foreign despots. Those exported oil dollars that are draining away our national wealth would instead be recycled into our economy, creating millions of jobs. Unfortunately, craven politicians seem determined to ride the "no new taxes!" horse right off the cliff of economic and environmental collapse.

When will Americans get it: cheap gas is not our eternal, God-given right! Emerging countries like China daily compete harder for the limited supply. Shall we conquer them all and tell them "No, it's our oil"?

When even Ford's Chief Executive says that gas taxes should be higher, it's obvious we need fresh thinking. We should have started 30 years ago. But for God's sake, let's start now!

We all know what's happened since then. Let's consider an alternate universe, in which forward-thinking politicians bit the bullet in 2004 and enacted a dollar-a-gallon tax on gasoline. What would have happened?

1. Gasoline would probably be cheaper today, even with the tax. A stiff tax would send a signal that we're serious about conservation and alternative energy. We wouldn't need to mandate higher fuel efficiency for vehicles: consumer demand would take care of it. Reduced consumption would lead directly to lower prices.

2. We'd have half a trillion dollars to invest in a new energy economy. We're nowhere near prepared for life in the post-oil age. Time is rapidly running out for us to avoid the twin catastrophes of climate disruption and energy starvation. We need major investments to reform our unsustainable way of life.

3. We'd be a lot less worried about the loss of American jobs. It's going to take a large, trained workforce, right here on American soil, to build and operate our new energy infrastructure. With the gas tax revenue we could jump-start new industries that would employ millions in good, living-wage jobs. And we wouldn't have to send our money (and jobs) to foreign countries to buy wind turbines and solar panels and passenger rail systems, the way we do now.

4. Our troubles in the Middle East could be ending. From Saudi Arabia on down, we have to coddle the most despicable tyrants, and hand them vast amounts of our wealth, because they control our energy lifeblood. If they knew we were serious about making their product obsolete, don't you reckon they'd be a whole lot easier to deal with? (The cost of the Iraq war would pay for the proposed gas tax several times over.)

It's never going to be easy to break our oil dependency. That's the nature of addictions. Just as with drugs, beating the habit will involve painstakingly learning new behavior patterns. And each time OPEC jacks up its price, the idea of higher taxes on fuel becomes even less "politically palatable". But we have to make a choice: either we continue the current death spiral, sending ever more of our dwindling wealth to people who don't like us, or we join forces, roll up our sleeves, share the sacrifices, and build a bright new future together.

And that's what I wish the people running for President had the courage to tell us.

Detroit shoots self in foot again. America yawns.

2008-03-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

Did you know that of the top 10 most efficient cars sold in America, not one is made by an American company?

Detroit has been too busy fighting increased CAFE mileage standards to actually develop the high-mileage cars that people now want. The government tried to save them from themselves, but they would have none of it.

(During the height of the monster truck/SUV craze a few years ago, I opined that Detroit was determined to sell everybody one of these fuel guzzlers so that when gas prices zoomed they could then turn around and sell everybody a new high-mileage car. It seems I was half right.)

When the VW Beetle appeared on the U.S. industry's radar screen in the early 1960's, they made a half-hearted effort to build compacts of their own: the Ford Falcon, Plymouth Valiant, and the star-crossed Chevy Corvair (despite its flaws—which would put Ralph Nader on the map—I proudly drove a Corvair in my teens because it had—OMG!—bucket seats and a floor shift! Considering the, ahem, sporty way I used to drive the 'Vair, which was notorious for flipping over with little provocation, I'm lucky to be alive. I nearly gave my poor mother heart failure once, in, of all places, a cemetery.)

Small, efficient cars have always been Detroit's ugly ducklings, unloved because they cost nearly as much to build as a big car, but sold for much less. At least, that was the excuse back then; I don't know what the excuse is today.

In the early 1970's, when Congress first clamped down on auto emissions. Detroit sent lobbyists to Washington to convince the regulators that reducing pollution was impossible. Foreign manufacturers sent engineers to the drawing board to actually do it. In a now-familiar scenario, U.S. manufacturers then had to play catch-up.

The amount of stupidity that has emanated from Detroit in the intervening 35 years is breathtaking.

Tragedy upon tragedy in Iraq

2008-02-18T09:41:00.000-08:00

December's Harper's reported that Iraq throws away over $10 million worth of natural gas every day. It's dissolved in the oil coming out of the ground and can be captured with relatively simple processing equipment. But due to the lack of stability and consequent lack of investment, it's simply burned off, adding who knows how much CO2 and soot to the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, Iraq is desperate for electricity, and efficiently generating electricity with natural gas is a no-brainer.

Wouldn't you think that if our FIVE YEAR occupation was making any actual progress, such screaming lunacy would have inspired somebody to do something?

What is valued is practiced. What is not valued is not practiced. -- Plato

Justwannaland

2008-01-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

You've no doubt heard of Gondwanaland, the supercontinent that existed from about 500 million to 170 million years ago and contained most of what is now the southern hemisphere, along with India and Arabia.

I've now discovered that my 12 year-old son lives on a different supercontinent, called "Justwannaland."

The evidence builds daily:
"Come to dinner!"
"I justwanna win this video game."

"Time to leave for school!"
"I justwanna change my shirt."

"Get busy with your homework!"
"I justwanna see the end of this movie."

"Lights off!"
I justwanna finish this chapter.

Ah well.

Let's use government's new surveillance powers to end tax cheating

2007-12-31T21:39:00.000-08:00

According to the IRS, in 2001 tax cheats failed to pay $353 billion in income taxes they owed. That's a huge number—almost $1,200 per man, woman and child—and I doubt it's gotten smaller during Bush II's reign.

You don't really see anybody up in arms about it, though, do you? According to David Cay Johnston's terrific 2003 book, Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System To Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else, there's a bipartisan "gentleman's agreement" in Congress to not push too hard on tax enforcement. Any bets on who owes the bulk of that $353 billion? Somehow I doubt it's destitute waitresses failing to report a couple of hundred bucks in tips.

But I digress. Obviously, the government could really use that $353 bil, and I know how to get it…

Now that King Bush has seized all these spiffy new surveillance powers for the government, he's in possession of the perfect tools to end tax cheating! (I can see the headlines now: "President declares War"!) What better way to catch cheaters than to monitor everyone's financial transactions in real time? Why, if they'd prosecute a few high-profile cheaters and really put the screws to them, everybody else would be scared straight pronto! (Oh, and those who had done nothing wrong would of course have nothing to fear.)

Just think what a blow it would be in the campaign to restore respect for the rule of law. And it should be easy to get the telephone/internet companies to go along, eh?

Heck, Bush could even give the rich another tax cut and still come out ahead. Brilliant!

Bill Maher - New Rules: America Isn't #1

2007-12-11T10:05:00.001-08:00

This about says it all…

I'm proud of my State tonight

2007-11-21T09:14:00.000-08:00

(This first appeared in slightly different form on DailyKos.com)

Washington State government is unique in operating a sizable network of ferries to transport people and vehicles around Puget Sound. They're not only a tourist attraction, but a practical necessity for island-dwellers like me. So I subscribe to the ferry system's email updates on tide cancellations, mechanical breakdowns, etc.

Tonight I was stunned to read that the popular run between Whidbey Island and Port Townsend (a waterfront town on the Olympic Peninsula) was shutting down immediately and indefinitely. It seems one of the 80 year-old ferries had been found to have significant pitting in its steel hull. All four boats are being pulled out of service for thorough inspections. It's likely that the vessels will need major repairs—if they can be salvaged at all.

Coming just before the big Thanksgiving weekend, this closure is a minor disaster. But State Secretary of Transportation Paula Hammond didn't shirk from making a tough decision. She said “Safety is our number one priority. It cannot be compromised."

I couldn't help imagining what the Bush administration would have done, faced with a similar situation. First of all, they would have cut budgets and corners on maintenance of the ferries, so they might not even have noticed the corrosion until it was too late. They would have disregarded the warnings of metallurgists about the hull damage, because they are, after all, scientists, whose opinions must never be allowed to carry any real weight (who knows, the scientific study of iron oxidation might contradict the "young earth" theory of creation). And they would never, ever, go against the commercial interests who wanted to cash in on the year's biggest shopping weekend.

Then, when one of the tired old girls split apart and sent a couple of hundred people to a frigid death, whichever Bush toady who's been put in charge of marine safety would go on TV and say "No one could have foreseen that the vessel would sink."

Not that things are totally peachy-keen here. Washington, you may know, is home to that Sir Galahad of tax slashers, Tim Eyman, and a certain fraction of our population subscribes to the childishly seductive Republican belief that we can cut taxes indefinitely without consequences. The ferry system has been underfunded for years now, and the bills are coming due. The fact that 80 year-old vessels haven't been replaced pretty much tells the story. Maybe a dramatic gesture like this closing will wake a few people up.

Anyway, kudos to one of those faceless bureaucrats the wingnuts like so much to make fun of, for showing some competence and courage. If only the federal government worked as well.

Clip and Save: Robert Reich on Corporations

2007-10-02T14:17:00.000-07:00

Just read Robert Reich's new book Supercapitalism. I wanted to distill a few of his key points on the new "supercapitalist" corporations and what to expect from them.

Reich's thesis is that every American confronts corporations in three roles: as consumer, as investor, and as citizen of a putative democracy. Technology has enabled corporations to become global entities, viciously competing with other global corporations for global markets. This hypercompetitive environment has well served consumers (by driving prices down) and investors (by driving profits and share prices up), but the cost to us as citizens has been high. Unfortunately, in their search for competitive advantage the supercapitalists have so flooded Washington and other seats of power with money that it's become virtually impossible for public interest groups to be heard.

Without further ado, then, here are 11 things you should remember about corporations:

1. Corporations are not charities. If they seem to behave in a way that's "socially responsible," it is ONLY because their executives think this will somehow benefit them. They will not give away their profits and expect nothing in return. Ever. (They literally can't, because if they do, they'll be less competitive; consumers and investors will punish them by taking their money elsewhere.)

2. Pressuring a corporation to behave "responsibly" is a waste of time and effort. The proper way to make corporations behave the way we want them to is via the democratic process: make it illegal to behave otherwise.

3. Corporations should be required to obey the law. That's all they should be required to to. If they're exploiting a loophole in a law, the thing to do is close the loophole, not criticize them.

4. Corporations are not people. They're incapable of acting with "criminal intent." In fact, they're incapable of any intent at all. Only the people who run them are. They are the criminals. Destroying Arthur Andersen because a few of its employees were complicit in the Enron scandal accomplished nothing but putting thousands of innocent people out of work. (Civil penalties for corporate lawbreaking are fine, though.)

5. If you hear a politician publicly scolding a corporation for bad behavior, it is almost certainly because he/she intends to do absolutely nothing binding to stop the behavior. Politicians are good at putting on shows, but they don't like to bite the hands that feed them. (A good question to ask: "What legislation are you working on that will prevent this behavior?)

6. Never believe a corporation when they say that something they're fighting for is "in the public interest." It might be, but you can't take their word for it. It's the responsibility of citizens to determine what the public interest is, not of corporations.

7. Policies that depend on "voluntary cooperation" by corporations are a joke. A bad joke. A really bad joke. Don't even go there. Even if the corporations seem to cooperate initially, as soon as your back is turned, they'll go back to their old ways if they can.

8. Corporations are legal fictions. A pile of paper. They should not have rights to free speech, due process, or political representation. They also shouldn't have to pay income taxes: it's inefficient and inequitable (Reich explains why).

9. American corporations are not more "patriotic" than foreign ones (though it may be in their interest to make us think so.) They will outsource and cut benefits and lay off workers if they have to in order to remain competitive. We should focus on making Americans more competitive, not on making American companies more competitive.

10. Corporations should not be able to challenge duly enacted laws and regulations in court. Currently, this "right" gives foreign owners the ability to overturn U.S. laws. Only actual U.S. citizens—individually or in class actions—should be able to oppose domestic U.S. statutes.

11. Nothing significant is going to change until citizens rise up and get corporations out of politics. Reich: "The most effective thing reformers can do is to reduce the effects of corporate money on politics, and enhance the voices of citizens. No other avenue of reform is as important. Corporate executives who sincerely wish to do good can make no better contribution than keeping their company out of politics. If corporate social responsibility has any meaning at all, it is to refrain from corrupting democracy."

Prominent doubters of the free-trade religion

2007-09-17T07:49:00.000-07:00

The ever-annoying Clive Crook has a column in the October Atlantic Monthly in which he simply deplores the fact that a number of very prominent economists have lately gone a bit wobbly in their devotion to that god-among-gods in the economists' pantheon, **Free Trade**.

In trying to get these apostates—besides Paul Krugman, he names William Baumol, Alan Blinder, Brad DeLong, and even the iconic Paul Samuelson (by whom he's simply "astonished")—to cease this foolishness and get back on the ideological bus, Crook in effect whines "C'mon guys, I thought we had all agreed decades ago that all free trade, all the time, was the way to go. Don't bail out on me now! What's wrong with you?"

He singles out for special mention former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, whom he calls "the most surprising new doubter." But apparently Summers' doubts aren't all that new…

By coincidence, Crook's fellow Atlantic staffer Megan McArdle just posted a comment over at TPM Cafe's Book Club about Jonathan Chait's new book, The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics.

I'm not familiar with McArdle, but judging by her on-line bio she's comfortably ensconced in Washington's conservative punditocracy. She recounts a lecture Summers gave once:

In 2000, Chicago’s Business School hosted a talk by Larry Summers, who was then the Treasury Secretary, and advising Al Gore's campaign. At the time, Gore was offering tax deductions or credits for practically anything one might do, from getting born to entering a nursing home. These sorts of tiny lump-sum deductions are generally frowned on by economists; they distort activity, are costly to administer, and unlike marginal rate cuts, provide no positive incentives to increase work.

"Mr Secretary," one of my professors asked him, "You know the theory as well as I do. You believe the theory. Why are you supporting these tax deductions?"

"Because that's the only way we have in this environment to get help to people who need it," said Larry Summers. "There are things more important than economic efficiency." It was a stunning moment: the first, and sadly the last, time I have heard a policymaker admit that he supported something for moral reasons even though it might not make the economy grow faster.

and comments:

Larry Summers' answer was a grown up answer to a grown up question. It acknowledged that there are oftentimes trade-offs between economic efficiency and otherwise desirable outcomes. It bowed to the reality that sometimes, politicians have to enact laws that are less than ideal, if they want to do anything at all. It did not insult the intelligence of its audience by telling them that they could have their cake and eat it, too. It conceded that its author was making a value judgement that the audience might not share. His answer made me think that I would vote, if not for Al Gore, than for Larry Summers.

To be fair, it was hardly as if Larry Summers could obfuscate in that particular situation; had he tried to obscure the choices he was making, he would not have succeeded in fooling anyone, but only in making himself ridiculous. Nonetheless, he quite spoiled me for future stump speeches in which politicians promise their constituents that they can have everything they want, and a pony too, all at absolutely no cost to anyone except perhaps a few far-off rich predators or welfare queens who don't deserve their money anyway.

If only every audience could be filled with economists who know the score. But of course, most aren't. And so we get the spectacle of Republican candidates claiming on the stump that cutting tax rates increases tax revenue.

Summers' statement that "there are things more important than economic efficiency," though spoken in reference to tax policy, is the perfect one-sentence rebuttal to Crook's fit of pique on free trade.

To anyone but another economist, it might appear that scales had fallen from Summers' eyes and he was belatedly struck by a truth so obvious that it scarcely needs pointing out. But free-trade zealots like Crook, in their monomaniacal pursuit of ever more goodies at ever cheaper prices, will have none of this sentimentality. To them, absolutely everything is a fungible commodity—including any workers who may be inconvenienced when their jobs are taken by slave-wage laborers halfway around the world.

As commentators like James Howard Kunstler have eloquently documented, the free-trade-driven "Wal-Martization" of commerce has devastated countless small towns across America, torpedoing not only once-vibrant downtown areas but an entire merchant class that provided both jobs and civic leadership for communities they lived in and cared about. The distant owners of the new Wal-Mart, situated 20 miles out of town on hundreds of acres of former farmland, simply cannot replace this human and physical capital in any meaningful sense. The boarded-up storefronts and factories stand in mute testimony to the homogenization and impoverishment of our culture as well as our economy.

But, as Summers acknowledges, traditional economists aren't very good at reckoning the costs of this shredding of the social fabric. The new mental health clinic that tries to help displaced workers mend their shattered lives goes on the economist's ledger as an unalloyed Good Thing; after all, it increases Gross Economic Output. Should an overstressed ex-employee be driven to a divorce, that too provides much-coveted "economic activity" in the form of lawyer's bills. Truly, the economist's calculator has no 'subtract' key.

Crook and his fellow trade boosters similarly fail to account for the steep environmental costs of the frenetic movement of goods around the world, or for its potential to enable terrorism, or for issues like food security (how comfortable are you with the fact that the food you eat has traveled an average of over 1,000 miles to reach your table?)

The entire free-trade paradigm in fact hangs by two increasingly frayed threads: cheap energy, and relative peace and stability in international relations. When the U.S. finds itself in a confrontation with China over central Asian oil, both of these threads will snap, leaving us wondering where on earth our next new toaster oven is going to come from.

"Nickel and Dimed" vs. "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

2007-08-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: on (not) getting by in America is a book that I've been wanting to read since it came out in 2001. Finally I did.

The book is based on her experiences in the late 90's traveling around the country taking menial jobs and trying to make ends meet. It's chockfull of heartbreaking stories about the suffering and desperation of America's low-wage workers. And remember, this was when the economy was roaring through the dot.com boom, before the selection of our "compassionate conservative" President (you know, the guy who had a nice pat on the back for the "uniquely American" woman who had to work three jobs to stay afloat.) Just as a guess, there are probably at least 10 million more Americans without health insurance now than back then (Oh, right--Bush says they can get all the care they need at the emergency room).

Any Republican who dares to oppose--from a comfortable distance--hikes in the minimum wage really ought to read this book (or better yet, go out like Ehrenreich did and actually try living the low end of the American Dream).

But here's what's really confounding:the attitudes of many of these low-wage workers. Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? speculates at length about why people vote against their own economic interests; I've long thought that a good deal of the explanation is the "Someday I'm going to hit the Lotto and I'll be damn glad taxes are low" syndrome.

Of course, supporting this attitude is the fact that poor people don't see much benefit from tax expenditures, so why insist that the rich pay for them?

Here's a dramatic passage from Nickel and Dimed: Ehrenreich has been working for a maid service, cleaning the homes of the rich, and on her last day reveals what she's up to to her co-workers.

At least now that I'm "out" I get to ask the question I've wanted to ask all this time: How do they feel, not about [their boss] but about the [home] owners, who have so much while others, like themselves, barely get by? This is the answer from Lori, who at twenty-four has a serious disk problem and an $8,000 credit card debt: "All I can think of is like, wow, I'd like to have this stuff someday. It motivates me and I don't feel the slightest resentment because, you know, it's my goal to get to where they are."

What can you even say? Apart from actually hitting the Lotto, poor Lori has about as much chance of joining the ranks of the affluent as of being elected Pope. Yet she clings to the dream.

I guess corporate America has its unskilled workforce right where they want them: ignorant, insecure, demoralized, scared, too preoccupied keeping body and soul together to make any trouble, and still clinging to the fantasy that someday they'll hit the jackpot (so don't you go raising them taxes!)

Michael Moore's film Sicko has a scene where a former British MP says that if you have a population that's healthy, optimistic, and educated, great things are possible.

Maybe that's why so much of the greatness seems to have gone out of America.

Bush, tired of "hard work" of Presidency, opts for dictatorship

2007-07-26T09:32:00.000-07:00

Remember that period during the 2004 campaign when Bush wouldn't shut up about what "hard work" it was whuppin' them terrists and keepin' us Amurcans safe? He must have said it 10 times during the debates with Kerry. Apparently it was one of those simple catchphrases that his dim intellect was capable of grasping, and he must have really liked the sound of it (it probably had a kind of exotic ring to a spoiled rich kid who never did a day's hard work in his entire life).

Since then, you can only imagine that his job has gotten even harder, what with his poll numbers in the toilet and his buddies going to jail and those uppity Congress people actually demanding the secret details of what he's been up to.

Clearly, the man isn't up to the job. Even he realizes it. And obviously, he's discovered the solution…

"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator,"
--George W. Bush, 12/18/2000

That's it! The solution to the "hard work" problem! It was right there in front of him all the time! You can forget about all that tiresome negotiating and explaining and accounting for yourself, and just lay down the law. Easy! He must have slapped himself for not thinking of it sooner.

But seriously, why should anyone be surprised that he's trying to assume dictatorial powers? He warned us before he was even inaugurated (and in fact he's said the same thing at least a couple of other times, one as far back as 1998).

Personality tests often include a true/false question along the lines of "The world would be a better place if I was in charge." A "true" answer is a powerful diagnostic for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, from which Mr. Bush clearly suffers.

The unfortunate thing is that a cornered narcissist is a dangerous animal, likely to strike mercilessly and indiscriminately to protect his fragile and threatened grandiose self-image.

God knows what he might try if he actually had to face impeachment and removal.

Why is Cheney such a prick?

2007-06-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

Are you starting to get the impression that Cheney's demeanor and his policies are just gratuitously nasty? That the saber-rattling, the torturing, the hard line about everything, are just way beyond what any civilized person—or nation—needs to do to advance its interests?

I believe that, unfortunately, there's a method to his madness. I think he's trying to soften up the rest of the world for the events of the next few years.

It has to do with taking care of his buddies in the hydrocarbon industries.

The latest installment of Jim Kunstler's blog says this:

Some years back, when those watching the oil scene began to coalesce in their recognition that a worldwide production peak was imminent and hugely significant, the concept developed that this peak would take the form of a "bumpy plateau," meaning that supply-and-demand would teeter in an uncomfortable relationship for a period of time as markets and economies adjusted to the new reality by oscillating from higher prices to "demand destruction" to recession to recovery to higher prices, and so forth. This was expected to go on for quite a while before the world really headed into a slow permanent decline.
The latest statistical work by Dallas geologist Jeffrey Brown over at The Oil Drum.com, suggests that something else is happening, something that was not anticipated: an imminent oil export crisis. This Export Land Theory states that exporting nations will have far less oil available for export than was previously assumed under older models.

Due to surging populations and growing standards of living, the oil-exporting nations are using more and more of their own production, at the precise time when that production is peaking and starting to decline. So the amount of oil available for export to consuming nations like the U.S. has peaked and will soon crash.

Kunstler goes on:

The theory states that export rates will drop by a far greater percentage than net production decline rates in any given exporting country. For example, The UK's portion of the North Sea oil fields may be showing a nine percent annual decline for the past couple of years. But its export capacity has declined 60 percent. Something similar is in store for Saudi Arabia, Russia, Mexico, Venezuela -- in short, the whole cast of characters in the export world. They are all producing less and they are all using more of their own oil, and have less to send elsewhere.
Brown's math suggests that world oil exports will drop by 50 percent within the next five years, certainly enough to trigger a systemic breakdown in market allocation, meaning serious supply shortages among the importing nations. That's us. We import two-thirds of all the oil we use.

What happens after a "systemic breakdown in market allocation"? Welcome to the Oil Wars, folks—coming soon to a theater far, far from you.

Which brings us back to Evil Dick. Mr. Halliburton. Mr. Secret Energy Policy. Mr. "The American Way of Life is Not Negotiable." Mr. "Let's Subsidize Fossil Fuels up the Kazoo." Mr. "Energy Conservation is a Personal Virtue."

Here's the bottom line: If oil exports crash, Dick's petro-cronies will soon find themselves with no product to sell. America needs that oil to run our non-negotiable lifestyles, friends, and goddammit, if we have to just take what we need, then that's what we'll do.

Which is why Dick is so desperate to create the image of America as intractable bully. If we convince the world—friend and foe alike—NOW that we're simply not to be messed with, that what America wants, America gets, and damn the niceties, it will save so much time and dithering later when we need to simply steamroll some hapless Third World country and seize their oil.

And that, friends, is why Mr. Cheney is such a prick.

The Atlantic prints (part of) my letter!

2007-04-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

I've been increasingly dismayed by the increasingly rightward editorial tilt of my first love in magazines, the Atlantic Monthly. But in the March issue they outdid themselves by publishing a piece written by one of their apparently recent hires, Ross Douthat. Now, Ross could be considered wet behind the ears; he's barely out of college and his chief claim to fame is that he graduated from Harvard and wrote a book about how screwed up Harvard is. It was raw meat for the wingnuts, who abhor the "elitism" of the place, and it appears they jacked him up on a pedestal and he's now settling into conservative punditry at, among other places, the once-proud Atlantic, where he's listed as both an Associate Editor and editor of the Letters column.

His opinion piece, entitled "It's His Party", isn't worth quoting, but its central premise can be stated something like this: "George Bush may be a corrupt, incompetent fuckup, but he sure has been successful. Wanta know how I know? Look how all the Republican Presidential hopefuls are sticking with his program. Why, they're even courting the religious right!" I kid you not.

This isn't just stupid, it's dishonest. I couldn't help myself, I had to respond. So I sent an actual, paper letter to his boss, figuring that in his dual roles as sage columnist and gatekeeper for the Letters section, there's no way Douthat would voluntarily print letters critical of his opinions.

I was pleasantly surprised to open the latest (May) issue and find my letter, right there on page 14. Well, actually, it was only part of my letter but I must admit that whoever condensed my 10 paragraphs into 3 didn't do a bad job of capturing the main gist of it. Douthat penned a response, but if I may say so, it was rather lame.

In case anyone but me would like to read the whole unedited letter, here it is (just for fun I've bolded the approximate parts that made it into print):

Dear Editor:

(Having learned that one of Ross Douthat's jobs at the Atlantic is editing the letters column, I suspect that criticizing his work may be a fool's errand, but here goes…)

One is left open-mouthed in astonishment at right-wing wunderkind Ross Douthat's willful misreading of the political legacy of George W. Bush ("It's His Party," March 2007).

The "successes" Douthat attributes to Bush seem to have taken place entirely at the polls: his party scored significant victories in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections. Let's review: 2000? Stolen, and Gore won the popular vote anyway. 2002? Public paralysis in the aftermath of 9/11. 2004? Kerry's fecklessness, Swift Boat lies, and Ohio voting abuses. And overlaying all three elections was the complicity of the media, which dutifully regurgitated the talking points of the richly endowed and superbly oiled Right Wing Noise Machine (a decisive advantage that Bush can't remotely take credit for).

Some successes!

All of it, however, pales in comparison to the elephant in Douthat's room: the one really big Bush "success" that merits not a single word in his article. That, obviously, is the President's abject sellout to corporate America's interests—and herein lies the key to Bush's real legacy (as well as to the propagandistic nature of Douthat's writing).

Nothing on the corporate wish list was too absurdly, criminally generous to embarrass Bush and the Republican Congress: Billions in subsidies for oil companies already earning record profits. Bankruptcy law "reform" that was a boon to credit card companies while showing no mercy to poor people with overwhelming medical bills. "Free trade" policies that subsidize the export of American jobs. Inviting industry executives to run the agencies that are supposed to regulate them, and letting their lobbyists draft the laws. Slashing the taxes of CEOs earning 400 times as much as their line workers. A massive handout to Big Pharma in the guise of a benefit for seniors. The list goes on ad nauseam.

In the near-absence of media scrutiny, it has taken most of the last 6 years for this sinister aspect of one-party Republican rule to sink into the consciousness of the electorate, but 2006 was a watershed year, marked by a new wave of populist candidates unafraid to address institutionalized corruption, and undeterred by Republican sniffing about "class warfare." To a large degree, the remarkable success of these upstarts was the product of a nascent progressive blogosphere, which not only recruited, educated, and fundraised for these challengers, but was able to quickly expose the lies and debunk the manufactured "scandals" that Republicans attacked them with. Virginia Senator George Allen wasn't the only comfortable Republican who woke up on November 8 to realize he'd been outmaneuvered by a scrappy Democratic neophyte.

This progressive resurgence was most dramatically on display in the Mountain West, where, from Montana's Jon Tester on down, Democrats made political hay out of the discomfiture of libertarian-leaning voters with Bush's policies. In fact, uber-blogger Markos Moulitsas (founder of DailyKos, the largest liberal blog site), contributed an essay to the libertarian CATO Institute's on-line magazine heralding the arrival of the "Libertarian Democrat"—who has come to realize that the biggest threat to personal liberty is unchecked corporate power, and who looks to government to guard against it.

This, then, will be the real legacy of George W. Bush: He exploited the threat of terrorism and pandered to the religious right's repressive social agenda to gain the votes of precisely those people most cruelly affected by his corporatist (not to say fascist) economic agenda.

This exposes, finally, the dishonesty of Douthat's argument. By pretending that, despite Bush's disastrous leadership, nothing is fundamentally wrong with the Republican program, he attempts to lend an air of inevitability to the party's continued domination of American politics. It's a transparent ploy by an ideologue anxious to convince himself that last year's drubbing at the polls was only a temporary aberration.

But the voters have belatedly realized that, under Bush, the Republican Revolution has gone irretrievably off the rails. 2006 was just the opening salvo. As the Internets (sic) continue to enable what Moulitsas has dubbed "people-powered politics," it will no longer matter that Republicans control the media (already, Bill O'Reilly is on his way to being marginalized, and Rush is having to play more defense than usual). A strong jolt of truth and transparency is aimed at the heart of the GOP. If the party survives the hit, it will likely be as a regional Southern entity clinging to a shrinking base of angry, uneducated religious extremists.

And they'll have the Decider to thank for it.

An Energy Plan from the Netroots

2007-03-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

Without going too far out on a limb, I think it may be safe to say that the world's energy problems are finally starting to sink into the public consciousness. I hear that sales of gas-guzzling SUVs are actually on the decline (yet another triumph of Detroit's product planning) and if you subscribe to Deep Throat's "follow the money" principle, you have to be at least somewhat impressed by the amount of new investment going into energy technologies.

It seems the investment community has at last acquired the scent of future profits and is now beating the bushes trying to flush them out. At this early stage, no one knows who the big winners will be, but that's life in the venture capital game.

One major source of confusion is the plethora of "energy plans" being tossed about. Indeed, energy plans are a dime a dozen, and they cover the entire spectrum from (on the right) "Drill ANWR" to (on the left) "Higher CAFE standards." But the problem with virtually all of them is that they're actually agendas dressed up as plans. The oil industry's plan starts with the assumption that we have no realistic alternative to petroleum. The Corn Belt plan argues for higher subsidies for ethanol. Then there's the "Clean Coal" plan, the biodiesel plan, and myriad others—each with its own axe to grind. The stakes are huge, and no interest group wants to be outmaneuvered in claiming its share of the spoils. We have barely begun to see the heroic lobbying and vicious infighting in the stampede to own the future.

All of this is by way of introducing something completely different: an actual citizens' energy plan that has been under development for over a year by a group of netroots activists. Called "Energize America," the plan is unique in (a) being developed entirely out in the open, and (b) not being the property of any particular industry or interest group. As such, it has the most potential for leading to a comprehensive and rational package of energy solutions of anything I've seen.

But the big news is this: awareness of Energize America has been slowly percolating into the halls of Congress, and recently, members of the EA team met with a senior member of Congress and were specifically asked to provide draft wording for bills on 10 of the 20 acts proposed by Energize America.

While the name of the Congressperson hasn't been disclosed yet, it is someone senior, and able to push bills, and thus this current process means that the online community can have a direct influence on important legislation. Imagine: citizens drafting bills instead of lobbyists!

Everyone is invited to participate in this exciting project. It has the momentum of a big, fast-spinning carousel, which can make it a bit daunting to choose the point where you want to jump on, but if you care about these issues, I can't think of a better way to get involved.

To learn more about Energize America, start here.

Wanted: anti-corporate humor

2007-03-08T11:47:00.000-08:00

If you're an active netizen, you've almost certainly found lots of "humorous" emails in your inbox, forwarded by well-meaning friends and relatives. Typically, they go something like this:

"All Joe Blow wanted to do was fix his fence. Trying to play by the rules, he dutifully applied for a permit to do the job. Then all hell broke loose. A bureaucrat in the county planning office discovered that his existing fence was two inches onto his neighbor's property, and would have to be torn down and rebuilt. Then the Department of Sensitivity and Political Correctness discovered the Indian burial mound across the street. Joe's property would have to be excavated by a team of pointy-headed archaeologists from the state university before he could install new fenceposts. The inept excavators broke his water line, flooding his basement and destroying his wife's collection of priceless Beanie Babies. Trying to save the Babies, Joe slipped on the wet stairs and fractured his sacroiliac. Now poor Joe has no fence and bills for $20,000. From his hospital bed, Joe said wanly 'All I wanted to do was fix my fence.'"

Though details vary, invariably the theme is: government is inherently meddlesome, capricious, incompetent and ridiculous, if not downright evil. Well, it's time to fight back…

But first: The story above is NOT TRUE! I totally made it up. So it had better not appear in an email from my redneck brother-in-law six months from now as something that really happened!

Here's the point: for all the "funny" anti-government stories like this I've seen, I can't remember getting a single one about a corporation being meddlesome, capricious, incompetent or ridiculous (not to mention greedy!) This can't be an accident, and I'll go so far as to speculate that the Right Wing Noise Machine employs people whose specific job it is to collect and disseminate these stories around the Net. Hell, I bet they even make up stories, like I just did.

It's all part of the campaign to discredit all government that was launched back in the 60's. Recall that long before he became President, Ronnie RayGun was travelling around giving speeches on the horrors of the Big Bad Government. Yesterday, WaPo columnist Marie Cocco reminded us that we are now reaping the fruits of Reagan's anti-government jihad in things like the gutting of FEMA, the Walter Reed mess, and of course the profiteering in Iraq.

What to do? Well, if I ran the Rockridge Institute or MoveOn.org, I'd consider fighting fire with fire (I exclude Public Citizen because Mr. Nader is unfamiliar with the concept of humor).

Humor is the key word here. There are plenty of progressive, anti-corporate screeds around, but they're too often told in an outraged, accusing, shrill voice that's a guaranteed turnoff if you're not part of the Movement. The Right is smarter than that. They tell stories that make the point without shouting, and are droll enough that Joe Sixpack just might decide to forward them along to his beer buddies.

Make 'em chuckle and you'll eventually win them over. So how about it?

Raise my taxes, please!

2007-02-16T11:06:00.000-08:00

I just sent this to my Congressman:

It seems that the idea of cutting off funds for the Iraq war is radioactive in the halls of Congress. Even though it could be done in such a way as to not endanger any troops, Congress thinks that the public thinks that it would result in thousands of broke and abandoned GIs trying to hitchhike their way back to America.

Fine. There's another way Congress can use monetary policy to effectively shut down this misadventure. All you would have to do is enact a tax increase to pay the full cost of the war. If we, as a nation, believe the war is worth fighting, then we ought to be willing to pay for it.

The advantages are many:

First, there would be no question of not supporting the troops. Instead of supporting them and charging it to our credit card, we would be supporting them in reality. In fact, troop morale might increase if the soldiers knew they weren't the only ones sacrificing.

Republicans would be put in an awkward position. How can they say "We support the troops but we want our children to pay the bill"? People who support the war but aren't willing to pay more taxes would be in a real bind.

Democrats would be immunized against the "tax and spend" charge. The spending is already taking place, thanks to Bush and the Republicans. Democrats just want to do the responsible thing and pay for it. The Conventional Wisdom says you don't raise taxes when the economy is weak, but since the Republicans have been crowing about how great it's doing, they can't object to it on that basis. (The Conventional Wisdom also says you don't cut taxes during a war, but there you go.)

Of course, Bush would never sign such a bill, but he would look bad vetoing it. The debate on the bill would generate headlines about how much the war is costing and how badly it will hurt our economy. Faced with the prospect of a tax increase, even some people who now support the war might have second thoughts.

I would suggest that the proposed tax take the form of a levy on imported oil, which would have a nice symmetry: we're taxing our use of the fuels that we're fighting to protect our access to. It's just one small way that we could begin to see the true cost of our oil addiction.

All in all, it could be a winner for Dems, could help end the war, and is, simply, the right thing to do.

Message to Social Conservatives, Part II

2006-11-09T11:44:00.000-08:00

Well, folks, here we are after yet another election when you're feeling used and abused by your Republican masters. "Your" ballot measures (outlawing abortions in South Dakota, stem cell research in Missouri, gay marriage in Arizona) took a sound whipping, and religious leaders are blaming Republican officials for not supporting them enthusiastically enough.

Who could have ever predicted that?

Actually, I predicted it in my first message to you.

I'll say it again, slowly: The only reason these measures are on the ballot is to get you fired up so you'll show up at the polls, and while you're there, you'll vote for Republicans. That's it. End of story. Most of your Republican masters don't give a hoot about abortion or gay marriage, and secretly they're probably in favor of stem cell research. And they positively DON'T WANT YOU TO WIN ON THESE ISSUES BECAUSE THEN THEY'D LOSE THEIR HOLD ON YOU. (Incidentally, have you noticed how many of these guys are turning up, well, gay?)

As I pointed out last time, talk is oh so cheap. It's time you started judging your Republican masters by what they actually DO, not by what they say. At least Democrats are being honest when they say they favor stem cell research, or gay rights, or any of those other things that get you all riled up. But your Republican masters lie to you, and use you, again and again, and they get away with it because they believe you have nowhere else to go. And like abused puppies, you keep coming back for more.

And once they've succeeded in tricking you into voting for them, they proceed to give you the shaft, cutting taxes for the rich and cutting services for regular working people. (For the full story on how you're getting shafted, refer to my earlier message.)

If I were you, I'd be mad as hell.

My morning-after letter to my Congressman

2006-11-08T12:22:00.000-08:00

Dear Rep. Larsen:

First of all, hearty congratulations to you and your Democratic colleagues for yesterday's great election victory.

This was almost literally a "do or die" election, since a Republican victory would have removed all restraints on the final two years of Mr. Bush's amoral and reckless administration. There is little doubt that he would have used that time to complete the destruction of our system of government and install an Imperial Presidency—all the while assuring us how much he "loves freedom."

It is abundantly, dismayingly clear that the President and his Republican enablers in Congress care not a whit about freedom as enshrined in the Constitution and in our democratic traditions. Exercising power in the service of the privileged is literally all they are interested in, and they have proven over and over again that no lie, no underhanded tactic, no illegal maneuver, is too low for them to sink to in gaining and retaining that power.

To be blunt about it, they must be taught a lesson.

In particular, future presidents must know with certainty that the people will not tolerate the willful destruction of our liberties, the waste of our resources and our very lives under false pretenses, the wanton destruction of our economic future, and the utter disregard for the rule of law.

We must use the only tool at our disposal to send that message as loudly and clearly as possible.

We must impeach and remove the President and Vice President.

No sane person could deny the overwhelming evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors—indeed, the President has boasted publicly about some of them. Anyone who looks at the documented facts and finds no impeachable offense only demonstrates how far down the slippery slope toward tyranny they have already fallen.

We must drag ourselves and our democracy back up that dark and threatening slope and drive a stout stake deep in the ground, at which point we say "No. Beyond this you will not go."

Eight years ago, House Republicans voted to impeach President Clinton for lying about an extramarital dalliance—a "crime" in which no lives were lost, no billions were squandered, and no civil liberties were trampled. One Congressman after another rose to proclaim sanctimoniously that the impeachment case was all about the "rule of law."

Today we confront the most lawless administration in modern history. The President, even as he signs legislation passed by the people's elected representatives, attaches disclaimers that say, in effect, "I'll obey this law if and when I feel like it." The will of the people be damned: he is "the decider," and everything else is just for show.

He must be taught a lesson.

Let me stress: this isn't about revenge or political advantage. It is about securing our democracy for future generations by reining in the totalitarian ambitions of future "deciders."

You may object, Congressman, that Democrats don't have the votes to convict. This may be true, though it is a sad commentary indeed on the Republican Senators who would put partisan advantage above the bedrock principles of our democracy. There's at least a chance that, when confronted by the evidence in an actual trial, some of them may decide to do the right thing. But even if they don't, the point will have been made that there are consequences to illegal and unprincipled actions.

An impeachment trial would give a full and fair airing of the evidence of the President's illegal conduct, with ample opportunity for him to defend himself against the accusations. It would force each member of Congress to make a public choice between principle and partisanship. And, just maybe, it would begin to restore America's shattered credibility and moral authority among our friends and foes alike.

But most importantly, it will serve as a warning to future presidents that, even in the 21st century, there are some things they can't get away with.

Glad I ain't a Republican

2006-10-01T22:23:00.000-07:00

Holy cow, where to begin? It's impossible to produce a complete catalog of Republican disasters because new ones keep coming faster than anybody can write them down.

Update Oct. 2: Today it's revealed that supercorrupt superlobbyist Jack Abramoff was sending emails about "the upcoming war in Iraq"—more than a year before the U.S. invasion! War planning is among most sensitive of all state secrets, yet here's Abramoff—a man who was not working for the US government, and who had no security clearance—spouting off about the planned invasion of Iraq. Of course, Jack had friends in high places. [See what I mean? One person just can't keep up with the scandals. And if you're tempted to excuse Republican corruption by saying "Democrats do it too," you're kidding yourself. Republicans control all three branches of government. What the government does, they're responsible for.]

The latest (as of 8:04AM October 1): the "family values" and "gays are going to Hell" party has been caught covering up the fact that one of their Congressmen is a sexual predator with a taste for boys. House Republican leaders knew about the problem for at least 6 months (possibly several years) but chose to protect their party's image rather than protect the young victims.

The new book, "State of Denial," by Bob Woodward of Watergate fame, documents the willful negligence of the Bush administration in failing to prevent 9/11. Two months before the attacks, the head of the CIA was so worried that he paid an unscheduled visit to the White House and demanded to see Condoleeza Rice, then head of National Security. He was given the brush-off, and the fact that their meeting took place was concealed from the official 9/11 Commission. Rice now denies that the meeting took place, but she's been caught in so many bald-faced lies that her credibility is zero. It is abundantly clear that alarm bells were ringing everywhere while Bush & Co. did nothing.

The well-orchestrated media campaign to blame 9/11 on Clinton has now been exposed as the cowardly lie it is (how ironic that the Republicans who are now demanding why Clinton didn't do more to catch Osama bin Laden are the same people who loudly criticized him when he tried to do just that). Rice's lies to the contrary, the Clinton administration gave the incoming Bushies a detailed plan for dealing with Osama bin Laden--a plan they sat on for the 8 months leading up to 9/11. Bush couldn't be bothered dealing with the terrorist threat: he was interested in a largely useless missile defense system and a war with Iraq.

Now it appears our armed forces are close to open mutiny against Bush/Rumsfeld. Two distinguished retired Army generals and a Marine colonel have just told a Senate committee that the current Iraq policy is an unmitigated disaster. One, a 31-year veteran and lifelong Republican, put it this way: "Secretary Rumsfeld's dismal strategic decisions resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies, and the good people of Iraq.…He violated fundamental principles of war, dismissed deliberate military planning, ignored the hard work to build the peace after the fall of Saddam Hussein, (and) set the conditions for Abu Ghraib and other atrocities that further ignited the insurgency" The generals note that the Republican-dominated "rubber stamp" Congress must accept partial blame for this disaster by utterly failing to carry out their oversight duties. The only "good news" you will find about Iraq is the President's propaganda; everybody else knows it's a hopeless mess that didn't have to happen. (According to Woodward, the Administration has been hiding the extent of the violence against our troops, which now averages an attack every 15 minutes, and is expected to get even worse.)

A major intelligence report that the Bush administration has been suppressing for 5 months describes how our Iraq presence has made terrorism worse, not better. Meanwhile, Bush continues to press for dictatorial powers including the right to spy and torture, while he reportedly prepares his "October surprise"--the bombing of Iran.

In 5 weeks, Americans will have a chance to begin to undo the nightmare of the last 5 years. If you want more of the same disastrous incompetence, hypocrisy, and lying, vote for the rubber-stamp Republicans. If you've had enough, vote Democratic.

Health Care and the Value of Labor

2006-09-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

You know the standard spiel: "Runaway health care price inflation has made it unaffordable for employers to provide health benefits for their employees."

On the surface, it sounds perhaps plausible. But step back and look at what they're really saying. Which is something a bit more stark.

What they're saying is simply this: under the current value system, many, perhaps most, American workers don't produce enough economic output to earn the right to stay alive.

Not to get all Marxist or anything, but businesses use two things: labor and capital. In many cases, there's a simple tradeoff between the two. If you find that you can buy and operate a backhoe (capital) for less money than you can employ a gang of ditchdiggers (labor), then you should fire your diggers and trade in their shovels for a down payment on the backhoe. On the other hand, if the ditchdiggers work cheaply enough, maybe you're better off keeping them. According to capitalist values, this is a simple business decision. (And, by the way, if you decide wrongly your smarter competitors, whose costs are lower, will drive you out of business.)

So labor and capital are more or less interchangeable. In particular, they both have "operating costs". Wages and benefits for labor, and energy, maintenance and repairs for capital equipment.

Think of health care as "maintenance and repairs" for labor.

If a machine doesn't return more value than its cost of operation, a good capitalist will get rid of it. If the backhoe in the above example required $5,000 in repairs every month, it probably couldn't earn its keep. It would have virtually no market value, so you'd use it until it broke down, and consign it to the scrap heap.

When an employer says it can't afford to provide health care to employees, it's saying that, like the troublesome backhoe, the employees don't generate enough economic return to justify spending money on their maintenance and repairs. And the economic incentive to use them until they break down, and then discard them, is exactly the same. Employees become disposable. (Even better, one can rent them in foreign countries where they cost much less and their government pays for their repair and maintenance.)

As long as we live in a dog-eat-dog capitalist society, employers will never value employees above their strict economic value vis-a-vis substitutes for their labor. If you're a dog-eat-dog capitalist, you think this is the way things are supposed to be. So we are confronted by the fact that employers are not where to look for appreciation of the intrinsic worth of human beings. No, it is only society that can provide--and enforce--this value. And enforcing this value means being willing to sacrifice some other economic good in order to support the repair and maintenance of human beings.

This says clearly to me that employers should NOT be in the business of providing health benefits. In fact, it's a crazy idea. It's society's job, and the way to do it is through universal health care as a basic human right.

Just like, you know, almost every other advanced nation in the world has already realized.

Letter to Wal-Mart

2006-06-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

(In case you haven't heard, Wal-Mart has announced that it's going to start selling organic foods, and that they will cost no more than 10% more than conventionally-produced foods. Michael Pollan has a great discussion of this in the NY Times Magazine: http://tinyurl.com/hk2ov .)

To: Wal-Mart

Only Wal-Mart could make a commitment to organic foods sound like bad news. The arbitrary +10% price ceiling is so utterly tone-deaf to the entire concept of organics, sustainable production, and responsible pricing, that it can only be seen as a cynical attempt to co-opt and destroy perhaps the last remaining bright spot in American agriculture.

Once giant, "quasi-organic" factory farms spring up to satisfy your demand, the pressure to water down organic standards--by deceit if not by law--will become irresistible. True organic producers will be driven out of business, and you will have destroyed yet another cornerstone of American society.

I won't be buying any of your "organic" grapes flown in from Chile (and hence drenched in petroleum), or your "organic" poultry whose "access" to the outdoors consists of a crowded pen from which they perhaps can see the outdoors.

Truly, you make me sick.

Dying for What?

2006-06-04T11:38:00.000-07:00

from recent news reports:

More and more American soldiers are choosing to risk their lives in Iraq because it's the only way they can secure health care for themselves and their families. As reported in the L.A. Times, for Staff Seargent Michael Kruger "who returned to a war zone for his third tour in December, the danger of losing his family's health insurance was more real and immediate than the danger of dying in combat."

Think about that for a second. I guess the Army's recruitment ads, which pathetically tout "health care" as one of the big benefits of enlisting, are working. With decent jobs and decent medical insurance fast disappearing at home, more and more young adults have nowhere else to turn.

More (from Editor and Publisher magazine):
"A new Gallup Poll released Tuesday reveals that the issue cited by most Americans as the one they worry about the most is "the availability and affordability of health care."
A total of 68% said they worried about this a "great deal." Coming in second is the social security system at 51%. Following close behind that were "availability and affordability of energy," drug use, crime and violence--and only then "the possibility of terrorist attacks in the U.S." (at 45%).

Think about that for another second: Half again as many people worry most about health care as worry about terrorism. Two thirds of Americans cite health care as their biggest worry!

And Money Magazine just surveyed parents of school-age children, and found that their biggest worry for their kids was the cost of college. Not crime, not terrorism, not violent video games.

As this poster http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/6/4/123614/5577 asks:

"When we've created a society in which people are more fearful of college tuition costs, lousy job opportunities and lack of health care than being blown to bits in a war zone, we have to ask ourselves what are we asking our troops to fight for in the end? Traditionally, warriors have gone off to battle ostensibly to preserve a nation's way of life at home. What happens when that way of life becomes so gutted by a culture of individualistic greed and self-preservation that communitarian cooperation and goals no longer exist?"

and

"At what point can the question be raised: Is a country worth dying for that cannot ensure that a child's heart condition will be treated?"

Could it be any clearer that the system is badly broken? Anybody prepared to say that the Republicans are the ones to fix it?

Messing with Texas

2006-03-22T08:49:00.000-08:00

Rachel Maddow's morning show on Air America reported on a police sweep of bars in Irving, Texas. The cops arrested numerous people for being intoxicated—even in bars at hotels where they were staying.

One unfortunate victim can be heard on mic, saying in a wounded-yet-defiant voice, "Your state sucks!"

Amen, sister.

The Dubai "port deal"

2006-02-24T21:31:00.000-08:00

The Bush administration's "privatize at any cost" ideology has put them in the absurd position of claiming that it's not OK for the U.S. government to operate our port facilities, but it's fine for the Dubai government to do so.

As David Sirota has pointed out, this deal is globalism and free trade run amok. And what does Bush say when confronted with the entirely reasonable objections to it? "Trust us." Hah!

Maybe in a few years we'll see Condi Rice on TV claiming "No one could have imagined that a terrorist would infiltrate our ports and slip a nuke through."

Wisdom from William Greider

2006-01-11T20:52:00.000-08:00

From his recent book, The Soul of Capitalism:

The modern American state—encompassing governance at the local, state, and national levels—has lost the capacity to distinguish between public works and private gain. And this failure has profound consequences for the society that are far more destructive than the obvious symptoms of corruption involving money and politics. Over many years, the two parallel purposes—public benefit and private returns—have become steadily fused by the crude logic holding that whatever helps the advance of enterprise may be regarded as beneficial for the general public too. The meaning of public value is thus so adulterated, government is effectively relieved of strong guiding principles. It acts promiscuously on behalf of seemingly random demands and threats.

The public decisions on how to dispense money or preferences thus have become confused or, less charitably, deranged. And government begins to resemble a house of indulgences, dispensing favors and forgivenesses, rationalized by arcane economic calculations but driven more often, as everyone understands, by raw political favoritism. Among other consequences, the government itself thereby promotes inequality, since the distribution of public awards closely follows the misalignments of wealth and influence already existing in society.

These practices are enormously wasteful—hundreds of billions in public resources converted to private gain—but wasted money is the least of the consequences. Nor is this another futile lament against the tyranny of special interests. In a democracy, one man's idea of "special interest" is always another man's righteous cause…We accept the persistence of excess and error in the contract for self-government, so long as the governed retain the power to correct the errors.

The confusion of governing purpose has far more damaging consequences, however. Government loses its ability to envision the broader, long-term story of society's permanent interests. Its potential power to alter the shared future of the country is forfeited to immediate commercial needs, farsightedness vetoed by the here and now…

In these terms, the federal government has become strangely weak, notwithstanding its size and awesome powers. Pulled this way and that, yet incapable of taking big leaps forward, government seems confused about its original purpose or, if you prefer, corrupted by its allegiance to capitalism's needs. This incapacity, I suspect, has contributed greatly to the weakened public faith in government. People harbor contradictory complaints and may not grasp the intricacies, but they do know the benefits are not aimed their way.

In essence, the governing system has become a reactionary influence in the generic meaning—backward looking. It works hardest to support the old over the new, to sustain the status quo created in the past, to defend "what is" against "what might be." In theory, government at every level is not opposed to innovation and small, innovative enterprises or to many larger changes sought by social reformers. As a practical matter, however, government usually takes its stand with the very large and well-established business organizations. Generally, it wants what they want. On major matters, it is most reluctant to do anything they oppose. The political objective we explore in this chapter is nothing less than relearning the meaning of "public works." I am anxious to revive a principled understanding of how government and capitalism are meant to interact in order to restore strong governing principles that not only include society's interests but that serve society first.

Still True Today

2005-12-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

The following is a letter of mine published by the Seattle Times in May of 2004, when gasoline had hit the shocking price of $1.50 a gallon (if memory serves):

The tragedy of the current (and likely permanent) runup in gas prices is one of a gigantic missed opportunity.

When market demand—or the byzantine politics of oil—drives prices up, we dumbly open our wallets and say "Well, gee, if that's the way it is, guess we have no choice." And we proceed to pump millions of gallons of this toxic, non-renewable resource into our big, sexy status symbols. While billions of our hard-earned dollars flow ever faster into the coffers of multinational oil companies and the same corrupt governments that finance terrorism against us.

But had we chosen—say, back in 1993, when President Clinton proposed a modest fossil fuel tax—to set aside a few cents per gallon toward research on conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy, we could be well on our way to a future where our insatiable thirst for oil doesn't destroy the environment and make us hostages to foreign despots. Those billions of dollars that are rapidly draining away our national wealth would instead be recycled into our economy, creating millions of well-paying jobs and making us all richer. But instead, craven politicians seem determined to ride the "no new taxes!" horse right off the cliff of economic collapse—and today's high prices make it that much less likely that they'll bite the bullet and do the right thing.

When will Americans get it: cheap gas is not our eternal, God-given right! Emerging countries like China daily compete harder for the limited supply. Shall we conquer them all and tell them "No, it's our oil"? There is no magic bullet (or magic A-bomb) that will bring us back to the good old days. When will our leaders speak these truths to the people? (When the Chief Executive of Ford Motor says that gas taxes should be higher, it's obvious that something is up.)

The longer we wait, the more wrenching will be the adjustment. We should have started 30 years ago. But for God's sake, let's start now!

Message to "Social Conservatives"

2005-11-27T06:32:00.000-08:00

You still don't get it, do you? You simply refuse to see how the rich Republicans—you know, the ones who actually run things—have played you for fools.

It's hard to admit you've been had, I know. But you have, big time.

Here's the rich Republicans' problem: there aren't enough of them to win elections, so they need your votes. But they want to keep all of America's wealth for themselves. Starting in the late 1960's, they hit on the solution. It was brilliant, and here it is: mount a huge scare campaign targeted at you, and convince you that they're on your side against the "evil liberals."

In the Nixon era, the bugaboo was black people moving next door and invading your schools and dating your daughters. Back then, the Republican term for this was the "Southern Strategy," and it succeeded in getting lots of southern Democrats to start voting Republican. As the years went on, the campaign against evil liberals received many millions in funding (from—you guessed it—rich Republicans) and broadened out to all the "social issues" that get your blood up today.

And taxes. Always the taxes. The rich Republicans cut them every chance they could, and you were grateful. What they never pointed out was that the same tax cut that saved you a few hundred dollars saved each one of them hundreds of thousands. (All that hysteria about the awful "death tax"? Clever words and lies designed to protect the fortunes of the few hundred richest families in America.) Now your children and mine are faced with a crushing burden of debt that may cripple their chances for a better future.

Sometimes a "thought experiment" can help clarify one's thinking about a problem. Here's one I'd like to propose:
Suppose that in their search for a Supreme Court nominee, the Bush administration came across a candidate who was absolutely, made-in-heaven perfect on all "your" issues. You know, firmly anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, pro-school prayer, anti-evolution, anti-flag burning, anti-sex education, the whole nine yards.
Now suppose that this very same guy—let's call him Joe—was against the things rich Republicans care about: lower taxes for rich people, higher profits for oil companies, relaxed limits on toxic pollution, unrestricted development in our national parks and forests, privatized Social Security, reduced medical assistance for poor people, lower taxes for rich people (oops, repeating myself here).
So here's Judge Joe: perfect on the social issues you care about, but a disaster on the economic issues that matter to rich Republicans. (This may be an unlikely state of affairs, but remember this is a thought experiment; anything can happen.)
So here's the key question: do you think for even one microsecond that Judge Joe has a snowball's chance in hell of getting nominated by George Bush?

Of course not. When there's a choice to be made, the interests of the rich Republicans will always trump your concerns. Always. Get used to it. Talk is cheap, and when they can get your votes by talking, they'll do it. But when the important stuff like big money is involved, you'll have to find a place in the back of the bus. Sorry about that.

See, I happen to believe that the Bush Administration and the Congress are full of hypocrites. People who rail against abortion, but wouldn't hesitate for a minute to get one for their teenage daughter if she was raped by one of those icky types they don't like. People who say they favor school prayer and the teaching of intelligent design, but send their own kids to expensive private schools where neither of those things happens. People who thump the Bible at every opportunity, but repeatedly turn their backs on the poor people who Jesus said we must take care of. People who wrap themselves in the flag and blather about how crucial it is to "defend American values" in Iraq, but avoided military service themselves and don't seem anxious to send their own sons and daughters to war. People who preach "family values" then get divorced or have affairs with their secretaries.

Pure, naked hypocrisy. Frankly, it makes me sick. And the fact that you tolerate it is a measure of how thoroughly you've been bamboozled by these overprivileged creeps.

Keep voting for the rich Republicans if you want. But here's a prediction I'm absolutely confident of:
They're never going to give you decent health care.
They're never going to give you really good schools for your kids.
They're never going to raise the minimum wage to a level you can actually live on.
They're never going to do anything to protect the last remaining good jobs in America.
They're never going to get serious about cleaning up the toxic mess that's poisoning our food and water.

Oh, they'll talk and talk about it, and find plenty of scapegoats to blame for the situation (liberals and foreigners, mostly). But if you think rich Republicans are going to voluntarily tax themselves to help everyday people, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

And you know what's really ironic? The last thing they want is for you to win on your social issues. Because then they'd lose their grip on you. They couldn't drive you to the polls in an anti-abortion crusade if it was already illegal. They couldn't attack pro-science school boards if intelligent design was required teaching. They couldn't rail against gay marriage if the Constitution prohibited it. They simply can't afford to let you win on these issues, because then you might notice that they've been picking your pocket for decades!

And if that "morning after" ever came to pass, and you woke up and realized that you'd been shamelessly manipulated and lied to for the past 40 years, well, there'd be hell to pay.

Folks, the alarm is ringing. The Snooze button is broken. It's time to wake up and smell the hypocrisy.

Al Gore continues to be the class act

2005-11-14T21:06:00.000-08:00

Now he's co-founder and chairman of British-based sustainable investing company Generation Investment.

How ironic that the "loser" of the 2000 presidential race will leave a strong and positive legacy, while the "winner" is drowning in his own corruption.

On a separate subject, the stalwart Paul Krugman demolishes the idea that the "free market" is the best way to provide health insurance in today's NY Times column. As he puts it in "Health Economics 101":

"private insurance companies spend large sums not on providing medical care, but on denying insurance to those who need it most…we have a huge private health care bureaucracy whose main purpose is, in effect, to pass the buck to taxpayers…That system is now failing. And a rigid belief that markets are always superior to government programs - a belief that ignores basic economics as well as experience - stands in the way of rational thinking about what should replace it."

Government bashing

2005-10-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

Have you seen that bit of "humor" floating around the Net describing the discovery of the new heaviest element, "Governmentium"? It goes on about how it's made up of "morons" and so on in this vein.

Call me an old grouch, but I find this—and the many similar things that circulate around the Net—annoying at best.

In the guise of humor, they reinforce the "conventional wisdom" that government is inherently inept and ridiculous. This is the purest essence of Reaganism, and getting even self-described progressives to promote it has to count as a victory for Norquist and the rest of the anti-government zealots. I'd be surprised if the Republicans didn't have somebody on the payroll somewhere whose job is to propagate this stuff.

Ask yourself: where are the similar stories that hold big corporations up to ridicule? There are plenty of vitriolic anti-WalMart rants out there—which largely preach to the choir—but I can't recall any that might make the average Joe chuckle and decide to forward it to his friends.

Yet another way the right wing has outsmarted us?

The wheels are coming off

2005-10-02T18:18:00.000-07:00

the Republican corruption machine. God, let it be so! I cut my political teeth glued to the tube for the Watergate hearings. This could be even more fun.

If only there were a lot of dynamic, charismatic Democrats to get excited about. Obama and Spitzer are about it, as far as I can see.

On hate

2005-09-29T22:36:00.000-07:00

I didn't like Bush's father. But I didn't hate him. In my college days, it was common to say we hated Nixon, but that was understandable because Nixon so obviously hated us. Bush is different; I don't believe he hates us. I just think he is utterly indifferent to anyone below what he perceives to be his stature. And it hurts to be ignored. Clinton got a lot of derision for his "I feel your pain" line, but it was possible to imagine that on some level he did; if Bush tried a line like that, it would be so obviously false and hollow that even he would realize it. After Katrina, who did he express sympathy for? Trent Lott, another rich white right-wing politician.

I hate him.

Awesome rant on Tom DeLay's indictment

2005-09-29T19:23:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Daily Kos, this just appeared there. Apparently some Republican cheerleader (Peggy Noonan's son?) was so worked up that he was warning Democrats they were courting civil war by attempting to bring people like DeLay to justice. Read it.

Hi

2005-09-29T16:21:00.000-07:00

This is my second go at this blog thing. Most of what I have to say can be found, said better, at Daily Kos. Check it out. Oh, and George Bush is a dangerous and evil fool. I hate him. There, I said it.