tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-139783792024-02-20T12:54:59.672-08:00Deconstructing DemagoguesSerious Humor and Informed Analysis Aimed at Debunking DemagogueryAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.comBlogger141125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-16670281540342961982012-10-18T09:54:00.000-07:002012-10-18T09:55:51.284-07:00Wall Street vs. Sesame Street
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">High Flying
Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney Threatens Big Bird with Extinction.</span></span></i></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ex-vulture Capitalist
Ruffles Feathers by Hatching Secret Plan Targeting Big Bird.</span></span></i></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Deputy EPA
director Burt McMuppet issued an emergency executive order protecting all fowl
wildlife 8ft tall or taller, a ruling seemingly crafted to protect the PBS’s
Big Bird, but which legal experts claim may be extended several NBA players
with large wingspans as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
surprise ruling immediately attracted the ire of conservative lawmakers and
pundits who have declared an open season on the outsized symbol of Sesame
Street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money
and rumored to be the front runner for the job as Treasury Secretary in a Romney
administration, sums up the conservative mindset well when he insists that
characters like Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, and Oscar the Grouch are not wealth
creators like those on Wall Street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Big
Bird is entitled to feather his nest like everyone else,” Cramer squawked, “but
he’s not a job or wealth creator like the vulture capitalists at Bain,” a
reference to the hedge fund Romney ran before entering politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You can’t expect the wealth creators on
Wall Street to pay higher taxes just to subsidize the characters on Sesame
Street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, bailing out
irresponsible deadbeat Muppets can only lead to moral hazard.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The liberal
economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman disagrees:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“PBS
is paying Big Bird chickenfeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oscar is
living in a garbage can for Pete’s sake!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No wonder he’s grouchy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t
have a thriving Sesame Street without asking those who pull the financial
strings on Wall Street to pay a little more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If income inequality continues to grow, the Muppets will occupy Sesame
Street.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">President
Obama belatedly came to Big Bird’s defense today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Speaking at a campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio,
the Commander-in-Chief insisted: “I grew up with Big Bird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big Bird is a friend of mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I call on Governor Romney to keep his Mitts
off Big Bird.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, Governor Romney,
basking in the glow of his debate performance against the President, reiterated
his commitment to go after Big Bird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“I’m a job creator,” Romney insisted, “and I’m not going to borrow money
from China to subsidize Sesame Street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If Big Bird wants to build his retirement nest egg, then he should go
out and get a job in the private sector.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I mean teaching kids math and their ABC’s is strictly for the
birds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our society needs to
disproportionally reward the risk-takers and speculators who create the fundamentals
of a sustainable economy.” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-72876034607108698942012-09-02T16:13:00.002-07:002012-09-02T16:14:06.415-07:00Eastwood vs. Obama
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Historians like Toynbee and Vico have argued long
argued that civilizations have life-cycles that are similar to the arc of the
human lifespan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is, societies pass
through golden ages of youthful vitality, periods of stability and maturity, and
eras of inertia and decline.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The actor Clint Eastwood unscripted and somewhat incoherent
endorsement of Mitt Romney at the Republican national convention is only a
small blemish on an otherwise distinguished career, but his rambling and
unbecoming diatribe against President Obama only reinforces the notion that the
Republican party is dangerously out of touch with reality and even a tad senescent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Eastwood’s performance undoubtedly left Republican
image makers wincing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the
82-year old actor’s views – and his crude attempts to caricature President
Obama – are hardly an anomaly in the Republican Party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chastising Obama for failing to fulfill his
campaign pledge to close Guantanamo, when in fact Republicans have obstructed
all attempts to shutter the facility, is as disingenuous and reality-defying as
Paul Ryan’s attempt to blame candidate Obama for the closure of a Detroit auto
plant that shut its doors in the waning days of the Bush administration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Eastwood’s and Ryan’s jabs at President Obama were
reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s false but sincerely held belief that acid rain
was caused by trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what happens to
a political party, or a country, when so many demonstrably false beliefs are widely
held by the population?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Conservatives deny the possibility that global warming
could be a real or manmade phenomenon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They also hew to a demonstrably false ideology, which insists that free markets
never fail, tax cuts pay for themselves, and government regulations are
unnecessary to prevent economic crises.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Republican ideology failed spectacularly last
time it was tried.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bush’s tax cuts
busted the budget and deregulation allowed the financial sector to run
amok.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result, America’s financial
system nearly collapsed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Astonishingly, Republicans
refuses to acknowledge the bankruptcy of its ideological agenda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, they’ve taken to blaming the Obama
administration for the ills the Republican agenda inflicted on the United
States.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This sorry state of affairs was symbolized by Clint
Eastwood’s rather lame mock interview with an empty chair, which supposedly
represented President Obama. Eastwood’s shtick may have come across as entertaining
to a certain segment of angry white male voters, but his crude
characterizations of Obama will probably come across as the vulgar
stereotypical distortions they are to the demographic groups that will decide
the election (namely, Hispanics, women, and independents).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No wonder, Romney’s political operatives were
reportedly cringing during Eastwood’s performance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Eastwood is not senile, but a certain segment of the
Republican Party – the birthers, those who think Obama is closet Muslim or a
covert socialist, or those who think Obama bears primary responsibility for the
jobs crisis in America – is dangerously untethered to reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ironically, the politician most responsible
for America’s current misfortune – George W. Bush – was absent once again from
the Republican convention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The American
icon Clint Eastwood’s showdown with an empty chair may have fell flat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what is more telling is the Republican
Party’s failure to engage in an honest dialogue about the legacy of George W.
Bush, a man who can’t show up at his own party’s convention because he is so deservedly
reviled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-3446094054521932512012-04-11T07:32:00.001-07:002012-04-11T07:33:59.480-07:00<b>Mitt Romney's Secrets to Success</b><br />
<br />
Mitt Romney hoards money the way eccentric old ladies stockpile porcelain dolls, knickknacks, and other assorted trinkets of inestimable value. The former governor of Massachusetts is reportedly worth $250 million dollars, which makes him the wealthiest presidential candidate in U.S. history. Thankfully, Romney isn’t trying to hide his stash of cash under his mattress or in one of estate safes. Instead, Mitt has his loot spread out in a variety of high-interest bearing account in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.<br />
<br />
It would be class warfare to disparage Mitt Romney from being rich and successful. I may not be part of the fortunate 1%, but I harbor no resentment towards a man who would spend millions of his own money for the privilege of sharing the stage with the likes of Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich.<br />
<br />
I do resent the fact, however, that Mitt’s money makes more than I do. In 2011, Mitt’s money made more than $ 4 million. That is, Mitt collected more than $4 million in interest income, which means that Mitt’s money was making more than a $109,000 a day! Assuming Mitt’s money was working 24/7 with no holidays, then Mitt’s money makes more than $4,500 an hour.<br />
<br />
Needless to say, my money doesn’t work that hard, nor do I. Otherwise, I might try running for president myself instead of writing about the morons we end up electing. However, it is clear that Mitt’s money works harder than mine does. After all, my bank is only offering me 0.05% percent on my cash, whereas according to my calculation Mitt’s money is getting closer to 10%.<br />
<br />
Of course, Mitt’s money may be taking greater risks than my money. I may be liberal politically and ethically, but I’m fiscally conservative, which means I enjoy having money, but not spending it. The idea of going in to debt gives me hives and makes me apoplectic.<br />
<br />
Mitt has a healthier relationship to debt. He understands what poor old Aristotle did not: namely, that money can indeed be the mother of money. After all, debt is the engine of wealth creation for Bain Capital, the financial services firm that Romney once led.<br />
<br />
Bain Capital has served its clients handsomely. In prosperous years, Bain has managed to generate annualized returns of 80% for some of its clients. Bain gets its money to work hard. How does Bain manage to generate such fantastic returns year after year? They must have recipe for success the rest of us in the 99% could follow.<br />
<br />
The Bain formula isn’t rocket science, but it certainly rivals alchemy in its ingeniousness. Essentially, Bain borrows money from investors such as rich folks, pension funds, or endowments. It then uses the money it has borrowed to get banks to lend it even more money. This is called leverage. Sometimes, venture firms like Bain borrow thirty or forty dollars for every dollar they put up; the higher the leverage the higher the return on equity.<br />
<br />
To see why this is so, imagine I’m a hedge fund manager with $10,000 in my pocket. I make my living convincing people I’m smarter and more knowledgeable that them, so it’s quite probable I could induce a few friends and relatives to pony up their life savings so that we can pool our resources, invest in a hotshot business opportunity, and all become filthy rich. Let’s say I manage to raise $990,000, which added to my original $10,000 comes out to a cool million. Based on the money I’ve raised and my idea I then manage to convince some major banks to lend me even more money. Thanks to the magic of leverage I now have $30 million dollars I can use to invest in equities, acquire a business, or make bets in the high stakes derivatives market.<br />
<br />
For the sake of argument, let’s say I buy a company for $20 million. I might fire a couple of workers or move operations to a third world country where labor costs are a pittance. I’ve made the company more valuable so I can sell it to some other hedge fund manager for more than I bought it somewhere down the road. In the meantime, I still have a third of my equity available to pay for administrative perks, my base salary, and to hire an army of industrious tax lawyers to help me reduce my tax liability.<br />
Let’s say I sell the company after a year for $25 million. You might say my return on the equity I raised was an impressive 17%. But remember all that leverage. I only put in $10,000 originally, but now I’m a multimillionaire with a track record of creating wealth for my clients. Investors and banks will clamor to lend me money and I can repeat the whole process again.<br />
<br />
Thanks to the magic of leverage, I’m virtually guaranteed to generate impressive return on the equity I start with. Sure, I have to find buyers for the companies I “invest” in. Like a used car dealer, I make some cosmetic improvements to the companies I’m peddling. I may even find genuine ways of adding value to the companies I acquire. However, my primary aim will be to buy companies low and sell them high. Jobs may be destroyed and created thanks to this freewheeling form of capitalism. But my primary fiduciary responsibility is to create wealth for myself and my clients.<br />
<br />
Now, some financial experts might insist that what I’m doing is amoral and parasitic. After all, it’s not clear that my activity is really contributing to the economy or the larger social good. Do I really deserve to make 400 times what a teacher makes? I look at this way, wealth like mine wouldn’t exist unless there were people as ingenuous and ballsy as myself who could hatch and execute such brilliant money-making schemes. The wealth people like me generate out of thin air can be used to hire chauffeurs, secretaries, accountants, tax lawyers, strippers, bartenders, gardeners, and public servants who share my passion for free markets and less government oversight.<br />
<br />
Of course, my hedge fund activities may contribute to inequality, but it is entirely legal. Indeed, it may even be ethical. Sure there are winners and loser – and booms and busts – but when the financial system collapses the government will step into to bail everyone out. After all, banks will get virtually zero interest loans from the Fed so they can lend money to hedge fund managers like me again.<br />
<br />
Only financial wizards like me can get the engine of prosperity started again, which is why bonuses need to part of any bailout program. You might think that future taxpayers may be hit with the bill for any bailouts, but it is far more likely that the U.S. will simply devalue its currency or default altogether. In fact, present day taxpayers will actually get a tax cut because an economic meltdown is not the time to raise taxes. Everyone wins!<br />
<br />
The discerning reader may have noticed that my hedge fund scheme privatizes the gains, but socializes the risks. Indeed, some might argue that the system I’ve outlined amounts to a form of socialism for the rich. Such critics, I assure you, are engaging in class warfare and guilty of attacking capitalism itself. Poor people are not poor because of capitalism; they are poor because they fritter their money away on frivolous things, like taxes.<br />
<br />
Well, I hope I’ve shed light on why Mitt Romney is rich and successful and why the rest of us are not. Mitt has been focused on money the way squirrels are focused on acorns. This may sound like a nutty analogy, but it may explain why Romney is now considered by many to be presidential timber.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-15279576774683521722009-12-30T18:50:00.001-08:002009-12-30T18:50:11.962-08:00Cheney’s Chutzpa<span xmlns=''><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Dick Cheney's credibility has more holes in it than a Russian submarine. The former vice-president was a central figure in what is widely acknowledged as the most incompetent administration in modern American history. Yet, the man who once shot his hunting partner in the face has the temerity to launch a fusillade against the Obama administration for supposedly ducking the "war on terror" metaphor.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Cheney's latest broadside follows on the heels of an unsuccessful al-Qaeda plot to blow up an airliner on Christmas, which follows on the heels of the Fort Hood Massacre where a disturbed U.S. Army psychiatrist (who happened to be Muslim) opened fire on his fellow soldiers.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Both incidents, in fact, were carried out by devout Muslims who could best be characterized as unmarried social misfits deeply opposed to America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Major Hasan both illustrate the unconventional nature of the jihadist threat. Neither man was following orders as a part of a formal hierarchical organization. Rather, each was inspired by al-Qaeda's ideology to initiate attacks of their own choosing. Hasan and Abduulmutallab may have received "spiritual guidance" which reinforced their impulses to unleash terrorist violence against "infidels." However, the clerics that recruit, counsel, and radicalize lost souls like these probably do not dirty their hands by planning or coordinating specific acts of terrorism.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Al-Qaeda is arguably the ultimate "virtual community," a collection of loosely affiliated groups and cells comprised of career criminals, paramilitaries, religious zealots, and loner terrorist wannabes.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Osama bin Laden is a charismatic figurehead who is the spiritual locus of al-Qaeda, but he largely irrelevant from an operational or managerial point of view. The Bush administration claimed that bin Laden had been neutralized because he could not plan or conduct operations. This view is self-serving and erroneous. Simply put, nothing would deflate al-Qaeda more than the death or capture of their charismatic spiritual leader, who has supposedly evaded U.S. forces thanks to Allah's protection.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The failure to kill or capture bin Laden at Tora Bora (U.S. resources were being diverted to Iraq at the time) must rank very high on the list of the Bush administration's missed opportunities. Killing bin Laden would not have ended terrorism as a technique, but it could have delivered a knockout blow to al-Qaeda.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The Bush administration instigated one of the greatest strategic blunders in military history when it invaded Iraq. Toppling Saddam Hussein was supposed to be the first step in a wave of democratization that would sweep and transform the Middle East. Instead, the misguided and mismanaged Iraq War became a recruitment tool that radicalized an entire generation of Muslims.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The Islamic extremists that are plotting to blow up airliners and attack Western targets are convinced that the U.S. is waging a war against Islam. Bellicose rhetoric from the Bush administration regarding the "war on terror" proved to be self-defeating because it reinforced al-Qaeda's deluded ideology, which paints the Muslim world as the victim of America's imperial aggression. The Obama administration is right in downplaying such rhetoric because the struggle against Islamic extremism is an ideological struggle to convince ordinary Muslims that America is on the side of human dignity and social justice.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>America won the Cold War against the Soviet Union because it contained Communism and won the ideological battle for hearts and minds of mankind. At the height of the Cold War, however, there were those on the extreme right who insisted that the only way to defeat Communism was to launch a pre-emptive nuclear war against the "Evil Empire." Recently, right-wing extremists like Dick Cheney took America down a path that included pre-emptive war, torture, and other Constitutional abuses. As a result, America's reputation sank and the country nearly drowned in a financial crisis caused in no small measure by the failed economic policies of the Bush/Cheney administration. Dick Cheney's credibility on national security matters is unsalvageable. <br /></span></p></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-84798852025360966462009-12-29T13:27:00.001-08:002009-12-29T13:27:40.504-08:00Barack Obama’s Half a Loaf<span xmlns=''><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Barack Obama is drawing the ire of both the far right and the reflexive left. This is probably a sign the president is governing well.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The historian Arnold Toynbee believed civilizations had life cycles. In Toynbee's view, societies pass through the phases of youthful vitality, vigorous middle age, and senescent rigidity. The intellectual bankruptcy, paranoia, and inflexible crankiness that characterize today's conservative movement would seem to exemplify the social dementia Toynbee believed afflicted societies entering their terminal phases.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Thankfully, the conservative movement has been largely marginalized following the disastrous reign of the epically incompetent Bush administration. Solving America's formidable domestic and foreign policy challenges will require flexibility, creativity, and pragmatism, qualities that are in short supply among conservatives.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The far left, however, can be every bit as obtuse as the far right. For example, President Obama has taken heat from the left for his supposed failure to end America's involvement in Afghanistan and for supposedly getting rolled into supporting a flawed healthcare bill. In fact, Obama made a sound decision on Afghanistan. And the Democratic health reform bill represents a real social achievement in that it establishes the principle that all Americans are entitled to decent healthcare.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Regarding Afghanistan, the president's critics fail to understand that ending America's involvement prematurely would pose intolerable risks. To begin with, quitting Afghanistan with an ascendant Taliban would almost certainly consign the country to civil war, which would destabilize Pakistan (a country with nuclear weapons). Further, Islamic extremists would interpret America's withdrawal as a victory over a weakened superpower, a narrative that would embolden jihadists worldwide.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Exiting Afghanistan on America's terms is imperative. Sending additional U.S. troops is not an ideal option, but it is the least bad of truly terrible options. Likewise, the Democratic healthcare bill is terribly flawed, but it may be the best reform that a broken political system is capable of generating at the moment. Critics on the left (like Howard Dean) who insisted that it would be better to vote against the bill and start over, are oblivious to consequences of their idealistic folly. If Republicans had succeeded in stymieing health reform again it would have been a mortal blow to Obama and the Democratic Party. In all likelihood, the failure of health reform would pave the way for Republican victories in 2010 and 2012. Consequently, it would be years if not decades before anyone attempted to reform the healthcare system again.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Barack Obama is a pragmatist who'd rather come away with half a loaf than no loaf at all. Right-wing activists who contend that Obama is socialist who wants to redistribute wealth are certifiably delusional. In fact, the crony capitalism championed by Bush and Cheney amounted socialism for the wealthy as military contractors like Halliburton, the financial industry, and political contributors fed at the public trough until the entire economic system nearly collapsed.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>In reality, President Obama is a centrist and an incrementalist. Indeed, he seems to be employing conservative means towards moderately liberal ends. He may be taking flak from both the rabid-right and the utopian-left, but it is probably a good sign that he's steering a course that displeases the insensate fringes of our political system. </span></p></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-80072384913931249922009-12-21T16:01:00.001-08:002009-12-22T12:54:43.900-08:00<strong>Pantheism versus Theism</strong><br /><br />The poet William Blake saw Heaven in a wildflower and he found eternity in an hour. Poets are quite mad, of course. But as Plato recognized, the madness of the gods is to be preferred over the sanity of men. <br />Poets tend to be heretics too. After all, shattering dogmas so that fresh truths can be perceived is part of a poet’s reason for being. <br /><br />The poet Czeslaw Miloz once wrote, “You ask me how to pray to someone who is not. All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge. And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard.”<br /><br />Miloz, I believe, captured a great truth about prayer and religion. The traditional conception of God as a personal deity who created the world and intervenes in human affairs is no longer intellectually, theologically, or philosophically persuasive. Nikos Kazantzakis, put it well when said, praying to God is like knocking on the door of a deaf man.<br /><br />The paradox in Miloz’s poem, On Prayer, is that although our prayers almost certainly fall on deaf ears they are nevertheless spiritually empowering. Faced with the dark night of the soul, a time when we are acutely aware of our limitations, we instinctively turn to a power greater than ourselves. This is when we are at our most authentic, even divine-like. The power of prayer lies not in catching the attention of some supreme being, who then intervenes on our behalf, but in the way a truthful and heartfelt inner dialogue, fortifies us to meet life’s most formidable challenges.<br /><br />The root meaning of the word religion is to link back. Both pantheists and deists share the belief that man has sprung from a transcendental source. For pantheists, this source is Nature, which is a reflection of a slumbering but cosmic intelligence. We humans are a reflection of this unconscious and impersonal intelligence. Nature has emerged into consciousness through us and we are quite literally the eyes and ears of the world. Nature, of course, can be terrifying and awe-inspiring. However, discerning the broad brushstrokes of beauty and harmony against the backdrop of individual suffering can be an aesthetic experience that offers a poetic respite from the harshness of the natural order. <br /><br />Schopenhauer believed that aesthetic arrest represents a moment when a human being temporarily transcends the limitations of their suffering ego and recognizes (however dimly or faintly) their ultimate identity with the noumenal ground of being.<br /><br />Seeing Nature as a work of art is no easy task. Great poets demonstrate that an immersion in nature need not be some sort of escapist regression, as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html">The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat implies in his Op-Ed, <em>Heaven and Nature</em>. </a>Put simply, the kernels of insight and enlightenment that poets like Blake convey have the power to recreate in us the same “Ah ah” experience that stirred the soul of poets in the first place.<br /><br />In contrast, abstract conceptions of an all-good Almighty -- whose sole remaining function these days is to save His creatures from the evils of His own Creation – seems like an escapist fantasy at best and pernicious nonsense at worst. There is nothing more painful than false belief. And I fear that much of the anger that seems to be consuming the religious right in America at the moment stems from frustration that invariably develops when a person’s worldview is at complete variance with the world he or she inhabits.<br /><br />Ross Douthat theistic apologia is rhetorically brilliant, but his logic is unpersuasive. His chief argument in favor of theism is that pantheism cannot deliver man from the evils and suffering of this world. But using Hollywood homages to pantheism as proverbial straw men allows Douthat to paint “nature worship” in superficial way.<br /><br />Wittgenstein was famous for dissolving – not solving – philosophical conundrums. His insight, still not widely appreciated, is that the way we use (and misuse) language generates pseudo-problems. For instance, to say, “It is raining” does not mean there is some entity “It” that is raining. In a similar way, theism generates many false problems by positing literal entities – A savior God, Heaven, and Hell – which are not ontologically real. Pursuing mirages is bound to create angst. Ultimately, it may be that theism creates the malady it purports to cure.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-16882139081690074142009-10-28T07:57:00.001-07:002009-10-28T07:57:55.221-07:00Politics, Professional Wrestling, & Fox News<span xmlns=''><p>Politics is like professional wrestling, only it's more entertaining but less edifying. Perhaps that explains why cable "news" personalities like Glen Beck deliberately blur the lines between entertainment and current events.<br /></p><p>The social critic Neil Postman once entitled a book Amusing<em> Ourselves to Death, </em>which is a rather apt description of the carnivalesque antics the clownish Beck and his ilk have imported into the journalistic profession. War, recession, and national decline are a lot more bearable if our media jesters can somehow divert us from an increasingly unpleasant reality with their foolishness.<br /></p><p>Lear called upon his Fool to cheer him up as his psyche and his kingdom crumbled. His fool was wise in a way our media fools are not. Lear's jester traded in the kind of wisdom and insight that surpassed men's understanding; our media fools pander to the lowest common denominator while peddling propaganda and sophistry as if they were the highest forms of sagacity.<br /></p><p>What is so objectionable about the likes of Beck, Sean Hannity, and others at Fox News? Fox News is built on two principles: 1) promoting the reactionary agenda of Rupert Murdoch and 2) telling an audience what they want to hear.<br /></p><p>Orwell warned that the function of propaganda is to sell the notion that war <em>is </em>peace, that slavery <em>is</em> freedom. Fox News, the "fair and balanced" network – is in the business of selling similar contradictions. <br /></p><p>The anchors and hosts on Fox News are not in the business of objective journalism. Rather, they are master sophists. They aim not at truth, but persuasion. Socrates noted that the sophists in ancient Greece were so skilled in rhetoric that they could make the worse argument appear the better. Unlike Socrates' dialectical method, which examines presuppositions, sophists begin with preconceptions and end with them.<br /></p><p>Fox News, like Narcissus, is smitten with itself. When you think about it, it's rather perverse for a news organization to spend so much time reporting on itself. Journalists are supposed to report the news, not make it. However, Fox's personality-driven programming is centered on a simple premise: convince credulous audiences that their anchors and hosts speak for them. Fox News calls attention to itself at every turn because it has set itself up as proxy for beleaguered Americans.<br /></p><p>War is force that gives us meaning. An Axis-of- Spin – Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly -- promote the notion that the Obama has declared war on the news agency because it plays into the narrative Fox is peddling, namely that Fox is the champion of the besieged masses.<br /></p><p>Fox recognizes that a rumble with the Obama administration will attract viewers looking for an entertaining spectacle and an outlet through which they can vent their frustrations and aggressions. Like the World Wrestling Federation, Fox News has a stock of buffoonish characters who aim at stirring up their audiences with over-the-top antics. Similarly, with Fox News reality is beside the point, ratings are everything, and discourse is tailored towards third-graders.<br /></p><p>When I think of Fox News I think of Sean Hannity fawning over President Bush; Bill O'Reilly excusing the abuses at Guantanamo; Glenn Beck ridiculing the scientific consensus on global warming; and Neil Cavuto tossing softball questions to a corporate honcho who would soon be convicted of a massive fraud. Are these anchors journalists or propagandists? You decide.<br /></p><p>Fox News, like professional wrestling, traffics in entertainment not edification. Both Fox and the WWF create arenas where self-reference abounds and objectivity is obliterated. Climbing into the ring with Fox News is degrading, even for politicians.<br /></p><p><br /> </p><p><br /> </p><p><br /> </p></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-485747763840047112009-07-05T16:46:00.000-07:002009-07-05T16:50:03.252-07:00<strong>The Death of Michael Jackson and the Demise of Sarah Palin (and what it all means for America)</strong><br /><br />Few individuals are weirder than the late Michael Jackson, but Sarah Palin comes mighty close. The former Republican VP candidate shocked the political world by announcing that she is resigning her Alaska governorship. True to form, her quirky, unscripted, and incoherent news conference performance left nearly everyone scratching their heads. Palin’s surprise resignation, however, caps a great week for Democrats; Al Franken is finally declared the winner in Minnesota’s senate race, Republican governor Mark Sanford derails his presidential ambitions by admitting to infidelity, and Sarah Palin zany rationale for quitting her post reinforces the perception that the GOP is fatally unhinged. In truth, the Republican Party has even less of a pulse than Michael Jackson, who at least has the chance of making a posthumous comeback.<br /><br />Sarah Palin’s rationale for leaving office is about as convincing as Dick Cheney’s defense of water boarding. In fact, Palin displayed a smorgasbord of verbal and emotional tics during her news conference that are symptomatic of the GOP’s decline. For example, the Alaska governor seemed constitutionally incapable of stringing together coherent thoughts and arguments, but she had no trouble spouting a train of mind-numbing clichés to explain her decision. She didn’t want to be a “lame duck” and “collect a paycheck” and “kind of milk it.” No, Palin isn’t one “to go with the flow” because “only dead fish go with the flow.” Sarah “Barracuda” Palin is a self-described maverick, but her thought processes seem composed from a string of lifeless banalities and worn out clichés.<br /><br />There is also an eerie dissonance between the chirpy cheeriness she tries to project and the anxiety and unease betrayed by her body language. Bush displayed a similar incongruity; the exaggerated macho swagger of a bully compensating for his obvious sense of inadequacy. Incidentally, watch just about any of clip of Bush from several years back and I bet you’ll be struck by how fake he comes across. It’s not only the chasm between his words and reality that alarm, Bush’s body language, tone, and demeanor betray disingenuousness.<br /><br />Palin tried to sell her departure as a selfless act done for the good of Alaskans and the Republican Party. But her strained explanation and incongruous delivery appear to be masking a truth she cannot admit. She strikes me – and apparently many others – as a quintessential narcissist. That is, she has a grandiose sense of self coupled with an inability to accept criticism, acknowledge mistakes, or empathize with others. Do these qualities remind you of another recent Republican leader? (Hint, think flight suit, bring em’ on, and the guy strumming a guitar while New Orleans drowned).<br /><br />In fact, conservatives have extolled and exemplified a national form of narcissism for some time. This vanity was enshrined in the Bush Doctrine: The United States represents the culmination of human history, is utterly unique, and is charged with a messianic mission to spread liberty all across the globe. As far as the neocons were concerned, our system of democratic capitalism was supposed to the model for all peoples at all times. The rise of China and the near meltdown of America’s financial system have gone a long way to puncture that conceit.<br /><br />The conservative disdain for the notion that empathy is a desirable quality in judges fits with this pattern of narcissism. Along these lines, Sarah Palin disparaged Barack Obama’s efforts as a community organizer; ridicule being the polar opposite of empathy. Think of a national Republican leader – Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter come to mind – and the last quality you will think of is empathy. Sarah Palin is merely a symptom of cultural malady that is afflicting a conservative movement that is in the process of self-destruction. There is a psychological law at work here; those with an inflated sense tend to destroy themselves and everything they touch. Tragically, this was the fate of Michael Jackson, but at least he possessed the talent to create a legacy that will survive him. George W. Bush and Sarah Palin, on the other hand, are the type that tends to leave a trail of disappointment and destruction in their wake.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-68625156736304804642009-05-16T18:17:00.001-07:002009-05-16T18:17:43.824-07:00<span xmlns=''><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'><strong>Torturing Pelosi<br /></strong></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>"If everyone is guilty, then no one is guilty." Time and again, Conservatives have succeeded in implicating Democrats for crimes perpetrated by the Bush administration. John Kerry was supposedly in favor of the Iraq War before he was against it. Democrats saw the same WMD intelligence the Bush White House saw before rubber stamping the Iraq War. And now, Nancy Pelosi supposedly tacitly approved of water boarding before she found it politically expedient to criticize the practice.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Nancy Pelosi has become the proverbial red herring that has been used to bait – hook, line, and sinker – a frenzy of media sharks. "What did Speaker Pelosi know? And when did she know it?" This is a loaded question that has managed to convict the hapless Pelosi, at least in the court of public opinion, of Constitutional crimes conceived and executed by her political adversaries in the Bush administration.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Bush & Cheney proved to be inept when it came to managing our wars, the economy, or Katrina, but they were geniuses when it came to managing public opinion. Put simply, they have a knack for tailoring their arguments to the lowest common denominator. If someone opposed "enhanced interrogation methods," then it must be because they cared about the rights of terrorists more than they cared about the safety of the American people. Such either/or reasoning invariably involved false choices and was deliberately meant to be divisive.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The use of water boarding has proven to be a cataclysmic failure. To begin with, embracing torture decimated America's moral standing, served as a recruiting device for al-Qaeda, and led to false confessions that helped lead us into war with Iraq. Further, U.S. commanders agree that photos of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo did more to instigate attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq than any single factor. Dick Cheney claims torture saved lives, but the available evidence contradicts his assertions.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The fact that Dick Cheney vouches for torture is not enough to discredit the practice. However, the vast majority of counterterrorism experts insist that abusive interrogation techniques lead to a conundrum: it is exceedingly difficult to disentangle good intelligence from bad. In contrast, more refined interrogation techniques, which use subtle techniques to co-opt terror suspects, have a superior track record according to the most credible experts.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The use of torture must be weighed against the clear downsides the practice entails: unreliable information, the pernicious effects of institutionalizing barbarity, and the obvious fact that the law must be tortured beyond recognition before it is legal to torture individuals.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The problems with Bush & Cheney's policy of using torture are clear. Simply put, the use of torture has put U.S. service men and women at greater risk; rationalizing torture has perverted our legal system; and condoning torture has diminished America's soft power. Additionally, the Bush administration policies have led to the detention, torture, and deaths of innocents.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>There is no doubt – none whatsoever – that water boarding prisoners is a war crime under International Law, the Geneva Convention, and U.S. Law. Nancy Pelosi is a sideshow in all of this.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The principles that animate the U.S. constitution are clear – all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, which include the right to some form of due process. These rights are not granted by any government. Therefore, they cannot be taken away by any government. But this is exactly what George W. Bush did when he insisted he had the authority to designate any individual an enemy combatant who could then be held indefinitely and without charges in a legal limbo. Bush's power grab was a brazen assault on the most fundamental of Constitutional ideals. The perverse notion that the President was a law unto himself opened the door to an illegal war based on false pretenses and the barbarous and depraved treatment of detainees.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'> Bush and Cheney have long habit of shirking responsibility and spreading blame for their failures. They also have an army of apologists and propagandists trying to revise history and implicate others in the Bush administration's misdeeds. However, the central fact remains: Bush and Cheney authorized what have traditionally and universally been regarded as war crimes and crimes against humanity. History will hold them accountable and so should we. </span></p></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-17335647525931919542009-04-24T08:59:00.001-07:002009-04-24T09:06:51.149-07:00<strong>Bush’s Big Lie</strong><br /><br /> “This government does not torture people.”<br /> -- George W. Bush<br /><br />George Bush’s credibility has sunk further and deeper than a Russian submarine. Invariably, the divergence of Bush’s rhetoric from reality has been excused as the result of sincere and honest error. Bush may have misled, the apologists insisted, but he did not lie to the American people. The latter offence of course, is considered far graver than the former, especially by Bush’s Christian base, which tends to take Commandments like “Thou Shalt Not Lie’ very seriously.<br /><br />Personally, I agree with the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu, author of the classic, The Art of War, that a statesman is better off lying if doing so will keep us out of war. Statecraft is an art, not a science. And the same can be said about morality.<br /><br />Bush, however, stands revealed a complete charlatan, a hypocrite, and a war criminal. He and Dick Cheney ran on a platform that was heavy on things liberals supposedly lacked: namely, moral clarity and accountability. When it came to crafting torture memos, however, Bush & Cheney utterly failed to draw bright moral lines against techniques that have been recognized by U.S and International Law as torture for centuries. Put simply, Japanese officials who used water boarding during WWII were prosecuted and found guilty for committing war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials. What the Bush administration’s torture memos did, of course, was to torture the law until interrogators could use any abusive technique Bush, Cheney, & Rumsfeld wanted to authorize.<br /><br />Defining torture out of existence, by insisting all practices that didn’t lead directly to organ failure or death were acceptable, is the epitome of moral vacuity and evasiveness. In essence, Bush & Cheney thought they could evade moral culpability through legal locutions and hairsplitting: Sure, water boarding is fine, just as long as the water temperature isn’t too hot or cold, and the victim has a pillow, and is tied down with nylon rope that he doesn’t burn his wrists.<br /><br />Bush & Cheney are intent on evading responsibility in a no less cowardly way. For years they have feigned outrage at lower-level military personnel for committing abuses that they in fact authorized. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice not only lied when they insisted the U.S. did not utilize torture. They lied in the most self-serving way by allowing low-level military personnel to pay the price for the crimes they knowingly sanctioned. The way Bush and Cheney evaded military service in Vietnam was less than honorable; the way Bush & Cheney are evading responsibility for the abusive techniques they authorized is cowardly and despicable.<br /><br />The release of the torture memos indisputably show that top administration officials – including the president himself – repeatedly lied to the American people. Their deceptions were not aimed at protecting national security, but avoiding responsibility for policies they knew crossed the line into war crimes.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-20392746345374216922009-04-22T13:01:00.000-07:002009-04-22T13:09:20.104-07:00<strong>The Torture Memos</strong><br /><br />“Are thumbs fingers?” The question is posed by an obtuse but efficient Nazi interrogator in the film version of “The English Patient.” The scene jumped into my mind as I pondered the tortured legal locutions the Bush administration concocted to justify interrogation techniques that went out of style in most of the civilized world following the Inquisition.<br /><br /> Apologists for the Bush administration, of course, would prefer that these torture memos never saw the light of day. They claim self-servingly, that revealing the “legal rationales” behind the Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation” methods can only aid the enemy. In truth, the Bush administration’s harsh interrogation methods were never as effective as advertised. However, the administration’s defenders do have a point; the memos are such a complete legal, logical, and moral embarrassment that their publication amounts to a propaganda victory for al-Qaeda.<br /><br />The Justice Department has long since repudiated the shoddy legal opinions devised by Bush’s Three Legal Stooges, John Yoo, David Addington, and Alberto Gonzales. They are viewed as cranks by their peers and pariahs by the international community. It is probably only a matter of time before they face prosecution for providing the legal rationale for war crimes.<br /><br />Many conservatives are apoplectic because they believe legitimate policy differences are being criminalized. This view does not hold up to scrutiny. Simply put, the Bush administration’s lawyers were not looking to the law for guidance; they were looking for ways around the law. Incidentally, the same perversion of justice was at work in the legal rationalizations that culminated in the debacle of Bush vs. Gore, and the run-up to the Iraq War for that matter. In each case, the “legal principles” involved functioned as a blunt extension of political power, rather than as objective standards. This is a pretty cynical approach to the law.<br /><br />The same ad hoc quality that infects the Bush administration’s quasi-legal reasoning is on display by those who insist torture techniques are what kept America safe since 9/11. Bush’s speechwriter, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/20/AR2009042002818.html">Marc A. Theissen, writing in the <em>Washington Post </a></em>for instance, insists that “without enhanced interrogations, there could be a hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York.” What Thiessen fails to mention, however, is that torture also led to “intelligence” that apparently “confirmed” the Bush administration’s preconception that Saddam possessed WMD. In other words, torture also helped lead the United States into a strategic debacle. This illustrates what most counterterrorism experts believe is the fatal flaw from using torture: It is exceeding difficult to distinguish bad information from good. Too often, interrogators who use torture will hear what they want to hear.<br /><br />Theissen goes on to cite the “success” of using harsh interrogation methods on Abu Zubaydah. However, it is now clear that President Bush overstated the importance of Zubaydah and the information he apparently divulged after being tortured. As the Post’s Eugene Robinson notes, Zubaydah was hardly the pivotal figure the administration claimed he was. And the “vital information” Zubaydah provided after being tortured was in fact information that was already known to the intelligence community from other sources.<br /><br />The Bush administration has deservedly acquired a reputation for concocting self-serving ad hoc rationalizations: America has not been attacked since 9/11, so naturally it must be because we employed enhanced interrogation methods. To paraphrase Bush’s CIA director, Michael Haydn, enhanced interrogations were done according to the best legal advice available at the time, and those methods worked.<br /><br />The first part of Haydn’s conclusion is patently ridiculous; even the Bush administration has repudiated the early legal memos that supposedly legitimated the president’s authority to order techniques like water boarding. That tells you how shoddy and scholarly deficient they were. However, it’s no surprise that torture can yield important intelligence. The real question, of course, is this: Could legal interrogation techniques have yielded the same or better results? Members of the Bush administration say no, but most counterterrorism experts insist torture is counterproductive in the long-term.<br /><br />There are good reasons to side with the vast majority of counterterrorism experts on this one. To begin with, the appalling level of deliberation the Bush administration engaged in prior to authorizing enhanced interrogation methods provides no confidence alternatives were debated or even discussed. As with the decision to invade Iraq, dissension was virtually non-existent, and top administration figures simply chose a course of action and then charged underlings with finding a way to legitimate and rationalize a foregone conclusion.<br /><br />George Bush believed in a leadership style in which displays of strength and success would breed legitimacy. He got it backwards; legitimacy is what leads to strength and success. Simply put, George Bush and his policies have weakened America precisely because they lacked legitimacy. There is a common thread linking the corrupt decision of Bush vs. Gore, the corruption of the intelligence gathering process that led to the Iraq War, the corruption on Wall Street, and the corruption of American ideals that bred the torture scandals of Abu Ghraib and elsewhere; in each case objective standards of decision-making, rationality and accountability were discarded to meet the self-serving interests of those who wielded power.<br /><br />To be sure, many of the minions who served Bush believed they were protecting America when they justified the use of torture. Let there be no doubt, however; they were not safeguarding America’s ideals or values. America was founded on the principle that all individuals are endowed through Natural Law with certain inalienable rights. These are rights that no sovereign or government can grant or take away without due process of law. The Bush administration, however, made the preposterous and indefensible argument that a single individual -- the commander-in-chief -- could effectively strip any individual of their right to due process under the Constitution, the Geneva Convention, or virtually any meaningful legal framework whatsoever. Anyone who challenged this perverse perspective was accused of caring more about the rights of terrorists than the safety of America’s citizens. This is pure demagoguery that rests on fallacy of a false choice.<br /><br />Statecraft is an art, not a science. Though torture is odious, there may be some limited instances where its use can be justified. If it is necessary to torture a suspect to save a city, then those circumstances should count heavily as mitigating circumstances when those officials are prosecuted. If I were a judge, prosecutor, or juror in such a case, then I’d recommend only a token sentence if the defendants are found guilty. The bright lines civilization has drawn against torture should not be erased by third-rate legal scriveners. After all, the institutionalization of torture is bound to corrupt the body politic as the practice brutalizes and desensitizes those who use and rationalize it. The practice has certainly demoralized Americans, inflamed our adversaries, and delegitimized America in the eyes of the world. When the debate descends to whether thumbs are fingers, well, that’s an indication that things have gone seriously wrong.<strong></strong><strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-44908961144399905872009-03-11T19:08:00.001-07:002009-03-11T19:15:18.532-07:00<span xmlns=''><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'><strong>Dissolving the Dilemmas over Stem Cells</strong></span></p></span><br />The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein cautioned that we must be on guard against “the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” What the most important philosopher of the 20th century was concerned about here are the problems and confusions dualistic terms (i.e., mind & body) can generate when language goes on holiday. More concretely, the use of conceptually separate terms like mind and body force us to think that there must be real ontological entities to which those terms refer. If I say “It is raining,” for instance, I certainly do not mean to suggest there is an entity called “It” that is raining.<br /> <br />Virtually every neuroscientist recognizes that the terms mind and brain are two ways of talking about the same thing. Of course, brains are “things” only in a loose way of speaking. After all, brains give rise to subjectivity, which is a rather awe inspiring phenomenon. As Wittgenstein noted, “It is the “I,” it is the I that is deeply mysterious.” However, Wittgenstein – like most scientists today – was a monist, which is the say he believed the brain/mind was a single substance (or process).<br /><br />This is a good thing, since dualism, the notion than the mind is a separate entity from the physical brain, has for all practical purposes been discredited as incoherent and unempirical. Unfortunately, dualism lives on for the scientifically and philosophically illiterate. In fact, dualistic thinking permeates pro-life arguments against abortion. Put simply, if dualism is false – and the scientific and philosophical case against dualism is overwhelming – then the central arguments pro-lifers make against abortion and stem cell research rest on unsound assumptions.<br /><br />Pro-life groups maintain every embryo is an individual from the moment of conception. From this it follows that every embryo is: 1) sacred, 2) part of the human community, and 3) entitled to the rights and protections we afford every member of the human family. Using words like “scared,” “community,” and “family” in association with the embryo, of course, primes audiences to see things a certain way. Science uses similar rhetorical techniques, but the way scientists use language tends to make objects seem more impersonal. Language, in a sense, can create reality, or at least frame our perception of reality.<br /><br />The way pro-life advocates use language in relationship to embryos is instrumental in creating moral dilemmas that evaporate if one approaches the matter more objectively. To begin with, the notion that the “moment of conception” marks some miraculous, transcendental, or non-physical event is not an idea that holds up to rational scrutiny. First of all, the so-called moment of conception is not a moment at all, it is an entirely biochemical process that lasts several hours at a minimum. Second, individuality is not something present (or created) at the moment of conception. After all, many zygotes split in two several weeks after conception, a phenomenon which leads to twins.<br /><br />But the most damning argument against assuming there is anything sacred or miraculous about the typical embryo comes from Mother Nature. Simply put, most embryos never develop into human beings because embryos frequently fail to implant or because they spontaneously and naturally abort.<br /><br />Pro-lifers frequently resort to false choices. Writing in the <em><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/10/AR2009031002838.html">Washington Post</a></em>, for instance, Michael Gerson offers the following either/or choice: 1) embryos are sacred or 2) embryos are protoplasmic rubbish.<br /> <br />Thinking in terms of moral absolutes is what gets us in to trouble here. Put simply, context matters. For instance, imagine the following thought experiment: a fertility clinic housing 1,000,000 surplus embryos is on fire. There is a fifty-fifty chance the embryos can be saved, but only at great risk to the firefighters. Should we ask the firefighters to risk their lives to save the embryos? I would argue, the loss of 1,000,000 insentient embryos is not worth the life of even one human being embedded within a family and a community.<br /><br />Conversely, it is possible to imagine another thought experiment: a plague has broken out which has rendered every woman of childbearing age on the planet infertile. Only a handful of viable embryos remain anywhere on earth. Under such circumstances, shouldn’t the safety and well-being of such embryos be preserved at all costs until some way is found to perpetuate the human race?<br /><br />The moral value of an embryo is not nil, nor is it absolute. To a large extent, the moral dilemma of using embryos to create stem cell lines exists because of the way pro-life advocate use – and very often misuse – language. Wittgenstein recognized that the mind/body problem was a function of our language games. There is a lesson here for pro-life advocates.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-36932216205553339542009-03-06T10:21:00.001-08:002009-03-06T11:02:02.648-08:00<span xmlns=''><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'><strong>How the Bush Administration Bankrupted America; How the Obama Administration can Restore America's Prosperity<br /></strong></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Conservatives are like the comedian Rodney Dangerfield these days, they can't get no respect. In the public mind, figures like Rush Limbaugh, Bobby Jindal, Joe the Plumber, and Sarah Palin are a source of bemusement, a slightly annoying but nonetheless chuckle-producing diversion from the calamities the conservative movement helped engineer.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The same cannot be said, alas, for conservative commentators like <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030502951.html">Charles Krauthhammer,</a> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030502950.html">Michael Gerson</a>, and Sean Hannity (a trio of humorless blowhards oozing animus from every pore). I suspect their vinegary dispositions stem from the fact that their most cherished beliefs are constantly at variance with reality. As William James recognized, there is nothing more painful than false belief.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The financial pain America is currently facing can be traced to a set of false beliefs that constitute the core of conservatism's economic doctrine. These discredited principles include: the notion that tax cuts pay for themselves, the idea markets are self-correcting, and the belief that deregulation serves the common good.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Tax cuts are to conservatives what crack cocaine is to lab rats. The basic idea behind supply-side economics is that taxes must be lowered on America's most productive (i.e., wealthiest) citizens because they alone possess the wherewithal to put capital to work. Conversely, transferring resources to the poor, so the thinking goes, will only insure that wealth is squandered on unproductive forms of consumption.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The wealthy received their tax breaks under the Bush administration, but the promised investment glut never materialized. Conservatives have peddled the notion that taxes are a form of punishment, or a disincentive to productivity. But a truer view of taxes comes from Oliver Wendell Holmes, who held that taxes are the price of civilization. If Holmes is right, then it follows that those who benefit the most from society (i.e., the wealthiest) owe the greatest share in return.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The origins of the current financial crisis are complex. Americans had been living beyond their means on borrowed credit for too long. The United States staked its future on financial services and products, as opposed to manufactured goods. To make up for the trade deficit the United States borrowed heavily from countries like China to keep the good times rolling. Debt-ridden consumers, however, found they could no longer afford to products once housing prices were undermined by deadbeat sub-prime borrowers. By this stage, as British historian Niall Ferguson observes, the United States has become a sub-prime superpower.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>To reverse America's economic fortunes, the Obama administration must increase the earnings power of the vast majority of ordinary Americans. Doing this will require substantial and sustained investment to upgrade public education, our healthcare system, and our infrastructure. Investments along these lines are necessary to insure that Americans are the brightest, healthiest, and productive workforce on the planet. When we are once again making the products and services the world wants to buy, then incomes will rise. This will revitalize consumer spending, leading to corporate profits, which will translate into rising stock prices.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Tax cuts disproportionally aimed at the wealthy did not lead to broad-based income gains or the kind of investments America needs to ensure sustainable prosperity. Free market fundamentalism has also proved to be a false creed. Put simply, if the last eight years have shown anything it is that free markers do not inexorably allocate resources efficiently or rationally. In fact, free market fundamentalism has proven to be nothing but a cover for crony capitalism, whereby the powerful and well-connected rewarded themselves by feeding at the public trough. The fact that the financial wizards that created the current crisis walked away with billions, while America's healthcare, education, and infrastructure needs were starved, illustrates the total intellectual and moral bankruptcy of free market fundamentalism.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Looting the financial system and cannibalizing companies could not have happened to the extent it did without wholesale deregulation. The invasion of Iraq was another conservative enterprise predicated on false premises that helped bankrupt the United States, and not just economically but morally too. Of course, conservatives are loath to admit they are wrong, which explains why Krauthhammer and others are trying to portray the Iraq War as a victory. A pyrrhic victory, perhaps, but mostly the Iraq War has been a strategic debacle that siphoned America's blood and treasure in a failed bid to leverage our military might to transform the Middle East. As the historian Arnold Toynbee recognized, societies that attempt to remake far off outposts on the periphery of empire are invariably less successful than societies that remake themselves.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Revitalizing America is a herculean task facing Obama. Conservative commentators have generally heaped scorn upon the Obama administration's approach, which will make government a more central partner in shaping the economic landscape of the future. As Michael Gerson ludicrously puts it, "governments don't invest, they spend." Obviously, Gerson is thinking of the Bush administration, not the far-sighted administrations that initiated the GI bill, the interstate highway system, and the Internet.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Krauthammer is even more obtuse than Gerson. The dyspeptic Krauthammer completely fails to see how healthcare has anything to do with the current financial crisis or its cure. Let me enlighten this vapid windbag. The current healthcare system is an inefficient monstrosity with private insurance companies gobbling up resources to feed a vast bureaucratic apparatus collecting premiums from those who don't need healthcare while denying treatment to those who need it. <br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Ok, that's a bit of a caricature, but it captures an essential truth: private insurers represent a vast layer absorbing our healthcare dollars, but this layer does not deliver healthcare. This system has become an albatross for businesses and individuals. For instance, the cost of health insurance has to be factored into every product, which makes U.S. goods less competitive. Additionally, it stifles individual initiative – i.e., under the current system, employees will be less inclined to leave dead end jobs to pursue more rewarding opportunities if they fear they'll lose their health coverage in the process.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Conservatives like Krauthhammer, Gerson, and Hannity appear congenitally incapable of connecting the dots. These guys are like Rodney Dangerfield – the joke always seems to be on them and they don't get no respect. </span></p></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-39624866423541125912009-03-03T10:04:00.001-08:002009-03-03T10:07:53.596-08:00<span xmlns=''><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'><strong>You Can Bank on It<br /></strong></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>In John Ford's classic western, <em>Stagecoach,</em> a self-righteous bank president browbeats and berates his fellow travelers while he's in the process of absconding his firm's funds. Ford was a filmmaker with a social conscience and the themes explored in his movies seem more timeless than ever.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Once again, life has been caught imitating art. Bank robbers like Jesse James, Willie Sutton, and Bonnie & Clyde, have long been part of American folklore, but the reality is that the biggest and most audacious bank robberies have invariably been inside jobs. The Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s proved one observer right; the best way to rob a bank is to own one.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The current crisis in the financial system dwarfs the S&L debacle. Americans have recently woken up to the fact that the country's most hallowed banks and financial institutions are basically insolvent. Many observers single out subprime mortgage defaulters as the main culprits in the current calamity. However, the true causes of the present economic meltdown are far deeper and more insidious than most Americans realize.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>There are vested interests, of course, intent on diverting attention away from the real reasons so much hard-earned savings poured into the financial sector, but vanished down the proverbial drain. Here, Rick Santelli's much-publicized faux-populist rant serves his masters in the predatory class well. Santelli, like many of his fellow carnival barkers at CNBC, have served as avid cheerleaders during the inflation of one of the greatest financial bubbles of all-time. Their shtick, which masquerades as objective analysis, has undoubtedly led innumerable credulous investors astray.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Santelli, of course, would have his audience, many of whom have been burned by bad advice they gleaned from CNBC, direct their fury towards the "losers" that bought subprime mortgages they can no longer afford, a group allegedly at the epicenter of the current crisis.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>To be sure, the so-called NINJA loans (loans made to borrowers with no income, no credit, and no job) were a recipe for disaster, but the focus on defaulters ignores the other side of a faulty equation. Thanks to Reagan era deregulation, and Bush administration policies aimed at promoting an "ownership society," irresponsible lenders collected lucrative fees but failed to screen the creditworthiness of their clients. As a result of the way they sliced and diced mortgages, these lenders effectively privatized profits but socialized risk.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Santelli and his ilk have an inherent tendency to attack the economically powerless but fawn over the financially powerful. Thus, taxpayer bailouts for financial titans are pardoned as necessarily evils aimed at saving our financial system, but mortgage restructuring and refinancing that would keep subprime borrowers in their homes is condemned as a socialist blasphemy.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Ironically, America's capitalistic financial bubble was underwritten by the People's Republic of China. In effect, a country where the average worker makes $2,000 a years has used its savings rate to subsidize the consumption rate of the most spendthrift nation in the world. Put simply, Easy credit from lenders like China made it possible for Americans to borrow against their homes -- and against the future -- to pay for tax cuts and consumer goodies.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Those days are over. The easy credit binge fueled the housing bubble, propped up the stock market, kept the good times rolling, and made people feel wealthier than they really were. At the same time, the Bush administration and the Republican Congress spent money like drunken sailors, but "investments" like the Iraq War have proven to be money pits with no return. The IOUs have been piling up, and taxpayers are waking up to the fact that they're on the hook for Bush's imprudent fiscal and foreign policies, a myriad of corporate excesses, and the irresponsibility of greedy lenders and borrowers in the subprime sector.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Santelli's rant is typical of the drivel one finds on cable news, a medium that generates much heat but little light. In truth, America's market system, which is supposed to allocate resources rationally and efficiently, was exploited by a predatory class that rigged the system in its favor. Insiders, paying themselves humongous bonuses, while driving their businesses into the ground, are perfect example of what sociologist Thorstein Veblen termed the "predatory class," a ruling elite that feeds at the public trough while contributing nothing to the social welfare. Don't expect Santelli and his ilk to point fingers in that direction; to do so would be to bite the hand that feeds them. </span></p></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-75380697092015146622009-02-18T14:40:00.001-08:002009-02-18T14:40:49.138-08:00<span xmlns=''><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'><strong>Top Ten Reasons Bush and Cheney are Pissed Off at Each Other.<br /></strong></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>10). Bush insisted Cheney go through metal detector just like everyone else before entering Oval Office, which jolted VP's pacemaker every time.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>9). Bush refused to sign executive order rescinding the war-profiteering tax, which cost Cheney, big time.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>8). Cheney resented being called Mini-Me, the pet nickname Bush used when referring to the VP in the presence of the military brass.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>7). The VP was absolutely certain his incompetent boss would have a serious mountain biking accident in the first 100 days of the Bush administration, which would have paved the way for ten years of a right-wing dream team, Cheney/Rumsfeld. But Bush thwarted his Machiavellian #2 by using a heavily-padded Commander-in-Chief helmet and super-stealth training wheels.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>6). Bush vetoed top-secret Cheney plot to use genetically-engineered anti-follicle agent aimed at de-bearding Islamic extremists.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>5). Cheney felt snubbed when the president failed to award him combat ribbon following the sharpshooting VP's close-quarter engagement with a trial lawyer while duck hunting.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>4). Cheney consistently refused to divulge the whereabouts of his secure location, even to the president, which freaked out the normally unflappable Bush.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>3). One person stood between Dick Cheney and his goal of being Master of the Universe. And you don't think Cheney resented his boss?<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>2). Unbeknown to the media and the public, Bush insisted Cheney dress up as the Easter Bunny every year for the annual egg roll on the White House lawn. Apparently, it was Bush's way of ensuring his overweight and out of shape VP got enough exercise, but Cheney deeply resented hopping around in a hot furry suit for several hours while children laughed at the sight of him.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>1). Bush refused every single invitation Cheney made to take him duck hunting.<br /></span></p></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-74138612808345173672009-02-07T14:29:00.001-08:002009-02-07T14:29:42.770-08:00<span xmlns=''><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'><strong>Taxing Times for Obama<br /></strong></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>These are taxing times for Obama's nominees. It would seem only fair that Washington's powerbrokers – the same people responsible for our convoluted tax system – ought to set an example by forking over their fair share of the onerous taxes they impose on everyone.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Of course, like a lot of people I know -- or at least one person I know -- I pay my taxes, which explains why I can't afford a nanny, a chauffeur, or even the $49.95 it costs to buy Turbo-Tax. I suppose the reigning sentiment among the political elite has been "Don't ask. Don't tell" – "Sure I want to be Treasury Secretary. But don't ask me about back taxes, and I won't tell you how much I owe." <br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Let's face it, "Don't ask. Don't tell" never worked in the military, so it sure won't work with the IRS. Just ask Willie Nelson, Wesley Snipes, and Nicholas Cage. I suppose, however, that former Governor Ron Blagojevich might have invoked the principle to hide any proceeds he might have gained had he been able to sell Obama's senate seat to the highest bidder.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Personally, I think Blagojevich would have been on much firmer ethical ground had he auctioned off the Illinois senate seat on EBay. After all, let Caroline Kennedy and some deep pocket Republican get in a bidding war where the winner has to pay a 7.5% sales tax on the senate seat. This sure would beat the process that is dragging on in Minnesota between Al Franken and Norm Coleman, which has got to be costing the taxpayers in that state plenty.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>If it were up to me, which thankfully it is isn't, I'd seat both Coleman and Franken and be done with it. The election was a statistical tie, so giving them half-a-vote each seems an equitable solution; they could cancel each other out all term for all I care. In any event, I do believe Coleman & Franken could rival Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy, and Bill & Hillary as one of the funniest duos in history.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>As far as the stimulus goes, I have a few recommendations. Instead of bailing out banks that made bad loans why not use government bailout money to directly bolster the true driving force of the our economy – the American couch potato. After all, we're the ones that buy Plasma TVs, plastic surgery, junk food, weight-loss programs, and all the amenities of life we don't necessarily need, but that nevertheless make both ourselves and the economy grow. Helping overextended dead beats like me pay off debt would in turn help banks balance their books, which would lead to bigger bonuses for CEOs, which would mean more money for influencing peddling and lobbyists, which would allow Washington insiders to once again starting hiring chauffeurs, nannies, and dog walkers. Undoubtedly, this would lead to millions of new jobs and maybe even some tax revenue.</span></p></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-80372319741705299592009-02-05T07:52:00.001-08:002009-02-05T08:30:14.018-08:00<strong>Obamanomics</strong><br /><br /><span xmlns=''><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Barack Obama is inheriting the most challenging circumstances of any president since FDR. The United States is engaged in two major land wars, it is confronting increasing ecological challenges as its infrastructure crumbles, and it is the midst of a global financial meltdown. Such is the legacy of George W. Bush.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The task Obama faces is monumental. His diagnosis and prescription for America's economic ills, which he outlines in a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020403174.html">Washington Post Op-Ed, "The Action America Needs,"</a> strike me as commmonsensical and fundamentally sound. In short, he must retool the U.S. economy for the 21<sup>st</sup> century. To grasp what Obama must do it is important to understand what America failed to do under the previous administration, which will almost certainly go down as one the worst in our country's history.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>For the past thirty years, Washington has largely been enthralled by market fundamentalism. This is the superstition that economic, social, and environmental decisions are best left to a rarified entity known as the "free market." The dogma goes something like this: countless rational actors pursuing their self interest (as they buy and sell with each other) can generate a collective wisdom that no government or bureaucracy could ever hope to attain.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Unbridled faith in free markets was supposed to lead to economic equilibrium; instead it has brought the entire global economic system to the brink of collapse.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Unfettered free markets were supposed to allocate resources optimally, obviate the need for long-range planning, and inexorably expand our economic and political freedoms. Instead, a narrow segment of "financial wizards" enriched themselves, cannibalized their companies, banks, and other financial institutions, while leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for a huge government bailout necessary to keep the financial system from collapsing entirely. As a result, most Americans find themselves financially overextended and insecure.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>For the past thirty years, we have had a system that privatized profits, but socialized risk. Not long ago, Wall Street was soaring. But much of the paper profits generated by the financial sector have proven to be a mirage. Wall Street was adept at making money out of money, so long as its customers didn't ask any too many questions about the complex financial instruments that were in fact cobbled together with sub-prime mortgages.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Herein lays the essence of America's current misfortune: making money out of money is not the same thing as making something real. As America's financial sector swelled its manufacturing base dwindled. The United States cannot be a prosperous country without making and selling the goods and services the world needs and wants. Enlisting America's best and brightest to repackage and sell debt was never a sustainable strategy for ensuring our nation's economic success.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The most promising new American growth industry will involve so-called "green jobs." Put simply, inventing and selling the next generation of energy sources and energy efficient technologies is America's best hope of transforming our economy and restoring the United States as the world's leading economic innovator.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Accomplishing this goal will require a new social compact, one that recognizes education, infrastructure, and healthcare as public goods that require sustained and substantial investment from taxpayers. For instance, soon after the United States embraced public education it rapidly eclipsed its European rivals economically. Likewise, the G.I Bill paid enormous dividends for decades in terms of productivity and prosperity. Similarly, both Eisenhower's interstate highway program and the government initiative that led to the Internet demonstrate how far-sighted government policies can open up entire new economic vistas.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Universal single-payer healthcare is a matter of both moral and financial necessity. The current system is grossly inefficient on many levels. By design, private insurers seek to cover those that need healthcare the least and exclude those that need it the most. Therefore, taxpayers that pay for private health insurance also cough up tax dollars to pay for public clinics and emergency room visits by the uninsured. Once again, profits are privatized but risk is socialized.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Employers and employees are increasingly burdened by the current system. After all, the high-cost of mandated health insurance discourages companies from adding and retaining employees. And fear of losing employer-sponsored health insurance discourages many workers from seeking more satisfying and rewarding work. In short, universal healthcare can deliver better care to more people, thus leading to a healthier and more productive workforce.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The Obama administration has opportunity to tie short-term stimulus measures to longer-term investments along the lines I've outlined. Most Republicans remain wedded to the discredited mindset that got us into this mess in the first place. For instance, Linda Chavez proposes giving every American a debit card, presumably so we can by a gas-guzzler or another plasma TV. However, if the last eight years have taught us anything it is that an economy predicated on perpetual consumerism is a dead end.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The sagest economists I've read say that the United States can grow its way out of the economic mess the Bush administration has bequeathed us. However, to do so it will have to invest heavily in education, infrastructure, and healthcare, the things that will ultimately help America reinvent the economy. One thing is certain, pouring money into bailouts or consumer toys is not the way create the prosperity of tomorrow.</span></p></span><strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-49140373616077950912009-01-22T20:42:00.001-08:002009-01-22T20:54:11.427-08:00<strong>Bush Kept us Safe?</strong><br /><br /><span xmlns=''><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Osama bin Laden once noted, "Americans may have the watches, but Arabs have the time." As the clock wound down on President Bush's tenure many of the administration's apologists were quick note that there were no further attacks on American soil in the 2,688 days following 9/11. This is a welcome fact. And I hope historians and future generations will find that for all his faults, President Bush did do some things right. However, it is dangerously simplistic to assume that 2,688 without an attack should count as evidence in favor of Bush's counter terrorism policies.<br /><br />In his book <em>The Black Swan </em>author<em></em>Nassim Taleb, a philosopher and statistician who studies improbable events, relates the parable of the turkey who takes each day he is fed and cared as further evidence that the farmer loves him. The turkey's inductive reasoning seems sounder and sounder every day of the year, until Thanksgiving.<br /><br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Marc A. Thiessen, chief speechwriter for President Bush, is the kind of figure Taleb would likely call a turkey. Writing in the <em><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012103215.html">Washington Post</a></em>, Thiessen cites the 2,688 day figure and then fallaciously deduces that if there is another attack it will be because an Obama Administration weakened the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation" policy and other counterterrorism methods.<br /><br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Thiessen's logic fails on so many levels that it's easy to see how such defective thinking contributed to one of the worst administration's in American history. To begin with, al-Qaeda and other Arab terror organizations operate according to a vastly different time-frame than we do in the West. Put simply, al-Qaeda and it like-minded affiliates are thinking in terms of generations and centuries, while much of America's political class are thinking in terms of election cycles. Insisting a relatively narrow sliver of time without an attack constitutes evidence of success (in a war that Bush himself said will be a generational affair) is not all that different from a turkey crowing "Mission Accomplished" right after feeding time.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Basically, the 2,688 days without an attack spiel is little more than a demagogic ploy, the political equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. A more accurate slogan might go like this: <em>At least Bush kept us safe and secure, excepting for 9/11, Katrina, and the financial meltdown.<br /><br /></em></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Arguing that "enhanced interrogation" methods have kept America safe is patently bogus too. To begin with, "enhanced interrogation" is nothing but a euphemism for torture. The Bush administration resorted to legal sophistry in its <em>Alice in Wonderland </em>interpretation of the Constitution, leading it to define torture in terms so narrow that the concept no longer had any practical meaning. President Obama has brought some much needed moral clarity to the issue by insisting that the Army Field Manual and the Geneva Conventions will govern how detainees in U.S. custody are treated.<br /><br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Thiessen claims torture works. Undoubtedly, in some cases this is true. But most counterterrorism experts agree that torture frequently leads to false confessions. When torture is involved, it is exceedingly difficult to sort out good information from bad. Indeed, some of the "evidence" the Bush administration used to substantiate its case that Saddam possessed WMD was gleaned through torture. It may be true that torture has prevented attacks, but torture also helped lead to the foolish war with Iraq. Ironically, the subsequent torture and abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib will in all likelihood help breed a new generation of jihadists determined to attack the United States.<br /><br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Torture also brutalizes, desensitizes, and corrupts the personnel and the institutions that resort to barbarism to extract information. The America people correctly sensed that dispensing with our values, as the Bush administration most assuredly did, would not lead to greater security over the long haul. Put simply, the Bush administration's radical departure from America's traditional ideals regarding the humane treatment of prisoners sapped American morale and expanded the ranks of our enemies.<br /><br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Theissen's most outrageous fallacy is his claim that if there is a future attack during Obama's tenure, then the fault will lay with his administration. This is typical of the divisive fear mongering the American people are rightly revolted with following eight years of Bush's political demagoguery. If there is another attack, then the blame will lie with those who carried out the attack. America will need to come together to work towards the common purpose of defeating our enemies. Pointing fingers to score political points will be a recipe for self-defeat. There was a moment after 9/11 when President Bush had the goodwill and trust of the American people behind him, but he blew it.<br /><br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The claim that Bush's extra-legal policies kept the polis safe are not dissimilar to an athlete using steroids who insists a great run is proof of his fitness. Over time, the extra legal techniques of torture will weaken the body politic, just as steroids will weaken the athlete's body. America is a less resilient country because of Bush's policies. The American people were right to reject the self-defeating policies of Bush/Cheney<br /></span></p></span><strong></strong><strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-67951457032862522352009-01-06T20:51:00.001-08:002009-01-06T21:02:25.224-08:00<strong>Senator Al Franken</strong><br /><span xmlns=''><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>America owes an incalculable debt to President George W. Bush. Indeed, the mountain of red ink the Bush administration has piled up on our behalf would make Everest seem like a molehill in comparison. However, Bush's legacy is not entirely awful. After all, no one has done more to discredit the Republican Party than Bush, which has paved the way for a permanent Democratic majority.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The anti-Bush backlash probably helped elect comedian Al Franken to the Senate. Franken, fittingly, trailed his opponent Norm Coleman on election night, but has since prevailed in the recount. The idea of sending the Saturday Live alumni to the nation's highest deliberative body once seemed like a bad joke to the reactionary-right, but it seems the ultra-liberal Franken is poised to have the last laugh.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The Minnesota recount was far from perfect, but it appears to have been a process that respected the will of the voters by striving to ascertain the most accurate vote tally possible. The legal process is still playing out; Coleman is entitled to a final appeal that could drag on some weeks, but the principle of a examining every ballot in exceedingly close elections has been vindicated. After all, if the interests of expediency had triumphed on election night, then the wrong man would have been sworn in and the will of the electorate would have been nullified.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>Of course, this is precisely what happened eight years ago when Bush succeeded in shutting down a perfectly legal and entirely appropriate recount in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential contest. At the time, <em>Bush vs. Gore </em>was seen for what it was: a legally dubious and blatantly political decision that was unworthy of the Supreme Court. The subsequent colossal failure of the Bush administration will only serve to reinforce the verdict the <em>Bush v. Gore</em> was a horrendous miscarriage of justice.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>The recount process in Minnesota appears to have been transparent and fair. Eight years ago, George W. Bush made a fateful choice in response to a cloudy election: he would rather "win" in an unfair process than risk losing in a fair process. His campaign did everything it could to impede and discredit a process that would have conferred legitimacy on whoever prevailed.<br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt'>It was right to view Bush's victory as illegitimate. The wrong man was sworn in and the nation has paid a huge price ever since. The verdict of history will be harsh on Forty-three, and on Majority that arrogantly overturned the judgment of the American people and replaced it with their own myopic preference. Still, it's only fair to thank Bush for his help in bringing about a Democratic majority. And if I could say just one thing to the President as he leaves office it would be this: "Don't let the door hit you too hard on the way out, sir." <br /></span></p></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-24084214601010271432008-12-30T19:06:00.001-08:002008-12-30T19:12:00.763-08:00<strong>Bush and the Black Swan</strong><br /><br /><span xmlns=''><p>For eight years, George W. Bush has tortured the axis-of-information – language, truth, and logic – yet reality steadfastly refuses to yield to his delusions. Bush has overseen the destruction of New Orleans, Iraq, the U.S. economy, America's credibility, and the Republican Party, but he ludicrously clings to the vain hope that history will overturn the verdict the American people have arrived at: namely, that the Bush administration has been a colossal failure.<br /></p><p>Bush admits no doubt. His absolute certainty is façade that conceals his ignorance. This admixture of arrogance and ignorance has proven to be central to Bush's downfall. For Bush, doubt is a weakness. For the wise, embracing doubt and uncertainty is the beginning of wisdom. After all, Socrates was the wisest man in Athens precisely because he acknowledged the gaps in his knowledge. <br /></p><p>Bush's confidence that he'll be vindicated by history is shallow, self-serving, and incoherent. Bush has been parroting the lame talking point that if historians are still debating George Washington's legacy, then it's way too early to speculate about Forty-three's legacy. Bush has a point; it is within the realm of possibility that future historians will view Bush's mishandling of Katrina, the botched reconstruction of Iraq, and the economic meltdown as an axis-of-triumphs, but the odds of this are vanishingly small.<br /></p><p>We recognize Washington as a great leader who made many wise decisions: 1) He adamantly rejected torture. 2) He wisely recognized that the best way to defeat the British was to avoid engaging them directly. And 3) he harbored a deep suspicion towards unfettered executive power. Simply put, Washington's instincts seem diametrically opposed to Bush's (and the results appear to speak for themselves).<br /></p><p>Another of Bush's feeble talking points is the notion that at least he's kept us safe since 9/11. "Since 9/11," of course, happens to be one heck of a qualifier, especially given that Bush spent the weeks prior to the worst terror attacks on American soil blissfully ensconced at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, dismissing and ignoring intelligence briefings warning that al-Qaeda was preparing to strike the homeland. <br /></p><p>9/11, of course, is a prime example of what the philosopher/statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb terms a black swan<em><br /> </em>– a highly improbable event that entails massive consequences. By their nature, black swans are singular, seismic, unpredictable, and history altering occurrences. As a species, humans are not particularly good at forecasting and preparing for the unexpected. We tend to assume that tomorrow will be like today and that next week will be like this week, and so on. In other words, we infer that the future will resemble the past. <br /></p><p>We also tend to deduce, incorrectly, that the next black swan will resemble a previous black swan. After a rare but devastating earthquake, for instance, it's only human nature to expect the next disaster will be an earthquake. However, the next black swan is invariably something nobody anticipated. <br /></p><p>The Bush administration never saw the black swan of 9/11 coming, at least in part, because so many of its key figures were trapped in a tunnel vision mindset that was incapable of imagining that non-state actors could pose a significant national security threat. It then assumed that the United States was facing a new wave of unconventional attacks from rogue states like Iraq. In other words, it failed to connect the dots that might have prevented 9/11. And then it connected dots where it shouldn't have – i.e., between Iraq and a future 9/11.<br /></p><p>Bush and his defenders claim that everyone expected that we'd be hit again following 9/11, but since we haven't then it can't be an accident. Therefore, the syllogism concludes, Bush deserves extraordinary credit. In fairness, the president and his national security team undoubtedly devote a great deal of time and effort trying to safeguard the public from a variety of threats. One of Bush's far-sighted initiatives is a program to combat the AIDS epidemic in Africa, which is a sensible way of reducing the chances of an international pandemic while simultaneously mitigating the kind of misery that breeds the chaos that feeds civil wars, terrorism, etc. <br /></p><p>By and large, however, Bush's gloating about preventing another attack falls into the same category as "mission accomplished" and "bring em' on" – it's premature and irresponsible in so far as it practically invites an attack. Al-Qaeda does not operate according to a Western timeframe; eight years is an eternity according to America's political calendar, but the jihadists are thinking in terms of decades and centuries. The invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo has probably helped recruit more terrorists than the Bush administration has been able to kill. Bush as almost certainly inadvertently helped spawn a new generation of dark birds of prey bent on devising the kind of monstrous surprises narrow-minded men and conventional thinkers can scarcely imagine.<br /></p></span><strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-50842546931820610992008-11-10T08:45:00.000-08:002008-11-10T08:46:54.026-08:00<strong>Top Ten Cool Things About Obama’s Victory</strong><br /><br />10). Breaks down the biggest barrier of all. Having a funny name no longer disqualifies you from becoming president.<br /><br />9). Obama will have the executive authority to designate Dick Cheney an enemy combatant.<br /><br />8). Obama vs. Osama: With George W. Bush out of the equation it will be a lot easier to tell the good guys from the bad.<br /><br />7). I will no longer have to apologize to every international airline stewardess, foreign taxi driver, and Third World hotel clerk for being an American.<br /><br />6). Obama has the power to appoint Bill and Hillary to the Supreme Court (so we’ll never have to worry about having another Clinton in the White House again).<br /><br />5). Sarah Palin will have time to fill in for Tina Fey should the star of 30 Rock and SNL need a break from her busy schedule. After all, let’s face it, the Alaska governor has more potential as a comedian than as commander-in-chief.<br /><br />4). Joe the Plumber’s hopes of parlaying his 15-minutes of fame into a political career or a position in a McCain/Palin administration have gone down the drain.<br /><br />3). The Axis-of Idiots – Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage – are exposed as impotent, washed-up, useless old farts who can no longer stir up enough angry & ignorant voters to tip an election.<br /><br />2). Democratic Congress with full investigative and subpoena powers can make George W. Bush’s retirement a living hell.<br /><br />1). After eight years of enduring “Dubya,” it will be great to have a president who is not a joke for a change.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-92006746398326968282008-10-18T09:43:00.000-07:002008-10-18T09:44:08.296-07:00<strong>The No Voter Left Behind Quiz</strong><br /><br />Presidential “hopeful” John McCain insists none of his colleagues would confuse him with Miss Congeniality. But if the truth be told, the vitriolic voters mouthing off at McCain’s campaign rallies could make the late Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley, seem like Miss Manners in comparison. In order to alleviate extreme voter ignorance and anger, Congress has passed emergency education measures designed to enlighten the America’s dimmest citizens. Take the test now to ensure your political IQ is up to snuff.<br /><br />1). Barack Obama hails from which foreign country?<br /><br />a) Barackistan<br />b) Guantanamo<br />c) Hawaii<br />d) Iraq<br /><br />The correct answer is C. Technically, Hawaii is sovereign U.S. territory, but you need a passport to get there and most real Americans do not have passports. The discerning reader will note that Iraq is de facto America’s 51st state. Of course, Guantanomo both is and isn’t U.S. territory at the same time, so this was a trick question. Deduct 15 points only if you picked A.<br /><br />2). Barack Obama will _____ if he’s elected.<br /><br />a) Raise your taxes to pay for the Bush deficits.<br />b) Convert America to Islam.<br />c) Take away your God given right to own the assault weapon of your choice.<br />d) Institutes educational reform which scraps silly multiple choice tests that emphasize rote learning.<br /><br />The correct answer, Allah be praised, is D. If you answered C please multiply the number of assault weapons you own by 5 and deduct the answer accordingly. If you answered A, then deduct 500 points and please send a check covering your final point total to the address below.<br /><br />3). Sarah Palin’s plan to solve America’s energy crisis and climate change can be summed up with which slogan?<br /><br />a) “We hockey moms are pit bulls with lipstick.”<br />b) “Say it ain’t so Joe. There you go again”<br />c) “Drill, baby, drill!”<br />d) “Our opponents want to raise the white flag of surrender.”<br /><br />The correct answer in C. What distinguishes this platitude from the other cliches is that it is actually about energy. If you had trouble with this section I suggest you brush up on your banalities. Joe six-packs that got this question wrong should deduct 2 points for every beer you normally consume for breakfast on Election Day (2 x 24 = 48). Hockey moms who got this question wrong should deduct one point for every month your youngest daughter is pregnant out of wedlock.<br /><br />4) John McCain’s plans on appointing ______ as Treasury Secretary in order to get America back on track.<br /><br />a) Meg Whitman – the former CEO has a great plan to auction derivatives and credit default swaps on Ebay, which would allow individuals to get a better deal on the toxic mortgages than if the government bought them wholesale on behalf of all taxpayers.<br />b) Phil Gramm – This is the guy who astutely observed we Americans are in a mental recession. $700 billion in free therapy with Dr. Phil sounds just like what the doctor ordered to cure a nation of whiners. <br />c) Carla Fiorina – Former HP CEO managed to turn her company around. Unfortunately it was in the wrong direction, but her golden parachute was less obscene than many others were.<br /><br />d) Joe the Plumber<br /><br />e) None of the above<br /><br />The correct answer is E. We hope. Deduct 2000 Dow Jones points for answering A, 5000 points for B, and 3000 points for C. But you can bet the ranch that the economy will really go down the drain if McCain taps Roto Rooter Man, Joe Wurzelbacher, to be Treasury Secretary<br /><br />5). George W. Bush’s most enduring legacy is likely to be?<br /><br />a). He single-handedly ruined the Republican Party.<br />b). He discredited the idea of privatizing Social Security once and for all.<br />c). Americans will be forever indebted to Bush for his fiscal policies.<br />d). Succeeded in doing more damage to the United States than Osama bin Laden.<br />f). All of the above<br /><br />The correct answer is F, which as it happens is the grade History will give our 43rd president.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-65904877565606904622008-10-11T11:09:00.000-07:002008-10-11T11:10:39.031-07:00<strong>The Collapse of Bush's Market Fundamentalism </strong><br /><br />George W. Bush’s reputation is sinking deeper than the Dow Jones, which says a lot considering the fact that stock market wealth is vanishing faster today than John McCain’s chances of winning a third Bush term.<br /><br />Eight years of Republican misrule are coming to an end, big time. The causes of the current economic collapse are myriad, but they were predictable consequences of unwise, unsustainable, and unjust GOP policies. To begin with, the myth of the all-wise marketplace is now deader than Karl Marx’s corpse. Secondly, laissez-faire economics, deregulation, and the simplistic notion than “government is part of the problem” stand revealed as an axis-of-idiotic ideological assumptions. And thirdly, the massive financial bailout plan aimed at preventing a complete economic meltdown proves that capitalism, left to its own devices, entails socialism for the rich.<br /><br />Years ago, Warren Buffet warned that the United States was well on its way to becoming a nation of sharecroppers. As the billionaire noted, a nation cannot continue to consume more than it produces indefinitely. Dick Cheney, who insisted that Ronald Reagan had proved that “deficits don’t matter,” contradicted Buffet’s common sense. As far as the VP was concerned, America could borrow money from the Chinese to purchase Arab oil without diminishing America’s economic position.<br /><br />The Bush administration also financed the war in Iraq and its massive tax cuts with borrowed money. Supply-side economics is supposed to pay for itself – just as the Iraq War was supposed to be self-financing – but all taxpayers have for their “investments” so far is a sea of red ink, and blood.<br /><br />Deficit spending is not bad per se. Borrowing money to invest in public education, universal healthcare, and infrastructure improvements will pay dividends in terms of restoring America’s competitiveness. As historian Arnold Toynbee observed, civilizations that reform themselves are more likely to prosper. On the other hand, those that seek to reform the rest of the world invariably exhaust themselves in the process.<br /><br />The architects of America’s “shock and awe” campaign have transformed the U.S. model into an object of fear and loathing. The Iraq War, Katrina, and now the implosion of America’s financial institutions have decimated our image in the eyes of world opinion. Eight years ago the Neoconservatives that hijacked the Bush administration proclaimed that the American system of democratic capitalism was the end point of history for all humankind. Today, neither our global adversaries nor our allies view the American model as capable of delivering social justice, economic stability, or the good life.<br /><br />We have reached this stage of national senescence due to a mixture of imperial hubris, intellectual sloth, moral turpitude, economic shortsightedness, and political cowardice. President Bush has laid the blame for the current financial calamity on the financial sector –“Wall Street got drunk” – and on subprime mortgages that went bad. But these factors are only part of the story. The truth is that for the past thirty years United States has followed a pattern eerily similar to the Spanish Empire’s downfall under Phillip II. In a nutshell, the financialization of Spain’s economy, expensive imperial/military expeditions that failed to pay for themselves, and the erosion of the manufacturing sector bankrupted the empire.<br /><br />America’s free market fundamentalists insisted that the invisible hand of the market place would cure all national and economic ills. Deregulation was their mantra. In particular, the market fundamentalists argued that government shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers. The problem with this, of course, is now obvious. As economist James K. Galbraith observes, markets are incapable of long-term planning. Deregulation unleashed predatory practices that privatized profits and socialized risk. And a dysfunctional relationship between politicians clamoring for campaign donations and corporate executives pushing for even less regulation created a vicious cycle that reinforced the self-interest of the few at the expense of the public good.<br /><br />Renewing America – and the American idea – will necessitate rejecting the reigning Republican ideology in favor of a new social compact that rejuvenates the liberal ideals that proved so effective in rescuing America from the excesses of the Gilded Age that brought on the Great Depression. Tailoring liberal values to meet the challenges of the 21st century will be a tall order, but the principles are easy enough to articulate. First, as F.D.R. noted more than sixty years ago, “we are all in this together.” This is self-evident, and the current crisis illustrates this only too well; if Wall Street doesn’t get its bailout, then Main Street will sink too. We would do far better, of course, recognizing this up front by investing taxpayer dollars in universal healthcare, public works, and far-sighted economic initiatives (as opposed to funding bailouts for wealthy speculators).<br /><br />To begin with, universal coverage is inherently more efficient because it eliminates vast bureaucratic layers that do not provide patient care. To put it bluntly, private health insurers spend at least a third of their revenue on overhead designed specifically to deny health coverage. Additionally, universal coverage will allow U.S. businesses to shed the substantial cost of insuring employees, which will make them far more competitive in a global environment.<br /><br />Treating healthcare as a commodity is inimical to human dignity. Likewise, CEOs making 350 times what their employees earn is inimical to democracy, sound business practices, and ultimately the dignity of work. Put simply, lionizing CEOs who garner huge bonuses by sending jobs overseas and slashing workers is perverse, especially when ponders how often such executives end up running their companies into the ground.<br /><br />Vast income inequality invariably leads to what Plato once called the worst catastrophe of all, a society divided against itself. Bolstering the minimum wage and setting limits on executive compensation can help restore a dignity of work climate (as opposed to the vanity of wealth climate we have now). Further, contrary to free market fundamentalism, government should and must partner with the private sector to map out strategic economic goals for the nation. The Internet, for instance, began as a government initiative. Only government has the long-term vision and resources to shape the marketplace in ways conducive to achieving national goals. Market fundamentalists have contented that government should not be in the business of picking winners and loser, but their simpleminded ideology has led to the perverse outcome where the government is bailing out losers after the fact, rather than grooming industries and technologies that fit with our national objectives. <br /><br />Clearly, the United States needs to develop the alternative fuels and energy savings technologies of the future, both to lessen our dependence on foreign sources of oil and also to reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. If the U.S. government doesn’t take the lead in this endeavor, then American consumers will continue to transfer vast sums of our dwindling national wealth to adversarial regimes. Meanwhile, the challenges associated with global warming will mount.<br /><br />The Bush administration has decimated America’s fortunes because it clung to a bankrupt ideology. When disaster struck, Bush didn’t ask Americans to sacrifice. Instead, he told them to shop. Market fundamentalism is not just economically unsound; it is morally bankrupt. A liberal political philosophy helped America rise following the Great Depression. It can do so again because it recognizes markets are imperfect institutions meant to serve individual and communities, as opposed to gods who demand our blind faith.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-90486877408593197862008-10-01T11:51:00.000-07:002008-10-01T11:52:20.407-07:00<strong>McCain vs. Obama: Strategy vs. Tactics</strong><br /><br /><br />President Bush insists that the United States has a strategy to defeat terrorism. Most counter terrorism experts, however, have concluded that Bush’s strategy is incoherent or counterproductive. In simple terms, Bush’s strategic vision rests on the following assumptions: (1) undemocratic regimes spawn terrorism because they stifle economic, political, and religious freedoms. (2) Repression breeds violence and resentment, which tends to be aimed at peaceful and successful democracies. (3) Therefore, spreading liberty is best long-term antidote to reducing and eliminating the animus that gives rise to terrorism.<br /><br />Helping Iraq make the transition from dictatorship into a democracy is, in Bush’s view, the catalyst necessary to transform the entire Middle East. It’s an appealing notion – and it is not without some merit – but it is a dangerously simplistic approach to a very complex challenge. Put simply, Bush fails to understand is that terrorism is the flip side of globalization, a movement where individuals and small groups are gaining power at the expense of nation states. In the past, when non-state actors had grievances their means for wrecking havoc were limited. But now, thanks to the information revolution, disaffected entities are rapidly gaining access the most destructive technologies. It is probably only a matter of time before fringe elements acquire WMD.<br /><br />America’s homegrown terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, was a product of a prosperous democracy. Similarly, the perpetrators of Columbine style mass shootings invariably hail from the freest of free societies. Spreading democracy will in no way diminish the murderous madness of demented loners, irrational cults, and other fringe elements.<br /><br />Nevertheless, Bush insists that winning in Iraq will deflate the terrorists, by which he means al-Qaeda. The resurgence of al-Qaeda in Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan contradicts the president’s claims. The United States may well prevail in Iraq (by achieving a tolerable outcome), but this “success” will be offset by setbacks in Pakistan and elsewhere.<br /><br />At best, Iraq is looking like a tactical success, but a strategic debacle. In chess, it doesn’t matter how many pieces you win if you can’t protect your king. Similarly, winning in Iraq means virtually nothing when one appreciates that the United States under the Bush administration has lost its moral authority, it’s financial health, and its role as a global leader. The United States is a vastly weaker country because it invaded Iraq.<br /><br />This brings me to the point in the first McCain/Obama debate, where the senator from Arizona accused his opponent of failing to understand the difference between tactics and strategy. If anything, the lesson of distinguishing tactics from strategy appears to be lost on McCain, in so far as he views Iraq as the make or break issue for the United States. We can continue to spend $10 billion dollars a week in Iraq – so long as the Chinese and other foreign creditors continue to lend us the money – while our own infrastructure crumbles and our healthcare system collapses. But the tradeoffs of remaining in Iraq are becoming more and more apparent.<br /><br />At the end of the First World War, Germany won a series of tactical battles that actually undermined their military’s strategic position. The German public could hardly believe that their heroic victories were for naught. We may be in for a similarly bitter lesson. Those who fail to have a sound strategy, and those who elevate tactics above strategy, usually defeat themselves.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13978379.post-38969703965613951012008-09-29T10:33:00.000-07:002008-09-29T10:34:38.974-07:00<strong>Top Ten Reasons Bush is NOT to Blame for America’s Economic Meltdown</strong><br /><br />10). “It was that major league a-hole, Dick Cheney, who absolutely, positively assured me “Deficits don’t matter.”” – G.W.B<br /><br />9). “Wall Street got drunk, drove into a ditch, and totaled America’s economic engine. And for that, you blame the bartender? I don’t think so.” – Barbara Bush<br /><br />8). “I think it’s fair to say that George Jr. is not responsible for anything.” -- George H.W. Bush on truth serum<br /><br />7). “Bush is already responsible for the debacle in Iraq, Katrina, global warming, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo. Blaming him for the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression as well would seem to me to be too much for any one individual to bear.” – Dr. Phil<br /><br />6). “We are in a crisis mode here, but it would be a mistake . . . and we can’t blink on this . . . because we couldn’t see Russia from our backyard if we did . . . but it would a mistake to blame the current economic meltdown on either global warming or the Bush Doctrine.” -- Governor Sarah Palin<br /><br />5). “Taxpayers will come out ahead on this fifty or sixty years from now on account of the fact that my administration led the way in burying the Death Tax.” -- Dubya<br /><br />4). “Capitalism is nothing more than socialism for the rich. The current crisis is simply the inevitability of historical forces engaged in a dialectical process that seeks to reconcile opposing ideologies on a higher plane. President Bush is merely a cog in a predestined historical process through which tragedy and farce are synthesized” -- Groucho Marx<br /><br />3). Bush has super-duper secret plan to wager $700 billion of bailout money in on-line poker competition against China, North Korea, and Iran. The president is absolutely 100% certain that he’ll win enough money to save the economy.<br /><br />2). “Where there is crisis, there is opportunity.” – Chinese fortune cookie Bush got at the Beijing Olympics.<br /><br />1). 53 million Americans voted for a bozo like Bush, a candidate who peddled his economic snake oil with slogans like, “It’s your money, you paid for it.” If you voted for our nincompoop-in chief, then I think it’s fair to say this joke is at your expense.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15667727178129916592noreply@blogger.com0