Sign Sans Signified

Three Decades of Economic Insanity

2011-08-07T12:02:00.011-04:00

Yesterday, Steve Benen posted a timeline on his blog. I'm posting it below in its entirety:

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?
1980: Ronald Reagan runs for president, promising a balanced budget

1981 - 1989: With support from congressional Republicans, Reagan runs enormous deficits, adds $2 trillion to the debt.

1993: Bill Clinton passes economic plan that lowers deficit, gets zero votes from congressional Republicans.

1998: U.S. deficit disappears for the first time in three decades. Debt clock is unplugged.

2000: George W. Bush runs for president, promising to maintain a balanced budget.

2001: CBO shows the United States is on track to pay off the entirety of its national debt within a decade.

2001 - 2009: With support from congressional Republicans, Bush runs enormous deficits, adds nearly $5 trillion to the debt.

2002: Dick Cheney declares, “Deficits don’t matter.” Congressional Republicans agree, approving tax cuts, two wars, and Medicare expansion without even trying to pay for them.

2009: Barack Obama inherits $1.3 trillion deficit from Bush; Republicans immediately condemn Obama’s fiscal irresponsibility.

2009: Congressional Democrats unveil several domestic policy initiatives — including health care reform, cap and trade, DREAM Act — which would lower the deficit. GOP opposes all of them, while continuing to push for deficit reduction.

September 2010: In Obama’s first fiscal year, the deficit shrinks by $122 billion. Republicans again condemn Obama’s fiscal irresponsibility.

October 2010: S&P endorses the nation’s AAA rating with a stable outlook, saying the United States looks to be in solid fiscal shape for the foreseeable future.

November 2010: Republicans win a U.S. House majority, citing the need for fiscal responsibility.

December 2010: Congressional Republicans demand extension of Bush tax cuts, relying entirely on deficit financing. GOP continues to accuse Obama of fiscal irresponsibility.

March 2011: Congressional Republicans declare intention to hold full faith and credit of the United States hostage — a move without precedent in American history — until massive debt-reduction plan is approved.

July 2011: Obama offers Republicans a $4 trillion debt-reduction deal. GOP refuses, pushes debt-ceiling standoff until the last possible day, rattling international markets.

August 2011: S&P downgrades U.S. debt, citing GOP refusal to consider new revenues. Republicans rejoice and blame Obama for fiscal irresponsibility.

There have been several instances since the mid 1990s in which I genuinely believed Republican politics couldn’t possibly get more blisteringly ridiculous. I was wrong; they just keep getting worse.

Kevin Drum's comments on the above:

Congratulations, modern Republican Party! That was spectacularly fast work. The Bush-era party needed seven years to drive the economy into a ditch.

We Had to Destroy the Economy in Order to Save It

2011-07-16T18:00:00.005-04:00

According to Ezra Klein, the thinking behind the Obama administration's push for the biggest possible budget cutting deal they can get includes this:

The deficit stands in the way of any potential spending increases. And

if you finish the deficit conversation in a way that convinces the American people you’ve made sacrifices and forced government to live within its means, you have, at least in theory, more credibility when proposing new initiatives that would expand the size of government again.

President Obama confirmed the first point in his 7/15/11 news conference, saying:

...if you are a progressive, you should be concerned about debt and deficit just as much as if you're a conservative. And the reason is because if the only thing we're talking about over the next year, two years, five years, is debt and deficits, then it's very hard to start talking about how do we make investments in community colleges so that our kids are trained, how do we actually rebuild $2 trillion worth of crumbling infrastructure.

The implication is that there's a causal connection between the empirical situation and the narrative around it. Eliminate the deficit and GOP bloviating about it will supposedly subside. Greg Sargent is unsure about this; Jonathan Bernstein thinks Obama's position is reasonable but risky; but Joan Walsh sees Obama's assumption that elimination of the deficit will end the GOP assault on his presidency as misguided.

Walsh bases her argument on the record of GOP behavior during the Clinton administration. I don't think we have to look that far back--just consider what's happened over the past two years.

According to the CBO, the GOP is responsible directly for about 70% of the deficit. This includes the Bush tax cuts, two wars fought without raising taxes to pay for them, and the Medicare Part D unfunded mandate. Obama is responsible for extending the Bush tax cuts and the two wars, 20% of the deficit. Obama's much maligned stimulus package, which the GOP has treated as fiscal suicide, accounts for about 7% of the deficit. All other Obama programs combined add up to 3% of the deficit. Yet the GOP has spent the past two years running around with their hair on fire, accusing Obama of irresponsible spending. Please tell me what relationship exists between GOP claims about the impact of Obama policies on the economy and the reality?
Obama's health care reform package was, according to the GOP, a "socialist" scheme that would be risky, unaffordable, and would interject the government between patients and their doctors. There were also claims that the plan included "death panels." They neglected to mention that it was based heavily on a GOP plan put forth during the Clinton administration and on the system Mitt Romney set up in Massachusetts. Again, what was the relationship between GOP rhetoric and reality?
Since 1980, the GOP has consistently expressed the view that cutting taxes spurs economic growth. Yet George W. Bush implemented enormous tax cuts and had the worst record for job creation and GDP growth since Herbert Hoover--and that was before the financial crisis and resulting economic collapse, both of which occurred during his term in office (yes, the GOP even lied about the timing of the economic collapse). Conversely, Bill Clinton implemented modest tax increases and presided over an enormous economic expansion. So much for the supposed stimulative effects of tax cuts and the alleged "job-killing" effects of tax increases. Did that stop the GOP from repeating robotically that tax cuts boost the economy while tax increases depress it?
The GOP has become increasingly driven by the notion that by cutting taxes, they can shrink the government to a size small enough to "drown in a bathtub," as tax cutting fanatic Grover Norquist famously put it. Yet the only administration to shrink the size of government in the past 40 years was Bill Clinton's. So it seems there's no relationship between the level of taxation and the size of the government. Yet the GOP persists in pursuing this goal.
Despite unanimous agreement among climate scientists that climate change is real and is in fact happening more rapidly than predicted, the GOP persists in claiming that climate change is a "hoax," as GOP Sen. James Inhofe puts it. Again, what is the relationship between rhetoric and reality?
Repeatedly since 1980, the GOP has responded to criticism that their policies favor the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and the poor with claims that such criticism amounts to "class warfare." Meanwhile, as a result of those policies, the income of the richest 0.1% of Americans increased 60% while that of the bottom 40% fell by 10%. What is the relationship between GOP statements and the reality?

Given the above examples (there are many more), what possible reason can there be for believing that giving the GOP what they want will have the slightest effect on their well-established record of lying about everything?

The Debt Ceiling Debate in Plain English

2011-07-12T20:24:00.026-04:00

First off, what exactly is the debt ceiling? Most people seem to think it's a license for the federal government to take on deeper debt, but Bruce Bartlett has the clearest explanation I've read:

The debt ceiling is a cap on the amount of securities the Treasury can issue, something it does to raise money to pay for government expenses. These expenses, and the deficit they've wrought, are a result of past actions by Congress to create entitlement programs, make appropriations and cut taxes. In that sense, raising the debt limit is about paying for past expenses, not controlling future ones. For Congress to refuse to let Treasury raise the cash to pay the bills that Congress itself has run up simply makes no sense.

Failure to raise debt ceiling will mean:

The US currency is no longer the world standard
We'll have to pay much higher interest on everything we borrow as a country
And after a short time juggling the books, government spending for everything will be instantly cut by 44%.

Despite this, the GOP has insisted that any vote to raise the debt ceiling be accompanied by huge cuts in federal spending and they are adamantly opposed to raising any taxes to increase federal revenues (this extends to ending any existing tax cuts as well). On June 23, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R, VA) walked out of the talks due to the inclusion of some revenue increases. There was then some talk about returning to the earlier plan involving $2 trillion in budget cuts, but again, the GOP was insistent that no new revenues be included in the package while Democrats were adamantly opposed to cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

On July 7, Obama changed the equation. According to the Washington Post,

Obama and Boehner have emerged as the most enthusiastic proponents of a big deal that would save as much as $4 trillion over the next decade by overhauling the tax code and tackling all the major drivers of federal spending, including the Pentagon and health and retirement programs.

However, resistance to revenue increases in the proposed package led to abandonment of the idea by the GOP.

Today, Obama announced that Social Security payments would be delayed if the debt ceiling was not raised, and 470 CEOs of many of America's largest corporations signed a statement urging Congress to end the impasse. This afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) announced a new plan to give the President authority to raise the debt ceiling himself. Congress would then be free to vote on a resolution of disapproval, which the President could then veto, after which President Obama would raise the debt ceiling in three increments over the next year. Essentially, this would pass responsibility for raising the debt ceiling to the President and would draw attention to the raise throughout 2012, an election year. As Kevin Drum put it, "This is possibly the most juvenile, most buck passing, most transparently mendacious proposal I can recall from any party leader in recent memory."

What’s behind the political battle over the debt ceiling?

Since most people’s eyes glaze over when the subject is economics, here’s a plain English explanation of the ideas and interests underlying the debt ceiling debate.

Does Deficit Reduction Stimulate the Economy?

1. Would it be safe to say that progressives believe that if the government spends money, the economy will be stimulated and grow, and more people will have jobs?

Well, not just that it spends money, but that it does so in targeted ways. According to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's, the most effective government spending to counteract a recession is food stamps & unemployment insurance (see chart below). Why? Because people who get that aid need it, so they spend the money right away & it starts circulating through the economy.

Zandi found that among the least effective government spending would be the Bush tax cuts (see chart below). Why? (i) The Bush tax cuts were never targeted to boost the economy. They were set up, quite literally, to reward Bush's biggest donors (i.e., fat cats). (ii) Nobody spends money they don't need to in a recession. Our natural tendency is to hunker down. Do rich people have to spend the money they get in tax cuts? No. Do they? No. Ergo, no additional money circulates through the economy, so it doesn't grow.

2. Government spends on people, people spend money, other people receive that money, the economy is stimulated. This is good.

Basically, yes. In economic terms, government spending in a recession starts the process. The rest of the process you mention is called the multiplier effect.

3. Republicans believe that we have to reduce the deficit by cutting government spending in order to reduce the deficit because we have to reduce the deficit because....you get the point.

Republicans SAY they believe that, but they're the ones who created 90% of the current deficit, directly or indirectly, in the first place. They held an extension of unemployment insurance hostage over their demand for continuation of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2010, further deepening the deficit. And they're now insisting that (a) no taxes be raised to reduce the deficit and (b) any increase in government revenues via elimination of tax loopholes be offset by additional spending cuts. So there's no reason to take seriously any statements they make about their supposed concern about the deficit. They love deficits. So if they're not concerned about the deficit, what are their ulterior motives for all the posturing?

Republicans believe several different things that underlie what they say they believe about the economy, all of them wrong:

a. The smaller the government, the greater the individual freedom. Conversely, the bigger the government, the greater the encroachments on individual freedom: This sounds straightforward. In fact, it has deep roots in American culture, having been expressed directly by Thoreau in the early 19th century. More recently, Friedrich Hayek enunciated it when he predicted that the development of Britain's National Health Service (universal health care to you & me) would turn the UK into another Soviet Union. His prediction obviously was wrong, but that didn't stop conservatives from continuing to believe it with their typical fervor. There are lots of other problems with this (what measure is used to determine the size of government? i..e, how do we know if a government is too big or too small?), but limits of space & time preclude further elaboration.

b. Tax cuts pay for themselves by increasing economic activity: Reagan tried it with huge tax cuts in 1981. The enormous resulting deficits led him to pass 8 consecutive tax increases (yes, increases), but nobody in the GOP seems to remember that part of the story. Bush, as we know, gave us the closest thing to a pure scientific test of this we're ever likely to have: With the GOP in control of all 3 branches of government, he passed enormous tax cuts & didn't subsequently offset them. He had the worst economic growth record of any president since Hoover. Conversely, Clinton raised taxes & had the biggest economic expansion in our country's history. So much for tax cuts stimulating growth. Again, the evidence has had no influence on GOP thinking.

c. Starve the beast: Grover Norquist famously said he wanted to shrink government to a size that would enable him to "drown it in a bathtub." Again, see Bush. He cut taxes, waged two wars without paying for them, & passed the Medicare Part D unfunded mandate. Money was drained from the Treasury, but did government shrink? No, it grew. The only president to preside over a shrinkage in the size of government was Clinton, who raised taxes, as previously noted. Again, no correlation backing up the claim, and no acknowledgment of the fact by the GOP.

Lastly, remember who funds their campaigns. The GOP always knows which side their bread is buttered on.

4. Obama believes that we have to reduce the deficit by cutting government spending because ________?

See my answer to #7 below.

5. Obama wants the economy to be stimulated because if more people have more money they will vote for him. Also theoretically he does actually want people to have more money.

One would think...

6. Does Obama think that cutting the deficit is going to stimulate the economy?

I guess he must, but I don't know.

7. Does deficit reduction stimulate the economy?

For an economy stuck in a severe recession? Hell, no. See #1 above. Just as there's a multiplier effect, there's also a negative multiplier effect. Think about it like this: As rain falls on crops, the water circulates into the soil, around the roots of plants, and the plants are fed, enabling them to grow. Imagine what happens when there's a drought. Water no longer circulates, plants are not fed, and they die.

Right now, not enough money is circulating through the economy--at least, not to ordinary people (the banks have oodles of the stuff--much of it from the bailouts--but they're not issuing much credit, businesses are not expanding & hiring, unemployed people are not making ends meet, so they're not spending, so there's little demand, so businesses aren't expanding & hiring, rinse & repeat). Since interest rates are near zero, the Fed can't lower interest rates any more to stimulate the economy. And the consensus in Washington is that we don't dare--no, no, no--do further stimulus spending to boost the economy. So we're stuck.

All deficit reduction will do in this context is remove more money from an economy that already has too little circulating through it. Take a look at what's happening to public service employees. State employees are being laid off right & left. All of them have families, most have houses, cars, bills to pay, etc. but there's no money to be had. All this is creating enormous strain on state budgets because the demand for Medicaid is going through the roof due to all these people becoming unemployed. So what are the GOP & now Obama talking about? Making enormous cuts to the federal budget (including aid to the states, which is already failing to meet the exploding need). But all the Very Serious People to whom Obama seems to be listening in DC make 6- or 7-figure salaries. None of them know anybody who's unemployed, I'd venture to guess. Economists have declared the recession over (that's the recession defined in technical terms, not in terms of what's actually happening to ordinary people). So I guess Obama thinks that if the technocrats say it's over, it's over, & it's time to start reducing the deficit. Now that I think of it, this brings to mind a recent thread about epistemic closure among conservatives that appeared in blog posts by Henry Farrell, Julian Sanchez & some other smart people. But obviously, conservatives are not the only ones susceptible to that dynamic (of course, reasonable people may disagree about whether Obama is a liberal, a conservative or something else).

One Final Note

As Kevin Drum and others have remarked tonight after Mitch McConnell's plan was announced, it seems that the GOP may have boxed themselves in with their insistence on drastic budget cuts with no revenue increases under any circumstances. Speaker of the House John Boehner himself told fellow House Republicans earlier today that they were going to lose leverage steadily as the August 2 deadline drew nearer. Judging by McConnell's announcement, that leverage may be ebbing more quickly than they'd anticipated. It's always a stretch to try to read the minds of others, and some of my comments above may go further in that direction than the evidence supports. Whether Obama is a fool or a genius (or both) is probably best evaluated with greater temporal and emotional detachment than I possess. My own perceptions of him are susceptible to changes in the political winds so I'm probably well advised to restrict my analyses to the economics and politics of the issues at hand. That said, I do think that allowing the entire debate over the budget to take place on GOP terms--i.e., with a focus on the deficit rather than on job creation--is a huge unforced error on Obama's part. We still don't know how the whole debt ceiling debate will play out; nor do we know what will happen vis a vis the deficit. But it's hard to see how we get from our current situation of high unemployment and low job growth to one that returns our economy to health. This short-term deficit obsession is a detour that doesn't help us get where we need to go, and may actually make the situation far worse.

An earlier version of this was cross posted at http://www.greaternycforchange.org/?p=676.

Links to Aid for Japanese Disaster Victims

2011-03-15T20:02:00.002-04:00

Here's a great collection of links, courtesy of the NY Times.

At this point the tally is one earthquake, one tsunami, and three explosions plus a fire at a nuclear power plant. Millions of people have been displaced, many people have died or been injured.

Please do what you can to help.

A Message from Daily Kos on the Wisconsin Vote

2011-03-09T22:22:00.002-05:00

The following message was sent to a friend of mine. It has taken on particular urgency given the Wisconsin Senate's vote tonight to end collective bargaining in that state, which is why I'm taking the liberty of re-posting excerpts from it:

You can support the recall [against Republican state Senators, ed.] by contributing to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which is the central organizing hub for the campaign. The DPW has already gathered 15% of the petition signatures required to force a recall election.

Please, contribute $5 to the recall.
...

The outcome of these recall campaigns will largely determine whether those who make policy decisions believe there is any political price to pay for gutting the middle class. So even beyond the rights of tens of thousands of public workers in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere, the stakes in the Wisconsin recall campaign are very high.
Please contribute $5 to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. If we do not complete even this first crucial step in winning the recall elections, then all of our efforts over these past three weeks will largely be for naught.

What's Ron Paul's Beef with the Federal Reserve?

2011-02-09T21:50:00.006-05:00

[LENGTH WARNING]

My, it has been quite a while, hasn't it.

A friend posed the following question:

...And I am truly trying to wrap my brain around the Federal Reserve information I want so much to understand, but I can't get any 'good' out of it, only criminal mischief. And I never trusted Ron Paul, but a lot of people I know are ready to put him in the White House. Why do I mistrust him? Can you tell me, because I don't know exactly why, BUT I KNOW...

I'll try to give something like an answer; hopefully, it'll be coherent.

Ron Paul (like his son, Rand) is intensely devoted to libertarianism. I don't know if you're familiar with that particular ism. Basically, the underlying idea of libertarianism is that the only frame of reference for analyzing society is that of the individual. Collective behavior of any kind is inherently suspected. Culture, history, sociology, psychology--forget it. There's only the individual & the only question worth asking is whether any social program, idea or phenomenon increases individual freedom. For a number of libertarians, this dovetails neatly with the writings of Ayn Rand, the creator of a "philosophy" called objectivism. Rand posited in Atlas Shrugged that the smartest, most individualistic people in society are carrying a vast majority of sheeplike wastrels on their backs, giving more to society through the results of their hard work & taxes than they receive from the masses of shirkers. Her hero, John Galt, and other producers decide to withhold their labor in protest, thereby bringing society to its knees. You can see that same sense of indispensibility & entitlement among today's hedge fund managers & bond traders as they howl along with Rick Santelli on MSNBC about how they're paying the mortgages of all those lazy people who sit around expecting handouts, blah blah.

You can see how this almost hysterical exaltation of the individual is a very attractive notion. After all, we're products of the most extremely individualistic culture on earth. But the problem is that by essentially ruling out every other way of looking at society except the individual & his/her freedom, libertarians exclude the vast majority of evidence available to our sense organs (not to mention research libraries). That denial of context leads to weird positions such as Rand Paul's statement that he would have voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 & 1965 as encroachments on the individual rights of segregationists (OK, in Rand's case there's clearly something else at work here. He certainly doesn't consider infringements on the individual rights of black people caused by discrimination, for example). To be fair, some libertarians are very good on first amendment rights issues (after all, individual rights is their sole obsession), but on everything else, you get this weird prezel logic based on denial of everything beyond the individual & his or her rights. In their denial of the importance of power differentials in society, libertarians, whether intentionally or not, open the door to Social Darwinism.

The libertarian obsession with the individual leads to economic ideas hostile to government & to collective activity of any kind. Thus libertarians like Ron Paul find congenial economic theories that rationalize the elimination of government action & programs. Paul is an adherent of what's known as the Austrian School of economics, an approach that's rejected by mainstream economists, both liberal & conservative. Essentially, the Austrian School argues for laissez-faire economics with government involvement in & oversight of the economy reduced to the barest minimum. Austrian School adherents also argue that mathematical modeling, statistics & testing are basically useless in the study of economics & argue instead for the use of logical deduction based on first principles instead. And ouija boards (just kidding).

One of the heroes of economic libertarians, Friedrich Hayek, was a member of the Austrian School. Hayek argued that Britain was going to become another Soviet Union due to the creation of its National Health Service. (Hayek is often cited for saying that the bigger the government, the greater the encroachment on human freedom. What exactly is meant by "big" & "small" in this context has always confused me. Does this mean that the US, for example, is less free than Chile under Augusto Pinochet?) Needless to say, Hayek's prediction didn't work out very well, but that hasn't dulled the ardor of his adherents. (After all, who needs evidence when you've got first principles?)

Paul is also extremely hostile to the Federal Reserve, which he wants to eliminate (Paul Ryan, another libertarian, shares this view). Another big institution, and therefore threatening to human freedom. Have I told you how oppressed I feel when I hear that the Fed has lowered interest rates? The irony is that the Federal Reserve was set up in 1913 in response to the extreme concentration of economic power, lack of regulation of banking activities, and the absence of a central bank to bolster the economy in the case of a crisis, all of which was exposed in the aftermath of the Panic of 1907. The Fed provided the latter, but it was far too weak to deal with the other two problems, as was illustrated by the Great Depression. Now, you may be wondering, in the aftermath of the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression, with extreme concentrations of economic power in a highly unregulated financial system, why Ron Paul wants to do away with the institution that provides the bulwark for that system. Why, you might ask, does he not instead focus his efforts on strengthening regulation of the financial sector (creating an institution that would provide training & advancement to successively higher levels of regulatory complexity & responsibility, a la the training program at the State Department, for example, and working to make the salaries of regulators comparable to those of their counterparts at banks, thereby removing the incentive of regulators to go to work for the firms they regulate)? Why, in short, does Paul not work to prevent a recurrence of the crisis we’ve just experienced, rather than weaken one of the institutions responsible for minimizing the damage when such crises occur? That question applies to the GOP in Congress, almost across the board. It’s one of the questions of the age.

I Only Talk to People & Get My News from Sources Agreeing with Me. Who Needs Reality?

2010-04-17T09:38:00.003-04:00

A long time ago, a commenter on a blog thread (I no longer remember which blog or thread--sorry) asked me to comment on libertarianism. At the time I didn't know anything about the subject, so I said nothing. If you're in the mood for a rather involved but quite rewarding/entertaining exploration of the subject, here's an argument (not mine--I'm just a spectator) to follow:

A post on a libertarian website bemoans the supposed loss of freedom in American life since the late 19th century--neglecting to notice the dramatically improved status of black people, women, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, Italians, etc. since then. This has led to an involved debate on a bunch of blogs devoted to philosophy and politics which I find interesting, illuminating and, at times, very amusing.

John Holbo reviews the ensuing debate, noting an obvious blind spot among many libertarians. He then follows up, citing Jacob Levy on the role played by ideological blinders in these peculiar omissions among many libertarians.

Then John Quiggen steps in with some delicious snark about the predictive powers of libertarian hero Friedrich Hayek's theory about the relationship between laissez-faire economics and freedom.

Bryan Caplan then tries to defend libertarianism, but does so, as Holbo observes, in a way that demolishes his whole argument.

But wait! There's more! Megan McCardle steps in with that old conservative chestnut, conservatives are being excluded from academia. Except she argues by claiming equivalence between that supposed exclusion and the exclusion of black people from business leadership, both of which, she asserts, occurred via "things like social networks, subtle bias, and tacit norms about what constituted the boundaries of acceptable traits" for inclusion. This, of course, omits those minor details, Jim Crow and de facto racial discrimination, notes Michael Berube. Hmmm... We're right back at the beginning with those libertarian blind spots.

Speaking of blind spots, Julian Sanchez considers the conservative echo chamber with reference to the concept of "epistemic closure."

BUS TRIP TO WASHINGTON, DC

2010-03-12T19:54:00.004-05:00

MONDAY, MARCH 22, 2010

Join medical professionals and community members from across the country.

Tell Congress, we need health reform now! Put people ahead of politics.

To RSVP, go to www.healthmarch.org

To sign up for a FREE bus, go to http://tinyurl.com/march22bus

Meet up time is 5:30 AM, leave at 6 AM on the North Side of Union Square (17th St.)

*Volunteers are needed!

Meet new people, have fun, and make history!

***

For the full schedule, go to http://www.healthmarch.org/agenda.php

10:00 am – 11:00 am: Gather at the White House (Freedom Plaza) on Pennsylvania avenue between 13th and 14th street in NW DC

11:00 am – 11:30 am: White House Rally

— Members of Congress, doctors, nurses and other health professionals featured.

11:30 am – 12:30 pm: March down Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill.

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm: Capitol Hill Visitor Center media event with Congressional Leadership*

2:00 - 4:00 pm: Visits with members of Congress or their staff

4:00 - 6:00 pm: Social Hour, Place TBD

How To Wreck an Economy in Eight Short Years

2009-12-16T13:05:00.001-05:00

This pretty much says it all:

How To Wreck an Economy in Eight Short Years

(HT Kevin Drum)

Portrait of a Scoundrel

2009-12-15T07:11:00.003-05:00

Here's a video clip of Joe Lieberman advocating--just three months ago!!!--for the same Medicare buy-in plan he's now threatening to filibuster.

There's no excuse for anyone to pretend any longer that Lieberman's behavior can be explained in terms of logic, evidence or principle. Ezra Klein's comments on this are particularly apt.

Jon Stewart Explains Fox Noyze

2009-11-01T10:25:00.002-05:00

I have nothing to add to this commentary.

Now's the Time

2009-10-12T21:33:00.007-04:00

We are on the cusp of a decision that may launch our country on a path of genuine improvements to our health care system. Whether the outcome is progressive reform depends on all of us.

Here's a list of events, most in New York, some not. Please do what you can.

TUESDAY – OCTOBER 13

Upper Manhattan Health Care Reform Forum with Barack Obama Democratic Club of Upper Manhattan
Time: 7 PM
Location: The Armory – 216 Ft. Washington Ave., between 168th & 169th St. (ground floor theater).

• State Senator Eric Schneiderman, sponsor of a bill that would enact universal health coverage in NY State.
• Councilman Bill de Blasio, Democratic nominee for NYC Public Advocate, and sponsor of a bill to promote healthy eating.
• Geoff Berman, Deputy Field Director for OFA NY.
• Dr. Aaron Fox, National Physicians Alliance

WEDNESDAY - OCTOBER 14

National Day of Action - Rally for the Public Option
Time: 4:30 - 5:30 PM
Location: Southwest corner of Union Square.
Host: Moveon.org

Bring thank you cards written to Sen. Schumer, or write them right there at the event. A member of Sen. Schumer's office will be on hand to accept the cards.

SATURDAY – OCTOBER 17

Get BACK on the Bus for Health Care Reform
Time: 9:00 AM
Location: Easton, PA - Departing from Port Authority Bus Terminal
Host: Tom Predhome

UPCOMING EVENTS – WEEK OF OCTOBER 19TH
MONDAY – OCTOBER 19

"Health Care Issues: Urgent Issues, Critical Information"
Time 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Location: New York Presbyterian Hospital - Main Building 21 Bloomingdale Road, White Plains, NY 10605
Host: NASW NYS Westchester Division & the League of Women Voters of Westchester
Speakers:
• Mark Hannay, Director, New York Metro Health Care for All Campaign
• Mary Beth Morrissey, MPH, Health Care Attorney, Fordham Ravazzin Center on Aging

TUESDAY – OCTOBER 20 - HEALTH CARE REFORM DAY OF ACTION

OFA Phone Bank for Health Care Reform
Times: Shifts at 12 pm, 2 pm
Location: OFA office in Midtown East

Staten Island Senior Center Tour
Time: 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Location: TBD (Staten Island, NY)

Women Calling Women to Fight for Health Care Reform
Time: 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Bronx, NY 10463

Time to Deliver Call Party
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Location: 308 East 72nd Street, 11 D (New York, NY)

Queens Senior to Senior Phonebank
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Location: TBD (Jamaica, NY)

Women Calling Women to Fight for Health Care Reform
Time: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location: TBD (Bronxville, NY)

Bushwick Health-Care Reform Telephone Soiree
Time: 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Location: Brooklyn, NY (Brooklyn, NY)

Call for Health Reform (UWS)
Time: 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location: 300 W 110th Street, Apt. 5E, New York, NY 10026

THURSDAY – OCTOBER 22

TEACH-IN ON HEALTH CARE REFORM
Busting the myths and making the case for health care for all!
LEARN WHAT YOU CAN DO to fight the myths and misinformation about health reform!
• Time: 7:00 - 9:00 pm; Doors open at 6:30 pm with refreshments
• Location: Rosenfield Building, Hess Commons (Main Flr.)
Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University722 W 168th St.
Myth-busting speakers will include:
• Karen Wang, MD; THE NATIONAL PHYSICIANS ALLIANCE
• William Jordan, MD, MPH; THE NATIONAL PHYSICIANS ALLIANCE
• Tim Foley; NYC FOR CHANGE
• Mark Hannay; METRO NY HEALTH CARE FOR ALL
• Carmina Bernardo; PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF NYC
For up-to-date information on speakers, visit www.phanyc.org
Help make sure we get health reform this year!

More events on my.barackobama.com

I Have to Raise My Voice

2009-09-12T14:05:00.013-04:00

Tuesday is primary day in NYC, which of course means we're all being bombarded with flyers, ads, etc. You all know the drill.

I got home last night to find a really sleazy flyer in my mailbox from one Delia Hunley-Adossa containing the following:

At the top of the page is a very unflattering black & white photo of my councilwoman, Letitia James.

Underneath, in bold solid caps, is the following text:

CONVICTED BROOKLYN COUNTY ORGANIZATION LEADERS SOLD POLITICAL OFFICE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER.

So just how much did Letitia James have to pay?

James' political career was borne of a corrupt county system that put a price on holding office and collected big from ambitious candidates like James. The party bosses ruled and the power-hungry paid for their support.

The County Organization hand-delivered James into office and James... well, let's just say that one hand washes the other.

A few points:

1. Note the juxtaposition of the word "convicted" with the photo, clearly implying , by association, criminality on the part of James.

2. Unnamed "leaders" are accused of selling "office" (which office?) in the upper-case text. Just below, the flyer asks how much James had to pay. There is nothing in the flyer specifying any charges whatsoever against James.

3. The accusations are all made via implication, which is pretty underhanded. The implicit argument seems to be the following:

The Brooklyn Democratic organization (never mentioned by name, btw) is corrupt;

Letitia James is part of the Brooklyn Democratic Party;

Ergo, she must be corrupt, too (this is obviously guilt-by-association, which is a slimy way to make an argument).

4. The last sentence in the flyer is in two parts. The first says "The County Organization hand-delivered James into office..." This is false. James actually had decided not to run for the council seat then held by James Davis, but his assassination led to the problematic candidacy of his brother. James then entered the race, winning handily.

5. The second part of the last sentence is another unsourced smear: "and James... well, let's just say that one hand washes the other." What's the basis for this claim? As with all the other innuendos in the flyer, no evidence is provided to support it.

So who is the object of all these innuendos and smears?

Letitia James is a lawyer whose role models were Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley & Barbara Jordan. She worked for the Legal Aid Society, then was Assistant Attorney General under then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. She served as Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Roger L. Green, then as counsel to then-State Assemblyman Albert Vann. She gained a reputation as a rough-edged election lawyer for the Democratic Party, which probably earned her the enmity of some. On the City Council, she led efforts to set up a Business Improvement District on Fulton Street, opposed Mayor Bloomberg's successful effort to repeal term limits, supported the creation of bike lanes, and for greater stimulus funding for the 35th district, and, most relevant to the Hunley-Adossa flyer, has been one of the most prominent opponents of the Atlantic Yards project.

And who, you ask, is the candidate behind the sleazy flyer?

Delia Hunley-Adossa is a long-time community activist whose group, Brooklyn Endeavor Experience, has received over $400,000 from Bruce Ratner. Yes, that Bruce Ratner--the developer of Atlantic Yards. Needless to say, Hunley-Adossa is a staunch supporter of the Atlantic Yards project. Her group is also heavily stocked with family members, according to The Brooklyn Paper, a practice commonly known as nepotism, and one we certainly don't need to see on the City Council.

Hunley-Adossa has distinguished herself in this campaign by comments in a debate at the offices of The Brooklyn Paper in which she exhibited unfamiliarity with the powers and responsibilities of the City Council, and a pronounced aversion to questioning by the news media, as reported by Brooklyn Paper:

The debate was a rare opportunity for The Brooklyn Paper to question Hunley-Adossa, who stopped returning phone calls from The Paper’s reporters months ago. She explained the snub, saying she didn’t know that we had called, though later revealed that she must have known about the reporters’ calls because they came to her home phone and cellphone — devices that she does not answer because they are “private” lines.

“It’s invasive,” said the candidate, whose opinion about privacy was not shared by the other candidates.

She promised to answer her phone 24 hours a day if she’s elected to office.

It remains to be seen whether Hunley-Adossa's veracity with regard to accessibility will be any greater if she's elected than it has been during the campaign.

Hunley-Adossa is very well funded, thanks to Ratner. The flyer in question is very well produced--heavy paper stock, glossy finish, high resolution, perfect registration, and diabolically clever wording & positioning of page elements. It looks and feels, in fact, very much like a piece one would expect to find in a Republican Party campaign. National political consultants have been hired to work on election races in NY city & state before, and this certainly feels like the work of the kinds of people who gave us the Willy Horton ad, the assaults on Michael Dukakis and the teabaggers, with their bogus claims about Obama plans for euthenasia, kidnapping and indoctrination.

Let's give the people behind this sort of campaigning the kind of result they deserve. Let's vote on Tuesday for Letitia James, who has done a good job representing us in the 35th district, and who does not reduce public discourse to the gutter level to promote her candidacy.

We're #37!!!!

2009-09-11T22:15:00.003-04:00

Here's a little song about our global standing in terms of health care. I don't know who's responsible for it, but it's letter perfect:

[H/T Marta Evry at Venice for Change]

UNITY WALK AND RALLY FOR HEALTH CARE

2009-08-13T23:02:00.005-04:00

August 29, 2009

UNITED, WE WALK FOR REFORM

2 PM Rally at Times Square, 42nd St. and 7th Avenue

Health reform is finally within grasp. Opponents are spending millions every day to destroy it. We cannot let this happen. We voted for change in '08 and we must see it through.

On Saturday, August 29, 2009, New Yorkers will walk from all parts of the city for the first ever United We Walk for Reform Rally in support of the historic health reform legislation before Congress.

It's our health care. It's our time. Save the date to make your voice heard.

MID-MORNING, ACROSS THE CITY: Grassroots groups will meet in front of hospitals and health clinics across the city to walk to rally at Times Square. Check out mybarackobama.com for meeting locations in the next week (or set up one of your own).
2 - 3:30 PM - UNITY RALLY: Rally for health care at Times Square, 42nd St. and 7th Avenue

Want to organize your own walk to the rally? It's easy:

1) List your "United, We Walk for Health Care Reform" event on mybarackobama.com and spread the word to your friends.
2) To calculate the time you'll need to get to Times Square, we recommend hopstop.com.
3) Have fun and bring banners, wear t-shirts and buttons. Be creative!
4) Remind people to use sidewalks and bring posterboard signs (nothing on sticks).

Thank you for being a leader for health care reform. This can't happen without you!

Demystifying the Health Care Debate

2009-08-11T22:51:00.006-04:00

We break down what’s going on with Health Care Reform

Saturday, August 15 at 3pm

Harlem4
2479 Frederick Douglass Blvd just below 133rd St.

Featuring Harlem4 members:

Dr. Janet Taylor (Today Show, Star Jones Live)
Steve Leser (Editor, OpEd News)

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

In November-and against all odds, we took the driver's seat. We cannot become guilty of falling asleep at the wheel.

The availability, the expense and the inadequacies of health care in America are a national disgrace. We worked hard to elect an Administration that is responsive to the needs of everyday Americans. The next stage requires that we continue our call that health care in America is regarded as a human right. We are making the statement that national health care is a national imperative and we feel that there is no more appropriate place to make our stand than in Harlem.

Join us. Bring your family. Bring your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Please forward and distribute the flier below. To make change, we must make our stand.

As Barack Obama said himself, change in health care "requires a mobilization of energy of the American people to insist on a Congress and a White House that are actually going to deliver this time."

Chet Whye

On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113090443562&__a=1
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113090443562&__a=1#/group.php?gid=103281453579

On mybarackobama.com:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpfcl3

Upcoming Events

2009-08-06T20:31:00.016-04:00

Sick in the System

Film Screening Party

Tuesday, August 11th, 7-10 PM

Irish Rogue, 356 W. 44th St (between 8th and 9th Ave.)

RSVP: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcareorganizingevent/gpf3lv

Join us at the Irish Rogue to view this powerful documentary made by a group of New York grassroots volunteers!

We will also talk about how we will help cure our "sick" system!

The film features real life stories, which have been central to swaying Congress and is something President Obama's been asking for. It's the all volunteer work of a young director, Brooklynite Brian Umana, and his team of twelve, who have interviewed dozens of New Yorkers over the past few months. We're learning how important personal stories are to this movement, and that's why this particular volunteer effort is so important: to get these stories to legislators.

Check out clips here:

Kelly (from Brooklyn): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8yLr2LLrCQ

Jaime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Q3omUSY88&feature=related

Community Health Fair

Saturday, August 8 10:00 AM

http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/communityservice/gpf38y

A multi cultural Annual health fair. With Music, food and fun. The celebration includes Health care and mental Health information. The goal is to Educate the community, while celebrating the end of summer. This Event will be held at the Calvary Cathedral of Praise, where several colorful tents will be erected. A variety of the finest exotic and comfort foods/dishes from various Countries including the U.S.A. Health care data via mobile equipment. Information about Health Care Reform will be on Hand. Members from Organizing for America are encouraged and urged to participate,and to enjoy the event.

Time	Saturday, August 8,10 AM
Host:	Joanne A Bailey
Location:	Calvary Cathedral of Praise (Brooklyn, NY)
	45 East 8th Street
	Brooklyn, NY 11218

Hoodlum in the House--er, Town Hall

2009-08-04T13:05:00.004-04:00

Here's a great Rachel Maddow segment about the staged disruptions of Democratic representatives' town hall meetings around the country.

These organized mobs remind me of Mussolini's black shirts. After the Brooks Brothers riot in Florida (2000), I can't say I'm completely surprised, but it still does amaze me that a major political party and its allies are willing to stoop this low.

I guess the only antidotes are intense blogger pressure on the media to report on the groups involved and their leaked strategy memo, and large crowds of people genuinely interested in rational public discourse.

Resources for Health Care Phone Banking

2009-07-30T19:45:00.003-04:00

If you're phone banking or canvassing, here are some excellent sources you can use if you're faced with questions about the current health care system (if that's the word for it) and the proposed alternatives:

Health Care Reform Myths

Health Care--An International Comparison (great tool!)

National Coalition on Health Care--Facts on Health Insurance

Mythbusting Canadian Health Care, Part 1

Mythbusting Canadian Health Care, Part 2

CBO Gives the Public Option the OK

Paul Krugman--Why Markets Can't Cure Health Care

Health Care Reform and the Already Insured

2009-07-27T20:25:00.006-04:00

Here is a great New York Times editorial, analyzing the effects of the health care reform plans currently under debate in Congress on those of us who already have health insurance:

Health Care Reform and You

Published: July 25, 2009

The health care reform bills moving through Congress look as though they would do a good job of providing coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. But what would they do for the far greater number of people who already have insurance? As President Obama noted in his news conference last week, many of them are wondering: “What’s in this for me? How does my family stand to benefit from health insurance reform?”

Many crucial decisions on coverage and financing have yet to be made, but the general direction of the legislation is clear enough to make some educated guesses about the likely winners and losers.

WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF REFORM?

The House bill and a similar bill in the Senate would require virtually all Americans to carry health insurance with specified minimum benefits or pay a penalty. They would require all but the smallest businesses to provide and subsidize insurance that meets minimum standards for their workers or pay a fee for failing to do so.

The reforms would help the poorest of the uninsured by expanding Medicaid. Some middle-class Americans — earning up to three or four times the poverty level, or $66,000 to $88,000 for a family of four —would get subsidies to help them buy coverage through new health insurance exchanges, national or state, which would offer a menu of policies from different companies.

IS THERE HELP FOR THE INSURED?

Many insured people need help almost as much as the uninsured. Premiums and out-of-pocket spending for health care have been rising far faster than wages. Millions of people are “underinsured” — their policies don’t come close to covering their medical bills. Many postpone medical care or don’t fill prescriptions because they can’t afford to pay their share of the costs. And many declare personal bankruptcy because they are unable to pay big medical debts.

The reform effort should help ease the burdens of many of them, some more quickly than others. The legislation seems almost certain to include a new marketplace, the so-called health insurance exchange. Since there will be tens of millions of new subscribers, virtually all major insurers are expected to offer policies through an exchange. To participate, these companies would have to agree to provide a specified level of benefits, and they would set premiums at rates more comparable to group rates for big employers than to the exorbitant rates typically charged for individual coverage.

Under the House bill, the exchanges would start operating in 2013. They would be open initially to people who lack any insurance; to the 13 million people who have bought individual policies from insurance companies, which often charge them high rates for relatively skimpy coverage; and to employees of small businesses, who often pay high rates for their group policies, especially if a few of their co-workers have run up high medical bills. By the third year, larger businesses might be allowed to shift their workers to an exchange. All told, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 36 million people would be covered by policies purchased on an exchange by 2019.

IS THERE MORE SECURITY FOR ALL?

As part of health reform, all insurance companies would be more tightly regulated. For Americans who are never quite certain that their policies will come through for them when needed, that is very good news.

The House bill, for example, would require that all new policies sold on or off the exchanges must offer yet-to-be-determined “essential benefits.” It would prohibit those policies from excluding or charging higher rates to people with pre-existing conditions and would bar the companies from rescinding policies after people come down with a serious illness. It would also prohibit insurers from setting annual or lifetime limits on what a policy would pay. All this would kick in immediately for all new policies. These rules would start in 2013 for policies purchased on the exchange, and, after a grace period, would apply to employer-provided plans as well.

WHO PAYS?

Current estimates suggest that it would cost in the neighborhood of $1 trillion over 10 years to extend coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans. Under current plans, half or more of that would be covered by reducing payments to providers within the giant Medicare program, but the rest would require new taxes or revenue sources.

If President Obama and House Democratic leaders have their way, the entire tax burden would be dropped on families earning more than $250,000 or $350,000 or $1 million a year, depending on who’s talking. There is strong opposition in the Senate, and it seems likely that at least some burden would fall on the less wealthy.

Many Americans reflexively reject the idea of any new taxes — especially to pay for others’ health insurance. They should remember that if this reform effort fails, there is little hope of reining in the relentless rise of health care costs. That means their own premiums and out-of-pocket medical expenses will continue to soar faster than their wages. And they will end up paying higher taxes anyway, to cover a swelling federal deficit driven by escalating Medicare and Medicaid costs.

WHO WON’T BE HAPPY?

Healthy young people who might prefer not to buy insurance at all will probably be forced to by a federal mandate. That is all to the good. When such people get into a bad accident or contract a serious illness, they often can’t pay the cost of their care, and the rest of us bear their burden. Moreover, conscripting healthy people into the insured pool would help reduce the premiums for sicker people.

Less clear is what financial burden middle-income Americans would bear when forced to buy coverage. There are concerns that the subsidies ultimately approved by Congress might not be generous enough.

WHAT IF I HAVE GOOD GROUP COVERAGE?

The main gain for these people is greater security. If they got laid off or chose to leave their jobs, they would no longer be faced with the exorbitant costs of individually bought insurance but could buy new policies through the insurance exchanges at affordable rates.

President Obama has also pledged that if you like your current insurance you can keep it.

Right now employers are free to change or even drop your coverage at any time. Under likely reforms, they would remain free to do so, provided they paid a penalty to help offset the cost for their workers who would then buy coverage through an exchange. Under the House reform bill, all employers would eventually be allowed to enroll their workers in insurance exchanges that would offer an array of policies to choose from, including a public plan whose premiums would almost certainly be lower than those of competing private plans.

Some employers might well conclude that it is a better deal — for them or for you — to subsidize your coverage on the exchange rather than in your current plan. If so, you might end up with better or cheaper coverage. You would probably also have a wider choice of plans, since most employers offer only one or two options.

WILL I PAY LESS?

Two factors could help drive down the premiums for those who are insured. In the short-term, if reform manages to cover most of the uninsured, that should greatly reduce the amount of charity care delivered by hospitals and eliminate the need for the hospitals to shift such costs to patients who have private insurance. One oft-cited study estimates that cost-shifting to cover care for the uninsured adds about $1,000 to a family’s annual insurance premiums; other experts think it may be a few hundred dollars. In theory, eliminating most charity care should help hold down or even reduce the premiums charged for private insurance. When, if ever, that might happen is unclear.

In the long run, if reform efforts slow the growth of health care costs, then the increase in insurance costs should ease as well. And if the new health insurance exchanges — and possibly a new public plan — inject more competition into markets that are often dominated by one or two big private insurance companies, that, too, could help bring down premiums. But these are big question marks, and the effects seem distant.

WILL MY CARE SUFFER?

Critics have raised the specter that health care will be “rationed” to save money. The truth is that health care is already rationed. No insurance, public or private, covers everything at any cost. That will not change any time soon.

It is true that the long-term goal of health reform is to get rid of the fee-for-service system in which patients often get very expensive care but not necessarily the best care. Virtually all experts blame the system for runaway health care costs because it pays doctors and hospitals for each service they perform, thus providing a financial incentive to order excessive tests or treatments, some of which harm the patients.

An earlier wave of managed care plans concentrated on reining in costs and aroused a backlash among angry beneficiaries who were denied the care they wanted. The most expensive treatment is not always the best treatment. The reform bills call for research and pilot programs to find ways to both control costs and improve patients’ care.

The bills would alter payment incentives in Medicare to reduce needless readmissions to hospitals. They would promote comparative effectiveness research to determine which treatments are best but would not force doctors to use them. And they call for pilot programs in Medicare to test the best ways for doctors to manage and coordinate a patient’s total care.

Any changes in the organization of care would take time to percolate from Medicare throughout the health care system. They are unlikely to affect most people in the immediate future.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR OLDER AMERICANS?

People over 65 are already covered by Medicare and would seem to have little to gain. But many of the chronically ill elderly who use lots of drugs could save significant money. The drug industry has already agreed to provide 50 percent discounts on brand-name drugs to Medicare beneficiaries who have reached the so-called “doughnut hole” where they must pay the full cost of their medicines. The House reform bill would gradually phase out the doughnut hole entirely, thus making it less likely that beneficiaries will stop taking their drugs once they have to pay the whole cost.

Not everyone in Medicare will be happy. The prospective losers are likely to include many people enrolled in the private plans that participate in Medicare, known as Medicare Advantage plans. They are heavily subsidized, and to pay for reform, Congress is likely to reduce or do away with those subsidies. If so, many of these plans are apt to charge their clients more for their current policies or offer them fewer benefits. The subsidies are hard to justify when the care could be delivered more cheaply in traditional Medicare, and the subsidies force up the premiums for the beneficiaries in traditional Medicare to cover their cost.

Reformers are planning to finance universal coverage in large part by saving money in the traditional Medicare program, raising the question of whether all beneficiaries will face a reduction in benefits. President Obama insisted that benefits won’t be reduced, they’ll simply be delivered in more efficient ways, like better coordination of care, elimination of duplicate tests and reliance on treatments known to work best.

The AARP, the main lobby for older Americans, has praised the emerging bills and thrown its weight behind the cause. All of this suggests to us that the great majority of Americans — those with insurance and those without — would benefit from health care reform.

Links

2009-07-19T16:12:00.039-04:00

Here are links to various news stories from the past week:

Bill Moyers' interview with former insurance company executive Wendell Potter (a real eye-opener).

Here's a conundrum from the inspector general's report on Bush/Cheney era spying programs--Did the threat assessments drive the surveillance program, or, Alice-in-Wonderland like, was it the other way around?

Here's a review of Andrew Bacevich's latest book, The Limits of American Empire.

Obama increases pressure on Congress re health care legislation.

Keynes and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.

The Daily Show on Palin resignation (I hadn't seen this before--it's hilarious).

Not wanting to be left out of the meltdown on the right, wingnut bloggers --never mind; see for yourself.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) catches hoof-and-mouth disease at the Sotomayor hearings.

The House of Representatives release of its version of the health care reform bill.

Here's a chart showing an international comparison of unemployment benefits.

Eric Martin on Obama's Afghanistan conundrum.

Eric Martin, contra Peter Bergen, agrees that historical analogies shed little light on the situation in Afghanistan.

Ben Stein seems to have problems with ethics.

The GOP presented a confusing chart on the floor of Congress Friday, supposedly illustrating that the Obama health care plan is complicated. No fooling... Here I thought a bill reforming interactions between doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, patients, labs, etc., making up a significant portion of the economy was going to fit on the back of a bubble gum wrapper. In response, The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn offers his own chart--of the system we have now.

Ezra Klein interviews conservative economist Bruce Bartlett on taxes and health care reform.

Conservatives, says Kevin Drum, are trapped by their own ideology on health care.

An article in Parameters, the U.S. Army War College Quarterly, argues that tying defense spending to GDP is a bad idea.

Wingnut blogger predictions about Iraq in 2003 didn't turn out very well.

The myth of conservative judicial restraint.

Matthew Yglesias on economic recovery based on recapitalization via profits.

He illustrates with a chart showing the percentage of total income earned by the top 1% of the population, 1913-2008.

The mechanism proposed to keep costs down in the health care reform bill.

Intellectual irresponsibility test (wingnut bloggers jump off cliff, chapter ???).

Fasten your seatbelts for a jobless recovery.

Yoo on Yoo.

Help for one time homeowners.

Buchanan being Buchanan.

Jon Stewart on Goldman.

More Health Care Reform Events--Brooklyn

2009-07-18T08:56:00.004-04:00

As you likely know, the next three weeks or so are a crucial time for health care reform. President Obama has made it clear that he would like to see a final bill brought to a vote before the August recess. This week, the House of Representatives and the Senate HELP committee put forward health care legislation, and the Senate Finance Committee is expected to produce a bill in the coming days. Therefore, it is critical that we, and Democrats in other states, reach out to our legislators and urge them to move forward with health care reform.

To that end, grassroots organizers in Brooklyn have organized a number of local canvasses and phone banks this weekend in support of health care reform. Below are some times and locations for events, or, as always, feel free to organize one of your own.

Like during the election, you also have the option to phone bank from home using barackobama.com .

We hope to see you out at a canvass or phone bank this weekend!

Saturday, July 18th

Fort Greene
Canvass at the Brooklyn Flea
12 to 3
176 Lafayette (b/w Clermont & Vanderbilt)
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpctl4

Park Slope
Canvass at the Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market
10:30 to 12:30
Grand Army Plaza
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarecanvass/gpfx2t

Carroll Gardens
Canvass at Carroll Park
1:30 to 3:30
Carroll Park
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarecanvass/gpctgh

Carroll Gardens
Phone Bank
11 to 1
Contact organizer for details
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarephonebank/gpcrpq

Bed-Stuy
Phone Bank
12 to 1
Contact organizer for details
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarephonebank/gpct2w

Sunday, July 19th

Flatbush
Phone bank
12 to
Help Community Learning Center
1821 Nostrand Ave
RSVP here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarephonebank/gpctyr

Health Care Reform Phone Banking--Final Push!

2009-07-17T22:46:00.004-04:00

Come phonebank for health care reform!

Our postcards, calls and meetings have made a tremendous difference in New York. With a few exceptions, most Reps and Senators are now solidly on board for reform in our state. Now, it's time to take our grassroots action national. Join us for phonebanks across the city to call Obama volunteers in battleground states of Florida, Montana and Arkansas; we'll be encouraging them to call their Senators.

Saturday, July 18th

Carroll Gardens, 11 AM - 1 PM
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarephonebank/gpcrpq

Monday, July 20th

Upper West Side, 7 PM - 9 PM
Youth Hostel, 103rd & Amsterdam, BOARD ROOM
RSVP to threeparksdems@aol.com

Refreshments will be served.

Wednesday, July 22nd

71 Lexington Ave., Apt. 5, Brooklyn, 7-9 PM

http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpfh5j

Thursday, July 23rd

Grammercy, 6-9 PM
12 Grammercy Park South (E. 20th St. between Park and Irving)
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpfh5p

Westchester, 8 PM - 10 PM
7 Davenport St, Harrison, NY 10528
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpfh52

For canvasses, check out my.barackobama.com

Eric Cantor's Nose is Growing

2009-07-11T14:21:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, GOP House Minority Whip Eric Cantor was interviewed on NPR by Steve Inskeep. A transcript follows, minus introductory statements:

Q: Here’s something I’d like to know. In your mind, what is a reasonable amount of time to give this admin to do whatever it can to turn the economy around that it says it inherited?

A: Steve, I don’t actually think that’s the right way to approach this question. When we considered the first stimulus bill in January, representations were made, promises were made by President Obama that if we acted quickly and passed the bill, we’d be able to stave off job loss and stop the unemployment rate from exceeding 8 1/2%. So I think that the proper test is, representations and promises that were made did not come to fruition.

Q: But the reason I ask that is because, as you know, the administration has said, “Wait a minute, we never said it would work in the first few months, we have not even gotten around to spending all the money yet, give us a little bit of time.” What is a reasonable amount of time to give them?

A: Again, this is not what the administration said. The administration said that we needed to act with a sense of urgency, that is how we were going to be able save jobs and avoid folks from having to go on the unemployment lines. That should still be our goal. We shouldn’t have been expediting the review of an 11-hundred page bill without anyone in the House reading it if the course that we expected was going to be a one- or two- or three- or four-year period in which to see the money go out. That’s where we get into the situation where you waste taxpayer dollars.

Q: Although the administration is saying now it took years to get into this mess; it’ll take time to get out. What’s a reasonable amount of time? What’s the time on the clock for him as far as you’re concerned?

A: Steve, there’s not a question—we shouldn’t be arguing about how we got here because that’s pointing blame. I think the American people are tired of that. They want to know how we’re getting out of this situation. Republicans had a plan, I went and personally gave him our stimulus plan back in January. We still want to work with this president. The way we see an economic recovery coming about is through investment. We’ve got to get small businesses back into the business of putting their money to work, taking risks, so that jobs can be created.

Q: Do you think that the economy will be the heart of next year’s congressional elections?

A: Well, listen, no one has a perfect crystal ball. But clearly I think that the economic situation before us needs to be satisfied in order for the electorate to begin to have some confidence in their leadership. I think what you’re seeing in polling right now is a reflection of the fact that this president & this congress own this economy.

Q: How many Democrats do you think are vulnerable?

A: Steve, again, you look at the numbers out of the last election. There are 49 Democrats sitting in seats that John McCain won. Obviously not all of those are vulnerable, but I do think you start there. And then you also look at the seats that have individuals who are new to Congress that perhaps were in seats that were held by the Republican candidate prior. I do think there are a sufficient number of vulnerable Democrats that will allow Republicans to make significant gains, if not take over the Congress and the U.S. House in 2010.

Note Cantor's insistence on portraying Obama's recovery plan a failure while refusing to say how much time a plan should be given to take effect, all while claiming he doesn't want to assign blame--but that Obama and the Democrats "own this economy." One wonders how many more sides of his mouth Cantor has from which to speak.

Cantor claims that Obama didn't say that time would be required for the recovery plan to take effect. A turn to google shows that not to be true. Here's what President Obama had to say on the subject during his January 8, 2009, Fairfax, VA speech introducing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan:

It will not come easy or happen overnight, and it is altogether likely that things may get worse before they get better. But that is all the more reason for Congress to act without delay.

Of course, Obama's economic package was passed without a single GOP vote in the House of Representatives, and it got through the Senate only after four GOP "moderates" forced a compromise which included removal of federal funding to states for school construction (considered one of the more effective recession-fighting tools, as it would have created jobs) and cuts to state fiscal stabilization programs, also important during a recession. Nor did the GOP offer anything like coherent objections to Obama's plans, as noted by economist Brad DeLong.

There was a strategy behind the monolithic opposition, as noted by Greg Sargent. In fact, a GOP Representative responsible for "messaging" admitted as much in public.

Months of consistent opposition and obstruction didn't work very well for the GOP. Their poll numbers were (and still are) in the sewer. On March 26, they attempted to unveil an economic (ahem) plan of their own, but that didn't work very well.

They put out something a little more substantive on April 1 (how fitting), but as noted by Ezra Klein, among many others, the plan offered little in the way of details and was completely unrealistic.

Meanwhile, here’s what the stimulus IS doing:

Ezra Klein cites a study by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities showing that the stimulus is closing 30-40 percent of state budget deficits. Why does that matter?

States must balance their budgets, as mandated by their respective state constitutions. How can they do that?
1. Raise taxes (Conservatives all raise your hands if you’re in favor. Ahh, I didn’t think so.); or
2. Cut spending. What happens if they do this during the worst downturn since the Great Depression?
a. States would have fewer resources at a time when they need them most to cope with the crisis.
b. State employees would lose their jobs (further deepening the recession).
c. The social safety net would collapse (imagine what happens if, as state employees lose their jobs, SCHIP funding is slashed).

It's not enough, God knows. People need jobs, and it takes a long time for an economic plan to take full effect. But surely we shouldn't be taking seriously complaints about the economic recovery plan from a party as completely cynical, dishonest and deeply unserious as the current GOP.

Are Inflation Fears Real? An Economist Says No

2009-07-11T13:07:00.001-04:00

Scott Fullwiler, an economist writing at the blog Economic Perspectives From Kansas City, observes that fears of inflation that have been expressed in various circles lately, all having to do with the large amounts of liquidity the Federal Reserve has pumped into the economy (you know, Obama’s economy recovery package?), are misplaced. In fact, he says,

As of July 2, 2009, the Fed reported the following assets on its balance sheet:

* Term Auction Credit: $283 billion
* Commercial Paper Lending Facility: $115 billion
* Central Bank Liquidity Swaps: $115 billion
* "Other" Loans (includes the Primary Dealer Credit Facility): $119 billion

Together, these assets amount to $632 billion. And what do they all have in common? They are all LOANS. Note also that they comprise the bulk of the $726 billion in reserve balances held by banks the Fed reports on its liability side.

Moreover, all of the loans in question are short-term, and have already been repaid.

The fear among Fed critics is apparently that the Fed lacks an “exit strategy;” i.e., it has no clear plan to counter the rise in reserve balances, which they claim will lead to inflation. Yet Fullwiler explains that

Banks DO NOT use reserve balances to create loans. They create loans and deposits simultaneously out of thin air. They use reserve balances to settle payments or meet reserve requirements ONLY. If a bank is short reserve balances for either of these purposes, the Fed provides an overdraft AUTOMATICALLY at a stated penalty rate, which the bank then clears via the money markets or the cheapest alternative. Whether banks in the aggregate hold $1 or $1 trillion in reserve balances, there operational ability to create loans is the same . . . infinite! (Though the creation of even 1 loan requires a willing, credit-worthy borrow in the first place, of course.)...That is how loan creation works in a modern monetary system. The belief that banks need reserve balances in order to lend is only applicable in a gold standard-type of monetary system.

In short, there’s no danger of inflation stemming from the Fed’s activities discussed above & there’s no need for an exit strategy.

Interestingly enough, Fullwiler observes that the financial press (he cites the Wall Street Journal specifically) doesn’t understand how the Fed works.

LIMITED FREE SPACES for D.C. Health Care Rally

2009-06-23T21:00:00.006-04:00

Limited FREE Buses to Washington, DC —
A FEW SPACES ARE STILL AVAILABLE

The Time is NOW to Mobilize Nationally for Health Care for ALL

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Health Care Rally & Town Hall in Washington, DC

Join thousands of Americans at the
largest health care rally in history!

Limited FREE buses

Meet at 5:30 AM at Union Square; leave at 6 AM
Back at 9:30 PM

RSVP to Naomi.Rothwell2@gmail.com

Check out below for more information:

www.healthcare09.org

Our voice, strength and support on behalf of real health care reform is urgently needed. On Thursday, June 25th, there will be a big rally and lobbying day for health care reform in Washington, D.C.

Transportation and lunch will be FREE on this trip. Please spread the word to your friends and family!

Health Care Reform Events and Update

2009-06-22T19:10:00.003-04:00

1. HEALTH REFORM RALLY

Washington, DC
Thursday, June 25th

Join thousands of Americans from all across the country at the largest health reform rally in history! Come for the rally, town halls, and visits with key policy makers. Congress is voting on health care reform legislation in July. They need to hear our voices now!

RSVP: health care providers | friends

Free Bus Reservation: Naomi Rothwell | Facebook (Union Square at 5:30 am)

2. NPA ECHO EVENT

Irish Rogue (map)
356 W 44 St
New York, NY
Thursday, June 25th at 7pm

Can't make it to DC? Amplify your colleagues’ voices. Join us to write letters to our representatives urging health reform and supporting the public health insurance option. Bring your personal stories and letterhead from your office.

RSVP: Echo Event

3. STAND WITH DR. HOWARD DEAN

Hunter College School of Social Work (map)

New York, NY
Tuesday, June 23rd at 2pm

Come hear Dr. Dean, former chair of the DNC, former governor of Vermont, and founder of Democracy for America, talk about the fight for the choice of a public health insurance option.

RSVP: Stand with Dr. Dean

4. NATIONAL DAY OF SERVICE

New York, NY
Saturday, June 27th

Still not sure how to get involved? Find a service event in your own neighborhood on Saturday, June 27th.

SEARCH: Organizing for America

5. PHONE BANK

New York, NY
Week of June 27

Some of our elected officials are starting to back down on supporting the public health insurance option. Help keep up the pressure. Join or organize a phone bank. Speak to your elected officials or reach out to doctors in other key states to mobilize them.

EMAIL: Nina Agrawal

6. HEALTH ACTION REPORT

NPA Success in Washington Last Week!

Last Wednesday, members of the New York NPA hand-delivered a box of 1000 post cards to Senator Schumer's office in DC and met with 6 Congress members on Capitol Hill. We received a very warm welcome from all, and Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez even personally sent us a thank-you letter afterward. Staffers and Congress members alike were very impressed to see physicians stand side by side with patients to fight for something other than their own financial interests.

Health care providers, sign our petition to support the public health insurance option

Tell a Friend about the NPA

Watch our Introductory Film

Become a Member of the National Physicians Alliance

Misleading Uses of Statistics, Chapter 57,942

2009-06-21T12:39:00.040-04:00

A conservative interlocutor on a facebook thread challenged me the other day:

...Let's just use numbers without liberal or conservative pundit spin, okay? Here's how things stood at the end of 2006, no commentary:

Economic expansion was in its 74th month. The country had a rolling average of 103,000 job increases for the last three months of 2006. Unemployment stood at 4.7 percent. The household job count, which picks up small businesses, posted a 303,000 average gain.

Worker wages rose 3.8 percent in 2006, a full percentage point ahead of inflation. U.S. productivity surged 6.3 percent in the third quarter, its best pace in four years. Business inflation fell from 3.5 percent a year ago to 1.5 percent.

U.S. household net worth hit a record high of $58.6 trillion, and household wealth increased 43 percent from 2001-2005.

Now give me numbers showing me how "delusional" I am. No spin, just facts.

No problem...

First, I have to say I find your periodization of data bizarre. Aside from anything else, no government spending makes its presence felt in the economy for about a year, regardless whose it is. It just takes a while to get the ball rolling. This was noted in the Obama team's projections when they introduced the stimulus plan, by the way. It is absurd to draw any conclusions about the efficacy of the stimulus plan (or any of the others, for that matter) 5 months into a new administration.

Secondly, your reliance on 2006 data (I'd like to know your sources, by the way--I'm relying on the Bureau of Labor Statistics and several economists, as noted in the links below) is a bit odd, given that Bush was in office for 8 years. I think it's much more objective to compare apples to apples, so I'm comparing 8 years of Clinton to 8 years of Bush. Surely with 8 years of data for each, there can be no question as to the onset of the economic policies of each president or responsibility for same. Sound fair to you? I knew it would...

One last point: I also think it's unreasonable to compare the economic performance of any president in the midst of a major economic crisis (this one's generally considered the worst since the end of the Great Depression) with that of a president not facing a similar situation. Compare Obama in a few years to FDR if you like. Or if you really want to stretch way back and account for lots of data problems, try the panic of 1873 or, even worse, the economic crisis of the early 1820s. But again, apples to apples seems a reasonable approach.

1. Employment Rates:

Here’s the Employment-Population Ratio, 1992-2009:

Type of data: Percent
Age: 16 years and over

1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
62.0	63.1	62.7	63.4	64.0	64.3	64.4	64.4	62.9	62.4	62.2	62.4	62.8	63.4	62.7	61.0

The graph and data above show remarkable growth in the employment-population ratio from 1993 (61.4%) through 2000 (64.4%), followed by a sharp drop in employment from 2001 (64.4%) through 2004 (62.4%). This was followed by a modest increase in employment from 2004 (62.4%) through 2007 (62.7), followed by a dive off a cliff from 2007 (62.7%) to present (59.7%) coinciding, of course, with the economic crash.

Incidentally, the reason I use the employment-population ratio instead of raw employment numbers is that, unlike the latter, the former illustrates the extent to which employment rate changes reflect, by lagging, equalling or exceeding population growth rates, actual increases or decreases in the availability of jobs. The economy gained somewhere in the neighborhood of 22 million new jobs under Clinton. I forget offhand how many jobs we lost under Bush, but it was a lot.

2. Wages:

From 1993 to 2001, wages were flat for the first 2 years, followed by net changes in percentage points of .4%, .3%, 2.6%, 2.1%, .9%, .7% and 2.0%. From 2001 to 2007, net changes in wages in percentage points were .6%, 0.0%, -1.0%, -0.4%, 1.8% and -0.7%. By any measure, net increases in wages were greater from 1993-2001, than from 2001-2007.

3. Productivity:

Percentage changes in productivity from 1993 to 2008 were as follows:

1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
0.4	1.1	0.5	2.7	1.6	2.8	2.9	2.8	2.5	4.1	3.7	2.8	1.7	0.9	1.4	2.8

In other words, productivity increased almost continually from 1993-2002, then declined consistently until 2008.

4. Business inflation:

Business inflation rose slowly from 1993-2001, increasing faster from 2001-2007, then experiencing a levelling out.

1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
124.4	126.6	129.3	132.9	131.4	131.3	135.2	140.5	138.0	139.7	145.1	151.4	159.7	161.4	171.8	169.7

5. Household Net Worth:

As far as household net worth is concerned, let’s disaggregate your statistics. The wealthiest 1% of the population experienced a 40% increase in wealth during the Bush years; everyone else either had level net worth or lost ground. Adjusted for inflation, the real wages of the average American worker has actually decreased slightly since the 1970s. Use of an aggregate household net worth number obscures these differences.

To understand why consider a hypothetical case in which you have 5 income levels: $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 and $1,000,000. Assume the number of households at each level is, respectively, 10, 30, 50, 40, 10--a very rough bell curve. Multiplying the number of households at each income level by its income, then adding up the subtotals (140 households, $13,800,000) and dividing the total income by the number of households yields the average income of the whole group: $98,571.43. Now consider another group with the same number of households, but with these 5 income levels: $10,000, $18,000, $29,500, $39,000, $1,500,000. For the sake of simplicity, lets keep the distribution of incomes at each level the same as before. We still have 140 households, but the total income is now $18,675,000--solely because of the increase in income in the highest quintile. The average income per household is now $133,392.90, simply because the highest quintile value is so much higher than it was in the previous example. Did most households experience an increase in income from the first example to the second? Of course not--only those at the highest quintile did, but their increase was so great it pulled up the average for the whole group. The numbers I used were obviously not taken from the U.S. Census, but the phenomenon I've explained in simplistic terms is roughly what has happened to American households since the 1970s--those in the highest income brackets experienced a dramatic increase in income, especially over the past 8 years, while the average working household (I'm referring here to the median, or midpoint value in an index of U.S. incomes) either experienced no change or a slight decline in income during that period.

(Additional source data available at U.S. Department of Commerce website—fee required for access.)

Commentary

By the way, the contrast turns out to be even more stark than the numbers above indicate. It turns out that, no matter how you slice it, the economy always has done better under Democratic than Republican administrations—with the exception of every 4th year of a GOP president’s term in office (the exception to the exception being, of course, 2008 under Bush).

It’s interesting, by the way, to see how heavily my conservative challenger relies on 2006. Bush was in office for 8 years—why not data for his whole term in office? His economic record was anemic compared to Clinton’s (see charts above), and it was topped off with a global economic collapse, which, contrary to claims from the right, was not caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but by wildly irresponsible behavior by mortgage brokers, ill-informed consumers, many of this country’s biggest investment banks, and the insurance company they relied on to hedge their bets via credit default swaps, AIG. (The latter, incidentally, didn’t think it necessary to back those financial instruments with their own money. And of course, they were unregulated (thanks largely to GOP Sen. Phil Gramm), so who was going to notice?) And yes, it’s true, Bush didn’t cause the collapse all by his lonesome, and some Democrats were complicit in the mess, but any honest measure of the economic history of the US from 1980 to present will unavoidably conclude that the GOP was the prime mover in the rush to deregulate, reflexive hostility to government, and the near-religious devotion to the idea that unfettered “free” markets would naturally police themselves. We’ll all be living with the results of that folly for a long time to come.

And people who try to blame Obama for the mess are being disingenuous. Sorry—5 months just isn’t enough time for any president to have a significant effect on the economy. It just takes time for programs to start & for money to flow through the pipeline. I realize my conservative challenger is a libertarian and particularly aggressive in his belief in the sanctity of the marketplace. But fair is fair—and if anyone attacked a conservative or libertarian politician with the intensity, obsessiveness and peculiar one-sidedness he exhibits toward Obama, he’d have no trouble recognizing how unreasonable that sort of behavior really is.

Incidentally, while I can't speak for your sources, not knowing what they are, I don't look to pundits when forming my opinions. Nor do I have one iota of patience for spin, regardless who does the spinning.

Harlem Health Care Reform Canvassing Event

2009-06-21T10:29:00.004-04:00

In recognition of NATIONAL HIV TESTING DAY, we are hosting a FREE health clinic that will include HIV, STD, TB, and Hepatitis Testing Services. We also will be canvassing, making phone calls and initiating several advocacy initiatives in support of President Obama's three health care principles:

1. Reduce costs
2. Guarantee choice
3. Ensure all Americans have quality, affordable health care.

Nowhere else in our country do people in communities like Harlem know better that Health Care Reform is urgently needed. It is essential that our voices are heard.

Saturday, June 27 from 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Staging Location: African Services Committee (New York, NY)
429 West 127th Street (between Amsterdam & Morningside Aves.)
Hosts: Oscar Carter and Gregg Ross
Contact: ross.gregg@gmail.com

RSVP:
MyBarackObama.com: http://tinyurl.com/kqjpkc
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/mr4ead

Dangerous Simplicity

2009-06-17T22:31:00.003-04:00

Lisa McGirr & Kim Philips-Fein are two historians who've studied the new right. McGirr focuses on the grassroots movement (Orange County, CA, specifically) while Philips-Fein explores the big business-led development of the infrastructure enabling the right to gain power. Together, they provide a useful framework for interpreting the ongoing meltdown of the new right.

If one starts from a traditional, often fundamentalist Christian point of view, and accepts the premise that the US is perfect, any problems we face must be due to a sinister external force. The government is an easy target, especially since it embraced in the late 20th century a bureaucratic-technical approach to modernity, rather than emphasizing traditional church-based values.

Add to that the traditional conservative position that government is an inherent threat to individual liberty, and the western mythology of the rugged individual (contra the reality that the prosperity enjoyed by most Orange County conservatives was dependent on massive government spending in the form of defense manufacturing and the infrastructure required to support it) & it was easy for conservatives to feel that government programs aimed at amelioration of poverty represented confiscation of the fruits of their hard work and potentially a threat to their freedom (freedom largely being defined economically; the more fundamentalist among them were less concerned about freedom when moral concerns were involved). This is not to say, by the way, that there were/are no reasonable bases for concern about government threats to individual liberties; rather, the point here is that the threats perceived by modern conservatives have been generally imaginary (fluoridated water,gun rights, the Soviet Union as an imminent threat to the U.S. at the very moment the former was unraveling, etc.).

The inherent contraditions in these positions, as noted above, are pretty easy to see. Conservatives were generally hostile to the civil rights movement and many, including William F. Buckley Jr., infamously argued that efforts to expand rights to African Americans constituted government intrusion into individual rights of free association. Nor have many conservatives, despite their traditional zealotry about government encroachments on liberty, been similarly concerned about the potential for similar threats to individual rights by corporate power. The obviously selective choices of objects for conservative outrage lead many outside the movement to conclude that the stated motives for opposition are but smokescreens for racism, defense of socioeconomic privilege, and various other bigotries and fears.

It's kind of striking that movement conservatives depend on a manufactured sense of grievance and paranoia, and increasingly, a rejection of evidence & logic to maintain group cohesion & a sense of identity. Even after they got Reagan & then Dubya elected, the right continued to peddle conspiracy theories and nurture a sense of grievance. Now, after undeniable political dominance for 6 of the last 8 years (and really, considering the haplessness and complicity of many Democrats, it’s been more like 40 years), virtually every aspect of every policy enacted by conservatives stands revealed (to those willing to look honestly) as a total failure of massive proportions. Yet lacking a more sophisticated intellectual framework for interpreting the results, many on the right continue to resort to a belligerent form of denial. Hence the hysterical screeching, wild accusations and even occasional shootings we observe on cable TV and elsewhere. A simplistic template is inadequate for efforts to understand the complexities of the world we live in.

Health Care Rally & Town Hall Meeting!

2009-06-15T20:19:00.002-04:00

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Join thousands of Americans at the

largest health care rally in history!

Limited FREE buses

Meet at 5:30 AM at Union Square; leave at 6 AM

Back at 9:30 PM

RSVP to Naomi.Rothwell2@gmail.com

www.healthcare09.org

mybarackobama.com link: http://tinyurl.com/lwappy

Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/m8bv64

Public Option Teach-IN: Fact over Fear

2009-06-15T19:57:00.005-04:00

The fight for health care reform is on. The public option is in jeopardy.

This Tuesday, June 16th, learn about the public option, why it's critical to health care reform, the debate on Capitol Hill, and what you can do to support President Obama's historic health care reform initiative. Health care policy blogger Tim Foley (Change.org) will present a balanced overview as well as key messaging points.

The Irish Rogue Pub
356 West 44th St. (Southeast corner of 9th Ave.), 2nd Floor
Pub food, drink specials, comfortable couches, and great company!
Tuesday, June 16th, 7:30 to 9:30PM

RSVP: here. This is your opportunity to be part of the legislation of a lifetime. Please spread the word to your family, friends, co-workers. Health care affects everyone!

U.S. Chamber of Commerce vs. Obama

2009-06-13T12:53:00.005-04:00

I just got this message from moveon.org. Given its implications, I thought it best to post it on my blog & give it whatever publicity I can:

Less than 48 hours ago, the biggest corporations in the country declared war on President Obama's agenda. The scale of the attack is mind-boggling.

The right-wing lobbyists at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will spend $100 million to defeat Obama's plans for health care and a clean energy economy. They call it their "most important project" in nearly 100 years.¹

Congress is voting on a crucial energy bill in less than two weeks, and you can count on a barrage of misleading TV ads and arm-twisting in Congress aimed at weakening the bill. We're countering with an emergency organizing drive to strengthen the energy bill—but we urgently need to raise the funds to power our organizing drive.

Can you chip in $35 to help fight back against the Chamber's campaign?

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/10days.html?id=16382-655913-fxzHKfx&t=3

Your local Chamber of Commerce represents small businesses, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is different—it represents the interests of mega-corporations, especially Big Oil and Coal.

In the next ten days, we'll pull out all the stops to block the Chamber and strengthen the energy bill. And after the big vote, we'll keep going just as strong—demanding a public health insurance option in the health care bill, fighting for tough new rules to rein in the financial industry, and making sure Obama's progressive agenda gets enough grassroots support to succeed.

This is an all-hands-on-deck moment, so we're pulling together our best online, grassroots, and legislative strategies to:

Flood Capitol Hill with thousands of phone calls.
Buy online ads targeted to get the attention of opinion-makers in key House districts.
Bring together progressive members of Congress to speak out about the problems in the bill.
Hand-deliver petitions to dozens of local congressional offices—and hold media events outside to highlight the voices of unemployed people calling for clean energy jobs.
Hold face-to-face meetings with congressional staff in Washington and in communities across the country.
Launch a new website, StrengthenIt.org, where we'll rally local environmental groups to the cause.

We're deciding this weekend on our final plan for pushing Congress before the vote—so we need to know what resources we have available. Can you chip in $35?

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/10days.html?id=16382-655913-fxzHKfx&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Anna, Wes, Noah, Nita and the rest of the team

P.S. If you're a member of your local Chamber of Commerce or run a small business, please sign our petition asking the U.S. Chamber to stop lobbying against Obama's clean energy jobs plan:

http://pol.moveon.org/chamber/?id=16382-655913-fxzHKfx&t=5

Source:
1. "Chamber defends free-market system," Politico, June 10, 2009
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23563.html

Portrait of Political Irresponsibility

2009-06-13T10:28:00.009-04:00

Starting in the 1970s, the GOP in Congress (with help from some Dems) removed the Depression-era oversight of the banking industry & prevented regulation of complex financial instruments such as credit-default swaps.

Congress (still under Dem control but totally craven in the face of GOP attacks) passed the Reagan tax cuts in 1981, resulting in federal deficits bigger than those of all previous presidents combined. (Reagan did a U-turn a year later, increasing taxes to refill the coffers, but that never made it into conservative mythology.)

In 1995, the Gingrich-era GOP Congress shut down the government in an effort to force President Clinton to slash social spending and cut taxes. Millions of people around the country, dependent on the federal government for social security payments, paychecks, various services, etc., were hurt by this stunt & the GOP had to back down.

The GOP-led Congress under President Katrina passed enormous tax cuts, turning the biggest budget surplus in U.S. history into the biggest deficit in a year. This in spite of our involvement in 2 wars simultaneously.

The GOP-led Congress voted in lockstep with President Katrina’s administration from 2001 through 2006, authorizing spending on the Iraq War, etc. It exercised no oversight during that time.

The GOP has argued, contra historical evidence, that tax cuts are the answer to the current economic crisis. Economists—including conservatives, agree that tax cuts would turn the current crisis into outright catastrophe.

In mid-September, 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed and there were large withdrawals from the Reserve fund. Against that backdrop, the bank bailouts (which I certainly agree are due for criticism on a number of grounds) began. Obama’s economic plan was crafted in response to the situation he inherited—one caused by the combination of factors mentioned above (not primarily due to activities of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, as the GOP & its wingnut chorus would have us believe). Obama’s economic plan only passed in the Senate due to a compromise with 3 GOP “moderates” & some blue dog Dems. The so-called compromise eliminated federal funding for state unemployment programs in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1940s—this despite the CBO’s study showing that one of the most effective mechanisms for reviving the economy in a recession is unemployment insurance (the people who get it need to spend it; therefore it cycles through the economy, boosting economic activity via the multiplier effect). So if the recession lasts longer & gets deeper, we all know who to thank for it.

The CBO, the Commonwealth Fund and others analyzing the numbers project that without the public option, health care costs are projected to increase to 60% of the federal budget by 2030, crowding out other federal programs. The GOP in Congress is universally opposed to Obama’s health care reform plans, especially the public option.

The GOP-led Congress refused persistently to do anything in response to global warming, making our ability to do anything about it now much more difficult—and expensive.

Despite all the above, die-hard wingnuts continue to argue that Obama is a socialist, he’s throwing money around recklessly, and we need a return to GOP govenance. Try to imagine what shape we’d be in now if the party whose only principle is tax cuts (for the richest 1% of the population, at that) were in power now. God protect us from such a fate.

Some still claim, despite all the above, that there’s no real difference between the two major parties—that “everyone does it.” The record is clear that, despite definite cravenness on the part of some Dems, overwhelming responsibility for the mess we face lies with the GOP.

Immigration Reform--Action Alert!

2009-06-03T21:44:00.002-04:00

This is an exciting week for the campaign to WIN just and humane immigration reform in 2009. Today, over 700 advocates (including over 60 reps from NY, many of whom are CIR Working Group members!) are coming together in Washington DC to attend the Reform Immigration FOR America Field Summit. The 3-day summit coincides with the official launch of the Reform Immigration FOR America Campaign in DC and cities across the country – from New York to Los Angeles, Miami to Seattle!

Tomorrow, the 700 advocates in DC will descend on Capitol Hill to tell Congress: "We cannot wait any longer. America needs to reform immigration NOW." We need to show strong support from our communities as well as we make this call to Congress.

Please take 30 seconds to send a (free) fax to your Senators, Representatives, and Congressional leadership right now to call for immigration reform NOW.

CLICK HERE TO SEND A FREE FAX:
http://www.ReformImmigrationFORAmerica.org?p=NYIC

Please forward this to your co-workers, friends and family. Our goal is to back up those 700 advocates on the Hill with 2,500 phone calls and 20,000 faxes.

Thanks everyone. See you soon,

Frances

Frances Liu
Immigration Advocacy Field Coordinator
The New York Immigration Coalition
137-139 W. 25th Street, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10001
Tel: 212-627-2227 x246
Fax: 212-627-9314
Email: FLiu@thenyic.org

Singing Workshop

2009-05-30T11:33:00.003-04:00

Do you like to sing? Ysaye M. Barnwell and George Brandon will be leading a vocal workshop from June 14 through June 19 at the Omega Institute, leading participants through a discovery of vocal techniques and African-American history and culture through song. Experience not necessary.

Details here.

Art News

2009-05-30T07:40:00.015-04:00

Josey Hale has work in two shows opening next week in Brooklyn:

Little Tragedies Group Show opening June 5, 7-9PM
CCCP Gallery
38 Marcy Ave. at Hope St.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Bushwick Biennial opening June 6, 7 - 9 PM
NURTUREart
910 Grand Street
Brooklyn, NY 11206

In addition, he's posted some new works on his website.

Also, fans of avant garde jazz will probably be interested in next week's Vision Festival. This year's lineup includes such worthies as Marshall Allan (a day is devoted to a celebration of his work, including an evening performance by the Sun Ra Arkestra), Billy Bang, Sunny Murray, William Parker, Matthew Shipp, Hamid Drake, Joe Morris, and the list goes on.

Recession Survival Fair—Volunteers Needed

2009-05-28T08:57:00.002-04:00

The Recession Survival Fair will be on Saturday, June 6 from 11 am to 4 pm at the Brooklyn Brownstone School at MacDonough and Lewis Aves. in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. We need volunteers to help publicize the event ASAP.

The areas we are covering include:

Health/Wellness - Including healthcare for those who are uninsured or underinsured, dental care, mental health (stress from the recession); we'd like to have screenings/tests available if possible so that people can get a baseline of their health. We will include resources for all of the recreational and fitness activities that are free or low cost in the city. We'd like to have a list of the programs that the hospitals/health centers hold for the public. We'd like to have massage therapists, acupuncturists, and yoga instructors there to talk about alternative stress relievers (and there are schools where these services are either free or very low cost). We are also addressing fitness and recreation and low cost or no cost ways of pursuing various activities.

Food/Nutrition - We are looking for a nutritionist to talk about how one can fix healthy, balanced, low cost food for themselves and their family. We'll have people from NOEP to help sort out the food stamp maze. We'd like to talk about the many places people can find food - farmer's markets, local ethnic groceries, CSA's, food coops, urban farming/gardening, soup kitchens, food pantries.....and the groceries. And how to create a food budget.

Veterans - We are trying to gather together special resources for veterans in all of these areas as well as just reaching out to the veteran community to be a part of this.

Finances - Credit repair, debt, foreclosures, savings, financial literacy, etc.......and how to avoid scams.

Families - Child care, elder care, summer food programs for kids who received free breakfast and lunch during the school year, summer recreation for kids, and camps.

Immigrants - Citizenship, assimiliation and rights

Jobs - Job skills classes (free), job search in the internet age, social networking, resumes, cover letters, interviews, what the promising career fields are in the NYC area, what are green jobs and what skills does one need for them?

Business Start Up - We feel that by starting new businesses, people can help fix the economy, providing jobs for other, etc.... We'll have a slew of tools and resources (free) for people who are considering doing this.

In addition, we are starting a bartering site, so that people can trade expertise and skills. For example, an accountant can help a family work out a budget and in exchange, he can get Spanish lessons or learn how to make tamales. A college student could teach someone how to use Twitter and other social networking and in return, she could receive a home cooked meal. We want to encourage people to use their talents to help each other.

Please contact us at continuethechange@gmail.com to volunteer or get further information.

David Herrstrom Poetry Reading

2009-05-27T18:11:00.002-04:00

My friend David Herrstrom is doing a poetry reading:

I'll be reading my poems on Sunday, June 28, at 3:00 pm, at the Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County.

Settings, interludes, and musical accompaniments by David Brahinsky.

Hope to see you there.

Best,

Dave

Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County
Mount’s Corner Shopping Center
West Main Street & Wemrock Road
Freehold Township, NJ 07728

Health Care Bill This Friday?

2009-05-26T20:30:00.002-04:00

Congress Committee to release health care bill this Friday?

Rumors are circulating that the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee (HELP) will release its bipartisan health care legislation this Friday. Will the legislation include the public option, a watered-down version of the public option, or no option at all?

Last week, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, talked about creating a fallback public option that only would kick in several years down the road if insurance companies are not doing their part to bring down costs.

Can we count on an industry which has increased premiums more than 87% over six years? Highly unlikely.

For more on this topic, check out Tim Foley's great health care blog at Change.org. The public plan is in jeopardy. Please volunteer to lead a Public Option Postcard tabling event from May 30 to June 7th in your neighborhood.

*Media Coordinator Needed - Whatever time you can contribute is helpful. Please contact Naomi Rothwell, NYCforCHANGE Outreach Coordinator, if interested.

Volunteers Needed for Health Care Events

2009-05-26T16:40:00.009-04:00

Blue Double Cross underway. Mission: Kill Health Care Reform at any cost

Insurers are gearing up for a major smear campaign to block the public option — the most crucial part of health care reform. Why? They are scared of losing business to a competitor that offers quality and affordable care without the hassles.

We must fight back with our stories - denials of treatments, choice of doctors, medications - of health care when we needed it the most. Go to our facebook group, 47 million strong for health care reform , share your story, and pass it on to everyone you know. Every story makes a difference!

UPCOMING EVENTS

1. Stand UP for Health Care - Postcard Tabling Events - Sat, May 30th to Sun, June 7th
Join NYCforChange in mobilizing our neighbors to support the public plan option by sharing their personal stories on postcards to Congress. Postcards will be given to key members of Congress at face to face meetings on June 10th.

*Upper West Side, Sat, May 30th - - Starbucks on 103rd and Broadway, 12 to 3 PM - RSVP: nina.agrawal07@gmail.com
*Morningside Heights, Sat, May 30th -- 109th and Amsterdam, 1 to 3 PM, RSVP: andrewsdavies@gmail.com
*Washington Heights, Sat, June 6th, RSVP: amymiller3@gmail.com
*Brooklyn, Sun, June 7th, RSVP: taniazsk@gmail.com

*Volunteers Needed! Please volunteer to host a tabling event in your neighborhood. Contact amymiller3@gmail.com

2. Health Care Reform Teach-In - The good, the bad, and what the heck? - Wed, June 3rd
Learn about the public plan option - the most controversial and crucial part of health care reform. Tim Foley, Change.org heath policy blogger, will give key messaging points about the public plan and other hot health care topics. Details TBA.

OTHER EVENTS

Asian American Heritage Month House Party - Sunday, May 31th, 3:30-6:00 pm
Featuring a conference call with Konrad Ng, Obama's brother in law, Tammy Duckworth and other officials from the Obama Administration. Tim Foley, will be speaking about health care reform and how you can help make it happen. Sponsored by Asian Americans for Progress - Home of Virginia Davies --299 West 12th Street, Penthouse, NYC - RSVP: t_thanjan@yahoo.com

National Physician's Alliance - NY Local Action Network meeting - Tuesday, June 2nd
Find out about upcoming health care for all advocacy activities for physicians - RSVP: dr.manelsilva@gmail.com

SAVE THE DATE - National Health Care for America NOW lobby day in D.C.
- June 25th
For more info, contact metrohealth@igc.org

What is Reality, Jazz Edition

2009-05-24T15:42:00.006-04:00

I saw Nicholas Payton's quintet last night at Birdland, and it led me to think about jazz, a music I love (and think about a lot in any case).

There's been a lot of press in recent years about a conflict over a definition--the perennial question, What is jazz? The latest resurgence of this sort of inquiry was inspired by comments by Wynton Marsalis (whose playing I love) that were critical of avant-garde jazz (which I also love) for allegedly abandoning the traditional, core features of jazz as it had been performed and composed through much of the 20^th century. The primary target of Marsalis’ criticisms was widely understood to be the music of people such as Anthony Braxton, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and various other practitioners from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), other centers of avant-garde music like the BAG group, and the Third Stream movement started in Boston by Gunther Schuller. These alleged apostates have incorporated, among other things, elements of 20^th century European composed musics, such as 12-tone music and minimalism, into a mix containing ingredients more commonly associated with traditional jazz, such as blues, polyrhythms, modal structures, walking bass lines, superimposed harmonies, chord scales and emphasis on melodic tensions. The results, argued Marsalis, alienated listeners, shrinking the audience base (already small, as it has been since the end of the swing era and rise of The Beatles), thus threatening the future of jazz as a viable artistic entity. Marsalis’ critique was thus both aesthetic and economic.

I’ve always been troubled by Marsalis’ critique, not only because accepting it meant accepting him (or anyone else) as arbiter of cultural definitions, but also because of what I’ve always perceived as a circularity in the economic logic of music programming and promotion in the U.S. Regarding the former, I am (solely with respect to culture—definitely not in terms of politics) a libertarian. In other words, when it comes to making art of any kind, if it feels good, do it. To my mind, the more people are willing to experiment with various ingredients, mixing and reorienting existing ingredients or inventing new ones, the result will be a broader tonal palette—a more colorful, interesting and imaginative cultural life for everyone willing to experience it.

Regarding the economic logic of Marsalis’ argument, there is, I think, an inherent tautology in the conventional wisdom of the idea of What the Public Wants. Music industry executives (who now are typically MBAs, lawyers, financiers, etc.—not music aficionados, as was originally the case) use the supposed expectations of the public as justification for their investment decisions. On one level, this is quite understandable. The music business is by no means predictable (and has been really hurting in recent years, largely, but not exclusively due to digitalization and all that entails) and businesses, particularly those beholden to shareholders, crave predictability, since their stock prices depend on it. Yet because there is no real way to predict what the public will want from one year (or even one quarter) to the next, there is a tendency among music business executives (many of whom, having been quite successful at business, allow themselves to believe that their acumen in one area—business—translates to equal perspicacity in others—such as music and popular tastes). The result is that industry executives generally opt for whatever they’re used to, on the theory that the public will do the same. And here’s where the circularity comes in. Having rationalized perpetuation of a given musical style, the music business implements their conclusion via investments in music that sounds familiar. The public continues to hear music that is familiar to them, and is thus socialized into expecting to hear music that is similar to whatever they’ve already heard. The familiar, in other words, becomes accepted as normal as a result of conscious investment decisions. And having accepted that definition of ‘normal,’ the majority continues to expect it and responds to whatever stands outside that definition as being ‘weird.’

Imagine, for the sake of discussion, that there were no corporate-dominated music ‘business’ as such. (Given the way things have been going for the industry lately, that may not be such a leap of imagination.) Prior to Woodstock (ironically), the music business, while containing a number of corporate entities, and certainly not ideal (the payola scandals and blatantly racist programming and promotion come to mind), was not dominated by corporate conglomerates the way it is now. Popular music was not homogenized—i.e., one could travel to different parts of the country and hear distinctly different styles of jazz, country, blues, rock, etc. (By contrast, my father and I took a road trip across the country in 1990 or 1991 and could access nothing on the car radio but corporate country music or corporate rock all the way from LA to eastern PA, with the exception of St. Louis, which had a great jazz station.) Imagine digital distribution in the absence of a corporate nanny defining what is “normal” in music for us. Imagine a resurgence of all those regional/local styles that have been for so long stuff into a corporate cookie cutter to maximize ROI instead of to simply promote what people create. If we were once again to become socialized into the expectation that music is a bunch of different things, each of which, like human emotions, is as changeable as the weather, what would “normal” be then? What would people be willing to experience given the chance to hear it? This is potentially the promise of digitalization in re music; it is also a measure of the extent to which the current system has, under the guise of promoting a cultural activity, stifled its growth and, by extension, our imagination.

So what does this all have to do with Nicholas Payton?

As I listened to Nicholas Payton’s performance last night, a few associations immediately came to mind. Unlike typical trumpeters, Payton is a reductionist. Rather than engage in pyrotechnic displays of virtuosity (although he’s clearly capable of such things), Payton takes a motif, repeats it (he uses repetition a lot to create tension, quite successfully), turns it around, displaces it rhythmically, and uses it to build to emotional climaxes and valleys. In that sense, Payton reminded me of Wayne Shorter—a thinking, meditative improviser. Whereas Shorter writes pieces with multivalent melodic, harmonic and rhythmic implications, and develops cubist improvisations reflecting that multiplicity, Payton is more stylistically conservative. His harmonic and melodic materials are much more rooted in traditional jazz, R&B and blues. And unlike Miles Davis, who also came to mind due to his own minimalist approach, Payton’s phrases don’t tend to include the kinds of melodic feints that Davis used to throw the listener off balance. This is not to say, by the way, that Payton is predictable—because in a lot of ways, he isn’t—but rather to try to convey the flavor of his approach. Payton reminded me most of Terrance Blanchard. Both are cinematic in their conception (Blanchard writes a lot of film scores, actually; I don’t know if the same is true of Payton), focusing their composition, arranging and improvisations on conveying a mood, being very attentive to the tonal color of a piece.

Payton’s band, which included Johnaye Kendrick (vocals), Robert Glasper (piano), Vincente Archer (bass), Daniel Sadownick (percussion), and Marcus Gilmore (drums), was excellent. Glasper opened the set with an extensive solo intro which reflected multiple stylistic influences. His soloing used many of the same devices as Payton—repetitions, rhythmic displacements, etc., and, like Payton, he was very lyrical. Gilmore played an extended drum solo toward the end of the set that illustrated just how thoroughly Payton’s musical conception has been absorbed by all members of the band. He began very quietly, using a simple motif which he repeated, expanded and displaced before inverting it and launching into extrapolations of increasing intensity. Johnaya Kendrick sang a long, complex melody in unison with Payton’s trumpet, then engaged in impressive scat singing. Her soloing was melodic and inventive.Vicente Archer was solid on bass, creating patterns that contrasted interestingly with the melody in a number of places. And Daniel Sadownick was sensitive but intense on percussion. The band performed like an organism, reflecting clear familiarity with every aspect of the compositions. And the pieces performed were compositions—not just the familiar head-solos-head frameworks for improvisation that had been commonplace in jazz for a long time. Like Terrance Blanchard, Payton is formally ambitious in that sense.

In terms of the formal elements of their compositions, however, neither Payton nor Blanchard is interested in storming the ramparts. Henry Threadgill, for one, is doing that. His pieces thrive on displacement of listener (and player) expectations. Essentially, Threadgill pieces move like 2-dimensional chess, where the melodic materials move in what seems a somewhat familiar direction (although the intervals are often unexpected) while the bass and inner voices shift continually, recontextualizing the melodies above them. The effect is like watching the motion of a mobile made of pieces of glass of a certain color as another mobile (or perhaps more than one) is brought within the ambit of the first, causing the light reflected in the glass to change color as the differently colored pieces overlap in the path of the light. Threadgill’s music is harder to listen to than Payton’s or Blanchards. However, if you’re willing to explore, you’ll find ideas bubbling up in your mind while you listen.

A similar effect is achieved with somewhat different materials and formal relationships in Liberty Ellman’s Ophiuchus Butterfly, released in 2006. Ellman, who plays with Threadgill, has said he’s interested in combining ideas of people like Anthony Braxton with those of more conventional jazz artists. The CD features edgy, off-kilter pieces, some of which are reminiscent of Threadgill’s, along with electronic tone poems and various other musical forms. The compositions are unlike any others I’ve heard, but simultaneously familiar; the playing, by saxophonists Steve Lehman and Mark Shim, tuba player Jose Davila and bassist Stephan Crump, and drummer Gerald Cleaver, universally tight and empathetic.

Last summer, I heard Ellman perform many of the pieces from Ophiuchus Butterfly (along with others from previous albums) with a trio at Bar Sepia. It was a revelation. Showcasing the guitar in a trio setting brought out aspects of Ellman’s playing that I’d never heard before, clarifying the extent of his stylistic connection to the main body of jazz guitar history as well as the innovative use of intervals and melodic ideas that is unique to Liberty’s style. I’ve always marveled at Liberty’s note choices—I could never figure out where they were coming from, but they always made sense—and I still do. But hearing him in a trio setting recontextualized his work for me. His rhythm section, by the way, was amazingly dextrous and basically, telepathic. This was one amazing event, held for a tiny audience in a small neighborhood bar. Who says Brooklyn isn’t the best?

Neither Ellman nor Threadgill has reached an audience on the scale of say, Pat Metheny or Miles Davis, although both have gotten a bit of press attention. Such is life for those who venture beyond the expected. Yet Henry Threadgill has related a story in which one may see signs of hope. A number of years ago (this may have been in the 1980s, I’m not sure), he took his band on the road. They performed in little, out of the way places where people generally don’t get to hear jazz. Threadgill reported that the responses they got were much more enthusiastic than they’d expected, and they apparently drew fairly large crowds. Maybe if people get a chance to hear the music that’s being made—not just the stuff music company executives are used to—they’ll like what they hear. Maybe we need to spend less time defining music and just let it happen.

GOP Holds Put on Harold Koh Nomination

2009-05-20T21:35:00.003-04:00

Senators Cornyn (TX) and Vitter (LA) have put "holds" on Harold Koh's nomination to be the State Department's Legal Advisor. These are procedural devices to prevent the nomination from getting a vote. Cornyn and Vitter can end their holds any time they like.

Please take a moment to contact their offices and tell them to end their holds, and allow an an up-or-down vote on Koh's nomination right away.

Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) 713-572-3337
email: http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

Sen. David Vitter (Louisiana) 225-383-0331
email: http://vitter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

2009-05-20T18:48:00.004-04:00

Recession Survival Fair

An event designed to:
1. Provide information about programs to help people get through the recession.
2. Hold panel discussions of experts who can offer concrete information on key topics affecting our community during the recession: healthy eating on a budget, health care, jobs, credit management, and foreclosure information.
3. Enable trading of skills and knowledge

Volunteers are needed any time between now and Saturday, June 6th (the day of the event).

We also need volunteers for the day of the event.

Activities involve all aspects of:
• Planning the event
• Making it happen

Saturday, June 6th from 11 AM to 4 PM
Brooklyn Brownstone School
272 MacDonough St (at Lewis Ave)

To volunteer, please contact us at continuethechange@gmail.com

Directions: A/C to Utica, B15 to Bainbridge, B25, B26 to Lewis Avenue, B43, B46 to MacDonough Street

Insurance Industry Double-Cross--Fight Back

2009-05-19T21:58:00.003-04:00

I got this from moveon.org today:

Breaking news on health care: The Washington Post is now reporting that insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield "is putting the finishing touches on a public message campaign aimed at killing a key plank in Obama's reform platform."1

The Huffington Post sums it up as "Insurers Planning on Double-Crossing Obama."2

We knew the insurance companies would eventually turn on the president, but this is much sooner than expected. And they're targeting the public health insurance option—the crucial piece that will help cover everyone. So we're immediately launching a rapid-response campaign to go toe-to-toe with Blue Cross Blue Shield and win quality health care for all Americans.

We need to raise $150,000 in the next two days. It's a lot, but we'll need every penny to take on Goliath. We'll run ads, hold events, and work like crazy to get the real truth out to voters. AND we'll keep the pressure on Congress to make sure they don't get bullied into gutting the president's plan to guarantee health care coverage for everyone. Can you chip in $35 right now to make it happen?

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/blueshield.html?id=16160-655913-Nvq8QFx&t=3

Meanwhile, my friend Theresa Thanjan at South Asians for Opportunity forwarded the following message from Amy Miller at NYC for Change:

We are doing a Postcard Canvass Campaign. We are looking to gather huge numbers of postcards that we have which say "New Yorkers Demand Quality, Affordable Health Care for All." What I need is individuals who want to serve as "canvass captains."

I will work together with the captains to set up canvasses in the place/date/time that is good for them in the next few weeks (preferably May Sat 30th/ Sun 31st and June Sat 6th/ Sun 7th) and I will be providing materials, help recruit canvassers, train as necessary, and later gather the postcards and deliver them to Senator Schumer!

The idea is for canvass captains to tap into their own networks and neighborhoods so we can get postcards from all over New York!

It is very important we pressure our elected officials to include a public plan option in upcoming health care reform legislation! We can't let private insurance win!

If you know anyone who may be in interested please have them contact me asap at amymiller3@gmail.com or 415-990-2770.

I would also like to reach out to them myself if you could get me their contact info that would be a big help!

Time is of the essence. Let's get to work!

Let Them Know We Want the Public Option

2009-05-19T20:30:00.003-04:00

Yes, it's your friendly neighborhood noodge again, this time urging you to tell your Senators you support their efforts to put the public insurance option on the health care reform agenda. Here are the people to call if you live in the state of NY:

Senator Charles Schumer
Phone: 202-224-6542

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Phone: 202-224-4451

For those unfamiliar with the terminology, the public option is a government-sponsored insurance plan, like Medicare, which would operate side-by-side with the current private insurance options. This would enable people to choose either the public or private insurance option and would force private insurance plans to compete with the public plan. Predictably, private insurers have been arguing that a public plan would not compete fairly with private insurance. When countered on this claim, they claim the public plan would make everyone's health insurance worse; as a fallback argument, they're claiming that the problems with the existing system (if that's the word for it) will be solved if we just institute more stringent regulation of the insurance industry--in other words, "please don't make us compete with a public plan."

And here we see one of the most fundamental problems with the current system--the insurance industry, which functions as an (interested) arbiter between doctors and their patients, is concerned primarily with their own profits, not the health of patients--which is why they've constructed a massive bureaucracy devoted to avoiding payment of medical claims. And this fact, in case you hadn't noticed, stands as one of the clearest refutations possible of the idea that markets, left to their own devices, will always produce optimal results for all participants. The current system, after all, is utterly dysfunctional for a large part of the population of the U.S. (we humans lacking the information and other resources available to the insurers), but it works like a charm for the insurance companies--which is why they're working as hard as possible to find a way to kill the public option.

More Events--Health Care

2009-05-19T19:58:00.004-04:00

There’s so much going on, it’s hard to keep up with it all (OK, it’s impossible). Nonetheless, I’ll continue to try--the stakes are much too high to just sit on the sidelines. Herewith, another installment, courtesy of Nina Agrawal of NYC for Change:

Yes, the Industry Is Backtracking. Just 3 days after volunteering to contain costs, insurers took back their agreement - saying that Obama had overstated their offer. Why? Our costs are their income.

Cost control will NOT happen unless Congress passes legislation for a Public Plan Choice - forcing insurers to compete with an important benchmark for health care - in the best interest of patients not profits.

Congress is set to vote on health reform legislation by July 31st. Senator Schumer is leading the battle for the public plan. To win, he needs powerful ammunition - your voices, your stories, your support.

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW:

1. HCAN YOUNG PROFESSIONALS EVENT- Thursday, May 21st, 7 - 9 PM

Join us for a conversation with Richard Kirsch , National Campaign Manager, Health Care for America NOW , (HCAN), about health care reform and what you can do to make it happen. Kirsch has more than 20 years’ experience in health care reform and was invited by President Obama to the first White House Health Care Summit.

Co-hosts: Nina Agrawal MD, Tim Foley, Amy Miller, Jonathan Adner MD, Elizabeth Caputo, Dave Pollak, and Reshma Saujani

Free! RSVP:stewart@bhsfundraising.com .
Retreat Bar NYC, 37 West 17th St., btwn 5th & 6th Ave.

2. STAND UP for HEALTH CARE! Postcard Canvass Week - May 29th to June 6th

Join NYCforChange in asking voters to pledge their support for the public plan choice on postcards to Senator Schumer. Volunteers are needed to lead neighborhood canvasses. Contact Amy Miller at amymiller3@gmail.com for more information.

*If you are interested in participating, please come to the May 21st HCAN event to learn key messaging points.

3. SAVE THE DATE - HCAN National Lobby Day in Washington, D.C. - June 25th
Be a part of the biggest health care rally in history! More information to come.

- Together, we must stand up for our right to the health care we want and need. We've got no time to lose.

Nina Agrawal
NYCforCHANGE.org

"I know what it's like to see a loved one who is suffering, but also having to deal with a broken health care system. I know that pain is shared by millions of Americans all across this country..... that's why I will not rest until the dream of health care reform is finally achieved in the United States of America." -- President Obama, May 12, 2009

--
Join NYCforChange.org - Because one person can make a difference and every person should try.

Upcoming Political Events--Brooklyn (mostly)

2009-05-18T18:36:00.005-04:00

Tuesday, May 19th: Candidate Forum
On Tuesday, May 19th, New Kings Democrats will host a candidate forum for city council candidates in Brooklyn's 33rd District. (The seat is currently held by Councilmember David Yassky).

The 33rd district runs along the East River and includes parts of Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, and Park Slope, Boerum Hill, DUMBO, the Navy Yard, parts of Williamsburg, and Greenpoint. Come learn what city council members do, and hear from all seven candidates in the race. Details below.

When: Tuesday, May 19th at 7:00 PM
Where: Harry Van Arsdale High School Auditorium (Williamsburg)
257 North 6th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Go to www.NewKingsDemocrats.com for more information about the debate, to rsvp on facebook, and for links to each candidates website.

Please contact New Kings Democrats at newkingsdemocrats@gmail.com or 646-402-5825 with questions.

Thurs, May 21st, 7PM: A Young Profesionals Event with Health Care for America NOW <http://healthcareforamericanow.org/>
Join us for a conversation about what's happening in health care reform and what you can do to support the legislation of our generation!

Special Guest Speaker: Richard Kirsch <http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/richard_kirschr> , National Campaign Manager, Health Care for America NOW, has spent 22 years helping lead campaigns to provide health coverage to more than 1 million working families in New York. In 2001, Kirsch was honored by Families USA as National Health Care Consumer Advocate of the Year.
Co-hosted by Nina Agrawal MD, Jonathan Arend MD, Tim Foley, Amy Miller, Elizabeth Caputo, Dave Pollack, and Reshma Saujani

Retreat NYC Bar, 37 West 17th St, RSVP: Stewart at 202-547-5797 or stewart@bhsfundraising.com. Don't miss this great oppportunity! Space is limited!

Thurs, May 21st, 10:30AM to 12:30PM: Brooklyn Clergy/Merchant Association meeting on health care reform
Elim International Fellowship Cathedral, 34 Madison Ave, Brooklyn (between Franklin and Classon Ave.)

Thurs. 5/21: Health Care For America Now Happy Hour
For a conversation about how we can help President Obama make health care a reality in 2009.

Where: Retreat NYC
37 W. 17th Street bet. 5th and 6th Aves.
From 7-9:00 pm
Hosted by Nina Agrawal MD, Jonathan Arend MD, Elizabeth Caputo, Tim Foley
Amy Miller, Dave Pollack and Reshma Saujani

Saturday, 6/6: Recession Survival Fair

Recognizing that the coming year will likely be a difficult one for many of us here in Brooklyn, Brooklyn for Barack, hosted by the Stuyvesant Heights Parents' Association, is planning a Recession Survival fair!

The fair will focus on how we can help each other get through the current economic downturn. It will both give attendees as much information as possible about programs that already exist, and allow us to come together as a community to trade skills and knowledge.

When: Saturday, June 6th from 11 AM to 4 PM
Where: Brooklyn Brownstone School
272 MacDonough St (at Lewis Ave)

Directions: A/C to Utica, B15 to Bainbridge, B25, B26 to Lewis Avenue, B43, B46 to MacDonough Street

The Recession Survival fair will have several components. First, we will have tables for organizations that offer services or programs that can give immediate help to people who've been laid off or otherwise negatively impacted by the current economic crisis. We're focusing on organizations that can offer practical help, either on site – health screenings, for example -- or in the form of information attendees can take home and act on right away.

Second, we will hold panel discussions of experts who can offer concrete information on key topics affecting our community during the recession: healthy eating on a budget, health care, jobs, credit management, and foreclosure information.

Third, we’re planning to create a more informal community exchange of services and knowledge that goes beyond what’s available through official channels. Whether through online barter, or some other form of exchange, we will pool our resources as a community to provide ongoing help to our friends and neighbors.

If you’d like to participate in the community exchange, please email us: continuethechange@gmail.com. Please let us know the following:

• Your contact info
• What skills/knowledge you feel you have to offer to your fellow Brooklynites (this may be a professional skill or simply a talent you can share, like teaching someone to knit or bake)

and/or

• What skills/knowledge you are looking to acquire (e.g.,“I’d like to learn Photoshop”)

If you are able to help plan the event (we need volunteers right now) and/or volunteer on the day itself, please let us know. Contact us: continuethechange@gmail.com.

June 11 - 25: Human Rights Watch Film Festival
(http://www.hrw.org/iff)
New York

HRWIFF Celebrates 20 Years
"A film festival that wagers hope against injustice, imagination against apathy." -- Ariel Dorfman

The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival returns to New York for its 20th year with a packed program of films dedicated to raising awareness of human rights issues around the world. Tickets are now on sale. (http://filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/hrw09/program.html)

The Reckoning
Opening Night at the HRWIFF:
THE RECKONING (NY Premiere)
A Film by Pamela Yates, Peter Kinoy and Paco de Onis, 95m
An insightful documentary that follows two riveting dramas—the prosecution of unspeakable crimes and the International Criminal Court's fight for justice. Filmmakers and ICC Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda present for Q&A following the film. Find out more (http://www.hrw.org/iff/reckoning)

Presented in association with the Coalition for the ICC (CICC) (http://www.iccnow.org) and the International Center for Transitional Justice (http://www.ictj.org)

Opening Night: Friday June 12, 7:00pm (reception to follow)
Get tickets: (https://tickets.filmlinc.com/php/calendar.php?event=11735&backurl=http://filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/hrw09/thereckoning.html#11735)| Invite friends (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=97658445026&ref=mf)

Saturday June 13, 1:30pm
Get Tickets: (https://tickets.filmlinc.com/php/calendar.php?event=11736&backurl=http://filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/hrw09/thereckoning.html#11736) Invite friends (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=186232080485&ref=mf)

View the full festival lineup (http://hrw.org/iff)
All screenings at The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater (http://www.filmlinc.org)
West 65th Street, between Broadway & Amsterdam Aves on the upper level

Tickets Now on Sale
Click here to order tickets online (http://filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/hrw09/program.html) or visit the Walter Reade Theater Box Office:
West 65th Street, between Broadway & Amsterdam Aves on the upper level

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GRASSROOTS VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
Health Care Reform is moving fast. We need more volunteers to help educate and activate the public. Whatever time you can contribute is helpful -an hour, a day, a week! We especially need volunteers to lead neighborhood health care tabling events. Also if you or anyone you know is a videographer interested in doing a very brief public service announcement on health care reform, please contact Nina Agrawal MD.

Rick Perlstein's Nixonland--Closing Thoughts

2009-05-17T22:12:00.004-04:00

This is the second post about Rick Perlstein's Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. The first part can be found here.

Perlstein had access to recent releases of White House tapes, providing a detailed look into behind-the-scenes deliberations and interactions among Nixon and various subordinates. The attitudes and motives revealed in these conversations were almost always sharply at odds with the public rationales given by Nixon and his supporters for his policies. Perlstein notes early in the book that as a child, Nixon learned from his mother’s indifference to the truth the lesson that no negative consequences need be associated with lying, something he obviously took to heart.

I remember the sixties as a chaotic time. Perlstein’s depiction of that period, buttressed by copious documentary evidence, reinforces and intensifies that impression. There was much more violence than I remembered, and I recalled a fair amount. Moreover, as Perlstein demonstrates clearly, Nixon thrived on and to the greatest degree possible, exploited chaos and social conflict. He comes across in this account as the avatar of resentment—a man fully consumed by self-pity and paranoia, who couldn’t let go of his bitterness even to savor his overwhelming election victory in 1972. Of course, knowledge that he achieved that victory by gaming the entire election may well have erased any pleasure associated with the outcome. Such are the wages of deceit.

Perlstein does a great job of dissecting Nixon’s techniques of rhetorical and psychological manipulation, describing not only what Nixon did to his opponents, but how. This was one amazingly devious character.

The aftermath of the age of Nixon was almost 40 years of GOP political dominance, during which that party continued to rely on the politics of resentment in its use of the southern strategy as a means to gain and secure political control of the south. The irony is that, like its author, the GOP now finds itself greatly reduced in stature and marginalized to the point where a number of commentators wonder whether that party has become an almost exclusively southern organization. Like Nixon, the GOP’s choice of methods brought temporary victory at the cost of its integrity. Perlstein ends his account with Nixon’s 1972 victory and downward spiral into Watergate and resignation. His account provides a great deal of foundation for further investigations into the trajectory of American politics as it has mutated since then. It is also a riveting read.

Today's History Lesson--Nixonland Edition

2009-05-10T21:49:00.012-04:00

I'm reading Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, a fascinating and exhaustive (but not exhausting) tour of the mindset of Richard Nixon and of those parts of American culture that supported and responded to him.

I've been fascinated with politics and history since I was 8 years old (too young, I know) and had read quite a lot about both before I studied history at the undergraduate and graduate levels. I focused on modern American history, particularly Vietnam and the Cold War, and I think it's safe to say that I know quite a bit about both. Nixonland contains a lot of details with which I was already familiar--but it includes an awful (in more ways than one) lot more.

For example, I knew that the U.S. government was directly implicated in the coup leading to the assassination of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem, and that JFK and others in his administration felt morally culpable in the aftermath and obliged to continue the war. I had no idea, however, that the decision to give the green light for the coup was the result of a plot hatched by the American ambassador to South Vietnam and the CIA. Nor did I realize the connection between the Diem assassination and Watergate. As Perlstein explains,

The Plumbers were part of Nixon's reelection master plan. It was the same strategy he'd chartered in 1966: set Democrats at each other's throat. The motive behind implicating JFK in the murder of Ngo Dinh Diem was to tarnish the Kennedy name among both antiwar Democrats and Catholics (Diem was Catholic). Edmund Muskie was also Catholic, and his foreign policy adviser--the dreaded W. Averell Harriman--could also with some creativity be implicated in the deed.

The problem resided only in the historical facts. In truth, the responsible American officer in the overthrow and murder of Diem was a Republican--Nixon's 1960 running mate, Henry Cabot Lodge, then serving as ambassador to South Vietnam. In conspiracy with the CIA, Lodge had deceived President Kennedy into giving an ill-advised green light for a coup that Kennedy himself had naively been shocked to see end in an execution. These truths were why Howard Hunt was hard at work cobbling together new "facts." (p.594)

Nor had I realized that the 1972 GOP national convention took place only because of funding from the international conglomerate ITT as the result of a bribe, disclosure of which by investigative journalist Jack Anderson, led Nixon's Plumbers to threaten an ITT lobbyist into public recantation, and to scheme about the possibility of assassinating Anderson.
You have to read this to get a sense of the level of criminality involved in all this:

The 1972 Republican meeting [their national convention] was to take place in San Diego: a nice, quiet, conservative Southern California city, nearby to the president's San Clemente retreat. But the city fathers had not cooperated, and the business community wasn't ponying up.

So the White House approached an angel.

The multinational conglomerate International Telephone & Telegraph had acquired three companies in 1969 in a deal bureaucrats in the Justice Department worried fell afoul of antitrust laws. Thus it was that in the middle of 1971 an ITT lobbyist named Dita Beard convened a lollapalooza negotiating session whose principals included John Mitchell, Maurice Stans, John Ehrlichman, Chuck Colson, Bud Krogh, and Vice President Agnew. The upshot: ITT promised $400,000 in donations to help stage the San Diego convention. Mitchell would protect the merger.

The deal created more problems than it solved. As the Florida campaigning entered the home stretch, columnist Jack Anderson published a 1971 memo in which Dita Beard exclaimed to her boss that their “noble commitment has gone a long way.” The memo also included the observation, “Certainly the President has told Mitchell to see that things are worked out fairly.” Its famous last words: “Please destroy this, huh?" Beard's boss didn't.

The reference to the president and attorney general of the United States--now Richard Nixon's campaign manager--as direct parties to a bribe was more than a little embarrassing. So Howard Hunt was sent to cajole Beard into claiming she'd never written such a memo.

“Who exactly do you represent?” Dita Beard's daughter asked of the red-headed stranger who appeared on her doorstep.

“High Washington levels who are interested in your mother's welfare,” he replied.
Beard's public recantation clamped the lid on what Nixon feared was the biggest threat to his reelection so far...Still and all, through spring, the ITT lid threatened to blow.

Which was why G. Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt brainstormed their own solution to the problem. Liddy no longer worked in the White House. Like Mitchell, and also former commerce secretary Maurice Stans and former White House assistant Jeb Stuart Magruder, Liddy had been promoted to a more important job, with the Committee to Re-Elect the President, John Mitchell, chairman...Magruder was the committee's deputy director; Stans its treasurer; Liddy “general counsel.” And what the general counsel suggested, at a meeting with Hunt and a physician who once specialized in nondetectable “accidents” for the CIA, was that Jack Anderson be assassinated--a car crash, perhaps, or a drugging; or, Liddy suggested, Anderson could “just become a fatal victim of the notorious Washington street-crime rate.” Their consultation completed, Liddy pulled out a $100 bill from Committee to Re-Elect the President funds to pay the good doctor for his time.

Bear in mind, now that you've read this, that Dick Cheney believes that Nixon did nothing wrong and made a mistake by resigning. I imagine that many of his acolytes feel much the same way. And so goes the history of modern American conservatism...

Health Care Links

2009-05-09T22:32:00.005-04:00

Ezra Klein says Chuck Schumer’s compromise public option plan, created in concert with Max Baucus, separates the insurance industry’s main arguments that (a) the public option will be worse for you and will take away your freedom of choice by preventing the insurance companies from competing with it and (b) the public option will compete unfairly with the insurance industry, threatening their profits.

(Note: The public plan is NOT single payer, which has been excluded thus far from the discussions in the Senate Finance Committee, as noted previously.)

Klein also reports that Chuck Schumer forced the Senate Finance Committee roundtable to address the public plan, which he defended bluntly.

Matthew Yglesias foresees Congress killing health care reform by expressing support for it publicly while opposing every reasonable way of paying for it. I worry about the same thing, which probably has a lot to do with the fact that I keep blogging about the issue. Psychohistorians take note. ;-)

He also relates that the GOP claims that Obama isn’t doing enough to compromise, but refuses (surprise) to offer anything of their own, in this case in re health care reform. I know—I was so shocked I had to sit down. ;-)

Moving from politics to policy: Since there is NO correlation between levels of health care spending and levels of improvement in public health in the U.S., Yglesias argues we should focus not on setting a specific level of spending, but on health care outcomes, in terms of increased efforts at prevention and “lifestyle issues.”

Health Care Reform--Single Payer Excluded?

2009-05-09T20:02:00.007-04:00

The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Max Baucus, had its first hearing on health care reform this week. Representatives of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, etc. were at the table. Advocates of single payer were excluded, and in at least one case, arrested.

Single payer is government sponsored health care, essentially what Medicare is for those qualifying for that plan, extended to cover everyone. It is the most cost-effective, least expensive option of all the health care plans under consideration because (a) the expenses associated with maintaining a bureaucracy enabling insurance companies to minimize coverage of the insured would be eliminated and (b) the number of people in the plan would be so big it would enable the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for much lower drug prices than would be otherwise available.

What kind of reform are we going to get if the most effective approach is off the table?

If, like me, you support single payer (or even if you just think it fair that all options be put under consideration in the deliberations leading to the crafting of a health care reform bill), please contact members of the Senate Finance Committee to insist that single payer advocates be at the table. The next hearing of the Senate Finance Committee on the subject will be next Tuesday, May 5. Senator Max Baucus’s phone number is (202) 224-2651. Other contact info can be found via the link above.

[H/T to Karla Moore for the link & to Avram for Senator Baucus's phone number]

Recession Survival Fair

2009-05-09T18:50:00.007-04:00

If you're interested in volunteering in Brooklyn, here are the details of an upcoming event:

Recognizing that the coming year will likely be a difficult one for many of us here in Brooklyn, Brooklyn for Barack, hosted by the Stuyvesant Heights Parents' Association, is planning a Recession Survival fair!

The fair will focus on how we can help each other get through the current economic downturn. It will both give attendees as much information as possible about programs that already exist, and allow us to come together as a community to trade skills and knowledge.

When: Saturday, June 6th from 11 AM to 4 PM
Where: Brooklyn Brownstone School
272 MacDonough St (at Lewis Ave)

Directions: A/C to Utica, B15 to Bainbridge, B25, B26 to Lewis Avenue, B43, B46 to MacDonough Street

The Recession Survival Fair will have several components. First, we will have tables for organizations that offer services or programs that can give immediate help to people who've been laid off or otherwise negatively impacted by the current economic crisis. We're focusing on organizations that can offer practical help, either on site – health screenings, for example -- or in the form of information attendees can take home and act on right away.

Second, we will hold panel discussions of experts who can offer concrete information on key topics affecting our community during the recession: healthy eating on a budget, health care, jobs, credit management, and foreclosure information.

Third, we’re planning to create a more informal community exchange of services and knowledge that goes beyond what’s available through official channels. Whether through online barter, or some other form of exchange, we will pool our resources as a community to provide ongoing help to our friends and neighbors.

If you’d like to participate in the community exchange, please email us: continuethechange@gmail.com. Please let us know the following:

• Your contact info
• What skills/knowledge you feel you have to offer to your fellow Brooklynites (this may be a professional skill or simply a talent you can share, like teaching someone to knit or bake)

and/or

• What skills/knowledge you are looking to acquire (e.g.,“I’d like to learn Photoshop”)

If you are able to help plan the event (we need volunteers right now) and/or volunteer on the day itself, please let us know. Contact us: continuethechange@gmail.com.

Pelau with Squash

2009-05-08T20:54:00.006-04:00

Do you like to cook? You know you do. Here's my take on Pelau, a traditional Trinidadian recipe I learned from Becky James, a friend of my wife's. (That makes the version I learned a Trini recipe via St. Lucia.) I stress-tested my version at the dinner table tonight.

Ingredients

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 pkg smoked turkey neck bones
1 lg onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
1 lg green pepper, cut into strips
1 lg red pepper, cut into strips
1 lg jalapeno pepper, diced
1 16 oz can pigeon peas, drained
1 14 oz can light coconut milk
2 cups water
1/4 cup tamari sauce
Liberal helping of Caribbean hot sauce
2 cups rice
1/2 small squash, cut into chunks.
3 tbspns sesame oil

Directions

In large saucepan, cook turkey neck bones in sesame oil, about 5 minutes. Remove from pot.
Brown chicken in saucepan over medium high heat, about 5 minutes per side. Remove from pot.
Cook onions & garlic in saucepan until onions are translucent.
Add rice & brown, about 2 minutes.
Add water, coconut milk, tamari & Caribbean hot sauce. Bring to boil.
Return meats to pot, cover and cook 20 minutes at low heat.

Meanwhile, boil squash for 10 minutes or until it starts getting soft. When softened, remove skin, add to pot.
Five minutes before rice is done, add peppers & pigeon peas.

Healthcare Reform--Death by a Thousand Cuts?

2009-05-03T21:32:00.007-04:00

I have a recurring nightmare about Barack Obama's efforts to bring health care reform--finally--to the United States of America.

The scenario is this: Faced with solid opposition from the GOP, Obama needs enough Democratic support in the Senate to enable use of the budget reconciliation process to get a health care reform bill passed. Via reconciliation, that means he needs 51 votes. Currently, the Democratic margin in the Senate is 58-40 (the Franken-Coleman race still being in legal limbo), the number of Democrats having increased by one last week with the addition of Arlen Spector of PA, who switched parties (as I'm sure you all remember). HOWEVAH, a number of Democrats are of the genus blue dog, which may put that necessary 51-vote total in jeopardy.

I was reminded today (again) of the potential for blue dogs to vote with the GOP by recent statements by Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson (D, allegedly) and Senator Spector (D, at least this week) in opposition to Obama's proposed health care plan, particularly its public option.

What is the public option & why is it important? Basically (and please bear in mind that no bill has yet been written, so the precise details of the plan have yet to be spelled out) the public option would provide medical coverage without private insurance to those who choose it. Instead of private insurance, the government would, in effect, be the insurer, a la Medicare. This would not eliminate current health care plans using private insurance; rather, the public plan would exist alongside medical coverage as currently constituted. However, given that the public option would operate without the private insurance middleman, it is expected to be less expensive than current privately insured coverage because it eliminates the extra layer of bureaucracy created by insurance companies for the purpose of minimizing their responsibility for paying insurance claims, and thus, maximizing their profits.

Why the opposition to the public plan? Nelson specifically has stated outright that his opposition is due to the pressure on profits a public plan would represent to the insurance companies (if Spector has enunciated the reasons for his objections, I have not yet seen it). In other words, given a choice between the interests of the public and those of insurance companies, Senator Ben Nelson opts for the latter, unambiguously. It should be no surprise to learn, therefore, that insurance companies are the biggest single source of funding for Senator Nelson. They're certainly getting what they paid for. And who says there's corruption in Washington D.C.?

In any case, whatever the motivations of other blue dogs in re Obama's health care plan, it should be clear that if we want health care reform to occur this year--that is, if we want to finally seize the moment and remove the U.S. from that small list of industrialized countries without universal health care (leaving only South Africa), we need to organize to put the maximum amount of pressure on conservative Democrats who are caving in to the insurance lobby or thinking about doing so. And while we're at it, in states where there's a possibility of replacing someone like Spector with someone who'll actually vote in the interests of the public, we should do whatever we possibly can to make sure that such wolves in sheep's clothing are retired in the next election cycle. In PA, keep an eye on Joe Sestak--he seems to be edging in the direction of opposing Spector in the next election. If that's true, I think it incumbent on progressive voters and activists to support him.

Torture Apologists Demolition Derby

2009-04-25T11:52:00.028-04:00

Detail from the right ("Hell") panel of Hieronymous Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights" (c. 1500)

Ever since the photos from Abu Ghraib prison were revealed to the world, Bush administration officials repeated the mantra “the U.S. does not torture.”

Then President Obama released the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos rationalizing the use of torture on alleged al Qaeda prisoners. Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee released its report on the torture memos. Its unanimous opinion was that the U.S. has indeed engaged in torture, and that those practices were initiated at the highest levels of the Bush administration—in other words, contra the claims of the Bush administration and its apologists, not as the result of misbehavior by a few low-level bad apples. We now have enough evidence to construct a detailed chronology of the events leading to the officially approved use of torture by the U.S. government and the reactions to that practice to present. (Note: The Foreign Policy chronology includes numerous links to various reports relating to the torture issue. The Senate Armed Services Committee report can be found here.)

Faced with an increasing body of detailed evidence, official Washington has responded in with various evasive strategies.

The congressional GOP has responded largely by trying to deflect attention from the issue of torture.

Chris Matthews interviews (I almost said "interrogates") Mac Thornberry (R, Outer Obstructia) about accountability for torture in light of the release of the Senate Armed Services Committee's report about torture.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Notice Thornberry's rhetorical defenses:

Refusal to use or acknowledge the word "torture."

Claim that investigating the issue will distract from the "war on terror."

Claim that prosecuting illegal acts relating to torture of detainees "changes the rules" and will demoralize the CIA in its pursuit of terrorists.

Claim it was the work of a few bad apples.

Refusal to acknowledge the obvious--that directions to use torture, embodied in the torture memos, are the responsibility of those at the top, including Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice et al. Refuse to acknowledge it even after Matthews reads to you (twice) the explicitly stated conclusion in the Senate Armed Services Committee report that the orders, and hence, responsibility for the use of torture came from the top of the chain of command.

The dog ate my homework.

Meanwhile Ta-Nahisi Coates has a video of an interview on MSNBC by O'Donnell O’Donnell with Liz Cheney which indicates clearly that Cheney is preparing to mount a very aggressive defense of his record in the White House, particularly with reference to torture.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It's interesting to note Liz Cheney's approach to the evidence revealed thus far:

O'Donnell: Are you prepared to admit that the OVP was the prime mover in the decision to use torture?

Cheney: Obama never investigated “effectiveness” of “harsh interrogation techniques” before forbidding them. (Note that the response, whether true or not, is irrelevant to the question.)

Cheney: The techniques did not constitute torture because they were used by SERE (ignoring the fact that SERE was set up to train U.S. military personnel to withstand techniques used by North Korea to exact FALSE CONFESSIONS from prisoners).

O'Donnell: U.S. prosecuted people after WW II for waterboarding—it’s torture.

Cheney: Waterboarding gave us valuable info. [She references Michael Hayden/Mukasey op-eds in favor of the use of torture (described euphemistically, of course). Note again that the response is irrelevant to the question.]

O'Donnell: Dennis Blair op-ed stated that there's no way to know if other techniques could have gotten us the info.

Cheney: Blair stated in an internal memo that "harsh interrogation techniques" were “effective”; the Obama White House censored the statement. Four former CIA directors approved the use of these methods. [Note shifting of blame again to Obama and use of simultaneous appeal to authority (former CIA directors) and appeal to the majority (four former CIA directors)

O'Donnell: What was the role of the OVP in torture memos?

Cheney: The CIA began the process, not the OVP; the OLC memos were very careful about what could be done & for how long. She claims that O'Donnell has been reading from AP headlines—not what the memo says, and stonewalls on the issue of the OVP as prime mover. Cheney then repeats that the interrogation approach was "a good program" which was widely supported. [Cheney's claim that the CIA initiated the process conflicts with evidence that the impetus for use of torture came from Dick Cheney. Moreover, there's evidence that the true motive for use of torture was to "find" evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda in the leadup to the invasion of Iraq. See Alice in Wonderland for reference. There is also substantial evidence that Dick Cheney weilded tremendous influence within the Bush administration from behind the scenes. See Barton Gellman's Angler for details.]

O'Donnell: Use of torture by the US portends the future use of torture against US military personnel.

Cheney: It's not torture. [This is the "La la la--I can't hear you" defense.]

Cheney: Revealing our interrogation techniques gives info to our enemies. [A repetition of the McCarthyite insinuation used during the Bush administration that criticism equates to treason.]

Cheney: Info gained via use of "harsh interrogation techniques" saved American lives. [This is contradicted in an op-ed article by a former FBI interrogator in the NY Times this week. ]

In short, Liz Cheney's defense amounts to:

Repeated denials that “harsh interrogation techniques” outlined in the torture memos and the Senate Armed Services Committee report are torture.

Claims that the techniques were effective.

Use of appeals to the majority (four former CIA directors, widespread support for the program).

Use of appeals to authority (former CIA directors support the program; accusations that the interviewer has been getting her information from “AP headlines” implicitly makes an appeal to authority—you don’t know what you’re talking about, but we do).

McCarthyite insinuations that those who criticize the program, especially Obama, are either foolish or unpatriotic, and in either case, are weakening America’s security.

A few points:

1. The claim that torture is effective, whether true or not, is irrelevant to the question of the legality of such practices, as noted by Anonymous Liberal.

2. As noted above, a former FBI interrogator who broke Abu Zubaydah using standard, non-violent interrogation methods, has contradicted that assertion in the NY Times this week. Other interrogators have given similar testimony.

3. The choice to use torture was made based on mistaken notions of the SERE program, which, contrary to Liz Cheney, was designed to help U.S. service personnel withstand torture at the hands of the Chinese and North Koreans designed to elicit false confessions. In no way did use of torture techniques in the SERE program legitimize such methods; rather, the purpose of their use was to harden U.S. military personnel in the expectation that they would be subjected to such techniques, which our government--like all other signatories to the Geneva Conventions--considered illegal and immoral, as the United States did consistently until the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

4. The extent to which former Bush administration officials and their apologists are willing to go to avoid use of the word "torture" is striking. It would be comical if the consequences of their sophistry were not so serious. As has been noted by a number of other observers, the United States prosecuted Nazis at the Nuremberg trials for waterboarding. It was considered torture by us then; how can it be that the same practice has been magically transformed into something benign by a handful of absurdly reasoned OLC memos?

5. Nor should we allow the torture mongers and their apologists to confuse the issue by considering any given torture practice in isolation. We now know that in practice, the various torture techniques approved by the Bush administration were performed in combination over an extended period of time--as they were intended to be. In fact, thanks to stellar work by Marcy Wheeler, we now know that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 183 times (and someone else 83 times), apparently due to intense pressure from the Bush administration to find evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda.

6. The net effect of these practices? Over 25 people died in U.S. custody, some others committed suicide, and some were reduced to a vegetative state. Who were these people? As it happens, due to reliance on bounty hunters and lack of familiarity with the local languages, the U.S. military didn't know who was an al Qaeda member and who was not. The award-winning documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, focuses on the beating death of a young Afghan cab driver at the hands of American interrogators using the practices approved by the Bush administration. There have been a number of other such cases. In addition to the direct physical effects of such brutality, our international reputation has been badly damaged due to our use of such techniques. We have lost the moral authority we used to rely on when condemning the use of cruel treatment by foreign governments. Who will take us seriously now when we make such complaints? What other country will be able to play such a role in our absence?

7. Given the above considerations, it is curious that the mainstream media continue, by and large, to avoid use of the term "torture." One might think they were adhering once again to that artificial, process-based formula for supposed absence of bias whereby the reporter, confronted with free use of a term by one party to a dispute, and strenuous objections to its use by the other, refrains from using the term in an attempt to avoid picking sides--regardless what the term is, what its widely accepted use is, or what its relation to a given context or topic may be. Thus the GOP objects (obviously, on purely tactical grounds) to use of the word "torture' to describe the SERE interrogation techniques adopted by the Bush administration, and in response, our toothless news media obligingly refrain--thereby enacting (however inadvertently) a consensual attitude of denial with reference to the issue of torture. One of the most shameful episodes in our country's history is treated by the mainstream media as The Unpleasantness That Shall Not Be Named at precisely the time when we have an opportunity to embark on an honest national conversation about what our values are and should be with reference to treatment of prisoners in particular, and human rights in general. See Glenn Greenwald for more on this.

8. Nor are many Democrats eager to take on the issue of torture--largely because of their own complicity in it. In fact, Obama himself has been rather tentative about the whole issue himself, delivering several seemingly contradictory statements about investigations of the authors of the torture memos.

9. All of which, it seems to me, indicates the need for a vigorous effort on the part of those of us who believe this issue is far too important for the United States to neglect, to pressure the Obama administration and Congress to conduct a thorough investigation via an independent prosecutor to ascertain responsibility for our government's adoption of torture techniques and to bring the guilty to justice. If we don't, we can be sure that this or something even worse will happen again in the future.

Waterboarding

2009-04-25T11:27:00.004-04:00

I know, this is already all over the web, and clearly I'm late getting to it. But the more people post it, the more likely it is that additional people will see it, and God knows I want every sentient adult in the United States of America to see it, to reflect on what it means that our own government decided to ape the methods of a totalitarian dictatorship (or a banana republic, for that matter), and to act on that knowledge.

Health Care--Public Plan Choice

2009-04-20T22:09:00.003-04:00

I think inclusion of a public plan choice in President Obama's health care plan is so important for a number of reasons, I'm going to quote an e-mail I received on the subject in full:

THANKS to all who made calls! When Congress returns from April recess, they will negotiate a merged version of the House and Senate health care reform budget bills - We're on the road to reform! But, is it the kind of reform we want?

The PUBLIC PLAN choice is the most important and most controversial aspect of reform. Without it, Americans without workplace insurance will continue be uninsured, private insurers will continue to go unchecked, and we will lose our opportunity to contain health care costs" according to the New America Foundation.

The problem is that Senator Schumer has not officially backed the public option. We need the public VOICE to fight for the public plan CHOICE. Here's how YOU can help:

1. Urge Senator Schumer to support the public plan choice. Call his NY office at 212-486-4430.
2. Stay informed. Sign up up for health reform alerts at Healthcareforamericanow.org.
3. Come to one of our health reform events listed below. Meet new people and have fun! New ideas are welcome!

UPCOMING EVENTS

Wed, May 6: NYCforChange Comedy Show - "Stand Up for Health Care"
Because, a spoonful of comedy makes the medicine go down! Co-hosted with Laughing Liberally.
One night only! 7:30 to 9PM, the Tank on 45th btw 8th and 9th, RSVP: here

MORE EVENTS

Thurs, April 23, 7:30PM: - Be Bold Cocktails Fundraiser
Great party for a great organization. Hosted by Echoing Green, a nonprofit social venture fund for social entrepreneurs. Special music performance by Amos Lee. Prince George Ballroom,15 E 27th St.Tix $95 or $120 at the door. To purchase tix, click here.

Thurs, April 23rd, 7PM: Health Care for America NOW - Reform Advocacy Training
Deixler Home, 9 Stoneycrest Rd. Rye, 10580. RSVP: restroff@gmail.com

Sat, April 25: Hands on NY Day
Help plant trees for Earth Day with the Manhattan Young Democrats!

Wed, April 29, 3:30– 5pm: Forum on Immigrants and Health Reform
New York Immigration Coalition
137-139 W 25th St, 12th Floor,
RSVP:jrejeske@thenyic.org;

May 7: Labor's Stake in Health Care for All.
Hosted by NYC Labor Unions and Rekindling Reform. 101 6th Ave; 5 to 8PM

Thurs, May 14th, 7:30pm: Westchester Health Care Reform Town Hall Meeting
Greenburgh Town Hall Auditorium, 177 Hillside Avenue Greenburgh, NY 10607,
RSVP: healthcareforall09@gmail.com

May 21: Guest Speaker - Richard Kirsch, Health Care for America NOW
Save the Date! Hosted by DL21C, Location TBA.
RSVP: stewart@bhsfundraising.com

May 30, 7PM: Living Liberally Annual Celebration
Meet Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.
DCTV Firehouse, 87 Lafayette St.
RSVP: here
GO VIRAL! Invite your friends and family to help make health care a reality for all!

Nina Agrawal MD

Founder, NYCforChange

Member, National Physician's Alliance - NYC Action Network

Teabags and Tax Rates, Real and Imagined

2009-04-18T18:54:00.014-04:00

Here’s a puzzle:

Despite the fact that income inequality in the U.S. has increased dramatically over the past 27 years, there has not been a leftward shift in economic policy in the U.S., as noted by Brad DeLong.

Conservative former Bush administration Treasury Department economist Bruce Bartlett notes that not only does the U.S. have lower tax rates than all but 4 of the 30 countries in the OECD, but the median American family in 2007 (he didn’t have the data yet for 2008 but was sure it’s even lower than it was in 2007) had a lower effective tax rate than any American generation since 1950.

Steve Benen used Bartlett’s data to create a graph illustrating this.

Bartlett’s conclusion? “I believe this was largely a partisan exercise designed to improve the fortunes of the Republican Party, not an expression of genuine concern about taxes or our nation's fiscal future.”

He notes in conclusion:

People should remember that while they have the right to their opinion, they are not entitled to be taken seriously. That only comes from having credibility gained by the correct presentation of facts and analysis and a willingness to be even-handed--criticizing one's own side when it is wrong and not only speaking up when the other party does the same thing.

None of the above, however, seems to have affected the perceptions or behavior of the teabaggers or their cynical political and media promoters. Roy Edroso at alicublog visits the teabaggers’ hearts of darkness.

What do you think accounts for the teabagger phenomenon? Add your two cents in the Comments section below.

Piracy, Highway Robbery, Logic and Methods

2009-04-12T19:59:00.008-04:00

Much media attention has been paid to the piracy situation off the coast of Somalia. I was directed to a blog post claiming that the pirates are essentially modern-day Robin Hoods.

Some things about this post didn't add up right away:

The situation in Somalia is chaotic; in fact, it's as close to a state of pure anarchy the modern world has ever seen.

In the absence of a government, there’s no entity to protect the interests of the people inhabiting the territory formerly considered to be the country of Somalia. Ergo, there’s a huge power vacuum.

‘Vacuum’ can be translated as ‘opportunity’ for the more ruthless actors in pursuit of self-interest (however defined). This includes European and Asian companies who dump toxic & nuclear waste off the coast of multiple developing countries (including Africa & the Middle East); European fishing fleets that are depleting the fishing stocks off the coast of Somalia; and various actors with various motives, ranging from protest against these practices to naked self-aggrandizement, who engage in piracy.

Yet Johann Hari’s article & the post based on it both portray the pirates primarily as modern-day Robin Hoods.

I have no problem with the proposition that some of the pirates are acting on noble motives; however, the notion that an opinion poll in Somalia in the current context (How would anyone get access to enough people in that chaos to develop a statistically meaningful sample? What methodology was used?) could have an iota of validity in concluding that 70% of the public held opinion X is laughable. It is true that Hari couches his argument by saying “No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters.” However, the thrust of his argument, in essence, is this:

Privateers in the “Golden Age of Piracy” were acting in rebellion against hideous conditions.

Somalis face hideous conditions.

Ergo, Somalis who engage in piracy (not all, but by implication, most) are also rebelling against hideous conditions.

The argument, in short, makes a leap in logic between b & c above. The two situations are, in some important respects, similar. Does that mean they’re the same?

There’s no doubt in my mind (how could there be?) that the conditions faced by Somalis are hideous—they have been for quite a long time. But I seriously doubt that Hari or his pollster have any way of determining how many pirates are acting out of a sense of injustice, how many are in it for the considerable financial rewards, how many out of plain hunger, how many because they’re career criminals who’ve found a new opportunity, etc.

None of this, btw, means in any way that European companies aren’t dumping toxic wastes off the shores of Somalia or depleting Somalia’s fish stock. There’s plenty of evidence of both. I just question whether, in a context of total anarchy and violence, it is logic or even honest to claim knowledge of the motives of an unknown number of social actors (most of whom, one would assume, having a strong motive not to reveal themselves at all).

So what is the situation in Somalia, anyway?

At a 3/10/09 Center for Strategic and International Studies (C.S.I.S.) conference: “Challenges for Renewed Engagement in Somalia,” Michael Weinstein argued the following:

There are multiple narratives in re Somalia:

US terrorism narrative

The narrative of Somalis in the various factions involved in the conflict

European chemical/nuclear dumping offshore

Bottom line: There are multiple actors & no one interest-backed narrative prevails..

There is no government on the ground in Somalia.

Current conflict not a government vs insurgency situations; instead, multiple parties, each controlling its own portion of territory.

Aggregation of different interests within various territories, revealing a situation of decentered civil conflict.

We need to look at all the narratives of all the different actors in the situation.

If political orientation and balance of power among the various regional actors remains as it is now, Somalia will be dominated by Islamic political formulas.

If civil conflict & power centralization within the various regions continues, most likely result will be cantonization.

Here's Weinstein’s analysis of the competing narratives at CSIS Conference.

Here's a detailed outline of the political situation on the ground.

Here's a detailed discussion of waste dumping problem, particularly as relates to Lebanon, but making clear the dumping is by developed countries & the targets are developing countries. This includes countries in the Middle East as well as Africa, btw. No mention of South America or Asia, but it would be valuable to know if those areas are subjected to this as well. Part 1 of 2.

What are European motives in re waste dumping?

Here's an article from Al Jazeera about the pirates’ motives.

Who are the pirates? Here's a BBC story containing anecdotal evidence of non-altruistic motives.

Here's a series of articles about the pirates (scroll down).

What's the bottom line on all this? The situation is miserable and not likely to get better any time soon. It is highly doubtful that the U.S. will do anything about the dumping or fish stock depletion, resorting only to military force in response to acts of piracy. I leave it to others to comment on European responses to the situation. The Obama administration continues to see Somalia through the frame of terrorism, as did its predecessor (although, thankfully, Obama is not stupid, deluded nor insane, so we’re not likely to see a repetition of Bush administration efforts that made the situation even worse than it was at the outset). Additionally, Obama faces multiple crises across the board. Somalia is very low on the list. Ergo, little to no change can be expected.

The Koh Nomination--Data Source

2009-04-12T10:14:00.003-04:00

Yale Law School's website has a page full of information on the Koh nomination.

[H/T to Balkinization for the link]

Open-Mindedness

2009-04-12T10:03:00.002-04:00

Andrew Sullivan links to this video on open-mindedness. I consider it a kind of public service announcement.

Open for Debate

2009-04-03T22:07:00.004-04:00

Here’s a collection of links to stories I found interesting but haven’t got time to write about.

Ezra Klein says (and Matthew Yglesias agrees) that the G-20 meeting done good.

Department of What-the-Hell-Are-They-Thinking.

Department of What-the-Hell-Are-They-Thinking, Part 2.

Think you’re up on the news? Here’s a news IQ quiz, courtesy of the Pew Research Center for People & the Press.

In the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? One arising, at least in part, due to the dismantling of regulatory oversight? Weaken yet another regulation. Brilliant...

Eric Martin argues that a good man was hounded out of a position on the National Intelligence Council.

The GOP Outrage Industry is At It Again

2009-04-02T20:40:00.009-04:00

We're all preoccupied with our daily lives, plus many of us are also devoting whatever extra time we have to mobilizing support for President Obama's budget, health care reform, etc. There are so many problems to deal with and so little time. Amidst all this, the travails of one of President Obama's appointees may seem a trivial matter, but it's part of a larger pattern—one which, if allowed to continue unchecked, will not only hamper the Obama administration’s ability to function, but will ensure that decent, principled people avoid government service like the plague.

You may remember from the Clinton presidency that the GOP's outrage professionals and their echo chamber essentially smeared and catcalled many of Clinton's appointees and policies into collapse. Now that the GOP is out of the White House, the same old tactics are coming back with a vengeance. The way it works is this:

Some GOP hack distorts or completely manufactures "facts," and accuses a nominee of harboring extreme views.

The accusation is picked up by the GOP outrage industry, which repeats the charge endlessly.

The mainstream media (you know, the ones who’re supposedly biased against the GOP), mindlessly picks up on the story (after all, it involves conflict) and reports on it, thereby perpetuating the charges & giving them huge exposure. Or, the media just ignores what’s going on, allowing the hysterical charges to become THE story.

Yet another intelligent, decent person is hounded out of a job..

Barack Obama has nominated Harold Koh, Dean of Yale Law School, to be legal adviser to the State Department. The outrage industry is claiming (falsely, of course) that Koh believes Sharia law should be used in the U.S. The mainstream media is so far silent on this. The same thing, by the way, is being done to Dawn Johnsen, who Lithwick terms "one of the most qualified candidates ever tapped to head the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department." She now faces a filibuster in the Senate because no one moved a muscle to protect her from right wing smears.

That leaves it up to a network of obsessive, argumentative loudmouths (i.e., people like me) to grab a lantern, jump on a horse, and wake up everyone in the countryside.

People—Please read this excellent post by Dahlia Lithwick about the situation.

Then write/blog/call your friends, anyone with contacts in the media, etc. Let’s clear the air & expose the GOP’s outrage industry for the sham that it is. Smear tactics are repulsive and a threat to democracy.

Here’s why it’s important to respond to this stuff quickly:

A great deal of research in cognitive psychology has shown that:

People tend to use their first impressions of something as a cognitive template for categorizing other, seemingly similar things.

Thus we expect things apparently similar to things we perceived previously to be the same as the original objects.

When we expect something, the expectation (or template) tends to override our perceptions. In other words, we tend to “find” what we expect.

Repetition of a message, by making that message part of one’s day-to-day cognitive “background,” leads the listener/watcher to accept the message as ordinary and in a sense, natural. It is easy to assume that, as is the case with many other messages we receive repeatedly, that the message is in a sense "normal."

Because of the templating phenomenon, it matters greatly who defines the situation first. As W. I. Thomas put it, "If men [sic] define situations as real, they are real in their consequences." Or, as Gang of Four put it,

We’ve all got opinions—where do they come from?
Each day seems like a natural fact
And what we think changes how we act.

It has been said that you get what you accept. Let’s not accept this.

UPDATE: Here's an excellent post by Monica Youn at Asian Pacific Americans for Progress, with a lot more detail on Harold Koh's career and actual positions on the issues.

UPDATE 2: Scott Horton reports that the Congressional GOP is threatening to block all of Obama's appointments if the administration makes public the torture memos. I guess the GOP has an awful lot to be afraid of there, because this certainly smacks of desperation.

They May Speak English, But We're Still 'The Other'

2009-03-29T10:04:00.004-04:00

Quoting an unnamed government source, Spencer Ackerman notes:

The official believes that U.S. diplomats in Pakistan accept Pakistani claims of maximal warfighting efforts at face value: “They don’t speak Urdu, they don’t speak Pashto, and they eat it all up.”

Matthew Yglesias responds:

This sort of thing is, in my view, really the achilles heel of the American imperial project. The economic and military might of the United States gives us enormous power to influence events in distant lands. But having a lot of ability to influence events is unlikely to achieve anything useful unless you actually understand what’s happening...Note that during the FDR and Truman years, American elites were generally more familiar with Europe than European elites were with the United States. I think that’s an important element in understanding why the institution-building of that era largely worked.

I agree that asymmetrical information was a significant advantage to the U.S. in rebuilding Europe, post-WW II, but I don’t think it’s the most important, by any means. To leave it at that is to leave the impression that, regardless whether the object of institution-building efforts has been, as was the case with Europe, closely tied culturally, politically and economically with the U.S., or, completely devastated by a war culminating in the use of nuclear weapons, was subsequently controlled by direct U.S. military rule (Japan), is irrelevant to the probabilities of a successful outcome. Apologists for imperialism like Niall Ferguson overlook the fact that the post-WW II conditions enabling successful U.S.-led reconstruction were sui generis. The history of imperialism is replete with examples of societies resisting, in any way available, the efforts by external powers with whom those societies had little or no prior contact, influence or mutually perceived self-interest. It is not merely a matter of information. I think Yglesias overlooks the importance of the perception on the receiving end that the life of a given country and its people are being altered more or less arbitrarily by some alien external force. And whether the rulers of a given country speak English or not, we are still perceived, as imperial powers have always been, as The Other. Louis Coser famously theorized that externally generated force leads to in-group cohesion. History provides us with endless examples reinforcing that observation. I think we overlook them at our peril. To put it another way, "the achilles heel of the American imperial project" is--imperialism.

Resources for the NY 20th Congressional District Race

2009-03-28T15:28:00.004-04:00

Here’s a neat compendium of specific steps that led to the current economic catastrophe:.

[H/T to Avram]

While I have criticisms of Barack Obama's approach to certain aspects of this multidimensional train wreck (i.e., I think the government should take over, clean up & sell off the zombie banks ASAP; I also think he asked for too small a stimulus package at the outset), I think he's trying, in general, to do the right things in the right ways. (Contrast his approach to that of the GOP, which is continually pressuring Obama to cut taxes & spending--a guaranteed recipe for total economic collapse.)

Speaking of the GOP, Representative Patrick McHenry, their head of messaging, declared today that the GOP doesn't care whether their criticisms of Obama are accurate or not--their aim is to continually bombard Obama with charges from now until the 2010 elections, based on the idea that sheer repetition will make those criticisms sink in. Sort of like Joseph Goebbels, actually.

The other day, the GOP released their idea of a budget—with no numbers.

The focus of their 18-page document was attacks on Obama’s proposed budget due to its higher projected deficits (interesting, given the GOP record on financial matters), healthcare spending, lawyers, unions, and of course, ACORN. In short, it was an excuse to attack the Obama plan for problems created largely by the GOP (when they were in power), important supporters of the Democratic Party, and their perennial favorite red herring, ACORN.

To the extent that there was anything one might call specific in the GOP document, it was pretty extreme stuff, and certainly not the sort of thing one would expect them to want to run on in the next election.

Meanwhile current healthcare coverage in the U.S. is unavailable to 18 percent of the population, according to the National Coalition on Health Care:.

It is also far worse than that offered by other industrialized countries:.

Moreover, healthcare is projected to be the biggest component of future deficits:.

Yet the GOP (predictably) omits healthcare reform from their so-called budget document (and given the way they’ve performed for the past 29 years, they can be predicted reliably to make a bad situation worse).

In short, if we want to deal with the ever-worsening healthcare and economic crises, we have to address them in combination. The only approach available to us with a reasonable chance of success is Obama’s. It is a simple matter of national self-preservation to support it.

To that end, we need to get progressive Democrats and other like-minded people into Congress. The election Tuesday in the NY State 20th Congressional district race to succeed Kristen Gillibrand features Democrat Scott Murphy against Republican State Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco and is being framed as a referendum on President Obama’s stimulus bill and budget priorities. Murphy is an entrepreneur who founded Small World Software and a venture capitalist, who worked for the late Democratic Missouri governor, Mel Carnahan. Tedisco is a long-time fixture in Albany politics who has emphasized the issue of missing children.

Obama will probably be able to get legislation through the House without a Democratic victory in this race; the implications for the Senate, where the Democratic majority is much smaller, is quite another story. The GOP sees this as a must-win election. Let’s give them indigestion.

The Long Road to Baghdad

2009-03-23T21:02:00.004-04:00

Many books and articles have been written about the Iraq War focusing on the military, diplomatic, political, moral and other aspects of the conflict and its aftermath. I know of no other book besides Lloyd Gardner’s The Long Road to Baghdad, however, that views the Iraq War in terms of continuities in foreign policy thinking among American leaders from the end of the Vietnam War to present. Nor have I read any other book that examines the results of our adventure in Iraq in terms of their implications for the future of American democracy. [Disclosure: I studied with Professor Gardner about 20 years ago.]

Professor Gardner, one of the most widely respected historians of U.S. foreign policy, sees the roots of the Iraq War in America’s Vietnam defeat. Eugene Rostow, JFK’s national security adviser, thought modernity could be forced on underdeveloped countries via military power. After the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam, he argued that our defeat was due to lack of willpower, a recurring theme. (19-22) In the aftermath of Vietnam, Rostow’s confidence (he had coined the phrase “The New Frontier” for JFK) gave way to national uncertainty during Jimmy Carter’s term in office, according to Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. The latter decided to demonstrate U.S. resolve in the face of what he saw as the Soviet Union’s primary threats--to the Third World and particularly the region from Turkey to Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, which he termed the “arc of crisis.” These efforts, observes Gardner, ignored the lives and interests of the inhabitants of the countries involved and resulted in intensification of the conflict in Angola, confusion in a conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia, impotence in the face of the fall of the Shah of Iran, and contributed to the defeat of Soviet forces in Afghanistan at the cost of the arming, training and mobilization of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Ronald Reagan engaged in a massive military buildup accompanied by strident anti-Soviet rhetoric, then reversed course after his efforts led the world to the brink of thermonuclear war in 1983. (He then worked out dramatic reductions in nuclear weapons with Mikhail Gorbachev, a fact conveniently forgotten by his conservative worshippers.) President George Herbert Walker Bush was similarly concerned with the problem of will--ending what he termed “the Vietnam Syndrome”: the widespread reluctance of the American public after Vietnam to support military adventures abroad. Similarly, Bush pere’s national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, saw the end of the cold war as a “defining moment in world history,” and argued that dealing successfully with the Bosnian war was “a matter of will.” (97-98) The theme of willpower would arise again under President George W. Bush, in his stubborn refusal to change course in Iraq, his rationalizations for aggressive action, criticisms of past policies and when accusations of the lack of will would be used to silence dissent. In each case, belligerence arising from a felt need to demonstrate willpower led to folly.

Running through the history up to and including the current Iraq war, argues Gardner, is a national myth of progress--the notion that American history is characterized by continual progress, and a sense of mission arising from a combined faith in religion and technology—in the service of imperial power. Rostow’s notion of “creative destruction”--the idea that modernization of underdeveloped countries required externally generated force--was predicated on the superiority of military technology that the U.S. could unleash on a given country and was awfully convenient to advocate when one’s role was delivery rather than reception. (19-22) Brzezinski perceived an “arc of crisis,” the center of which was the Persian Gulf, as not only a crucial source of oil for the U.S., but the site where the Cold War would be concluded. Needless to say, the interests and perceptions of the inhabitants of that expanse of terra firma were beside the point. The neoconservatives, who began their rise to power in the 1970s, also argued for creative destruction as a replacement for Cold War realism during the first Gulf War, while firmly rejecting all foreign policy thinking that predated Reagan. Gardner notes acerbically that

In truth, there is no substantive ‘realist’ tradition in American history. The tradition ran along other lines, combining faith and experience, faith in technology and the experience of ever-expanding frontiers. While the neoconservatives now held aloft the banner under which the second President Bush would go to war to finish the job, it displayed the same set of beliefs that Walt Rostow had put at the top of his policy papers when he penned the slogan “The New Frontier” and urged Lyndon Johnson not to forsake the cause of progress in Vietnam.(26)

All of the above themes were repeated in the lead-up to the Iraq War. Scowcroft said during the first Gulf War that the U.S. should rely on “shifting coalitions” to deal with a changed world, another theme that would recur. Paul Wolfowitz and Zalmay Khalilzad argued in their 1992 Defense Planning Guidance that the U.S. needed to maintain global dominance. Their chosen mechanism, echoing Scowcroft, was shifting coalitions. Around the same time as the DPG, Francis Fukuyama wrote his End of History essay (102), arguing that Western liberal democracy was universal (echoing Rostow) and criticizing George Kennan’s containment concept. Interestingly enough, Richard Holbrook echoed these views himself. (104) The Project for a New American Century, a neoconservative pressure group including many future top officials in George W. Bush’s administration (including Wolfowitz and Khalilzad), argued for U.S. dominance of the Middle East. They promoted a book claiming Saddam Hussein as the source of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, sent letters to President Bill Clinton urging him to overthrow Saddam Hussein, promoted Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress as replacements for Saddam Hussein, and argued for rejection of the UN and containment. For their parts, President Bill Clinton and his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, also built up Saddam Hussein as a threat to the U.S., although Clinton was more cautious about engaging U.S. forces directly in a conflict in the Middle East. Through all these twists and turns, one hears recurring echoes of Rostow’s creative destruction, the universality of U.S. interests, the need for shifting coalitions and the importance of willpower.

Gardner rejects calls by some, in response to the Iraq War, for American policymakers to return to the logic of Cold War realism, arguing that such reasoning was specific to a time and place; he also observes that realists in JFK’s administration led us into Vietnam. Further, returning to the pre-Gulf War I status quo ante does nothing to enable our understanding of why U.S. foreign policy led from Vietnam to Iraq. He also points out that identifying the process leading to the Iraq War as imperialist does not, in and of itself, yield us greater self-understanding.

Another response to the Iraq War has been the call to focus on an exit strategy, ignoring the causes of the conflict. Gardner responds that seeking a global response to a local conflict is basically circular and the attempt to divert attention to an exit strategy is similar to arguments made with reference to Vietnam. The similarities between the underlying assumptions in both conflicts is revealed by the dissolving “coalition of the willing.” (6-7) Common to both conflicts are the facts that coalition members in both cases were paid to participate and the leader of each coalition (i.e., the U.S.) was one of dominance. Moreover, each coalition was essentially camouflage for neocolonialism. Gardner notes that in 2003, the U.S. had over 700 military bases worldwide, enabling rapid deployment of military force to any part of the world. He notes:

Imperialism had always been about enjoying markets and raw materials and political stability without interference. In the twenty-first century it was characterized by a new emphasis on producing cheap manufacturing abroad, controlling energy resources, and selling expensive hi-tech weapons to compradors. These were the signature marks of the quest for a new American century. (7)

The obvious objection to this claim is that the costs of maintaining an empire exceed the profits. Garner responds that such an argument overlooks the issue of who really pays the bills.

Given the above, what was the motive for the Iraq War?

In the case of the Iraq Wars, the quest has been to find a safe landing zone for American influence throughout the Middle East in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. (8)

Gardner notes that control of oil resources is inseparable from the considerations listed above.

What have been the results of our adventure in Iraq? In furtherance of his aims, Brzezinski expanded the role of national security adviser, which would have implications for the future. Gardner notes changes to our military, such as the increasing reliance on private contractors and unaccountable special sub-units (SOCOM) that raise questions about the future of civilian control of the military, one of the most fundamental concepts upon which this country was founded. There are questions, argues Gardner, as to whether the Pentagon can manipulate public opinion to such an extent that our republic is replaced in the future by an imperial presidency.

Gardner concludes by meditating on the meaning of the Iraq War. Quoting William Pfaff, he argues that ideological conflict necessitates abandonment of morality in favor of “a utopian vision.” (255) Notes Gardner,

Going to war with a preemptive strike against an enemy who might have done us harm while leaving unfinished an effort to search out an enemy who had done us harm qualified fully as some form of a utopian vision...Now it was there for all to see that the axis of evil speech was a brochure advertising Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. (255-256)

The utopian vision has always been expressed, however, as a form of Wilson’s famous assertion that America’s duty was to make the world safe for democracy...Call it the “new American century,” or whatever, the newest meaning of the Wilsonian creed in our time has come to be to make the world safe for our democracy, using a shifting coalition of the willing. (256)

He concludes by saying,

The invasion of Iraq in March 2003 had its origins in the Vietnam defeat and the perceived need to reassert American primacy over the Soviet Union in contests in the third world, but this drive was also connected root and branch to a need to reassure the nation that what had not been lost in Vietnam was confidence in the American metaphor of progress. (265)

It failed due to the limits of power and a set of false assumptions: Eugene Rostow’s idea that Vietnam represented the end stage of Soviet antiliberal revolutions (266); Zbigniew Brzezinski’s notion that “strong Islamist movements could block communism”; (266) the neoconservative idea that removal of Saddam Hussein would lead to democratization of Middle East;(266) and, most dangerous, in Gardner’s view, Dick Cheney’s vision of the presidency as autonomous of and more powerful than the other two branches of government.

Gardner’s account is the only one I’ve read that situates the Iraq War in the ongoing struggle within U.S. foreign policy circles to accommodate the Vietnam debacle to the national narrative of ongoing progress. That effort remains unresolved, partly because the immediate post-Vietnam response to that defeat was to change the subject or otherwise refuse to engage the issue in a context inhibited by the ongoing Cold War. Thus Jimmy Carter sought to reorient American foreign policy in the service of morality in his Notre Dame speech, but met with conservative resentment at home of his discussion of foreign policy failures while earning suspicion from the Kremlin. Nor did Walt Rostow’s ex post facto claim that our defeat in Vietnam was due to a lack of will open the way to meaningful introspection. Indeed, a deeply held popular belief in the inevitability of American progress led to a widespread refusal to admit that we’d lost the war in Vietnam at all. That refusal was the source of the claims (true, but misleading) that our soldiers had never lost a battle on the ground in Vietnam, as well as the enduring controversy over POWs-MIAs, which continued until diplomatic relations between the two countries were restored in 1995.

The neoconservative approach to foreign policy was predicated on a Jacobian division of foreign policy thought into categories marked Before and After Reagan. It was based on a blind faith in the myth of national progress and an implicit rejection of the idea that anything other than deficiencies in moral character could account for any failure of the U.S. to achieve its aims. Consistent with a long-running theme among American conservatives, the neocons rejected diplomacy as a sign of weakness and an opening for threats to American interests. The preferred method of attaining U.S. objectives was force. Faced with this sort of thinking, one could agree, acquiesce or be damned as a weakling and traitor. Such a frame of reference made ruthlessness leading to the falsification of evidence for war, the approval of torture and the outing of Valerie Plame inevitable. It has also led, as Gardner points out, to the mutation of the American military into something considerably more privatized, intrusive and isolated from the country it was created to protect. Similarly, the undermining of this country’s constitution, the use of facilities outside the United States to detain people without accountability, reliance on now unlimited domestic wiretapping, the use by George W. Bush of signing statements to declare his refusal to obey the laws he signed, all combine to present unprecedented challenges to the oldest representative democracy on this planet. Whether we can reclaim our country before it slips out of our hands altogether depends entirely on our willingness to confront the things that have been done in our name—in Iraq as well as in Vietnam, and at every stop in between.

In addition to discussion of the ideologies involved and the implications of the war for our society, I really appreciated Professor Gardner’s extensive discussion of SOCOM, which I’d not seen before anywhere. I would have liked the writing in the introduction to be a bit less elliptical in the introduction, but that is a minor quibble. Overall, Lloyd Gardner’s The Long Road to Baghdad is a valuable addition to the literature on this most misbegotten of military adventures and is essential to our understanding of modern U.S. foreign policy.

GOP: Health Care a Privilege, Private Insurance Non-negotiable

2009-03-07T21:52:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of d-day.

Jon Stewart Takes a Look at CNBC

2009-03-05T18:40:00.002-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Budget Links and Where Do We Go From Here?

2009-03-01T13:10:00.004-05:00

By now, everyone knows we’re in midst of the worst recession since World War II, and possibly the Great Depression.

Here’s a collection of graphs providing graphic representations of where we are right now, economically speaking.

And here’s some anecdotal evidence.

In response, President Obama has put forth a budget for fiscal year 2010, projecting into the next 10 years.

The budget bill includes the following:

• $634 billion for health reform, 2009-2019
• higher taxes on the affluent to pay for healthcare reform
• ending the gradual privatization of Medicare
• eliminating overpayments to insurance companies
• $645 billion in revenues: sale of emission allowances
• deficit reduction
• cuts to Agribusiness subsidies
• cuts to large-scale weapons systems
• increases in pay and benefits to military personnel
• elimination of student loan financial intermediaries

Here’s a detailed analysis by Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

And unlike the Bush budgets, Obama’s is honest:.

At TNR, Bradford Plumer explores the White House’s assumptions in the budget regarding global warming (yes, we can call it global warming now):.

Many economists have expressed varying degrees of optimism regarding the Obama budget. Paul Krugman calls it “very, very good” while expressing concern about longer-term implications about deficits, social security and taxation, all of which he thinks we can address after the economy regains its equilibrium.

Pete Davis supports Obama’s efforts as well.

Stan Collander agrees.

Jeff Frankel, who was at first skeptical, is now enthusiastic about Obama’s budget and analyzes it in terms of its elimination of the various dishonest manipulations of past budgets (especially Bush’s) and its ability to lead to long-term deficit reduction here.

Here’s a collection of links to various reactions to the tax portions of Obama’s budget plan.

As we all know, the GOP is gearing up to present massive resistance to President Obama’s budget bill. This, of course, includes the tea parties being conducted around the country and may very well include use of the filibuster in Congress.

In response to current signs of GOP hostility to the budget bill and in anticipation of more in the coming months, the big scary libruls are gearing up to lobby for President Obama's budget legislation.

Healthcare expert Merrill Goozner discusses the healthcare portions of the Obama budget plan, discusses the politics of the coming battle, and issues a call to action to all of us.

It seems to me that if we expect to get out of this mess, and if we intend to reduce the deficit afterwards, deal with global warming, our declining public education system, our deteriorating healthcare system, and many of the other disasters bequeathed to us by Bush et al, we need to get this budget passed. I really don’t think anything else on any progressive agenda will get done without it.

If you agree, the next question is what we can do to support Obama’s efforts to get the budget through Congress. Please feel free to comment.

Just Like Lincoln

2009-01-15T21:49:00.003-05:00

Yes, I know, we only have 4 more days before Barack Obama finally replaces the current occupant of the White House. Why get into a ruckus about Bush’s record? I guess the sheer enormity of the disasters that have befallen this country (and the planet) over the past 8 years makes mindless attempts to defend the record of the man who caused so many of them utterly intolerable to me.

This was prompted by my reading of this little tidbit on Talking Points Memo today about an article in Congressional Quarterly entitled (I kid you not) "History May See Lincoln-Like Greatness in Bush."

I can see what Richard L. Connor means. Bush, like Lincoln, has two arms, two legs and a head. In that sense, Bush is very "Lincoln-like."

Unfortunately, Connor's comparison crumbles after that.

I particularly like this tidbit:

Yes, there are any number of better decisions he could have made. Foremost among them would have been to bring a quick and decisive end to the war in Iraq shortly after it began.

Evidently, the idea of not invading Iraq in the first place seems not to have occurred to Connor. This indicates pretty clearly that he was vacationing on another planet for the past 6 years and thus never was informed that (1) Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11; (2) there were no WMD in Iraq; (3) Mohammed Atta never met with any Czech spy in Prague as claimed by Dick Cheney and others (he was in the U.S. at the time); (4) the Iraqis did not, contra Bush and Cheney, seek uranium yellowcake in Africa; (5) the UN weapons inspectors were able (admittedly, with difficulty) to inspect all the potential weapons manufacturing and storage sites they demanded to see; (6) the UN sanctions (regardless how problematic in re their effects on the Iraqi population) were still in place, as were the no-fly zones; (7) reports from people in the CIA and other government agencies, the transcript published in El Pais of Bush's conversation with Spanish PM Aznar, and the Downing Street memo all show clearly that the mindset in the White House was straight out of Alice in Wonderland: "first the sentence, then the evidence."

There's also this:

...he was commander in chief when the United States was attacked at home on September 11, 2001. He was decisive in his response and showed admirable leadership both at home and abroad.

Well, he was decisive all right, but doesn't it matter to Connor whether the decisions make sense or not? Invading the wrong country (necessitating a diversion of resources away from the hunt for al Qaeda, which DID attack us on 9/11) doesn't strike me as the brightest move I've ever heard of. Nor can I find anything admirable about it.

Connor goes on:

The nation now appears headed for disastrous financial calamity, the worst since The Great Depression. His administration has been forceful in trying to bring calm and to allocate money to industries fighting to survive.

And the economic woes of this country--just like other monumental, sea-change problems--did not simply appear one day or go away the next. Sure, this happened under his watch but the seeds for our mortgage, home loan crisis and those of the domestic automobile industry collapse were sown long before Bush first took office.

My, my. Again, our Olympian president exhibited forcefulness in addressing the economic crisis. I guess that's one way to characterize the dispensing of $350 billion to banks and other non-bank institutions (like AIG) without one iota of oversight--without, by the way, doing a thing for the millions of people drowning in mortgage debt--y'know, the proximate cause of the credit crunch supposedly addressed by the bailout? The money, by the way, went to banks that were relatively stable--not "industries fighting to survive." As to the latter, they still can't get any credit because the recipients of Bush's largess were less than --ahem-- forceful about extending credit once they got the bailout funds.

And by the way, does Connor really believe that 28 years of relentless GOP pressure to deregulate everything in sight, coupled with a pronounced hostility to government, had nothing to do with the economic crisis? More to the point, is Connor unaware that the GOP-supported Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 broke down walls between commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies, thus removing federal oversight from banks and enabling the development of precisely the kinds of risky financial instruments that are at the heart of the current crisis? It is true that the GOP had some help from Democrats, but overwhelmingly, it was the GOP, the Bush administration definitely included, that pushed deregulation from 1981 on with an intensity and persistence bordering on mania. Does Connor truly think that had nothing to do with the economic crisis?

Here's another gem:

If we begin to expect that any chief executive of anything--be it a country or a Fortune 500 company--cannot make a mistake or two among the hundreds, perhaps, thousands of decisions they make, then our standards have reached the point of ridiculousness.

Yes, a mistake or two. Let's do a tally (just off the top of my head--feel free to add your own):

Iraq (see above)
Afghanistan (see above)
The economy (see above)
Hurricane Katrina
Global Warming
Shredding of signed treaties
Contempt for science
Contempt for intellectual inquiry (numerous reports on this can be found in the memoirs of former Bush administration officials)
Politicization and polarization of the country in the aftermath of 9/11
Contempt for diplomacy
Official sanction of torture
Trashing of habeas corpus
A woman’s right to choose

Where on earth did CQ get this guy?

Surveying the Wreckage, Part 576

2009-01-12T20:22:00.006-05:00

To get some idea of the sheer scale of the damage Bush & his cronies have done to our government for the past 8 years, take a look at this article in The American Prospect:

It's funny, but although the Prospect compiled quite a list, it somehow feels light. I'm sure there are many more atrocities, blunders and disasters in every category. I guess they had to narrow it down to meet length limits. I have a feeling we'll be mining this particular lode for the rest of our lives. I can't associate the term "productive" with the Bush maladministration, but they certainly have been industrious.

Did you hear that our soon-to-be-retiring (ahem) chief executive, not content to give farewell interview after interview, is now going to infest the airwaves with a farewell speech tomorrow [Correction--It'll be on Thursday.]? Like Sara Palin, he keeps burbling up into media coverage like a backed up toilet. Maybe all this frantic, last-minute self-promotion reflects a defensiveness over the overwhelming consensus that his administration has been a giant train wreck. Understanding is not justification, however. We've endured his idiocy for way too long. The least he can do is summon up enough grace to shut the hell up & sink back into the primordial swamp from whence he came. Kathy G says it all...

Special thanks for the tip to Avram & Linda.

The Tax Cut Scam Cometh (Again)

2009-01-10T20:44:00.003-05:00

Obama wants a large stimulus package to avoid having the recession morph into a full-blown depression. He also wants broad bipartisan support for whatever economic plan comes out of Congress. Republicans in Congress, to the surprise of no one who's followed their legislative and ideological history, are steadfast on only one item--more tax cuts. Gee, I wonder which quartile of the population they see as their constituency?

The Economic Policy Institute put out a chart on October 22, courtesy of Moody's, illustrating the relative effectiveness of various approaches to the problem. See for yourself how tax cuts measure versus food stamps, extensions to unemployment insurance and public works projects (to name a few) in terms of effectiveness.

Here's a rather stringent commentary by Brad DeLong about GOP objections to the proposed stimulus package.

Mark Thoma takes a more nuanced approach to the issue of tax cuts, but he too is highly skeptical of the claims and motives of Republicans:.

Clearly, tax cuts can't be the most important component in a package designed to get the economy moving again. As DeLong notes in another post, they may, however, serve a useful political purpose for Obama.

And what would be the estimated effect of the proposed Obama plan on unemployment over the next two years? Tyler Cowan offers a graph showing that without the stimulus plan, unemployment reaches its peak & starts to decline a year later than it will if the stimulus plan goes into effect.

In case you're wondering, a 1% increase in unemployment--at current employment levels--adds up to approximately 1.5 million additional people out of work. (Since the current level isn't constant, 1.5 million is a very rough guess by a non-statistician. The point I'm trying to make, though, is not the specific number, but rather that differences in percentages can mean a lot of human beings.)

Keep this in mind as the debate unfolds over the economic plan in Congress. And now that you've been enlightened (!?!?), please contact your Congresscritters or, if you don't happen to live in a place where said creatures need to be pressured to do the right thing, pass the links above to friends/family/colleagues/etc. living in (ahem) less fortunate places and convince them to contact their alleged representatives in both houses of Congress and urge them to support a stimulus plan that does not rely on tax cuts as a central means of dealing with the economic crisis.

A (Very) Belated Note to My Readers

2008-12-26T10:14:00.001-05:00

As you've undoubtedly noticed, I haven't been posting much since the election. There was no point at which I made a conscious decision to cut back on my posting; rather, a combination of things (exhaustion at the end of a year of furious election-related activities, issues related to work and family, an utter lack of interest in the non-stop stream of "news" stories consisting of little more than idle speculation about the choices and implications of Obama administration nominees) combined to divert my attention elsewhere.

I'd like to make a brief statement about the last item in my parenthesized list above. I realize that there are business reasons for the continual production of stories purporting to read the tea leaves about what the future will presumably hold in the upcoming administration. Newspapers/magazines/TV news shows/blogs all want to hold the attention of their audiences. This is especially true of those media outlets dependent on advertising for their income. Eyeballs translate to advertising dollars, etc. That's simply how the game works & I accept that.

On the other hand, I don't pretend for a second to have the ability to read minds or see into the future. Nor do I believe that any of the prognosticators claiming predictive powers have those abilities, either. Predictions about future political events, it seems to me, imply a relatively simple teleology in which objectively observable criteria translate in a relatively straightforward way into concrete political results. I think that implication is grossly misleading because it completely overlooks such imponderables as unforeseen events and, at least as important, the interpersonal dynamics involved, both within a given administration and between that administration and its political constituencies and opponents, domestic as well as foreign.

By way of a quick illustration of what I mean, consider for a moment a few historical examples. Imagine for a moment the possible alternative paths that our political history might have taken had (a) Richard Nixon won the 1960 election rather than JFK; (b) the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King not been assassinated in 1968; (c) the GOP had not decided to cater to the far right with their tacit acceptance of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt tactics in the 1950s, Nixon's southern strategy, and their appeals to the religious right from Reagan to the current infestation of the White House. Imagine, for that matter, the kinds of presidential candidates political parties would and would not have been willing to nominate were American culture not afflicted with a widespread attitude according to which hostility to elitism translates to a hostility toward education. Imagine further that the social arrangements into which we've all been socialized since birth were considered to be not merely an accepted natural order of things, but the cumulative results of a series of choices made by humans in response to changing events and contexts.

The point I'm trying to make is that history, culture and politics are the combination of social context, individual personalities and chance. I don't know how those things will shape our world. I feel confident in Obama's ability to make reasoned, principled, humane decisions in the interest of our country and this planet. I have no idea how things will happen. So I wait.

In the interim, as I find things of interest to mull over, I'll share them with you. You have been warned... ;-)

Another Reason I Support Obama

2008-12-24T18:21:00.004-05:00

Today's New York Times profile of Cassandra Q. Butts, Barack Obama's nominee for the positions of White House counsel’s office, White House adviser, and assistant to the president for personnel includes this crucial detail:

Is linked to Mr. Obama by: ...She still has his constitutional law book, which she seized as hostage back in college when she lent him a Miles Davis/John Coltrane album [emphasis mine] that he has yet to return.

While I am certainly not an advocate of borrowing things and then not returning them, I'm greatly encouraged by the item involved.

Oh, by the way--Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Happy Kwanzaa to all. And a Happy New Year, while I'm at it.

Look—A Bird!

2008-12-06T20:09:00.002-05:00

Now that the economy is tanking, free market absolutists and various GOP apologists are, predictably enough, twisting themselves into pretzels attempting to dodge responsibility for this latest and perhaps most spectacular of a seemingly endless series of Bush administration disasters. It’s all the fault of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they claimed. No, it’s those nasty unions. When in doubt, blame Bill Clinton and racial minorities.

Before anyone forgets, here’s a Washington Post article outlining specific things the Bush administration did and did not do to help our economy crumble into the worst recession in years.

In Case You Thought It Would Be Easy...

2008-11-22T11:38:00.002-05:00

In case anyone was expecting the Obama healthcare plan to sail through Congress without a hitch, here's a foreshadowing of the coming opposition.

It is certainly true that the opinion of a writer at the Cato Institute is not necessarily indicative of the points of view of all who come to oppose the Obama healthcare plan; however, history has already given us multiple examples of precisely this sort of nihilistic cynicism on the part of many in the GOP. (The Democrats have not historically been immune to obstructionism either, but they've never taken it to levels anywhere near those of the GOP. And where cynicism is concerned, the GOP wins the race, hands down.)

So I propose a fairly unproblematic test: when the opposition arises, scrutinize the rationale given by each opponent of the legislation. If it's logical and fact-based, fine. People are, of course, free in a representative democracy such as ours to disagree, debate and perhaps change the legislation in question. But if the logic and evidence don't add up, remember the comments above. After all, such behavior would certainly be consistent not only with the Cato prescription, but with that of the Republican members of the current Congress, who (to give just one example) after threatening to eliminate the filibuster altogether in a flap over Bush judicial appointees, used the filibuster more in the past 2 years than any other Congress in history. On principle, of course.

The Obama website had better gear up for this--it's going to be an epic struggle, & the new administration is going to need all the help it can get.