On the Contrary

The “C” Street gang should worry you mightily.  These are fellow Republicans who have a mission from God (as in the Blues Brothers) and bunk in a house together on C Street in Georgetown.   It is everything bad about religion wrapped up in one sanctimonious group.   They owe an allegiance to no one, not even their wives, but to their group and their mission from God.  Apparently that mission is to judge and be intolerant, and see that their Republican beliefs stop any hope of a new direction.  And when they dally with women other than their wives, not to worry, they are special.  They will be forgiven.   In their minds they are very special, and selected by their personal god to lead the country, and they will answer to no one.

Why is it the worst thing you want to know about religion?  Well put simply, it shows how a belief in a personal god can be turned into a tool to justify anything you do if you believe you are chosen.  Let’s just take Mark Sanford, who made a special visit to the C street house for counseling.  Here is the man who could find no pity in his heart for alternate live styles (gay folks) and found Bill Clinton unforgiveable, but finds forgiveness for himself in the Bible.  Interesting how people selectively read the Bible for whatever justification they want.  The book is very handy that way.  I am sure sooner or later he will compare himself to Job and find he passed the test.  See he is special and deserves special consideration because God chose him for this test.  It is interesting that after he campaigned against state officials traveling first class on government work, he himself partook in first class travel whenever he traveled.  But remember, God choose him for this role.

Then we have a fellow guest at the C street house, Senator Ensign of Nevada.  I don’t need to recount John Boy’s basic pay to play for sex.  But once again we have a Clinton hater who has demanded resignation for other politicians who have had dalliances, but he sees no need for himself to do that.  Note that we may actually have a federal crime here when he paid hush money to his lover and her family, but one of his fellow C Street cohorts, Senator Colburn, who has knowledge of the crime, says he cannot testify because he is a doctor and they have a doctor/patient relationship.  Note Colburn is an Ob-gyn.  Is he saying that Senator Ensign had a sex change operation?  But once again we have faith and the belief in the righteousness of their power in elected office, that the rules they apply to others, do not apply to them.

Religion can be a powerful force for overcoming great obstacles and a belief in a personal god may be just the force in someone’s life to help them face life’s challenges.  But it is a small step from this to a belief that God has chosen your path for you and therefore anything that happens or that you do can only be challenged by Him.  When this belief in your “manifest destiny” is coupled with the power of an elected official, it can become a very dangerous thing.  It is dangerous because compromise is no longer option for it is straying from the path.  It is why the Founders respected faith as a powerful force in some peoples lives, but went out of their way to keep faith out of a government based upon logic, reason, and compromise.

And that is why the C street Republicans are so troubling.  They have made themselves more equal than the rest of us, they are self-righteous in their beliefs, and the rules only apply to the rest of us.  They have no business in a government based upon we the people. I would agree that all people make mistakes and we should be forgiving.  But these guys forgive nothing except themselves and their transgressions. Maybe some of their constituents will figure this out in the next election.

I noted a segment on Rachel Maddow last night that got me to thinking.  It was called “The GOP in Exile”.  Rachel is making the point that what is left of the Republican Party is the radical fringe.  But my point would be that this radical fringe is still controlling our politics by setting the agenda of every debate.  The Democrats have spent so much time trying to be either bipartisan, or differential to Republican concerns, that they forgot what they are about.  Maybe because Republicans were in power so long Democrats are still too afraid to challenge their ideas head on.  If they keep this up, they will cede the middle right back to the Republicans because they keep treating Republican nonsense with respect, lending it credibility, instead of the derision it deserves.

Take the Sotomayor hearings.  What a colossal waste of time.   I personally would have preferred a more confrontational hearing where these moron ideas of the Republicans would have been challenged head-on instead of deferring to power.  Will being a Latina impact how Judge Sotomayor sees the impacts of her rulings?  Damn straight it will.  We have had the white upper class majority on the court and we don’t think their rarified social circle they came up in hasn’t impacted the conservative way they see the world?  What was really sad was to see obvious truth denied to fawn to these very little minds.

Dahlia Lithwick from Slate Magazine, who covered the hearings, put it this way on Rachel’s show:

“Well, this has just been an amazing lost opportunity, I think, for Democrats.  You know, they had a three-day infomercial.  All they needed to do for three days was just wind up and explain what‘s wrong with the John Roberts court.  Why does the Roberts court have this determination to keep Americans, average Americans out of the courthouse doors?  Why are they so set on doing away with the racial progress we‘ve made?

Nobody makes that point.  Instead we have at least half the Democrats on the committee racing into the embrace of John Roberts—you know, promising us that Sotomayor is going to be tough on crime, loves guns, is a strict constructionist, is a minimalist.  It‘s just bizarre—the extent to which John Roberts‘ shadow hovers over these hearings.”

Why do Democrats keep catering to failed ideas in fear they may alienate some of the voters out there?  But this is just one instance where the Democrats lack the backbone to standup for Progressive ideas.  If you take every important piece of legislation before us, what we have seen is pandering to the Republicans for some nominal support.  In the process they are making the irrational failed policies of the Republicans creditable again.  What I would really like to see is Democrats start dismissing these guys for what they are, white racist good old boys who are defending a status quo that is leading to our destruction.

Probably the most telling and revealing interview was with Rachel and Pat Buchanan last night on her show (Rachel Maddow/Pat Buchanan interview).   What we saw was the mask ripped off the face of white racist fear.  When all the misdirection is removed, what is left is a belief that the white race is under siege by inferior “mud people”. What we saw was a man raised and firmly located in the white good ole boy network that saw his valued position being threatened and he lashes out with illogical racism.  That my friends, is the Republican Party.  They cater to the ignorant and fearful.  Here is a taste of Mr. Buchanan:

“Well, I think white men were 100 percent of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100 percent of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100 percent of people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Probably close to 100 percent of the people who died at Normandy.

This has been a country built basically by white folks in this country who are 90 percent of the entire nation-in 1960, when I was growing up, Rachel-and the other 10 percent were African-American who had been discriminated against. That’s why.”

See the real problem from Mr. Buchanan’s view is discrimination against white people.  These other folks haven’t achieved, well, because they are inferior.  We need to push people like Pat Buchanan off the podium with all necessary force.  Democrats, it is time to stand up and be progressive or we will let these white racists once again take the helm of our country and drive us off a cliff.  Recognize this for what it is.  It is all about power and favored class and racism is just one tool to achieving that.  It works best on the ignorant and fearful.  Come on Democrats, grow a pair.  Our future depends upon it.

I am a big fan of the Bourne movies with Jason Bourne trying to stay alive and solve the riddle of who he is.  They have fast moving plots and the locations are so much fun to watch to see places you have traveled to.  But I never thought of these movies as much more than action adventures, and certainly not real political commentary.  Well if you read the newspapers then you understand that these movies were right on the mark in identifying how our secret intelligence agencies develop their own agenda, justify gross violations of our constitution and judicial systems, and wrap it in a cloak of patriotism.

You will recall that the bad guy in these movies is the CIA, Jason’s own organization, that cannot have him bumbling around and quite possibly expose their illegal activities.  Except they are the bumblers and Jason is the nimble one who is just reacting to their, or other’s, evil deeds.  But let’s not forget what the agency did and see if this sounds familiar.

First, they took the law into their own hands in the name of patriotism and dangerous times.  Sound familiar?  Remember, “The gloves are coming off”?  Then they created a group of trained killers to carry out assassinations around the globe.  We would never really do that would we?  Oops, there was the story of the Cheney created CIA assassination force in the paper this morning (CIA had plan to assassinate Qaeda Leaders).  Note also in the fictional Bourne and in real life, there seems to be little concern for collateral damage.  Think Predator Done strikes that kill everyone at a wedding party.  Oh and let’s not forget the agencies hiding this whole program from Congress.  We know that would never happen in real life, wxcept now we know they did.  Anybody at this point doubt that the CIA would leave out important facts in a Congressional briefing if it suited their needs?

The Bourne movies, while being action adventures, are also a commentary on how secrecy allows rogue programs, how rogue programs give people too much power, and how that power absolutely corrupts.  It is also about what it does to individuals when you dehumanize them.  Least we forget Jason’s torment on realizing that just saying your sorry is not enough.  Oh yeah, and maybe the ends do not justify the means.  Who would have thought those great Jason Bourne movies were a cautionary tale about where we were headed?

One other thought on this slippery slow of predator drones and assassinations:  On a battlefield killing is what it is all about.  But where does the battlefield end and civilized society begin?  How much “collateral damage” is acceptable?  Do the ends justify the means?  The problem with sanctified killings is that law and order no longer matter and the power of life and death that you give to these individuals should be very limited.  I don’t think any of us has a problem with a sniper or a predator drone used on a battlefield.  But what about in a city, where others could be hurt, and you could use normal means to apprehend and charge these individuals?

From my simple little vantage point, it is clear.  Where you can, you must never be judge, jury, and executioner unless war is declared and the fight is on the battlefield.  If we allow ourselves to assume this power anywhere else, then we are out of control, just like Jason Bourne’s antagonists were, and anyone could be deemed a threat.  It is the very definition of barbarianism and tyranny.  Amazingly, it appears we have gone down this road.  Along with torture it appears we tried to sanction murders off the battlefield.  This is a great country isn’t it?

This is not one of my favorites in the repertoire of Shakespeare’s plays, and I am starting to really appreciate why.  You will remember that Othello is a Moorish General in the Venetian army who is a genius at military strategy and an idiot in human affairs.  Now, in our present day Othello you can just guess who is playing that role, our President.  Iago is his ensign, who makes up stories, or more poignantly in today’s world, reinterprets the facts about Othello’s wife, Desdemona, to make Othello insanely jealous and to finally lead him to ruin when he kills her in a fit of jealousy.  Iago wants to supplant Cassio who is Othello’s lieutenant and uses Othello’s character flaws to gain sway over him. Othello is a captive of his own vainity and insecurity.  Iago in today’s world is played by a host of characters whom you can easily recognize.  When I would watch the original Shakespearean version, I would wonder how Othello could be so dumb as to be lead astray by the manipulations of Iago.  In our present day version, I am wondering the same thing.

You might say that in our present day version of Othello, Desdemona is played by the progressive agenda.  She is beautiful and pure, and will provide us a good life if we let her.  Our Moorish general, President Obama, wants so to believe and trust in her (the progressive agenda), but the Iagos of today keep planting doubt into his mind, and his own character flaws of insecurity (both Othello’s jealousy and Obama’s bipartisanship and need for a legislative win) have him listening to these doubts.  His vanity blinds him to the reality that is out there, and he ends up killing Desdemona in a fit of jealousy.  Barack’s vanity (acknowledging that they under estimated the weakening economy, Barack tells us he would do nothing different, and his need for a bill, any bill) blinds him to keeping faith with that agenda and he kills real change and the progressive agenda.

Our present day Othello came into office courting that beautiful lady, the progressive agenda, promising to be ever faithful to her.  But once he had won her (been elected) the Iagos of the world began their attack on his belief in her.  Here are some of Iago’s scurrilous prevarications that have turned our Othello’s head:

• Oh fair General, be afraid of the other generals.  Be wary of their wrath.  Ignore that minor gays in the military issue.  Go slowly.  Trampling the rights of a few is a small price to pay for their support.

• My Liege, tread carefully with the powerful bankers.  They are your friends and can finance your future aspirations.  Do nothing to upset their apple carts.  Long live fat old white men.

• Oh Great Leader, be afraid of deficits.  Scale back your stimulus.  Don’t listen to those who cry wolf and unemployment.  Find a middle road that accomplishes less but bows to the god of deficit fear and tax cuts.  Fear has served past leaders well.

• Sweet Gentle General, your wish to help all with health care is widely beloved.  But you risk failure if you do not accommodate the winds of compromise.  A little change now is better than nothing.  There will be more opportunities later.

• Oh Great Giant of Change, we must go slowly on climate change.  Transferring our economy from polluting and inefficient energy sources to green sources must be painless or the rabble will rebel.  Don’t worry about the rest of the world.  We can always catch up later.  China is a paper tiger.

• Oh Fierce Warrior, do not listen to those soft, mushy, weak-kneed libertarians who do not understand the iron fist of battle.  With some legal easy speak we can justify the last administration’s policies on trials and detention, to say nothing of secrecy and spies.  Better a safe state than one that allows principles to put us at risk and raises questions about our governance.

• Oh Supreme Commander-in-Chief, a won battle at any cost is so much more satisfying than a prudent retreat.  Continue our battles in the Middle East.  The rabble loves a warrior.

• Finally Oh Great Light in Our Sky, fear asking for real sacrifice.  The rabble will not brook sacrifice.  Go slow and do not worry about our future, the ship is slowly turning and that is fast enough.  Real change requires risks and you must not risk your future tilting against windmills like real change.  Just call your compromises change.

So our Moorish General listens to such false arguments and forsakes his Desdemona.  And like in Shakespeare’s original play, I can never understand how he can be such a fool.  Maybe our own Othello will lament as the Shakespearean one did:

“Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe.”

And we would say to the Iagos of the world:

“O Spartan dog,
More fell than anguish, hunger or the sea!
Look on the tragic loading of this bed.
This is thy work.”

“There was a time when Americans could think on such a scale and get it done. We used to be better than any other nation on the planet at getting things done. It would be tragic if the 21st century turns out to be the time when that extraordinary can-do spirit disappears and we’re left with nothing more meaningful and exciting than lusting after tax cuts and trying to pay off credit card debt.”

This quote is from Bob Herbert’s Column Saturday, The Human Equation.   He lays out the case that things are a mess and getting worse and the real issue is unemployment.  He is wishing for a real national jobs program like when we built the highway system or sent a man to the moon.  He even suggests how to pay for it, but notes that our Republican friends (and many Democrats) just don’t think big anymore.  It does no good if the market stabilizes and banks are saved if no one has a job.

Unless you have been asleep, and apparently most in Washington are, you will have noticed that the economy is getting worse not better.  Just read the headlines from the paper on Saturday.  In California (and I would guess elsewhere) mortgage defaults are rising and these are from people with fixed rate mortgages.  Just what do you think happens when you cut state wages by 30% (forced furloughs) and cut back on almost every program?  Even in my little town of Placerville, many business owners are talking about shutting down as business has fallen way off.  We are just beginning to see the real recession and it is only going to get worse.

Those morons on the 24/7 news/business shows are still watching the stock market and they judge the economy by its ups or downs.  The stock market is so detached from the real economy and it is amazing no one has figured that out yet.  All you have to do is understand that if there is nothing we are making and selling to the rest of the world, people are not going to have jobs and what the stock market does is irrelevant.  Note that the New York Times ran a story on Saturday about how the tight rules on mortgages is preventing people who are a good risk from getting mortgages.  In other words, we have fixed nothing.

What is really sad is that the lessons to be learned from the Depression were all out there for all of us to see and we ignored them.  President Obama saw we needed a stimulus plan, but then let the Republicans railroad  and eviscerate it.  I listened as one of the faithful explained that we could not afford another stimulus package and what we need is another tax cut so that business will invest and grow.  Let’s see.  Isn’t a tax cut a decrease in treasury funds, just like what would happen if you expend funds out of the treasury in a stimulus bill?  Second, if there is no demand (and it is ever shrinking) your return on profits from a tax cut would also shrink and why would you invest it to expand your business in a shrinking market?  Faith is an amazing thing isn’t it?

So what is the message here?  We failed to learn from the Depression and we are cowered by our fear of taking a risk for our future.  We have failed to fix the banks, make a real investment in our future, or solve any of our real problems as we tinker around the margins.  We have let Republicans with their mindless belief that now is the time to be frugal tie our hands and it is going to lead to a real depression.  Hang on folks, here it comes, and you asked for it.  The once great nation of the United States is a cowering child afraid of the future.

“Wasteful Spending”
“Massive increase of Government”
“Government takeover of the health care system”

These are the Republican issues that they were starting to gain traction on until the sex scandals emerged to distract the electorate according to one Republican Strategist on Chris Mathews today, lamenting the latest revelations from the Senator Ensign debacle about payoffs to his girl friend’s family by his Mom and Dad.  And this is the Republican/conservatism argument against change.  It is why arguing with conservatives about the way forward is fruitless.  Underlying every argument is their belief that anything government is bad.  If government does it, it is wasteful.  If Government takes on more regulation of the market place, it is bad government moving in to screw things up, hence the implied problem with Government taking over health care.

This completely explains the conservative approach to our problems today.  Do nothing.  Whether it is health care, climate change, energy, or the economy, their approach is do nothing.  Mitch McConnell actually said that about the stimulus package, “I think the economy is just as likely to begin to recover on its own, wholly aside from this, before much of this has an impact.”  He fails to say that he and his cohorts have done everything possible to make the stimulus package as ineffective as possible.

Their first approach on climate change was that it did not exist (some still cling to that fantasy).   Now their tack is either that there is nothing we can do about it, or it is a natural phenomenon and we shouldn’t do anything about it.  On the banking crisis, they see the stock market leveling, completely ignoring the rising jobless rate, and declare the crisis over, except when they want to claim that the stimulus bill failed to create jobs. On health care, if government is such a problem, why is it such a mess when the insurance companies (the free market) control it?  So when media air heads wonder why the Republicans are just the party of no, well the answer is obvious.

Think about it.  What is their answer to everything?  Low taxes (small government), minimal regulations (emasculated government), and let the marketplace solve all problems (no government).  From their point of view government is the problem, and nothing further needs to be said.  They have not evolved at all from the Ronald Reagan days of “Government is the Problem”.

My own frustration with this is that since it is a fundamental belief, it cannot be challenged.  If everything government does is bad and that is your starting point for every argument, no matter how clever the plans you can come up with to deal with our ever increasing problems, if it involves government (and who else is going to solve this stuff) it will not work.  From their point of view just say big government and the discussion is over.  The sad thing is that if they really examined this belief, they would realize that their belief implies there are no solutions for our problems.  Don’t worry, be happy.  One note here,  Republicans do offer “market place” solutions but these generally involve transferring money to their cronies from the federal treasury.  Remember contracting out everything to be more cost effective?  It failed miserably, if you don’t count all the rich Republican donors/contractors it created.

Or look at it another way.  If big government is the problem, then first how did we get in the mess we are in?  Well I have heard the really warped one’s claim that the government caused all our problems in the first place.  It wasn’t the financial markets fault that they let greed run amok.  It was government for not regulating them or Congress allowing Freddie and Fannie to issue sub prime loans.  Wait a minute!  If government is the problem how can government allowing the free market to operate be the problem (Freddie and Fannie were losing their market share if they could not compete with the growing market of mortgage upstarts racking in the dough of fees from sub primes)?  How did the government cause the big three automotive producers to go broke?  It certainly wasn’t from regulating mileage standards or quality so they could be competitive with foreign made automobiles.  And when oceans rise, causing water to creep into low-lying cities, or temperatures destroy a local farming economy, who do you think they are going to be screaming to for help?  Nobody said these people are rational.

I guess the only answer is to ask them what their solution is, and when they say do nothing, ask them how they think we got into these problems in the first place.  Sadly their answer will be big government.  My biggest complaint with these people is under all the B.S. is the reality that they got theirs and they will be darned if they will share it to help others.  They see others less fortunate as deserving their station in life, and government as interfering and wasteful.  It is a self-serving belief system so they can continue their selfish and narcissistic ways.  They want theirs and they don’t want to pay for it.  But as the conservatives continue to make government less and less effective, we will get a world that sooner or later even they will admit is not the one they wanted.

There was an interesting survey in the Sacramento Bee yesterday about how people feel about government (On Several Fronts Congress Debates How Big Government Should Be).  “If you ask people, ‘Do you want big government?’ you get one answer,” he said. “But if you say, ‘Should the government have more control over the excesses of the marketplace?’ you get a different one.”  In other words we are conflicted about government in our lives.

Now I live in a county where there is little conflict about this issue.  They don’t want any government.  In El Dorado County where I live, the County Supervisors recently voted to reject stimulus money to maintain foreclosed and abandoned houses and make it easier to resell.  They “prefer to let the free market operate”.  I happen to think this is the height of stupidity since they are rejecting a return on their investment of federal tax dollars, but you get the idea about how the fringe thinks about government.  What I think would be highly enlightening to these morons is to start listing all the ways that government has aided and improved their lives which they are totally oblivious to, but that is not my point here today.  I want to know what they think the option is.

If you are going to reject government involvement in health care, the environment, stimulus, education, transportation (trains, highways, airports, city metros), policing, drinking water, R&D, medical research, port management, and securing our rights against states (should we forget integration or the voting rights bill), just what is your alternative for how all of this gets done?  I guess I am touching on just a few of the things government makes possible in our lives.  But really, what is your alternative?

If the market place is such a wonderful place, how come after 75 years of companies competing to provide us health care insurance, it is the most expensive in the world and we have dismal outcomes in comparison with other developed countries that have the dreaded single payer system?  How come those competing automobile companies didn’t react to the changing markets and produce a product we wanted to buy?  How come if government does such a bad job, they are the only ones to provide a safety net for those over 65 in terms of affordable health care?  Why is it in countries that have a single payer system, if government is so bad, health insurance isn’t thriving and competing with the government?  Why is it when bad things happen, the government is the only one we can depend on to provide help?

The reason the market place does so poorly on these tasks is really quite simple.  Sometimes the profit motive is ill suited for some tasks.  Long term planning is almost non-existent in the business sector.  The focus is on short-term profits and maximizing stock prices. That is where all the incentives are focused.   So, if the average guy knows there is global warming, but feels no immediate threat, do you think he is going to demand to pay a little more for energy so we can solve this problem?  The market place serves the immediate, and government must plan for the long term.

Now I won’t argue that some things government does are stupid and wasteful.  We can all find examples.  But on the whole, government works diligently to provide services that the private sector either won’t or can’t provide.  So I will ask you this simple question:  How are you going to address problems that affect all of us without the help of government?  Wait for the market place to move?  That is what we have been doing and it has failed miserably.  The markets, especially the financial markets, let to themselves, almost destroyed this country and now we are saying let the market place rule?  Did we learn nothing?

I listened to a friend of mine complain that government involvement in anything just screws it up, which is of course, is a gross exaggeration.  He was mad because the federal government offers him disaster assistance on apricots, which the private industry won’t and he was railing against the mountains of paperwork and repeat fillings each year when nothing had changed.  I tried to point out to him that that while all of that was true and surely it could be streamlined, the government was subsidizing him.  No he said.  He pays premiums.  I wondered if he believed he actually covered the cost of the risk if the private industry was unwilling to offer it.  Maybe it is the same reason the market place doesn’t off Social Security.

Okay government can be bureaucratic.  Yes I have read the tax code.  But the market place will not solve most of these problems and government can be made to work better than it does in many instances .  It just takes smart rules instead of bureaucratic ones.  But most government inefficiency is born out of rules set down to prevent past abuses that people like my friend have demanded when they saw someone take advantage of the system.  Unlike the private sector, federal bureaucrats have a very limited ability to change these rules.  Note if you have worked with private insurance companies, they make the government bureaucraciesu look streamlined.

Quite frankly in today’s world there is no way to operate without government as a full partner with business if we are going to compete and thrive.  See the Chinese if you don’t believe it (or the EU).  Our job is to make it more effective, not think a workplace unfettered by government will produce anything but what it did in the last economic meltdown, greed and short-term thinking that left a few filthy rich and the rest of us worried about our future.  We have tried the unregulated private sector thing.  Now it is time to give government a chance.  If most of these people who hate government so much would take a moment to reflect, they would find that it has been doing a pretty good so so far and all they have is a reflection of that role.

From the Huffington Post:  “The Obama administration “misread” the depth of the economic troubles it inherited and still expects more new jobs in the long term as the spending pace from the $787 billion stimulus plan quickens, Vice President Joe Biden said.

Republican congressional leaders expressed disappointment about the impact of stimulus spending. “I’m very skeptical that the spending binge that we’re on is going to produce much good and, even if it does, anytime soon,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a statement Sunday.

“I think the economy is just as likely to begin to recover on its own, wholly aside from this, before much of this has an impact.””

So in a nutshell here is the bad news:  The Democrats, although forewarned by real students of the depression, did too little, and the Republicans think we need to do nothing.  Let’s see if I understand this.  Unemployment is climbing and the massive cuts States are just undertaking have yet to impact the economy.  We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg on unemployment and foreclosures and the Republicans think things will eventually get better on their own.  This is the epitome of this crop of Republican thinking.  I’ve got mine and I am not about to sacrifice for the rest of you.

Let’s take stock.  The original crisis came about when housing prices collapse and homes began to default.  What was staring us in the face was greedy and risky behavior in the markets and the banks.  So we bailed out the banks to keep credit from drying up.  But to date we have changed nothing.  Frank Rich, in his Sunday Column, Bernie Madoff is No John Dillinger, laid out the case that the banks have used tax payer money to reestablish the status quo without any of the reforms to prevent the same debacle down the road.  And the President’s  team has gone right along.

The mortgage crises continues unabated and things are going to get much worse as further reduced spending by the states continues to constrict spending.  The real issue is to readjust the equity on these mortgages so that homeowners, even if they get refinancing and lower payments, will not be paying money on negative equity.  This would have three other benefits.  Home owners will be less likely to default in the future if their investment is actually positive, banks will make more money than if the houses foreclose and will have to be sold at the market value anyway, and banks would start to feel the pain for their bad investment choices.  But do you see any movement in this direction?  Like reforming banks themselves, these guys still own Washington and I don’t see any leadership from Barrack.  The New York Times sees the same thing (Not Much Relief).

The energy bill is an opportunity to restructure our economy and begin to build a vibrant economy on green energy for the future.  But alas, what we are getting is pabulum as the bill gets watered down by both Democrats and Republicans too timid to take the necessary upfront pain to push us into the future.  Meanwhile the Chinese have figured it out and are moving rapidly forward while we fret about who might be winners and losers, and will leave us all losers.  See Tom Friedman’s column on Sunday, Can I Clean Your Clocks.

Health care is another opportunity that is going to be lost.  There is only one effective way forward and that is with a vibrant public option.  Yet once again the Obama administration would rather have a legislative win than a bill that could really make a difference.  See Holding President Obama Accountable.

Now what is needed is even a bigger stimulus not watered down by Republicans on stupid spending, but focused on investments that will propel us into the 21st Century and rebuild the social net for our less fortunate that the States are in the process of dismantling.  But, and again alas, as Paul Krugman pointed out on Friday in his column, because they were too timid last time, they gave the Republicans all the ammunition they need to convince the non-thinkers in our country that more stimulus money will not help (That 30’s Show).  Also see that moron, Mitch McConnell’s statement at the start of this piece.

So the crises deepens, the President is running off to Russia and to visit the Pope, still singing, “We are the World”.  I can see that the Russians are important, but you should have gone to China first and the Pope is almost as irrelevant as the Republicans.  But one should never miss an opportunity to pander to the Catholics while Rome (pun intended) burns.

What I see is a crisis wasted, a lack of leadership, and just a bunch of feel good ideas.  Sure you are going to close Guantanamo, but until you face off with timid Republicans and Democrats, we are going nowhere on that issue.  Sure you are going to help gays and lesbians, but what we see is nothing and you failed to face down the military with a temporary halt to removing them from service.  Sure you are going to solve our problems in Afghanistan, but you have started down a road in a no-win war that will have us there for the foreseeable future sucking funds from our future.  Sure you are going to have a different approach to the detainees and then we see the same tired policies of cover up and indefinite detention.  We can’t offend our intelligence community can we?  Bring back the last guy.  At least he was willing to fight for what he believed, however misguided.

I see no future for the Democrats in their present course.  The solutions are obvious, but hard.  Watered down solutions to bring in token Republicans or Conservodems simply gets a billed passed that won’t get us there.  While everyone stands around patting themselves on the back at this great progress, real change is thwarted with an opportunity lost.

So when is it Mr. President that you will finally take these guys on?  When are we going to draw a line in the sand and say this or nothing?  When are you going to start playing hardball?  Our very future is at stake and you continue to think baby steps will get us there.  Words are nice, but we are in for a fight to get what needs to get done done.  So far, Mr. President you have shown no backbone for fight that needs to be fought.  I fear you are going to be a failed President if you don’t take the lead and stand for something besides compromise.  Many of us Mr. President are getting very tired and very angry.  As a candidate you stood up to the status quo.  As a President you are becoming part of it.

Since my last full blog about the failures in our critical thinking skills in regards to celebrity worship and Michael Jackson, Bob Herbert wrote a wonderful piece in the New York Times that demonstrated the difference between my bumbling attempts to make a point and a true professional (Behind the Façade).  As I started to read his column the first sentence really surprised me because finally someone was actually telling us the truth and not pandering to the ongoing and undeserved adulation of MJ.  Then he described the real and very troubled MJ, not the fantasy that so many worship.

But my point here is not about MJ, but about our failure as a society to think critically, and separate what we want to believe from what is.  Mr. Herbert made the same point in another way by showing our ability to deny reality and create our own fantasyland (should we say Neverland?) from the Reagan years of tax cuts will produce more tax revenues, to ignoring all of our problems assuming some magic hand of the market place would sweep them all away.

So this morning I was reading about how the Supreme Court is tilting to the right (while the rest of the nation is tilting left) and that got me to thinking about their recent decision to say that employers can’t disregard the results of hiring and promotion exams on which minorities score lower than whites unless they have strong evidence that the tests were invalid.  Better known as the New Haven Fireman Reverse Discrimination case in which Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayer was involved in upholding that the tests could be thrown out, this case is a prime example of why and how most Americans don’t think logically.

To make this really simple in terms of how people confuse this case, there are really to very separate issues here.  The first regards the law and the second involves justice, and no, the two are not the same.  So critical thinking error number one is the assumption that by following the law we get justice.  In our political system we have established a nation of  laws.  By that I mean that once a principal of law is established either through historical understandings (common law), precedent (historical interpretations of the meaning of laws), or through legislation, the law is established and equally and consistently applied.

Stability and “justice” are a byproduct of the consistency of this legal framework.  Anarchy results when laws are only followed when they are convenient or only enforced against those less fortunate.  In the course of our history we have found that a stable set of rules to operate by, applying equally to everyone, usually produces a just system, and as a result we are “a nation of laws”.  But it is a false leap of faith and a logical error to say a consistent legal system equals justice.  If the laws are unjust, following them faithfully and consistently will ensure injustice just as assuredly as an unfair application of just laws.

The second issue is justice.  Was the outcome just?  If you think the test of a legal procedure is justice, you have fallen into the trap of this logical fallacy.  I think most of us can agree that in the O.J. Simpson murder trial the outcome was anything but just.  But the system followed the law.  The system worked, but the outcome was unjust.  In the New Haven Firefighter suit there is a wide divergence of opinion on whether the outcome was just.  But here is the critical point:  If you bend the law to suit your view of what is just, that is judicial activism.  It violates the ideal of consistent application of the law.  If the law keeps changing based upon the desired outcome, then the law is what the rulers say it is, not what is written.  In other words there is no law  or said another way, power is the law.  Welcome to Iran.

Now to tell you the truth, I guess I have mixed emotions about whether these white firemen were treated justly or not.  It would seem that after some time, where true disadvantages suffered by minorities has been dealt with either through racial balancing or affirmative action, we ought to level the playing field with one standard for all.  On the other hand, police and fire departments have been hot beds for good old boys, racial discrimination, and nepotism, and we all know that hiring and promoting standards can be weighted to favor some over others.  One has to wonder if not one person of color did well and we think there is something wrong with them instead of the test, there just might be discrimination.  My point here is that I don’t have an axe to grind on how the case was decided. Who won is irrelevant to the question.  The real issue is, and this is what is missed by most, did the decision follow the law.

This is the critical question and that is where logic is skewed by one’s political beliefs and conflating the notion of justice and law.   My view of this is very simple.  Whether the firefighters were discriminated against is irrelevant.  That was not the question before the court.  The court was asked if the city followed the law in throwing out the tests because no person of color scored well enough to be promoted and there was a fear of a lawsuit.  In other words was this enough to demonstrate discrimination under the law?  They were not asked whether this is a fair test or whether the firemen were unfairly treated, only whether the test for discrimination as determined by legal precedent and existing law had been met.  My answer, and the ruling of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on which Judge Sotomayor sat, was yes, the city did following the law as legal precedent had determined.

What the Supreme Court did was say that having all the people of color fail the test is not enough to say the test is discriminatory.  You now have to prove it was.  This is the very definition of judicial activism.  It is also a failure in logic.  But that is a blog for another day.  The Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied the suit because legal precedent said that the test of discrimination was met when no qualified person of color could pass it and there was a real threat of suit if no persons of color were promoted.  What the Supreme Court did was to say we think this test for discrimination needs to be modified (change legal precedent) and then set a new standard to be met to prove it.

The point here is that most Americans do not understand the basic argument.  The argument is one of law, not justice.  But when we conflate the two for political ends we lose the logical thread.  We don’t understand the real argument and cloud it with our desired outcome.  I think if you are true to logic (Spock are you out there?), you would see that the court should have upheld the decision with the opinion putting the onus on the legislature to fix the law if it is flawed.  Instead, they changed the law to allow the firefighters another bite at the apple.  It may or may not be a just outcome, but it is not one that supports a consistent reading of law and precedent.  It makes the Supreme Court, dare I say it, Supreme Leader to decide just outcomes, not matters of law,  Conservatives are funny like that.  They are only conservative when it suits their political ends.  Otherwise they are what they are, radicals.

So what does all this have to do with MJ, celebrity worship, the New Haven firefighters, and our political situation?   Well in the MJ case we fantasize our image of who we wanted him to be with the reality of who he was.  In the New Haven firefighters case we fantasize our ideal of justice and ignore the legal arguments and process.  In the case of our political situation we ignore the reality around us and fantasize simple solutions to complex problems because we can’t face up to the hard choices that face us.  We continue to kick the can down the road (See It Costs Too Much).

We have an ideal about what we want to believe and we try not to let the facts get in the way.  People have a tendency to see the world in a certain way and they interpret reality to support that view. They block out or ignore information that challenges that view.   Michael was a sensitive and shy artist.  Or he was an emotionally stunted individual whose grasp of human interaction and relationships was truly dysfunctional.  The truth is in there somewhere and only when we are willing to be intellectually honest will we find it.  The reality is that intellectual honesty is in very short supply these days as we continue with business as usual.  We are too good at denying reality because it is just too painful to face the sacrifices of doing something about it.  The resulting debacle we are participating in is the result.

No vine/wine this morning as I am in Denver trying to finish up a proposal to repair levees in Houston (stimulus money).  There really is not much to report other than growth is still vigorous and it doesn’t look like my first irrigation will be until mid July.  I did really wack back the roses as they were getting taller than the grapes.  We will see how really hardy they are.

I did turn on the news and it is all MJ.  This is when I really miss a Mark Sanford press conference or some moronic statements from the Republicans in Congress.  One thing is becoming apparent with the jobless numbers and that is that the stimulus was not enough.  No Duh and the Democrats have made it harder to get another round because they tried to cater to the Republicans and the first plan was watered down by tax cuts that stimulate nothing in a depressed economy.  Maybe they learned something, but I doubt it looking at their approach to health care and the energy bill.

One last thought:  On the fourth of July I think less about the Declaration of Independence in 1776 than I do about Adams and Jefferson who both died on Independence Day, 1826.  They brought us so much and their arguments and disagreements still rage today.  Two truly great men who brought us real change.