On the Contrary

Usually I write this blog with a general theme in mind, but Bits and Pieces are things that may seem unrelated, but lend to the overall malady in our country today:  So here are this weeks gems:

• I usually watch Meet the Press, Reliable Sources, and Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on Sunday with snippets of CNN’s State of the Union.  Except for Fareed, I had to turn them off.  On Meet the Press, David Gregory is no Tim Russert.  One of Tim’s great attributes was to let the guest fully answer a question without interrupting, in a sense letting them speak for themselves and giving them all the rope they needed.  David seems to have an agenda when he continually interrupts to challenge an answer.  He needs to step back and let his guests answer the hard questions fully without his constant interrupting to challenge, usually using the other side’s talking points.  By doing this he is being controlled by the opposition instead of conducting an insightful interview.
• Meet the Press also failed in their round table discussion as it was a reflection of the Washington echo chamber instead of reasoned consideration of the issues.  If you just repeat the arguments being made by politcal hacks, what good are you?  The hot button issue was the Obama mortgage bailout plan and the anger that some abusers might benefit.  But they focused on the anger, reinforcing it, instead of looking at the plan’s pros and cons, and alternatives, if there are any to the plan itself.  It was a waste of time, did nothing but reinforce misplaced anger, and did not inform.  Could they have one economist to bring some rationalism to this discussion of emotionalism or the political opinions of the day?
• Reliable Sources is usually a discussion of how the press is treating a specific subject, not the subject itself.  I lost interest when it was about Roland Burris, the lady who had the litter of kids in California, and other non-sequiturs.  I just don’t care.  Both of these people are just sideshows to the real issues we face and I don’t care if I ever hear of them again.  Illinois, get your house in order, and California, we already have enough mouths to fed which we can’t afford.
• Then we get to the bright light which was Fareed Zakaria’s GPS.  Here we had a real discussion about the efficacy of further military adventures in Afghanistan, the economy with real economists, and then a discussion of both the economy and world affairs in Asia from experts living in those areas.  It was the difference between the Washington echo chamber (just political talking points being rehashed) and real discussion of real ideas.  What a breath of fresh air.  I suggest for those who missed it, read the transcript (GPS).
• California is in big trouble and the recent settlement of the budget resolved nothing.  Once again we are hamstrung by small minds when they negotiated away the 12¢ tax on gas giving up $2 billion in revenue per year.  Since gas went up to $4/gallon and is now down around $2.50/gallon, who would have noticed the 12¢?   Yet this tax  would have created a fairly consistent source of revenue for the state that would also reflect our long term goal of reducing global warming.  In addition there is still borrowing in the plan to make ends meet.  Just how deep a hole do we want to dig?  We need a new State Constitution that gets rid of the mandatory spending, dumps the two-thirds majority for budgets, and gets rid of the term limits.  Why is the obvious so hard to do?  I do like the idea of open primaries and a rainy day fund.  It is a start.
• Governor Schwarzenegger noted recently that California (He is an acknowledged infrastructure fan) had a long-term transportation plan which is why the state is way ahead of any other in implementing high speed rail, but the nation does not.  If we continue to let Congress piece meal fund their states for transportation, we are never going to have an integrated, cost effective, and multi-modal transportation system.  Oh I am sorry, that smacks of government planning and is evil.  What was I thinking?
• The Republican’s lunacy of denying the stimulus money is based upon a short-term belief that all we need is tax cuts and the giant deficit they created just can get any bigger.  As one Republican recently said on CNN that went totally unchallenged, “We all know that only businesses create jobs, not government.”  They are oblivious to what happened from 1929 till 1945 as the government spending created almost all the jobs because businesses could not stimulate demand on their own.  Almost all economists recommend deficit spending right now, with a long term plan to deal with the deficit when the economy is back on its feet.

Finally I would like to leave you with a letter that was in the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday that kind of puts the whole Republican tax cut strategy into perspective (short term, painless, benefits the wealthy, and is ineffective):

“A comment on a blog included a long list of what a tax cut cannot do:  A tax cut cannot provide police protection.  A tax cut cannot provide a fire department.  A tax cut cannot build a road.  A tax cut cannot provide Social Security and Medicare.  A tax cut cannot provide care for the disabled and other vulnerable members of our society.  A tax cut cannot create city parks or preserve areas of our country’s natural beauty.  A tax cut cannot build schools or hospitals…and the list goes on.

As George Lakoff, professor of linguistics, suggested, we need to reframe the word “taxes” to take away the negative connotation.  Taxes are the dues we pay to live in a civilized society, one that does not feed selfish greed but cares for our children’s future, for those less fortunate and for the common good.”  Adeline Hope, Berkley, CA

The Republicans and their ideology are living in another time, still believing the Reagan Myth (which is a myth of giant porportions since he grew both the size of government and size of deficits), and Hoover economics which requires no sacrifice or long term plan but then miserably failed.  It is a strategy, as it was in the early 1930s, for total failure.  It appeals to the masses because it asks nothing of them, which is its appeal, while transferring wealth to the wealthy which simply makes things worse.  Haven’t we had enough?  Have we learned nothing?

If you take an honest look at the stimulus package, one has to say that the Democrats really did try to compromise to get a bill.  So where were the Republicans?  Out beating the drum of partisanship.  Lindsey Graham and John McCain were the major players in claiming the lack of cooperation from the Democrats.  Oh really?  They could have been in the room with Specter, Collins, and Snow trying to craft a deal.  They choose not to and instead lead a charge for an alternate bill for 100% tax cuts.  This is their definition of bipartisanship? I think that a critical element of working together is to assume that maybe you don’t have the one true fix on our problems.  Even with their failures in the last eight years, they are still not ready to question their conservative economic faith.

So what are the lessons for President Obama and the Democrats?  Was President Obama wrong in trying to change the tone?  I don’t believe so.  I think the major problem came from some false assumptions about the Republicans learning anything from the last election.  I can only assume this because they have offered an alternative bill that is 100% tax cuts.  That says to me that something is making them reject not only the lessons of the last eight years, but the economic guidance and combined wisdom gained over the last 100 years.  What one sees as we watch the debate in the House over the bill is an ideological purity check from the Republicans with no real plan to deal with a problem that recognizes that the private sector can no longer generate the demand necessary to restart our economy.  Apparently they don’t accept this.  I am afraid it will take the total shutdown of our economy before they see the light if even then.  They will find some way to blame Bill Clinton for the failure of their ideas.

I think there are two important lessons here.  The Republicans are never going to negotiate in good faith until they have suffered a humiliating defeat that finally makes them realize that they must compromise to survive.  They are being emboldened right now by the failure of the Democrats to stand firm and instead, in good faith, tried to accommodate them.  The fight right now is about ideology, and the Republicans still think they can resurrect their failed ideas.  If they are successful, America is in real trouble.

The second lesson is that what Republicans really are fighting is spending on things they don’t think government should be involved in.  What they called pork in many cases was simply spending by the government and our media simply repeated the pork claim until President Obama pointed out the obvious stimulative effect.  It is really once again a clash of ideology in what is the appropriate role of government.  This is really another part of the taxes only argument.  That is, they see government as the problem that only the private sector can solve.  Most of us thought that the failure of the Bush administration to invest in government and made it incompetent had taught us the lesson that this approach doesn’t work.  The Republicans think their only sin was to loose their way while allowing deficit spending.  They simply are not now, or as near as I can tell, ever going to do an honest re-examination of the proper role of government in our society.  Note that there is this great hypocrisy in this belief when it comes to government involvement in our security.

So what do I recommend for President Obama.  Take a page from the Republicans.  Talk in conciliatory and nice tones and play hardball like it has never been played before.  It is clear from both the Gregg withdrawal and the zero votes in the House for the final bill, that there is nothing to gain by trying to bring them along.  They are going to play very partisan politics as they did in the stimulus bill debate.  In fact there is everything to lose if the compromises make the Democrats and their agenda less effective.  In this time of crisis we cannot afford half measures.  So try to accommodate where it makes sense, invite them to the table, but slam them down every time they propose more failed policies.

It is time for a new direction and Democrats must bring the first team to this argument and take control of the debate.  In the last several weeks, the debate was taken over by the Republicans who made everything sound like wasteful spending.  Where was the first team reacting to these obvious misrepresentations?  Learn to understand the media and how it reacts to these simplified arguments and take them on directly.  When they parrot the talking points of the Republicans, ask them if they have done their homework or talked to a respected economist?  Do not be afraid to challenge journalists if they have not done any independent research on an issue and are simply the echo chamber of the right.

I think the public is waiting to be led in a new direction.  The question is are the Democrats going to step to the plate or are they going to let Republicans once again fill the airways unchallenged with their failed policies?  I hope so because if not, we are in for a long and painful depression.

I am going to start focusing on the economy, especially since the Conservatives have started beating the drum that the New Deal failed (see Republican’s Talking Points:  The New Deal Failed).  It is such a lie, and will further weaken our country if they succeed.  Our biggest problem is that most of the population doesn’t read so their knowledge and understanding of where we have been is minimal, probably fating us to repeat the failures of history.  But there were a couple of items in the Sunday talk shows that need some clarity:

• On Meet the Press David Gregory is still no Tim Russert.  David’s biggest flaw is that he is still a creature of the conventional wisdom and has a hard time really challenging respected pundits of that conventional wisdom.  In particular, Paul Gigot from the Wall Street Journal was arguing that the Federal Reserve had pushed $2 trillion into the system and that this will have the desired effect down the road, no matter what Congress does.  What he is really arguing is that there is no need for a New Deal and that we should focus on the tax cuts, “I think a, a tax cut, a big corporate rate tax cut, for example, or an across the board tax cut would be a lot more stimulative than this public spending, which has to come from somewhere.”  I wonder where he thinks the cash for the tax cut is coming from? I have several thoughts here:  First our infrastructure and its ability to support a vibrant economy in the future is degrading.  So what is his plan for investment in these things?  I’ll give you a hint; he doesn’t have one.  Second, isn’t this tax cuts for the rich again?  How does this help considering the tax cuts they got over the last eight years?  What about the GAO study that shows that two-thirds of businesses don’t pay taxes?  Finally, looking at the Japanese experience and other stagflations, monetary policy never cured the problem without the extra help of massive spending.  In other words private spending is not enough to get the economy going.  Why doesn’t anyone challenge these “pundits” of yesterday’s conservative economic ideology that is all based upon flow down economics, with these facts?  Like I said, David Gregory is no Tim Russert.
• CNN did some really good reporting over the weekend on the economy, especially the film on the deficit called I.O.U.S.A, which showed how the deficit ballooned under Ronald Reagan, was actually coming down at the end of the Clinton years, and has tripled under George W. Bush.   What all this demonstrated was that conservative economic ideology is a road to devastation, but played into the conservatives hands to make you afraid of the deficit so that the short term spending required to stimulate the economy will be tempered by this fear.  In almost every other show, deficit spending was advocated with a mixed message.  This was especially exemplified by host Christine Romans of CNN who would mouth the words, “we need to increase the deficit in the short term”, but the sighs and eye rolling (body language) was giving the stronger message of be afraid.  What really drove me crazy was that although everyone seems to agree that at some point we will need to reign in the deficit, no one had answer for how.  It is a legitimate question for the press to ask what that plan is, it is not legitimate to let the “loyal opposition” criticize the Obama plan, and not give their own plan for this.  As I noted Sunday (The Dismal Science), World War II began the biggest deficit spending as a percentage of GDP we have ever experienced and healed the Great Depression.  The Obama administration will not have the advantage of this kind of focusing event so that people understand that the short term is our future.
• Then there was the discussion of the Israeli/Hamas war on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS.  After some lively debate, one of the guests, Hanan Ashrawi from the West Bank, a moderate Palestinian was asked a direct question:

ZAKARIA: Hanan Ashrawi, you are a Palestinian moderate by everyone’s acknowledgement. So, let met ask you, what do you want from Israel, from the United States right now? What do you think would bolster your power and influence in Palestine and in the region?

ASHRAWI: I think there should be an immediate, immediate cessation of violence. Stop the assault on the Palestinians.

People don’t see this as an attack on Hamas, which is, of course, a large movement with a small militia or military wing. And a regular army cannot defeat irregular forces, as you know.

And the casualties and the victims have all been, on the whole, the innocent civilians. This has to stop. Men, women and children are being killed. Whole families are being obliterated.

This is very, very painful. And it is creating a sense of anger, hostility, extremism among the Palestinians, and tremendous pain and suffering.

Let’s find quickly, quickly a solution that addresses the real issues, that addresses the real causes. We cannot afford anymore a business-as-usual approach to peacemaking.

She said nothing.  Where was the risk taking to find a solution?  What she said was stop the violence and then find a solution.  Isn’t that what has been done in the past in this ever spiraling circle of violence?  Here is the problem in a nutshell.  It is time to let violence run its course.  When people get desperate enough, then they will compromise (Disproportionate Response?).

Another week where hard questions are being either dodged or not asked.  Oh well…

As the year draws to a close, nothing really changes and the latest in foreign affairs may get us distracted from our own economic woes.  So with that in mind here are a few tidbits to think about:

• Hamas and the Israelis (New York Times) – Well they are at it again.  Hamas has been dropping rockets (up to eighty a day) from Gaza into Israel on a fairly continuous basis and now the Israelis are responding.  The UN is going to meet and call for a cessation of hostilities and around and around we go.  Now I will give you that the Israelis have been bad actors and their settlements in disputed territory are an abomination, but does anybody get the continued launching of rockets is a terrorist activity?  If you want to end this, it is time to settle it and the Israelis have taken the first step.  The only way that Hamas with their sworn destruction of Israel strategy will stop their ceaseless violence is for the people to finally reject their terrorist acts.  If each time you launch a strike, you pay dearly, after awhile maybe the population will put a stop to tolerating these rocket attacks.  What should catch your attention is that Hamas must keep the conflict going with Israel or they would actually have to deal with the problems in Gaza created by themselves and the Palestinians.  It is time for the UN to take a side and end this madness.
• India and Pakistan (New York Times)  – The Pakistanis are moving troops out of the Taliban controlled areas so they can confront the Indians.  Once again they are playing right into the terrorists hands.  The whole idea was to stir up trouble between India and Pakistan so that the pressure would be off their tribal areas.  Both this and the Hamas/Israeli problem remind me of Shakespeare’s Henry V.  Henry knew that a war with the French would distract his own citizens from their own injustices and focus them on an external foe.  So instead of dealing with your own issues it is so much easier to stir up trouble with someone else and then get your citizens to rally around the flag.  Remind anyone of George Bush?
• Healthcare – I see where Tom Daschle, as Barack Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services,  in his first major speech since being asked to head President-elect Barack Obama’s healthcare reform effort, on Friday announced a nationwide campaign this month to solicit public input on improving the nation’s healthcare system.   I find this a little strange and time wasting to tell you the truth.  As a friend expressed it to me the other day, people who think they have healthcare only have to get sick to find out they don’t.  We have a system based on profit and as such incentivizes denying care and only insuring healthy people.  All the problems arise from this basic flaw.  But what is most troubling about this fact finding is that it ought to be around the world, not the United States.  If you look at England, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, and Taiwan, you would find completely different implementations of single payer plans, and you do like the Taiwanese did, design you system to take advantages of the best of each of these systems.  But no, we have to reinvent the wheel.  We are an arrogant bunch aren’t we?  No wonder we are falling behind the rest of the world.
• Energy Efficient Houses (New York Times) – I read an interesting article about how in Europe they have gone back to building extremely “tight” homes to reduce or eliminate heating costs and have solved the problem of indoor pollution by using extremely efficient heat exchanges so that fresh air brought in from outside is preheated.  In another article I saw where the hope in California for the economy is the rebirth of the housing industry.  See the connection?  Why are we still building houses with yesterday’s technology?  Why aren’t we requiring that new houses meet extremely stringent energy standards so that our energy needs in the future would be greatly reduced?  Oh, I forgot, that would be government interference with the marketplace so we can continue to do stupid and short sighted things.
• Caroline Kennedy – Oh can we get over this soap opera?  Governor’s can appoint who ever the hell they want to.  The voters will eventually get their say.  Governor Patterson is no fool and he will appoint someone who he thinks can bring home the bacon for New York.  For those of you who are afraid of a dynasty, then why the hell did you vote for George Bush after his dad?  If Governor Patterson thinks Caroline works, and she doesn’t, you will get your chance to have your say on the re-election of both of them.  In the meantime the media needs to get a life.
• Man Shoots Talker in Movie Theater (CNN) – Apparently a family that kept talking during a movie so enraged a gentleman that he shot the father.  I would have to say that if I was on the jury I could not convict.  I could be in his shoes, but my wife won’t let me take a gun to the movie.

It is always heart warming to know that after another year we have learned nothing.

Once a week or so I like to just gather up little snippets of news that tells us much about ourselves and try to draw a few inferences.  This week’s lineup includes:

• Campbell Brown of CNN was interviewing Peter Schiff, author of “The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets: How to Keep Your Portfolio Up When the Market is Down”, about the auto industry bailout.  He railed against their “union contracts” and then said, “And what we don’t want is the government determining what type of automobiles GM should be manufacturing, because if we think they’re losing money now, wait until we see how much more money they would lose when the government is running them.”  This is classic conservative thinking.  Anything government does is bad.  I guess that would include setting tough mileage standards that might have made them competitive today.  By the way when you look at their labor contracts, they have already been renegotiated and they are the type of contracts (sans healthcare that our government ought to provide like every other industrialized nation does) that would reinforce and create a strong middle class.
• In the same vein have you noticed that all the economic talking heads that up until the crash, didn’t predict the crash, are all experts on what we should be doing with our money and how we will get out of this mess?  It really is frightening when the spouters of the conventional wisdom that never saw this mess coming are the “experts”.  To get out of this mess we are going to have to spend our way out and recreate a strong and growing middle class.  Conservative economic theory is only about how we facilitate the rich to get richer.
• By the way for you investors out there, I meet a really interesting fellow in New York who was staying at the Mercer.  Actually he was living there so you get the drift on his economic status.  He had an investment firm he sold a few years ago as he said he saw this thing coming and was now producing a documentary film.  He said that the bottom of the market will be 7500 and at the time I took that with a grain of salt.  Well it almost got there Thursday.  He said when it stabilized out at 7500, buy.
• Nebraska finally amends their drop-off law to 30-day-old infants.  When people started dropping off their teenage kids, I remember the response of many about how these parents are scum.  Reality, however, is that many of these parents have children who are truly troubled and they can’t get help.  While legislators blovate about how there are plenty of services available and these parents were just failing to actively pursue these other avenues, several parents like Lavennia Coover, a kindergarten teacher who dropped off her 11-year old son, told a completely different story.  It is never quite as simple as we think, especially if we have never walked in their shoes (New York Times).
• There was a recent story in the New York Times about the waning power of Russia to meddle in South American affairs with the demise of the price of oil.  Isn’t it interesting that Iran, Venezuela, and Russia are all dependent upon the West’s economic well being for their own power?  Gives diplomacy a whole new lease on life.
• As the protests in Iraq continue over the Security Pact (New York Times), did you ever wonder what we are committing ourselves to?  The commonly reported story line is that we will be out by 2011, but I wonder what is in the small print?  Ever wonder why our press has not gone through it and found the little details that we might not like?  I have to wonder because we keep letting contracts to build stuff over there.
• Here is a shot at all those who are complaining that Barack is bringing back in old Clinton hands and those already in the mainstream of Washington.  First, except for Hillary herself, these people backed Obama not Hillary and that was risky in itself.  What does that tell you about these old Clinton people?  Second as David Brooks pointed out in his column on Friday, “The Insiders Crusade”, these people are not ideologues, but pragmatic experienced politicos.  That my friends, has been why the conservatives have failed.  They were ideologues who could not provide a flexible response to changing conditions.  From my first item above, the guy just can’t get off the idea that the government is the problem.  Sometimes it is, and sometimes it is the solution.  Show him the door.  Treasury Secretary Paulson threw money at the banks assuming they would do the right thing and that would fix the economy.  Well they did do the right thing…for themselves.  But self-interest is not necessary the best thing for all of us.  We need people who will try new things, and move on if they don’t work.  We need people who will try bold approaches unhindered by ideology.  Hopefully that is what we are getting.  So those of you who are despondent that he didn’t bring in a whole new set of liberal attack dogs, chill out.
• Gas prices are going down and everyone is rejoicing.  Well think about this:  If you believe the market place works, we need to put (not my idea, but Tom Friedman’s) a $1 surcharge on gas so that the price never again dips below $4/gallon.  We use the income for alternate energy research and infrastructure improvements that move us away from oil.  Keep reminding your self that Europe pays almost twice what we do and is why they have such a wonderful mass transit system.  If we don’t, we will fall back into old habits.  Already the use of mass transit has started to fall here at home.
• One last thought:  This week the pundits have been ringing their hands over Obama’s pick of Hillary as the Secretary of State and who will be in charge, will their be a clash of approaches, what will Bill be doing.  Forget it.  Just trust in his judgment.  That is why we elected him.  This is cocktail fodder, not news.

The end of another week and I am in sunny San Diego enjoying the weather, the sun, and the ocean.  Could life be any better?  You have to take one day at a time.

Oh there have been so many interesting tidbits in the news lately that I hardly know where to start.  So I will start with Wednesday and work backward:

• The brutal attack in New York by four white boys out to “f*ckup some Mexicans” was admirably covered by Rick Sanchez on CNN.  Rick tried to play down the political implications while condemning the attacks, but CNN only has to look in their own back yard to see Lou Dobbs spinning this hate.  When Ted Turner confronted Lou on his treatment of Hispanics, Lou responded by denying any such behavior.  Fat white men are the last to get it.  And of course it is political as the attacks don’t come from the left, but from the Republican right.  The xenophobia and fear that was used by the Republican Party to stir up their base is coming home to roast.  It is a grand old party isn’t it?
• Sarah Palin was being interviewed by Wolf Biltzer on Wednesday and he asked her point blank if she regretted trying to tie Barack Obama to an American former weatherman and her inflammatory language.  Her answer went something like this.  “I am still very concerned with his relationship with this individual (there was no relationship) but lets put all that behind us.”  Anybody see this is contradictory?  “I am still concerned, let’s put it behind us?”  The woman cannot think and talk in logical sentences.  Then there is the problem of checking peoples causal associations.  I am sure McCarthyism doesn’t even ring a bell with this ding dong.   I think the more exposure she gets and people see how she twist reality, the less most will accept her in mainstream politics.
• The Republicans are having a meeting of their Governors in Florida to see a way forward.  This is billed as a war between the pragmatists and the social conservatives.  The pragmatists see that the party has to modernize and move away from issues that are no longer registering with younger voters and most of the country.  They also recognize that the small government, no regulation approach is not keeping up with the times.  The social conservatives think we simply haven’t had enough of this stuff.  What I found interesting was that they wanted to learn from Barack Obama’s campaign and modernize, meaning learn how to use technology to get their message out.  But nowhere in this entire discussion did they discuss the elephant in the room:  The message is faulty.
• The New York Times on Tuesday ran a story about the wanning impact of the South in our elections (For South, A Waning Hold on National Elections).  I cannot think of a more welcome circumstance.  This part of the country is the center for the Republican base made up of poorly educated white people, evangelical Christians (mostly poorly educated white people), and the center of overt racism in this country.  This deep South voted more Republican than they did in 2004 and went almost 60% for John McCain.  Could you be more out of touch?  As the New York Times put it, “By leaving the mainstream so decisively, the Deep South and Appalachia will no longer be able to dictate that winning Democrats have Southern accents or adhere to conservative policies on issues like welfare and tax policy, experts say.”  Thank god because they have almost destroyed our country.  Here is one of the milder comments from one of the fine citizens down there, “I think any time you have someone elected president of the United States with a Muslim name, whether they are white or black, there are some very unsettling things.”  It will be nice to know that the most ignorant part of our country no longer decides who we have for President.
• And last but not least relating to our economic woes were two stories the were highly interesting and show once again we can’t let go of that old conventional wisdom that the market place knows better than government.  Right now it clearly doesn’t and Detroit wants a major bailout from the government.  Actually this is bailout number two in the current crisis.  Tom Friedman put it best in his op-ed on Wednesday (How to Fix a Flat) when he said that there needs to be strings.  These companies have made bad choice after bad choice, fought raising standards on gas mileage standards, while our Japanese friends are making money.  We have say to that it’s our money and if you want to be saved, here are the conditions.  We are now part owner.  Will the Demos finally see this and put real teeth into a bailout that gives us some say about how our money is used?  I will wait to see, but you know President Moron won’t go for it.  Sixty eight days and counting
• The other economic story is after two months Treasury Secretary Paulson is finally figuring out it is about mortgage foreclosures.  So he says he is going to shift some of that $700 billion from buying mortgages to free up credit for Americans, or some form thereof.  Once again it is wrong headed an too mild to help.  It is about the mortgage crisis, but at almost every step, we have cushioned the blow to  banks and investors from the losses they have help perpetuate.  The fear is that investors, if banks renegotiate loan terms, will sue for loss of their earnings (Lawmakers Debate Loan Modification). There are complicated arguments here about who owns the loans, but my feeling is that government needs to step in a major way and make sure the pain of these devaluating home values is felt by the investors also.  How that is done is still up in the air, but it has to be done.  Once again, against conventional wisdom, in the short term the government is going to have to stop this hemorrhaging and it will not be by assuming these loans at their original value and thus preserving the banks and their investors.  Welcome to the pain felt on Main Street guys.

There was one other story, I think on Sunday, about how the carefully choreographed Republican campaign of xenophobia and hate (remember the shots of “kill him” at their rallies as they spewed disinformation or outright lies) will in fact increase the violence (see item 1 above) and intolerance among our less educated and already intolerant population.  But I will leave that to another day.  Anybody who is still a proud Republican needs to have a brain transplant.

Now that we are past the election, the kibitzing has began.  Just when we thought we could focus on policy issues, the noise around the edges is drowning it out.  So here are the bits and pieces of what is being aimed at us:

• Barack Obama appoints Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff and John Boehner is shocked, shocked, shocked. The House Republican leader from Ohio was less than kind. He called Emanuel’s appointment an “ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center.”  John’s idea of the center is a little left of the far right. What is entertaining about this is that any time the Democrats have played nice with the Republicans, the Republicans have stabbed the Democrats in the back.  Here is a flash bulletin John:  It has been playing this game your way that has gotten us into the mess we are in.  Sit down and shut up.  We will let you know when we care about what you think.
• On the same topic, Rachel Maddow is concerned that these are all Clinton people and how is this going to be new politics.  On this one Rachel is showing her naivativity.  Even if the Democrats want to play nice, does she really think the Republicans, most of which are right of Attila the Hun, will play nice?  What Barrack did was show them that he wants to move in a new direction, but he has no illusions about Republican cooperation.  If it takes hardball to turn this ship around, he has the right people to do it.
• Some of us down here in the south forty-eight are having a hard time understanding how Ted Stevens, a convicted felon, can get re-elected.  Actually it is quite simple.  Pundits like to say Ted is a much loved Senator in Alaska.  The reality is Ted has been bringing home the bacon in terms of federal pork in a major way for many years.  Isn’t it interesting that these small government, cut the waste, no taxes Republicans want to cut everybody else’s pork, but theirs is sacrosanct?
• Apparently at John McCain’s concession speech, Sahara had a speech all ready to go, but cooler heads prevailed and prevented her from stealing the lime light.  I would of loved to have heard that speech.  After John McCain’s gracious speech conceding the election, we would have had a red meat, divide and conquer speech that the base would have eaten up.  Well for once they cut her off and it was America first.  Thanks John.
• Even more entertaining is that the conservative brain trust has headed out to the hills in Virginia to regroup and decide the new direction of the conservative movement.  If you read my blog yesterday you know that in my mind, their basic philosophy has been shown to be bankrupt.  They have been successful by selling this snake oil to the rural, less educated, the religious right, and of course the wealthy who were the only ones who benefited from this nonsense.  So are they going to decide that the Palin red meat to the base thing, anti-thinking approach is what they need more of?  Will it be rallying around the fundamental Christians so they can ignore them after they get in power?  Or could they rethink their whole philosophy?  Oh that would be way too hard. Maybe they can come up with a strategy to block anything the Democrats try to do and then blame the Democrats for not moving the country forward.  Oh, I forgot.  That is what they have been doing.
• I was truly touched by those crying in the crowd in Chicago as Barack Obama won the Presidency, even Jessie Jackson.  Jessie Jackson has been a fixture in the black movement longer than I can remember and this must have been an emotional moment.  But I couldn’t help thinking, was he crying because it wasn’t him up there on the stage?  I know that is mean, but over the years Jessie has been somewhat of a black/minority ambulance chaser, so I am never sure what is genuine and what is for the cameras.
• George Bush, to his credit, instructed his staff to fully support the transition, with no stupid stunts like what the Clinton staffers did when they moved in.  I would admire him for that but the one thing that is consistent about George Bush is that what he says has little to do with what he does.  In the meantime his boys are rewriting regulations to make life so much simpler for business.  You know, little things like allowing coal companies to rape the environment with little or no regulation.  Did I mention the opening of extremely sensitive Utah land to drilling?  Drill Baby, Drill.  Apparently the failure of regulation in the banking community has no transference to the lack of regulation in degrading the environment.  You got to hand it to them, they are consistent.

So another week and those that are still in power never fail to entertain.  If we weren’t facing real trouble all this might be really funny.

The Republicans are grabbing at straws.  Of course the pundits keep asking them amazingly stupid questions which fail to recognize what is going on here.  What I think we are witnessing is not some election where the voters are mad at the Republicans and just want somebody else.  What we are witnessing is a rejection of Reaganism and the last 30 years of conservative philosophy.  It just hasn’t worked and we are in a mess.  The mess is not because the Republicans were not true to their principals, but because they were true to them and most people are getting it.

These pundits keep focusing on basically flawed questions like why couldn’t the McCain campaign focus on one message that would resonate with the voters.  The answer is clear:  They don’t have one.  The one that does resonate is the one that rejects their message.  It is not about some crystallization of a conservative approach to our future.  They have failed.  Conservatism has run its course.  That is why the Republicans have focused on trying to defame Barack’s character as an American hating, socialist, who has ties to terrorists.  It’s a lie, but it is all they have.  The voters have already rejected their position on issues so what else could you run on except character and character smears?

I watched Duncan Hunter, a very conservative Republican from California explain to some media person that if only John McCain had focused on international threats he would be leading now.  Then we got the litany of how we are winning in Iraq to which the media person asked how we are winning if we are still stuck there and spending $10 billion a month.  That is how out of touch these people are.  Most Americans just want out so we can focus on the great problems we are facing at home and the Republican approach is we will bring victory, whatever that means.  Its good flag waving fodder for their base, but for those who think deeply about our future, we have done what we can do and it is time to disengage.  In the language of cost benefit ratios, we can gain a greater benefit in our national security by investing our money and people elsewhere.  Slogans are not working any more and thoughtful nuanced policy is not Republican forte.

On NPR’s Talk of the Nation, I listened as Neil Conan’s guest made the argument that you should elect John McCain in order to provide a balanced government and that the American people are afraid of one party being in control.  Once again both Neil and his guest totally misunderstood this election.  It is not just that the voters are mad at the Republicans, and so are looking for a balance.  It is that they have decided they want to jettison the Republican orthodoxy and they want to try something new.  They don’t want baby steps that long fights and compromises will bring, where Republicans will fight reform every step of the way.  They want to step off smartly in a new direction.  They are going to deliver the government to the Democrats and give them a chance and the Democrats will have two years to show what they can do.  For those who are afraid of single party control, note that the Democrats who might win election in these swing states are not what one would call left wing Democrats.  They are very practical politicians who are just not wedded to a conservative ideology.

But the Republicans are beginning to understand the wave of change that is bearing down on them and they are terrified.  Their arguments and their fear mongering is gaining no traction except among their pathetic base and they don’t know what to do.  Watch their spinners try to explain what is going on.  The body language and the fear in their eyes belies their smiles.  Their stretches of reality are getting longer and longer.  “This election would have been impossible to win anyway because of George Bush’s unfavorable ratings” as though this is just about George Bush.  It is not.  It is about conservatism and George was a good conservative.  McCain’s real problem is the basic thesis and message of the Obama campaign:  He had nothing to offer except more conservative ideology only maybe applied with more expertise and people are rejecting it.

Conservatives are going to tell you that this was about the mountains of money that Barack Obama had.  Some of that is true, but in the past Republicans have had tons of money, mostly from their lobbyists.  Barack’s average campaign contribution was $75 and it came from all over the country from people like me who are voting with their wallet.  Some will tell you that if the economy had not gone south when it did, McCain and the republicans would have won.  Once again that ignores the unfavorable ratings before the economy crashed.  Most people understood that the Republican party is about the status quo and protecting the wealthy.  The dramatic turn on Wall Street simply underscored the bankruptcy of their ideas.

So the desperation you see in the Republicans is not just about losing an election.  It is much more basic to them than that.  It is about losing power and control.  It is about having everything they believe in rejected.  They are terrified because without their conservative religion they are rudderless.  They will be the last to finally open their eyes and see that what they have wrought is just the manifestation of what they believe.  It is emotionally wrenching to find out your god is a false god.  Some will never let go.

No, I don’t think this election is just about being tired of George Bush or corrupt politicians of which the Republicans have had the majority of lately. Ted Stevens come to mind?  His arrogance is symptomatic of the Republican’s problems.  But that is business as usual in the world of politics.  Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. What this election is about is turning a page and moving away from conservative ideology that has held us back from taking any real steps toward changing the direction of this country.

But don’t be afraid.  Liberalism, as the Republicans define it, which is taking your money through taxes and then wasting it is not what is about to happen.  Note the Republicans didn’t bother to take your money, they just wasted it while running up your credit card so someone else would have to take it from your children later to pay the bill.  The new liberalism, which I call progressivism, will be one that sees government as part of the solution, and an effective and efficient partner in our way forward.  It will be one that respects market place solutions, but that also tries new things and is not afraid to do what works, regardless of ideology.  It will be a government that works for all the people, not just the rich with the hope that there will trickle down.  It will be a government that believes if we can empower and enrich our working classes, there will be trickle up.  So in the words of that 90’s commercial, “Try it Mikey, you’ll like it.”  Note to Democrats:  You will have two years to make some progress in the monumental mess the Republicans have left us.  Be thoughtful and don’t screw this chance up.

This Sunday morning talk shows brought us some interesting interviews and once again an insight into our political choices and our press and their failings.  Here are some of the more poignant moments as I interpreted them:

• In Tom Brokaw’s interview with Colin Powell on Meet the Press, Powell indicated basically everything that is wrong with the Republican Party: that he is concerned about more conservative judge picks; That the Republican party had moved too far to the right; the poor judgment shown in the Sarah Palin pick;  the corrosive and divisive campaign that John McCain is running; and the need for real change as his reason for endorsing Barack Obama.  Most importantly he identified what most of us consider the root problem, that John McCain will continue the failed policies of the Republicans without any real change.  Did Brokaw follow up on any of this?  No he asked about William Ayers again, which Powell dismissed and wondered when the press is going to focus on the real issues and not the head fake called William Ayers.  By the way for another well thought out endorsement of Obama, read Fareed Zakaria’s endorsement in the Newsweek or read the transcript of his endorsement on GPS.
• In the same Meet the Press program when we had a forum of pundits, they all pined for the old John McCain and wondered which would show up for the last two weeks.  Instead of focusing on the real problems that Colin Powell had identified in the Republican Party, they longed for the good old guy they think they use to know.  What I can’t ever figure out is why pundits cannot distinguish between charm and substance.  John McCain is not what he says, but what he does.  And what he is doing tells you all you need to know about his character and who he is.  At least Collin Powell could see this reality.
• David Brooks has written an editorial recently that opined that John McCain just needs to establish a vision for the country and a plan to get there, that his policies were scatter shot and did not represent a cohesive whole in support of this vision.  It is the failure of pundits and intellectuals like David Brooks to understand that there is not a Republican vision other than low taxes, cuts in spending, and let the market place make us great.  Any other vision would mean that government “that is the problem” must be the solution.  This is not Republican ideology.  To do this would bring the whole Reagan legacy into question.
• On CNN’s Reliable Sources Lara Logan was interviewed about her trip to Afghanistan and her reporting on the war there that will be featured on 60 Minutes Sunday evening.  The discussion focused around how these stories of the war have lost airtime even though the war there is intensifying.  It occurred to me that there is a symbiosis between those reporting on the war and the war itself.  If you are reporting stories about how brave our forces are and the tough fight they are fighting there, do you buy into the story line that this makes a difference and your reporting is also critical?  Maybe the way forward in Afghanistan is not an escalating and continued military campaign.  In other words do reporters who are reporting on these wars have too much invested in them and thus we don’t get a realistic picture of a way forward?
• Also on Reliable Sources was an interview with fired National Review editorial writer and son of William Buckley, Christopher Buckley, after he endorsed Barack Obama.  What Mr. Buckley raised in this interview and that has been quite obvious to those of us on the outside, is that conservatives do not allow dissent.  Instead of a lively debate among conservatives on where the Republican Party has gone wrong, what we get is enforcement of ideology.  It is a glaring example of the “religious” tenor of conservatives today in that they are no longer willing to engage in rational examinations of their philosophy, only strict enforcement for failure to adhere to the party line.  One of the real complaints about fundamental Islam is that it does not brook any discussion of the “revealed word” and as such is frozen in time.  The same could be said for these conservatives.
• Her Majesty the Queen Rania of Jordan was on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS and she spoke eloquently to promote the voices of moderation in the Muslim world.  She stated that she did not believe that Islam in and of itself subjugates women, but certain people choose to interpret Islam in a way that does hold women back.  Although admirable, the trouble with this line of reasoning is that it doesn’t get to the root problem of the “revealed word”.  If each of us can interpret it as we see fit, who is to say whom is correct?  It is the whole problem of faith versus rationalism.  For my money, religion should be seen as a philosophy of life that is susceptible to rational evaluation and change.  But that is counter to very definition of religious belief.  Good luck Queen Rania.
• Finally there is the claim by John McCain in his campaign speech on Saturday (it is the fear card again) that Barack Obama is a socialist.  It is the old class warfare of the rich versus everyone else.  It was evident in the debate when McCain said, “this is no time to be spreading around the wealth.”  This is part and parcel of Republican mythology that protecting and growing the rich will mean more enterprise and raise up everyone, except it hasn’t worked in this global economy.  What the Republicans can’t seem to incorporate into their ideology is that a vibrant and growing middle class is critical to a vibrant and growing economy. Actually that is not quite true.  They believe that, but they can’t let go of the dogma that making the rich richer benefits everyone.  Numbers don’t lie and under the conservative economic policies, our middle class is shrinking and the poor are growing.  So what John McCain labels socialism is really looking at new ways to grow this middle class again for a vibrant economy.  It’s too bad that the “maverick” can’t see reality because he is blinded by his conservative glasses.

So there is a lot out there to tell you that there is only one real path for change.  It is amazing that with differences so stark, and the history of failure of the Republican policies, this election stays close.  But I heard an interview with an undecided voter that struck terror in my heart.  He basically came away from the debates feeling that he likes John McCain more because he related to him.  It’s a beauty contest and they have thrown rational thinking out the door if they ever had any.  I would say to that voter,” Judge not what he says, judge what he does”, and what he is doing is proposing old solutions to new problems and using the campaign strategy of intolerance and fear to gain their votes.  He is no maverick.  That is just wishful thinking.

Sometimes when we are focused on other things, there are stories that tell us a great deal about the current state of affairs and where we are headed.  Sometimes they are seemly irrelevant, but are windows into the heart of many issues.  Here are this weeks tidbits:

➢    The Justice Department’s Inspector General released a couple of reports confirming that for the last couple of years the Justice Department used a litmus test for religious and political beliefs to hire administrative judges in violation of federal law.  Note that the Attorney General felt there was nothing criminal here and a spokesperson for the Justice Department said, “The fact that the process was flawed does not mean that the immigration judges selected through that process are unfit to serve.”  Oh really?  When immigrants applied for asylum, these judges disproportionately rejected these claims.  Let’s see, judges appointed illegally are caring out an immigration policy that raises question about the legality of the whole system.  No, there is no problem here Attorney General Mulcasey.  So these people were hired illegally, others were denied jobs because of their political or eligious affiliation, and looking at the disproportionality or asylum decisions, 157 immigrants who would have been granted asylum were sent home.  No, you are absolutely right, correcting these injustices would open up too many wounds, especially on your Republican brethren.

➢    In the little town of Derby Line, Vermont, they used to mark off the border between Canada and the United States with a painted line on the pavement. Now they have border police trying to watch every crossing and soon there will be a fence.  I wonder if Oklahoma considered a fence on their border to keep Timothy McVey out?  Is this getting stupid or what?  It really is a case of barbarians at the gate

➢    The Pentagon’s intelligence agencies are relying more on polygraph tests and contractors to screen its 5700 prospective and current employees each year.  Maybe there is a role here for Blackwater.  How do you fight a polygraph interpretation?  I would never get hired because they would find out about that stapler I took home in 1982 and forgot to return.

➢    The US continues to show how effective air power is as we employ it against the Taliban in Afghanistan.  In one air strike against the enemy we got 95 of…. well, that’s the question.  The Afghans tells us we got over 50 children.  Collateral damage is a bitch isn’t it?  Is this a great way to fight a war or what? I am sure the Afghans are lining up behind us in droves now

➢    Remember the ugly American.  Well we are losing our lead as Brits and Germans surpass us as our economic and world leadership decline.  In Malia, Greece, as the mayor describes them, “They scream, they sing they fall, down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit.”  In San Francisco, German politicos came on a junket and instead of meeting with their counterparts, shopped, played, drank, and in one case, broke an angle and told the local German Consul, to get them a wheel chair and a n*&^r to push them around.  What is this world coming to when we can’t even be the ugliest tourists anymore?

➢     Al-Qaida (You are right, I spell it different every time I write it, but have no idea which is right) has not focused on expensive terrorist attacks which might mean that our focus on cutting off their funding didn’t stop any attacks.  It appears that most were raising plenty of cash for their activities through common criminal rackets such as drug dealing and credit card theft.  Maybe this whole this is really mostly a police action after all.

➢    In Georgia thousands took to the street in Poti, Georgia to tell the Russians to get out.  It is a new day and the Russians may find that their strongarm tactics may backfire just as the South’s attempt to deny integration marchers back in the 60’s did.  The whole world can see what and who they are as we saw who the segregationists were.  They may find that their tactics will backfire big time in the future.

➢    For those of you that think the war is won in Iraq, out of 151,000 families that had fled their houses in Baghdad, just 7112 had return by mid July according to the Iraqi Ministry of Migration.  If things are so peachy there I wonder why that is?  The sectarian war gets closer and closer.  Tick, tick, tick.

➢    Meanwhile back at the ranch, the citizens of New Orleans are expressing great confidence in the Army Corps of Engineers new flood walls by rebuilding in flood prone areas while experts point out that the protection is less than what they had before Katrina.  It says all you need to know about what short memories we have and how repeating our stupid errors is a habit of choice.

So just a little insight into how well things are going and how little we really understand cause and effect.  That is the only way I make sense out of people who want to continue the Bush legacy with John McMean.