On the Contrary

Last night watching the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner I think I hurt myself laughing so hard.  President Obama of course was spot on, but comedian Wanda Sykes just took it to another level and made my sides hurt.  My favorite was, “I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was just strung out on OxyContin and missed his flight.”

What I found most informative about our out of touch news pundits was that there was Pat Buchanan and Sherry Babitch on MSNBC giving us “insightful insight”.  I am not sure we need commentary for humor, but what do I know.  Then they commented that while they thought President Obama was quite entertaining, they thought Wanda was over the top.  Here are two older white Americans who obviously don’t spend much time on YouTube. Young Americans have less tolerance of hypocrisy than the older white generation and love to call it out and laugh at it.  Don’t these people know what Stephen Colbert and John Stewart have wrought?  It reminded me of my younger days flying combat in Viet Nam.  We would always speak  truth to power because what were they going to do with us as we had very little to lose.  It is so refreshing that we can now say what all of us are thinking.  Thank you Wanda.  My guess is that you are going to be famous in web video land.

With Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party, one has to wonder what is going on.  Well for one thing with the Republican Party only representing 21% of the population and shrinking, the math for the primary in Pennsylvania was fairly straightforward.  He could not win the primary against a hard-line conservative, but could probably win the general election.  So from this calculation, it was the only choice for a chance to survive.  But this raises all kinds of issues.

First is how Pennsylvania would see this.  From the Democratic point of view, they had a good chance to run a more liberal Democrat to win against a hard-line conservative.  This scenario presented the Democrats with someone more supportive of their agenda. Whoever was going to run for that seat from the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania must feel like he just got his legs cut out from under him.  Is Senator Specter moderate enough to be elected?  I don’t know and this is the chance the Democrats are taking.

The press is making a big deal about getting the 60th vote in the Senate to be filibuster proof, but it is a foolish claim.  Senator Specter will vote as he always does, and that is independently.  Additionally, the Democratic Party has a large spectrum of political beliefs from liberal to conservative.  They usually don’t vote in a block.  It may help, but probably not when it really counts.

Here is the really sad thing.  There is no room for moderate Republicans in the Republican Party.  They have moved to a party of litmus tests for the radical right.  On the other hand, the Democratic Party is really a party of three camps.  You have the very liberal side, which is how the Republicans paint everyone in the Democratic Party and is actually a small minority of it; then you have the moderates who are really progressives, which is the majority of the party; and then you have the conservative Democrats who really can not be distinguished from moderate Republicans a few years ago.  No there aren’t any socialists in there.  The Republican Party is being made irrelevant by their hard-line dogma, which they refuse to examine.  More about that in a moment.

The final issue that is raised by Senator Specter’s defection is what does this say about primary elections?  If the primaries are really a function of the hard left and the hard right, the nation is not getting choices that represent their views.  If hard-line Democrats or hard-line Republicans control the primaries, the choices we all get at election time are no choice at all.  In this environment where the Republican Party is a small and radicalized party, it may be time to rethink open primaries.  California is moving in that direction at the behest of the Republicans here because they feel disenfranchised in a Democrat controlled State legislature.  But they may rue their plan when they find out that the independents will vote most of their radical brethren out of office and instead move much more to the center.  In my small mind I would like to see an open primary and top two run off for the office in November even if it turns out they are both from the same party..

Finally, what do the Republicans have to do to stem what is going to be an ongoing desertion of their party members?  First they have to understand, as well as the press, that the middle is in the Democratic Party and the Republicans are a right fringe party.  If Arlen Specter is center right and he has moved to the Democratic Party, just where do you think the center is?

I listened to Michelle Bernard, a conservative political analyst on MSNBC, tell us that the Republicans need to find their soul: “That doesn’t mean Republicans should give up their belief in limited government or free markets. I don’t think that’s the case at all. But the Republican Party needs to find a way to reach out to many, many people, not just the religious right.” The problem with that prescription is that in order to reach out to more people, their basic belief in limited government and the free market needs major modifications and just dropping the right wing and the religious nuts isn’t going to solve that because it just makes them smaller without solving the root problem.  Limited government and what they mean by free markets is no longer selling in the market place.

First, right now we are having two immediate crises, economic and medical (swine flu).  In both cases the people expect our government to be there to resolve these crises.  How does that fit into limited government?   Republicans want to starve so it will never have the resources to help anyone.  Remember Katrina?  If this argument is going to have any credibility at all in the future, then the Republicans have to stop their knee jerk reaction to government programs and understand that government is part of the solution.  Then looking at what is appropriate to government and what is appropriate to the private sector might have a little more credence.  The swine flu epidemic is a case in point.  They cut funds for the CDC and preparation for just such a disaster.  Now they see a need, but their present ideology doesn’t allow for government planning and funding of the results of that planning.  By hating all things government except the military, thinking the private sector will provide all the solutions, the are emasculating the very solutions people are crying out for and we have found we need to address many of our complex problems that face us in our future.

On the free market thing, who ever said Democrats were against the free market?  What this is code for is little or no regulation or interference in business.  Think about the economic crisis we are in and then consider why no regulation is such a jim dandy idea.  It is out of touch with the reality of what is happening around us and our changing world.  A moderate approach, which may I add many Democrats are proposing, is smart regulations.  If Republicans could get off their “No” soapbox and say that the free market needs some fixing and requires more regulations to make our economy more stable, then we can have an honest debate on what those controls should be.    But they still hold to climate change isn’t happening, regulation of the environment is unnecessary, anything that impacts business is bad, and government is bad at everything.  These beliefs make them irrelevant in today’s world.  And it is forcing moderates to move to the Democratic Party where dissent and real debate are still allowed and real solutions to our problems can be proposed.

So what have is real diversity of both race and ideas in the Democratic party on all issues from health care to stimulus.  The Republicans have become the party of the white southern bigot.  The Republican Party has made themselves irrelevant by their hard-line, no compromise positions and until they change their own ideology to reflect a changing world, they are irrelevant.  The only way they are going to appeal to a wider electorate is take this radical step to reinvent themselves.  I don’t think they can do it because it requires tolerance and they don’t have any.  It’s like giving up religion for them and they are Republican bible thumpers.  Without their dogmatic beliefs, their world would crumble.  Suprise!  It is crumbling.

There were three stories over the weekend that strained my logical mind. A couple of them reminded me again of how many Americans expect so much and want to invest so little to get it.  The last one reminded me how illogical and child-like we are about God.  To wit:

There was a back page story in the New York Times (or maybe the Washington Post) about how the banks are going to fight President Obama’s plan to move the program for educational loans to students directly to the government.  Banks have been administering this program which provides loans to students and earning exorbitant fees while 97% of their investment is insured by the federal government (read getting paid for taking no risk).  It has been very profitable for banks at taxpayer’s expense.

The Obama administration figured out that instead of paying these fees to the banks, they could use the money to expand the pool of student loan money.  Let the howling begin.  Banks are hiring big time lobbyists to tank this idea because, they claim this program would put people out of work and of course kill the goose who is presently laying one of their few golden eggs.  These are probably the same people who decry welfare to the poor and don’t see this program as their own corporate welfare.  Okay, so some people will lose their jobs if this program is killed, but how many more kids will get a chance for a future?  Isn’t it amazing how self-interest can affect our perception of a situation?

Then there is the GOP’s Tea Party scheduled for Wednesday.  Now this is one they did not think through.  They are protesting the hike in taxes proposed by the Obama administration to pay for our deficit.  They are likening themselves to the Boston Tea Party and the revolt against the tea tax.  But there is a little problem with this analogy.  Americans in British-controlled America had no representation in the British Government.  Their mantra was no taxation without representation.  But these present day protestors do have representation, and it would appear that they just don’t like the outcome of the democratic process.

What is even more interesting about this “protest” is that the majority of these folks just want little or no government.  They actually believe that we would be better off if government only built roads and provided for the common defense, but all that other stuff like schools, energy policy, regulation of drugs, environmental policy, etc. ect., well we would just be better off without them.  These folks are an amazing group who want a lot, but are unwilling, or unable to recognize that the advantages they have are paid for by others and they don’t want to contribute.  In their world, we are definitely not all in this together.  If government were to really go away as they imagined, they would find their supposed Nirvana of free choice a world of chaos and risk.  These folks are usually the first to cry for help from the government when bad things happen, but the last to want to pay for those services through taxes in good times.  See any of these guys turn down Medicare when they reach 65?

Finally on my list of top 10 illogical things is the thanking of God for the rescue of the captain of the freighter hijacked by the pirates off the coast of Somalia and the survivors of the Italian earthquake doing the same for their survival.  Here is the part I never get.  If God is all-powerful, shouldn’t we also hold him accountable for the hijacking in the first place?  Shouldn’t the French tourist who was killed in another attempted pirating rescue be part of his plan?  What about all those kids who died in the earthquake in Italy?  How can you have it both ways?  He is a wonderful and merciful being because he decided that I should survived and we will just ignore the collateral damage while I was getting saved because I am special and he watches over me?

Just another typical day in the world where people send most of their time not examining reality and just believing what is convenient to their world view and sense of entitlement.  This does not bode well in a world where we need to make some major changes.

Rush Limbaugh said on Tuesday, “if he (Obama) fails, all of us are saved.”  The trick in this is the word all.  If all means fat white men who have run Wall Street into the ground and gotten rich on the Bush Tax cuts, then he is absolutely right.  If he is talking about the other 98% of us, then he has got it all wrong.  I listened to another white Republican Congressman (are there any other kind?) explain how what President Obama is proposing will ruin our country by destroying innovation as government takes over running everything.

Not withstanding that any government takeover simply brings in new management and financial backing, until the assets can be re-privatized, just what great innovations is the Congressman talking about?  Would that be the innovation of our domestic automobile companies whose cars are now not wanted by anyone?  Would that be the same CEO’s who don’t believe in global warming and therefore have no energy efficient cars?  Would that be those wonders of innovation that came up with selling debt as a way to run our country into the ground?  Would that be the leaders of Wall Street, those pinnacles of business acumen, that didn’t see the expanded leveraging and investment in CDOs as very risky enterprises?  The only company I have seen truly being innovative lately is Apple and nobody is suggesting we take them over.  Or would that be those wonderfully innovative Republicans whose answer to $4/gal gas is drill baby, drill?

Let’s face it, we have had unfettered business enterprise for at least the last eight years and it has been an unmitigated disaster.  So this little problem with the economy is a bump in the road and we need to get on with business as usual?  What is wrong with these guys?  Global warming doesn’t exist (see George Will who is supposed to be an intellectual but apparently does not understand science and cherry picks his facts to suit his beliefs) while the world watches the poles melt?  Tax cuts to business will spur the economy when everyone is being laid off and no one is buying?  Better yet tax cuts and caps on spending will help the deficit?

Here is the bottom line:  Republicans do not have a clue on how to lead.  Their whole ideology is that the market place will work its magic and we just need to keep government from interfering with its invisible hand. It’s about a free ride where all you have to do is cut taxes for the rich and everything will be fine.  Oh, and I forgot, we need to project our power by the use of military force.  My how all of that has worked out so well.  So when the market place is not working, the invisible hand may be in the invisible pants playing with itself, and military force in the role of diplomacy has proved to be a bottomless morass, they are out of ideas other than to just how do we get back to the good old days when we were getting rich and the rest of nation was sliding slowing into oblivion.

So when these guys spout their tried and failed policies, try to seed fear, and hope you don’t ask questions, ask how will they will fund, or help fund our children’s education.  Ask them how they will fund the needed investment in our infrastructure.  Ask them what they are willing to invest in alternate energy research.  Ask them if they still believe global warming is a mirage and what is wrong with having those who pollute (like coal burners) pay for the damage they cause.  Ask them why if unfettered industry is so innovative why have we done nothing about energy independence or why our automobile industry is on its last legs.  Ask why, if our bankers are so smart and proposed regulations are a power grab by the government, who should regulate these bozos.  Ask them how more private insurers competing with each other is going to help the millions who are losing their insurance or reduce the costs of business who have in the past, been burdened with these costs.  What part of denying claims and cherry picking enrollees will help all of us get health care?

My point is quite simple.  The Republicans cannot come up with a good idea because they can’t shed their failed ideas.  Until they finally come into the 21st century and recognize that their approach has failed and quit trying to fit failed solutions to new conditions, they look like fools.  Maybe they always have been fools, but rich, well paid fools who made fools of us.  Shame on us.

It is becoming clear now what the Republican strategy is for resurgence.  Did I mention the word fear?  It is quite apparent they want to derail any attempt to restart the economy and then claim the other side failed, obviously those policies don’t work, and then reinstitute the old order and preserve the status quo.  And deep in their hearts they know that they can’t afford to give progressive ideas a chance, because if they succeed, the Republican Party is dead.  At the most basic level, they are not interested in what works, only in upholding their ideology. Warren Buffet gave some straightforward criticism of the Obama administration when he pointed out that we were in a war for our economic lives and we need to be totally focused on winning this effort.  But then he had some advice for Republicans.  Get behind this President and help instead of hindering (he supports the stimulus package).

This is a war for our economic lives.  If it was 9/11 and Democrats had disagreed with President Bush’s rallying cry, they would have been (and some were) branded un-American.  Now that the tables are turned, they have no problem doing whatever they can to obstruct the President’s plan and calling themselves patriotic defenders of the true ideology. Now Republicans have rejected Rush Limbaugh’s wish that the President fail, weasel wording it to rejecting his policies and saying his policies are destined to fail.  It is the same thing.  They lost the election, people said they wanted a new direction, and instead they are doing everything possible to see that nothing does change.  Was it just a romantic ideal that we fight a good fight, but if we finally lose the argument, we get behind our leaders and try to make the thing work? But lets look at some of the Republican tactics and do some thinking about them.  Most of them involve some form of claims of socialism:

• The new budget is a radical departure from capitalism and redistributes wealth taking us into socialism – This is about taking the top tax rates of income earnings and returning them to the Clinton era rates when the economy was booming.  Oh those Clinton socialist days.  There actually has been a redistribution of wealth, but it has all been upward while the average person has lost ground in the economy.  So any change to this policy is socialism?  With more and more people fearful of the economic future, I don’t think this will sell since it was the rich who got us into this mess.  There is also the issue of raising the capital gains tax from 15% back up to where you and I pay taxes on our income.  This only seems fair to me, but Republicans will argue that they need this lower rate to incentivize investments in the stock market.  Since most of this investment went into the financial industry, we might have been better not to have incentivized this.  By-the-by they are also shocked, shocked, shocked that Obama is simply letting the tax cuts on the wealthy expire even though their fearless leader (Bush) recommended this when he sign the tax cuts in the first place.  It would appear that their ethics are situational.
• We are becoming more and more like socialist France – Be afraid of the French.  They have universal health care and eat sissy food.  Really what they are raising here again is a nebulous fear of socialism in the guise of health care reform.  What they are really saying is I am bought and paid for (so are a lot of Democrats) by the health care industry and I will be darned if I will learn anything from the way the rest of the modern world approaches this problem.
• Cap all federal spending, get the deficit under control, and cut taxes (Boehner and Cantor) – This one does not make any sense.  Not one economist will tell you to cap federal spending right now as this would march us right into the Great Depression.  The part I really like is that we can still reduce revenues to the treasury by cutting taxes (usually for the wealthy) and reduce the deficit.  See, less is more.  Note that all these Red state ideologues get more money from the federal government than they put in as taxes.  They have been on the dole for years.
• Earmarks are a disaster and Obama is just business as usual – First President Obama never promised to get rid of earmarks, just get them under control.  Misstating the other side is a great Republican tactic.  Second, the earmarks in this package are less than 3%, less than last year, and totally visible.  If you look at what is truly “pork spending” (See Are Earmarks Really So Evil) it is less than .5%.  Earmarks are a side issue and most are for spending that does create jobs.  Our economy is contracting at an ever increasing rate and these buffoons are focusing us on 3% of the budget?  It is a sideshow.
• Let the banks fail – Let’s see here, McCain and Shelby are against nationalizing the banks and then just letting them fail.  Did they forget that all banks are FDIC insured and that banks don’t just fail?  FDIC comes in, takes them over, hires private management, sells off pieces and then reconfigures them as smaller whole entities.  This is nationalization as we know it in this country you morons.  Don’t you even know how this actually works?  And these people are making decisions for our country?
• We are not being obstructionists, these are just honest differences of opinion – Sounds reasonable until you consider that these “honest differences of opinion” are really the minority trying to stop all action in the Senate because they can not accept the voters rejection of their policies.  There is nothing wrong with a debate on the pros and cons of an issue, but if the minority holds sway through the filibuster it is really tyranny of the minority.  So honest differences of opinion really do become obstructionism.

You know, in a perverse way I wish we could put them back in charge.  Although it would end our country as we know it, it would also end the Republican Party and we would finally be rid of this pestilence once and for all.  But alas, the cure would be worse than the disease.

What is on everybody’s mind, the Economy, was the focal point of discussion this Sunday morning, but the discussion was more political than policy based.  On Meet the Press we had Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer laying out familiar political positions.  Yawn.  The round table discussion was a little more interesting in that they included Liaquat Ahamed, the author of Lords of Finance, who raised the issued that back in the 1920’s the failure of a major European bank was really the beginning of the Great Depression.  He raised the issue of the collapse of the Eastern Europe Economies and the fact that while we are looking inward, this is a global crisis and focusing on saving us may not save us even if we do all the right things.

On GPS we had an eclectic group led by Niall Ferguson (Assent of Money) who was arguing that our expanding of the deficit to solve the slow down in our own country will actually exacerbate the problem as it robs capital from the rest of the world.  What they didn’t tell us was that if that is the case, what is the way forward.  David Frum was trying to make the point that this wasn’t the Republican’s fault.  I do think they made a very valid point that the real problem is global, but decisions on how to solve it, whether in China or America, is political and thus locally focused.  Meanwhile John McCain is railing against the earmarks in the budget (less than 3%) as though this is our problem.

Reliable Sources took on the real issue of whether the press and CNBC were trying to use instantaneous market fluctuations as unfair evaluations of the President’s policies.  The answers were sadly predictable based upon the pundit’s political persuasion.  The automaton from the Washington Times (conservative Washingtown voice) thought it was just fine, while the rest of the pundits thought we may need to step back and wait and see.  She (the Washington Times blogger) even tried to play down the Jon Stewart satire of CNBC’s financial predictions that went bust (See Two Pieces of Wisdom from Jon Stewart).  Sad that politics blinds us to our own failures in logic, myself excluded of course.

So what have learned?  Not much.  Apparently most Americans are looking for a quick fix in America for a global problem that will probably get much worse before it bottoms out.  What we really need is to understand just how serious the problem is, that the problem and the solution are global, and a general agreement on the way forward.  The political arguments we are having are the cart before the horse when we should first listen to dueling economists and historians so we understand the problem. What we are getting now is moderate steps in one direction, amid political arguments that we are all tired of.  When the Sunday shows start bringing in historians and economists, maybe then the political babble will end and we can have a rational discussion about the way forward.

For what it is worth here is my two bits:  Ignore the Republicans.  Doing what Herbert Hoover did in 1929 is not a way forward.  They are locked in their political ideology and their ideas, or lack thereof, are a result of mental constipation.  It is a global problem, but I am not sure that the U.S., even if we knew the correct solution, could bring the EU and China along.  The one example we have of getting out of this is the Keynesian solution, which is deficit spending.   When we did massive borrowing to run World War II, we did it all internally by borrowing from our own citizens.  The conventional wisdom is that we will be borrowing from the Chinese this time and they may redirect their money to their own problem, forcing us to raise interest rates to get the required cash.  Unless you haven’t noticed things are getting very bad in China and unrest is quite possible.

Having said that, we could always print money which causes inflation, which if things get bad enough, may not be such a bad idea since inflation forces people to buy things since they need to spend their money before it is devalued.  At any rate I think we need to proceed with the Obama solution which has three legs; stimulus, banks, and housing, only much more aggressively.  As Tom Friedman wrote in one of his columns when he described the scene in Jaws where one of the major characters (Richard Dryfus) sees the shark for the first time and tells the boat captain, “we need a bigger boat”.  Well, we need a bigger stimulus package.

The next stimulus package will be about the size of the last one, but forget the tax cuts and focus on investments that will create jobs that will be about the economy of the future.  That would be infrastructure, education, energy, and climate.  We need to get that in place right now and the only infrastructure spending would be either repairing what has to be repaired or new green transportation systems.  Continuing to build transportation systems that are petroleum centric is counterproductive.

For the banking system, ditherating is not an answer.  The fear of a domino effect must be overcome (or ameliorated) and we have to identify and remove the bad debts out of the system (along with the present management structure).  Investors, bondholders, and taxpayers must all share in this burden (read pain).  Whether this is some form of the bad bank/good bank scenario or nationalization, it must be done quickly.  One aside here:  One guest on GPS raised the issue of class anger in the United States.  We let the rich get richer because we believe the lie that we would all profit and they squandered everything.  It will be imperative that those who profited from our downfall are seen to pay dearly in fixing the system or there will be rioting in the streets.

Finally the same medicine is going to have to happen in the mortgage industry.  Decide on a reasonable interest rate for all loans, say 4%-5% and establish it.  Then re-evaluate the market worth today of the property and reset the principle balances.  Use a liberal value assuming some middle ground between the present principle balance and a realistic actual worth.  Those that can qualify for these new loans, then fine.  Those that can’t get foreclosed on.  Waiting for the marketplace to do this under foreclosures just extends our problems.  Note that this is almost a double-edged sword because once this is done, much of the banking problem settles at what those toxic assets are really worth and what the federal government should insure them for.  This not only settles the worth of the Collateral Debt Obligations (CDOs) but the Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) and allows us to estimate the real worth of these investments.

Okay, maybe these ideas are a little naïve considering the complexity of the problems, the interconnectiveness of our economies, and the impact of global problems, but why aren’t we having this discussion instead of endless discussion about what is politically possible instead of what needs to be done and making it politically possible?

As much as I see this as a global crisis, and although we need to stay engaged and try to work with the EU and China to solve the problems, the real place where our actions can make a difference is at home.  The critical issue is that this must be our focus and we need to get on with it, aggressively.  Any other delay or Republican obstructionism, and we are doomed. Note there is a bright side.  If we have a global depression, Iran won’t be able to afford nukes, North Korea will starve, and Al-Qaeda will be broke.  This says to me it is really time to start solving our own problems instead of saving Iraq and Afghanistan from themselves by emptying out our treasury.

This seems to be the Republican’s genuine belief these days.  That is, cut taxes, reduce spending and the size of government, reduce the deficit, and if they just stay true to these values, they will win the hearts and votes of the American people.  This is their same defense of the Bobby Jindal rebuttal speech.  They said the delivery was flawed but the substance (the message) was the right one.  I think they actually really believe this.  I think they are totally misreading America.

First and foremost I don’t think they understand the fear out there right now about the economy.  At a very basic level Americans know that what we have been doing won’t cut it any more.  With Republican leadership and conservative economic principles in play for the last eight years, they are watching the economy tank in a truly frightening way.  They know that our problems are gargantuan and they are looking to government to play a major role.  So much for the small government idea.  They have lived through eight years of tax cutting and although they like the low taxes, the deficit has ballooned and the economy has tanked.   They know that things are getting markedly worse in America.  So much for the tax cut solution to everything.

Reducing the deficit is important to everyone.  But right now it is a hierarchy of needs (remember Maslow?).   With a fear for their jobs primary in their minds, people would rather have the hope that Federal spending will save them right now, and the deficit is way down on priorities.  So much for the be afraid of the deficit tactic.

So I guess you could say there are two fatal flaws to this Republican thinking.  First, the ones in power said they have learned their lesson and will walk the straight and narrow.  These are the same guys that ran on “distrust Washington and elect us”.  I think that lesson was learned and nobody is seriously going to give the present class of Republicans another chance even if they believe in their approach.

The second fatal flaw is that a plan of tax cuts, small government (meaning little regulation), and spending cuts don’t address any of the problems we face.  People get this.  People know that we are headed in the wrong direction and even if Republicans were to shrink the size of government and cut spending, it does nothing to address health care reform, education costs, and crumbling infrastructure.

The Republicans have been unable to tell a convincing story about how this same old approach to our problems will do anything to address the problems we face today.  While they hang desperately on their basic economic beliefs, the economy crumbles around them.  Most people get it:  Our country’s direction and the growing disparity between the rich and the middle class and poor is a road to disaster.  The status quo, and that is what they are selling, is being rejected and offering it as your plan demonstrates the bankruptcy of your leadership.

People are also well aware that we live in a world economy and we need a strategic plan forward.  Most people understand that we can’t draw into a protectionist (mostly a Democratic problem) shell.  We are going to have to be competitive in the world market place.  Somehow, as we have continued to cut taxes over the last eight years and grew our deficit, leaving our competitiveness to the market place, we lost ground on being competitive.  The present crop of Republicans is pushing Studebakers in the world of Mustangs.  Okay, that dates me.  How about Hummers in a world of Prius?

Note that I said Republicans, not conservatives.  This weekend on CNN’s GPS we saw a whole other kind of conservative when Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (nice first name) showed what a thinking and evolving conservative looks like when he recognized that government spending is the only way out of this problem, and held up Canadian regulation of their banks and mortgage loans as an example of conservative thinking.  He is a very different conservative from what we have seen in our country. (See Sunday Funnies)

The one person who is not misreading the American public is President Obama.  He has charted a course in a whole new direction.  If I have any complaints, it is that he is not thinking big enough.  But he understands that we really do have to address our problems and as he says, can no longer afford to kick the can down the road.  Most Americans understand this and are willing to give him a chance, and bite the bullet where necessary.  We just have to make sure that our Republicans don’t muck up the works trying to hold on to the status quo.

If you peruse through the newspaper on this New Year’s morning you find conflict everywhere.  Most of it, as in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, is religion based.  Whether it is Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the Balkans, and let us not forget India and Pakistan, the root conflict revolves around religion.  For an atheist like myself, it makes it an easy logical leap to want to abandon all religion.  But the reality is that for most of us, religion is a critical part of our make-up.  Without it most would be lost in a world that makes no sense to them.  Maybe I need to define religion in another way, which is spirituality.  Even I feel the force (more of this analogy to Star Wars later), but I don’t define it in the usual terms of Christianity and their father figure mythology that is what I call my atheism. But finally someone has taken the subject on in a thoughtful and reasoned way.

The film, and I highly recommend it, is called “Beyond our Differences” and is an attempt to show how all the major religions are interconnected by some basic beliefs.  In my world the real issue is the underlying philosophy, not the father figure, or who was the true prophet.  This film tries to take on this tough issue and relate this underlying philosophy that they all have in common.  In one interview, the Dalai Lama said it best, “they all carry the message of love, compassion, forgiveness, and tolerance.”   He and others also focused on the message of the fundamental value of human beings common to all religions.

But given that message, the film also took on the evil that has been done in religion’s name.  As one religious leader put it, people don’t want to be compassionate, but right.  One of my favorite quotes was, “God gave humans the truth and the devil said, let’s organize it and call it religion.”  The films strength was that it attempted to tie us all in the human condition and relate different religions as different culture’s approaches to that condition.  Its weakness was that it also demonstrated how that faith is also religion’s biggest problems.

“I don’t think Christ was a Christian or Mohammad was a Muslim.  We take someone else’s experience and we create an ideology and dogma around it.  My God is Better than yours (Deepak Chopra).”  This elegantly captures what happens to a beautiful philosophy as it is captured by those engaged in a power struggle.  One particularly heartwarming story about an Afghan woman who overcame the Taliban’s attempt to debase and persecute all women, indicated the real problem with religion.  “I don’t believe God will allow that.  God won’t be happy until we are equal.  He protects me always.”  While her God is good and see’s the world her way, as long as there is a God, could he not also be interpreted as the Taliban interprets him?  If God is always right and just, then isn’t whatever is his word, defined by the latest prophet, good and just?  That is the ultimate problem for religion in that there is enough there, depending on who your prophet is or which “Great Book” you are reading from, to justify just about any behavior.  So we are back to pick and choose to suit your needs.

My thought in all this is that there really is an underlying moral philosophy that is universal and if we could live by it, the human potential would soar.  But by defining this philosophy and way of life as God given, it strips it of its true universality.  Since God is peculiar to each of our cultures, his interpretation is peculiar to those cultures and their specific needs.  If you are a persecuted class, religion becomes your hope as you define your terrorism as good against evil (Hamas, al Qaeda, or even George Bush).  The other side of this coin is that many feel without God, good or moral have no definition.  Take one quote from this film about our basic democratic creed:  “We hold this truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal with unalienable rights…”.  They were unalienable, according to one Congressman, because they were God given.  I think this represents the fundamental flaw in this logic about the basis universality of religious philosophy.  If you believe it is God given, it is not immutable.

If they are God given, they can be taken away by God.  I reject that.  Our unalienable rights derive from our common humanity.  Unjust is unjust whether it is committed by man or God.  We can arrive at morality through rational thought. That is our great gift.   Any other definition says that we need God to have human rights and they are defined by his higher power.  If we, as a human community, can understand that it is the common philosophy of the message of love, compassion, forgiveness, equality, and tolerance, and decide that who the prophet is, or who God is, is irrelevant to this message, then maybe as a people we are moving forward.

There is hope here in that in a recent study released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, it showed that 70 percent of all Americans believe that multiple religions can lead to eternal life, and surprisingly, 57 percent of evangelical Christians share that view, despite it being contrary to their conventional tenets.  What this says is that we are coming to a universal understanding of morality.  Many even indicated that those of us who are atheists who live a moral life deserve a place in an eternal life (not in hell).  I am not holding my breath for an eternal life, but when we can embody this philosophy without the need for membership in an exclusive club, we will have come a long way to banishing evil in our world.

Spirituality is felt by all of us.  Some define it as the hand of God.  For me it is the Force.  I feel it when I watch the Sun come up in the morning, walk through my vineyard, take in the beauty of nature around me, watch the sun set, or peer into the heavens on a dark and starry night.  It is that something out there that connects all of us in common experience on this earth and wonder or our existence.  The movie Star Wars did more than any other media to demonstrate what this force, whether you call it religion or spirituality, was all about.  When harnessed (’You have to believe in the force Luke”), it is extremely powerful and can allow us to do what we thought were superhuman things, but it can also be harnessed for evil and that is our ultimate challenge as human beings.  And you just thought the movie was a good science fiction thriller.

I will leave you with this final thought from the film by a Muslim mystic:

I went to a church seeking God and I did not find him.
I went to a synagogue seeking God and I did not find him there.
I went to a Mosque seeking God and I did not find him there either.
Then I came home and found him in my heart.

I don’t know about finding God, but I do know that the only place you will find true happiness is in your own heart.  Happy New Year.

Who is stealing Christmas?  The Christians are stealing it.  They are trying to take the joy and merriment out of Christmas.  Wait a minute.  Isn’t Christmas a Christian holiday celebrating the birth of Christ?  Not really.

For many others and myself, it is a season where we really stop and think about what we have, gather loved ones around us, and celebrate life.  When I was a child it was a magical time when anything was possible and Christmas morning was the epitome of hope and wonder.  It was always a new beginning. I still love this season where we gather at each other’s homes and enjoy food and beverage and the excuse to have a good time together, to stop for a moment and appreciate our friendship.  I love the Christmas lights and decorations that make this world a brighter place.  I love the way it makes me stop and think about those less fortunate and what I can do in this little moment to make their days a little easier.  Peace and good will is really what this season is all about.

Why is it not really a Christian holiday?  Well consider this: Some think the date, December 25, was appropriated from a festival for a Roman solar god.  Some also say that many Christmas icons like the decorated tree, the Yule log, mistletoe, were originally sacred to Celtic and Northern European pagans.  The Puritans thought so little of the holiday that they outlawed its celebration in new America (See “It’s a Narina Christmas” by Laura Miller).

Okay, there is some contention on these points (except the Puritan thing of outlawing anything fun, a penchant of most religions), but some of its greatest stories are very non-religions.  The Three Kings thing is kind of boring, but a “Wonderful Life”, “Miracle on 34th  Street”, “A Christmas Story”, and Dickens’ classic, “A Christmas Carol”, have little to do with bringing gifts to a messiah we are suppose to worship, but redemption, hope, friendship, family, and love.   They are about stopping to smell the coffee, to believe in miracles, and take in the joys and pleasures that are all around us.

Meanwhile we have the wars of Merry Christmas versus Happy Holidays.  People who care about these things have lost the Christmas spirit.  They are trying to stake out who owns Christmas.  Christians of all people should understand that Christmas is a gift to all of us.  If you take the Christian out of Christmas, then it becomes a holiday for everyone which for a few fleeting moments lets us celebrate all life, not just Christian life.  Christmas should be a holiday for all of us.  Whether we are Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, witch, or atheist.  Christmas should be the time we throw away the categories and just celebrate the human condition.  And that is what it is for me.

I just received an email from a Muslim friend in Kuwait that I have been working with who wished me a Merry Christmas.  This can be a time for peace and good will among all men.  One last thought I would like to leave you with for Christmas:  A friend of mine is valiantly fighting terminal cancer and he always makes the same toast when we are together and I will share it with you:  “It is a good day to be alive.”  Yes it is.

Merry Christmas

President-Elect Barack Obama has anointed the Reverend Rick Warren to give his benediction at his inauguration.  This is the same Reverend Warren who has been outspoken on his opposition to abortion and gay marriage and was a leader in the Proposition 8 passage to deny gays equal rights in California.  He was the one who conducted the interview of John McCain and Barack Obama at his Saddleback Church on faith issues.  Barack defended himself and this choice from massive criticism from both the gay rights community and progressives by saying:

“What I’ve also said is that it is important for America to come together, even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues. And I would note that a couple of years ago, I was invited to Rick Warren’s church to speak, despite his awareness that I held views that were entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights, when it came to issues like abortion. Nevertheless, I had an opportunity to speak. And that dialogue, I think, is part of what my campaign’s been all about; that we’re not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is to be able to create an atmosphere when we — where we can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans.

So Rick Warren has been invited to speak. Dr. Joseph Lowery, who has deeply contrasting views to Rick Warren on a whole host of issues, is also speaking. During the course of the entire inaugural festivities, there are going to be a wide range of viewpoints that are presented. And that’s how it should be, because that’s what America’s about. That’s part of the magic of this country, is that we are diverse and noisy and opinionated. And so, you know, that’s the spirit in which, you know, we have put together what I think will be a terrific inauguration. And that’s, hopefully, going to be a spirit that carries over into my administration.”

Boy when you make a mistake, you make a big one.  Let’s take this one at a time.  First let’s go back to the conference on Faith at the Saddleback Church during the campaign.  Most of us who have supported you have seen the line between church and state badly blurred in the last few years, inserting religious belief for reasoned logic.  We have seen a whole group of evangelicals try to get into office to apply their religious and political litmus test for any holder of a government position.  When you attended that conference and spoke about your faith, it was in fact catering to their religious test for anyone holding office.  They might as well have had a sign outside that said, “Non-Christians Need Not Apply.”  And you legitimized their religious test by taking part in it.

Now we can understand your logic in selecting a man like Rick Warren to speak, but sadly it is flawed logic.  You were thinking that on many of these cultural issues we disagree, but on issues such as poverty or global warming we could work together and therefore I should welcome you into my big tent.  But by giving him a national stage you are validating a man who preaches intolerance.  The other failure of your logic is to assume that religious dogma is open to “dialogue”.  These are not disagreements in the political arena of give and take, they are deeply held religious beliefs of intolerance.  It is evil therefore it will not be tolerated, end of discussion.  Tell me this: Would you have invited someone to speak that doesn’t feel that blacks should be equal?  After all wouldn’t that be a great dialogue?  The answer to that is of course not because those views are morally repugnant and we should not be giving them a national stage.  Prey tell me what is the difference between that and giving Rick Warren the national stage?

This is not just about gays, it is about giving those who are basically undemocratic a national stage and bringing religion and the cultural wars back into our political dialogue.  We had hoped that this very negative force in our political discourse had been marginalized and we were moving back into the realm of reasoned political discourse, and then we find out you are pandering to them in some foolish gesture of big tent politics.

By making him part of the inauguration, Barack has legitimized his kind of intolerance based upon religious dogma as having a rightful place in a democracy based upon reason.   This should have been a day when we are looking forward to the future with hope and anticipation and away from the days when the religious intolerant were trying to use government to force their beliefs on the rest of us.  Now many of us wonder just what we are in for if Barack doesn’t understand how he has sullied this day by what I am sure he thinks is an act of your own tolerance.  Do you understand the message you just sent to all of us?  Religious intolerance is acceptable political dialogue.  I will say it as clear as I can:  Being tolerant of the intolerant only legitimizes their intolerance.  Dialogue all day long, but don’t give the man a national stage.

President-Elect Obama has stumbled badly on this one.  Being tolerant of divergent points of view is a hallmark of our democracy.  But Rick Warren isn’t tolerant of our views and if he had his way he would use government to force his views on the rest of us.  And now you have given this intolerance a prominent place in the start of your new administration.  We thought this election was a step away from all that moral superiority that has no place in a democracy.  Now you have rekindled the cultural wars.   But then what the hell do I know?  I am only an atheist and therefore have no moral standing in Rick Warren’s world where I am unfit to hold any office.   This was an innocent mistake that Democrats make all the time, thinking the other side has good intentions.  How many times do we have to get burned by this before we finally learn?