On the Contrary

Yes I read both the “Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” and cheered for her chief protagonists, Howard Roark and John Gault, and felt the requisite amount of moral outrage against the rules of government that were hindering the great plans of these industrialists and engineers, and cheered for the individual freedoms that would allow these characters to build a colossal world.  But it was a work of fiction and it failed to recognize the realities of our world, one of which is that without the equalizing hand of government, many talented and gifted people would never get a chance to rise to the heights of greatness.

Her view of government was that its primary purpose is to protect individual rights including property rights.  But when you looked closely at this philosophy, it protected the individual rights of the rich and connected, not the rights of the poor and the average citizen to a good education, healthcare, or a decent wage.  These kinds of rights intruded on the rights of her fictional characters to fully express their individualism.  Today her idea of laissez-faire capitalism has coming crashing down around our heads.  It turns out that those “Masters of the Universe”, being free to pursue ever more wealth, simply robbed the rest of us and bankrupted our economy while they lined their pockets.  Even Allen Greenspan, the great guru of this line of thought, finally admitted he had made a mistake.  This failed economy is what Republican economic philosophy has brought us.

And it has worked so well.  From The Bill Moyers’ Journal, Bill reported:

“Or this: the 30-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development – or OECD – is out this week with a new report on global gaps between rich and poor. Guess which great industrial nation had the fourth highest inequality in incomes – behind Mexico, Turkey and Portugal? Right. Us.”

Or said another way, wealth is being spread around, but to only a very few wealthy and it is hurting our economy.  The New York Times, in a lengthy editorial endorsing Barack Obama for President, noted:

“The American financial system is the victim of decades of Republican deregulatory and anti-tax policies. Those ideas have been proved wrong at an unfathomable price, but Mr. McCain — a self-proclaimed “foot soldier in the Reagan revolution” — is still a believer.”

But they missed an even more important point about the reality of Republican economic philosophy, which was reported by Mr. James K. Galbraith on the same Bill Moyers show:

“What I mean is the people who took over the government were not interested in reducing the government and having a small government, the conservative principle. They were interested in using these great institutions for private benefit, to place them in the control of their friends and to put them to the use of their clients. They wanted to privatize Social Security. They created a Medicare drug benefit in such a way as to create the maximum profit for pharmaceutical companies.”

It is not just that government should not impede business, but that it no longer represents the citizens, but corporations and then works to favor them over the citizens.  This is the true impact of Reaganism and the Republican revolution.  It is centralizing wealth among a few and destroying our economy.

So with the recent events, you would think that we have learned our lesson but I am not so sure.  Note that Mr. Paulson and President Bush talk about these “temporary” measures we are taking and emphasis is on temporary.  Most Republicans, I believe, think this is just a bump in the road on the way to restoring the Republican economic ideal.  “Some people got greedy, but as soon as we can restore the markets, we can return to business as usual.”  How else do you explain John McCain’s economic proposals?

What I think you are going to hear is the call for a return to the basics of Ronald Reagan.  Except if anybody was paying attention there were no basics.  Andrew Bacevich, in his thought provoking book, “The Limits of Power”, notes:

“He (Ronald Reagan) vowed to put America’s economic house in order.  “you and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, think that collectively, as a nation, we’re not bound by the same Limitation?”  Reagan reiterated an oft-made promise “to check and reverse the growth of government.”  He would do none of these things.  In each case, in fact, he did just the reverse.  During the Carter years, the federal deficit had averaged $54.5 billion annually.  During the Reagan era, deficits skyrocketed, averaging $210.6 billion over the course of Reagan’s two terms in office.  Overall federal spending nearly doubled, from $590.9 billion in 1980 to $1.14 trillion in 1989.  The federal government did not shrink.  It grew, the bureaucracy swelling by nearly 5 percent while Reagan occupied the White House.”

The point is, it has never worked and now we are facing new challenges that few of us understand.  Americans think in clichés and proverbs and do not deeply examine them.  After almost 30 years we are buried in conservative economic conventional wisdom, which we have seen, is failing us miserably.  Taxes aren’t necessarily bad if they pay for the things we need, and they aren’t too burdensome.  Creating a climate for the rich to get richer does not lead to an increased standard of living for all of us.  And of course, government is not necessarily the problem.

The future we face is going to require government to be a major player in restarting our economy and then making the investments in our citizens and our infrastructure to prepare us for a vibrant economy in the future.  Socialism is not bad if it means access to education for everyone, reliable and affordable healthcare, and good transportation systems so that goods and services can move freely.  The fight is going to be with the old guard who will want to reign in government spending and limit its ability to pull us out of our mounting economic crisis and to invest in our future.  For the near term, deficits don’t matter.  We have to develop a plan led by government to put our people back to work, keep them in their homes, and increase their ability to compete in the 21st century.  To get there we will have to jettison conservative economic philosophy and the Republicans who have championed it.

The answer to that question depends on which century you live in, the 20th, or the 21st.  If you are in the 20th century and we are a rich nation that can afford to fight on in Iraq till we “win” without any sacrifice by your citizens in terms of taxes or a draft then John McCain is your man.  If you think trickle down economics works, McCain is your man.  If you think the way forward in our tough economic times is lower taxes and less regulation (except the markets), without major government involvement, then again John McCain is your man.  If you think the market place will solve our energy and healthcare problems, John McCain is your man.  If you like the 80’s approach to the world and Russia, John McCain is your man.  If you think the same Republican infrastructure of power and policy are going to change things, John is your man.

On the other hand if you think we have done what we can in Iraq and we need to start nation building at home, Barack Obama is your man.  If you think we need to take a more inclusive approach in approaching challenges throughout the world, Barrack Obama is your man.  If you believe that government is a big part to play in our energy future, Barack Obama is your man.  If you believe that some sacrifice by you and all Americans is necessary to get America back on track, Bararck Obama is your man.  If you believe that healthcare is not going to be solved by deregulating, and government has a major role to play in leveling the playing field, Barack Obama is your man.  If you believe that government will have to invest in infrastructure, R&D, and energy then Barack Obama is your man.  If you think our solutions to the problems we are facing in this 21st century will take new approaches not based upon 20th century thinking, Barack is your man.

So the answer to the question depends on which century you are living in.  Which is it?

I don’t know about you but I had a hard time listening to the debate.  I would listen to some of the pandering comments and just rage at the machine that was issuing them.  I finally had to listen to it outside on my satellite radio so I could pace and shout without disturbing my wife who was focused on ignoring the whole thing.  However my trusty golden retriever would come over and lick my hand after each of my outburst as to say, “There, there.”  It was like a football game and you just have too much invested in one side and the battle becomes a little too personal.  The suspense on the outcome becomes too much and you just can’t watch it anymore.

Okay, but it is over so who won?  Well the first thing I will tell you is that I am so biased I would not be a good source for an honest evaluation.  The pundits (ignore the campaign representatives who are simply spin misters and I have no idea why the networks/cable news bothers with them) seem to think McCain won it because he was more on the attack, although Obama’s defenses were excellent.  On the other hand they all thought he held his own during the portion of the debate on foreign policy threat the conventional wisdom says was John McCain’s strong point.  Some criticism of Obama’s performance centered on him not being aggressive enough on the economy and tying John McCain to the Bush Administration.  My own impression right after the debate was that Barrack held his own and I doubted if this debate was a decider in the minds of many voters.  But having some time to think about it, and the initial numbers supporting Obama’a performance, I think there was something else going on here on the visceral level that the pundits and I missed.

I think the first thing that the pundits did notice, but did not attach much importance to was that John McCain would not look at Barack Obama or address him directly.  Whatever the reason, whether visceral or planned, it was perceived, I believe, as condescending and arrogant.   Now for diehard McCain fans this is just fine:  “Who does this uppity Democrat think he is?”   But I think for that 10% undecided that this campaign is really fighting for, instead of reinforcing strength and steadiness, it presented a stubbornness and a unwillingness to listen to other opinions that is representative of how we got into the messes we are in today.  For conservative Republicans he was showing the strict father who would lecture the undisciplined and inesperienced  child.  For the rest of us it was the aging parent who had not moved on with the times and could not listen to new ideas.

Then there was the debate over Iraq.  We have heard all the points before.  But it was John McCain’s fixation on Iraq and his continuing belief that this war is central to our war on terrorism that I think once again emphasized his inability to move on to a more global view of the world.  Most Americans have moved on from Iraq no matter how they feel about “winning”.  They want to start nation building at home.  So I think what they wanted to hear was a way to quickly end this thing and get on to more pressing problems at home.  They don’t care if the surge is working, they just want out.  What they got from John McCain was a never ending commitment to “winning” with no end in sight.  Focus here:  I am not talking about which side had a better approach to ending our involvement in the Middle East, because neither one of them presented a comprehensive or realistic plan(see Looking Forward and Looking Forward II – Pakistan), but what I am talking about is an emotional feeling about which of them is better suited to face the crises of the future. In this argument, John was perceived as focused and stuck in a war of the last administration while the rest of the nation is moving on.

I will take on one thing that John McCain said that I deeply disagree with and Chris Mathews also pick up on and properly criticized McCain for and that is that if we don’t win in Iraq, all those people (it wasn’t just our soldiers who paid the ultimate price for this folly) died in vain.  The logic is that once we start a war we can never admit we were wrong or we will abandon and dishonor those who fought and died for us.  I have a few friends who died in Viet Nam, I fought there, and we lost that war.  But these people did their duty for their country and the outcome has nothing to do with their sacrifice.  It is another indication of John McCain’s rigid pattern of thinking that I think many voters recognize as not what we are looking for in the 21st century.

So all in all here is what I think:  Barack held his own, even though he missed many opportunities, especially in the economic portion of the debate to expose John’s basic unchanging approach to the economy from typical Republican approaches in the past.  To the conservative Republican who is looking for a leader who establishes obedience and discipline, John fits the bill with his unwavering beliefs (regardless of his “maverick” claims) and experience.  But to the voters he really has to connect to, that undecided 10%, he may have shown his intransigent world view that will not bring the change we need, even as he touts his “maverick” side.  Instead of the wise father figure, he looks like the aging patriarch stuck in another time, unable to make the transition to new ideas and ways of doing business, his experience firmly rooted in another time.  If the debate is finally judged a win by Obama, I think it was on these more visceral feelings than rational arguments about the issues.

This is one I really don’t get:  Barack Obama is an elitist.  This will be the attack of the Republicans to keep your focus off issues.  So the first question you have to ask is what does this mean?  From a CNN report:

“Branding a rival elitist is not new in politics. Republicans for years have successfully labeled Democratic presidential candidates as the liberal elite. Portraying their rivals as latte-sipping, sushi-eating insiders, Republicans have connected with some voters by arguing that they understand the values important to the everyday person.”

If this is what they mean then I am rolling on the floor laughing.  The Republican Party is the party of fat white men who have historically represented the interests of the wealthy.  The have faked “small town values” while they implemented policies of lower taxes on the rich and removed regulations that would protect these small town folks. They had the biggest insider good old boy and crony network we have ever seen in Washington.  Ever heard of the K-Street Project? Now if they mean Barack is too smart and refined for me to identify with, then I have to ask you how the last guy you elected who related to you did in office?  You remember George Bush, the simple guy you can trust?  The country is in shambles under Republican small town values.

Related to that is the issue of can this guy relate to my problems and do something about them?  Here once again the Republicans have thrown up the smoke screen of small town values.  We have small town values and we relate to your values.  Bring on the cultural wars.  This argument is the way to hide your racial bias and invoke class warfare.  Labeling a guy who came from a single parent family, went to college on student loans, worked in the community to improve the lives of less fortunate, out-of-touch with the common man while thinking John McCain, from the military elite (there is a difference between officers and enlisted, and Admirals and Captains), celebrated as a hero, and then married to a fabulously wealthy woman, 26 years as a Senator, is somehow feeling your pain is just plain irrational.

But then if you consider a very good education, smart, thoughtful with complex views of the world, an elitist then I would ask you to consider this:  Would anybody not consider Franklin Deleno Roosevelt (FDR) an elitist?  He was wealthy, he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School, he was very intelligent and who else would you want to lead the country through the Depression and a war, a high school drop out?   Let’s get the hockey mom who thinks she is a pitbull and her cohort a reactionary old man stuck in the 19th century and can’t keep his facts straight.  I simply don’t get it.  I would want my President to be smarter than me.  I know I couldn’t run the country and I would want someone extremely intelligent who can consider the complexities of each challenge.  Abraham Lincoln liked to seem folksy, but the man was highly complex, loved Shakespeare, was widely read and self educated, and can anybody forget the Gettysburg Address or his eloquent Second Inaugural Speech both enshrined in the Lincoln Memorial?  The Founding Fathers were not the common man, but well educated elite of this country, thank Providence.

No what I am detect is that we are dumbing down America.  We want a President who we might want to have a beer with, but is totally unequipped to deal with the complexities of a world that is leaving us behind.  Look around you.  The power of America, both diplomatic and military is waning due to misuse or in the case of diplomacy, under use.  The treasury is empty and our economy is in shambles.  Simple-minded approaches to our security have shredded our Constitution and any semblance that we might be morally above the rest of the world in our adherence to our basic values.  But the Republicans have nominated a Presidential candidate wedded to the past with frozen conservative ideology that doesn’t work anymore, and an anti-intellectual VP who knows nothing of the world, world history, just small town values and folksy superiority which may all come undone if we can ever really examine her record.  It is an anti-intellectual assault that is a recipe for disaster in a world that is rapidly evolving while they are firmly anchored in the 19th century.

The qualities of the next President are first and foremost a top-notch intellect.  Secondly, he/she must have the self-confidence to listen to dissenting points of view without the ideological baggage that closes down the discussion and innovative solutions.  Third, they must be able to thoughtfully consider options, without thoughtless over reactions (“I would fire the SEC Chairman”) based upon blame instead of looking for root causes.

I hear people say all the time that they will vote for McCain because of his experience or are afraid of Barack’s perceived lack of experience.  I find that almost laughable.  John McCain’s experience is solidly planted in the past and that experience will lead him to make decisions based upon a worldview that is no longer viable.  When this nation faced one of the gravest trials of our time, we elected Abraham Lincoln who saved the nation and took us in a whole new direction.  He had less experience than Barack Obama and that is probably what allowed him to think, as we like to say today, outside the box. It made him unafraid to utilize his rivals and their good ideas to bring the country together.   It is time for new thinking or sinking into oblivion.  Are you mentally up to the choice?

One note:  Lynn Forestor d’Rothchild, ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton and member of the Democratic Platform Committee, defected to the Republicans with the statement about Barrack: “I don’t like him,” she said. “I feel like he is an elitist.“  She would know one.  So if you supported Hillary for woman’s issues, and a progressive approach to our problems, you don’t like Barack, so you support someone who is against all these things?  No, I think she went over to the Republicans because she is the true elitist and she is afraid Barack just might allow the common people into the party and government.  As she said to Wolfe Blitzer (CNN) when he asked her if she was getting any grief from the Democrats of her switch,  “I’m getting it all the time, particularly from the likes of you, the liberal elite,” she quipped. “You’re the elite, not me.” How dare you ask me questions even if I am being used as a tool by the Republicans.  I personally think she thinks Barack is uppity and she was going to find a party that keeps that kind out.

There are going to be three narratives coming out of the Democratic Convention, the one by the media, the one by the Republicans, and the one by the Democrats.  Which one you think reflects reality is probably a function of your political persuasion.  The media usually comes up with a narrative feed by the Republicans, because the Republicans are better at framing an issue than the Democrats, which will emphasize high drama and conflict.  In a perfect world the media would simply reflect events as they happen, but they are so infused with “the best political team on television”, that their coverage pings back and forth from one biased political philosophy to the other.  John Stewart did the nation a great service by showing the narrative of Democratic dissent the media has set up, and then made fun of how, when they couldn’t find it, tried to create it.

MSNBC, which of the three Media News outlets is my favorite, was showing the strain of dissent.  Joe Scarborough, who thinks he is an unbiased Republican, was waxing elegant on how the Republican political machine was staying on message, and Keith Olbermann who thought he was off mike was heard mumbling, “Why don’t you get a shovel Joe.”  Keith himself can be over the top in his liberal beliefs, but he is a breath of fresh air in that he is not a tool of Republican talking points.  Chris Mathews showed some anger at Keith for suggesting maybe he had talked on too long, which of course is what Chris Mathews does as the master of blovation.   Meanwhile David Gregory, he who still claims they asked all the right questions before the invasion of Iraq (to all the wrong people), was showing his distain as he questioned Democrats on the floor of the convention and could not shake them from their message of unity.  They just were not cooperating with his narrative of internecine strife.  Too bad he couldn’t have shown the same distain when he asked “all the right questions” before we invaded Iraq. Meanwhile over at FOX news they were busy reinterpreting reality to fit their own narrative and I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.  These people did not listen to the same speeches the rest of us did.  The problem here is that we now have a media that is too tied into the process and its entertainment value. Except in the print media, we have lost an independent media.  Thank goodness for CSPAN so I could just hear the speeches and judge for myself what the meaning was.

Now the Republican narrative is going to be very simple.  Barack Obama does not have the experience to be President.  The world is a scary place with bad guys waiting to blow us up so you need an experienced warrior like John McCain to protect us from all the evil doers out there.  They will use both Hillary’s and Joe Biden’s primary statements about the young upstart Obama.  They will hammer home that the world is a scary place (be afraid, be afraid) and we need experience in the White House to face down these threats.  They will leverage the Russian threat to Georgia as the 3 am call that Hillary made so famous.   There are some major flaws in this narrative, but it will appeal to those who hold their “guns and religion close”.  First question the Demos might ask is just what experience does John McCain have that applies to the 21st century and do old approaches really work.  The Republicans have this huge problem in that they have had total unfettered control of the government for the last eight years controlling both the Congress and the White House and the mess we are living in is the result.  They will claim that Ron Reagan defeated the Russians and now John McCain will do the same.  The problem is that this is not 1980 and the only country going broke is us.  But their narrative must keep the focus off the economy or the disasters they have created elsewhere and keep the focus personal.  The media will love this because they won’t have to talk about real issues and can focus once again on the soap opera.

Finally we have the Democrat’s narrative.  This one is also quite simple.  We have been under Republican Control for eight years and it hasn’t worked.  We need to change directions and restore America’s leadership in the world.  As the Republican narrative is based on fear, the Democratic narrative is based on hope and optimism for the future.  There is a wonderful strength in this argument in that the litany of Republican failures from Enron to Katrina goes on forever so there is a wealth of data to show their failures.  The weakness is that people are resistant and fearful of change.  It scares them and that feeds into the Republican narrative of be afraid.  But I think enough things have gone wrong that most people see we must change.  You know, it is that old saw, you must be face down in the gutter before you recognize you have a problem.  The Democrats leveraged that idea when many of the speakers in Wednesday’s convention were ex-Republicans.  They also utilized quite a few military personnel to counter the “warrior” image of John McCain.  If they can keep the focus on the failures of the Republicans and that John McCain just brings the same old people back into power, they may be able to overcome the fear of a young Obama leading this country.

The Democrats have gotten smarter than they use to be and they are ready for a fight.  The media will be putty in the Republican’s hands because they will want to focus on the personal mud slinging, not the crux of the issues or the validity of the arguments.  As long as we have two shouting partisans, the advantage is to the status quo.  But I think this time the Democrats are ready.  I think Americans may really understand that it is now or never.  We are face down in the gutter.  I know I am ready for a new approach to our future and our only hope is Barack Obama.

What I saw in the Democratic Convention was a true cross section of America with hope for the future, an America I want to be part of.  What we will see next week in the Republican Convention is a bunch of fat old white men (don’t worry they will strategically place the eight people of color they could find in camera range) whose whole existence is based on cronyism, fight for the status quo with fear.  They will do everything they can to distract Americans from their failures.  Which America do you want to belong to?