On the Contrary

I am a little person.  No not in stature, I am a fairly big guy, but in political impact.  I have none.  I have always been a doer.  I make a fairly good living because I am good about the details of making something work.  I am fairly perceptive at what is actually going on, but generally I have lived in the shadows of those who chart the strategic course of things.  Generally speaking, I have found my strategic sense, much better than those that are in charge. At least most of the roads taken are not the ones I would have taken, and the results for our country have not turned out well. I saw my frustration at being dismissed as a little person being played out on Meet the Press and CNN’s GPS. It was a contrast in all that is wrong with how we think and I wonder if anybody noticed it?

Fareed Zakaria had as his guest Matthew Hoh, who recently resigned from the State Department Staff in Kabul in protest over our policies there.  Matthew was a marine in Iraq and then a State Department staffer in Afghanistan.  So he saw the area, its conflict, and the people from the ground level.  He was a little person dealing with the day-to-day realities of what really is going on over there.  He actually had to carry out and deal the realities of policy.  Apparently he was offered a position on Ambassador Holbroke’s staff, but in the end he realized that he would have little effect on policy and the direction we were headed would result in more deaths, both Afghan and American, with nothing to show for it.  The transcript of the interview is available at CNN.

What Mr. Hoh described was the reality of Afghanistan.  There is no Afghanistan people as such, just a very rural country with local tribal communities that resent all intrusion into their lives, whether that is the Afghan government, foreign fighters, or the United States.  These people don’t want to be protected; they want to be left alone.  The war as he saw it was an ongoing civil war that has been going on for more than 35 years.  We were simply taking a side in that civil war, and more troops would mean more insurgents, and the war will go on forever.  He found no parallels to Iraq where it was a more urban community where control was greatly simplified.  This is a gross summary and if you care about where we are headed, if you care about those brave Americans we send over there to die, you need to read this transcript or watch the interview.  His final observation is that we need to reduce our presence, not increase it:

ZAKARIA: What will happen if we do not go with the McChrystal plan, or we go to a very small troop increase? What will the troops who are there now do? And should we actually draw down some of these troops?

HOH: Oh, I do believe we should draw down. I do believe we should recognize we’re in a civil war. I do believe we should recognize our priorities are the defeat of al Qaeda and the stabilization of Pakistan.

I’m by no means a Pakistan expert. But increasing troops is only going to fuel insurgency. We need to stop our combat operations in areas where we are fighting people only because they’re fighting us.

Otherwise, it’s going to be 2013, we’re going to look back four years, and we’re going to say, what have we accomplished? What did we get? What was this worth? What did we get out of this?

We might be able to stabilize the Afghan government in five to 10 years with a lot of resources. I believe we can militarily defeat the Quetta Shura in two to three years with a lot of resources and a lot of dead.

However, is it worth it? What do we get out of it? What’s the benefit of us doing it? It doesn’t politically defeat the insurgency in the south. And it doesn’t, more importantly, it doesn’t defeat al Qaeda.

Then I watched Meet the Press and the discussion between Pundits David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell (just back from Afghanistan), and Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski about Afghanistan.  The country they were talking about was not the same one that Mathew Hoh was talking about.  Miklaszewski talked as though General McChrystal was a personal friend and that all they needed to do was to provide security for the people.  The construct of what Afghanistan was all about was totally different from the reality that Mathew Hoh presented.  And then I got it.  These people know nothing except the image that has been carefully crafted for them and the narrow confines of their own experience.  They have no on-the-ground, in the dirt, personal experience of the reality there.  They are important people.  You have to get really dirty to really know something.  They are creatures of what they are told, not what they have experienced.  They view Afghanistan through the lens of their own experience instead of the alien reality of the real Afghanistan  and what is possible there.

So Matthew Hoh is one of the little people.  He sees reality as it is because he has had to live it, not through the lens of a need for victory, or military supremacy, or some belief in a quick fix or political ideology.  He spoke truth to power and they tried to co-opt him by stroking his ego with a promotion up the chain.  He saw it for what it was, selling his soul for ego with little chance to effect change.  He is only a little person to those in power.  To the rest of us, he is indeed a very big person.  He did not sell his soul for power and advancement.  Thank you Mr. Hoh.

From my perspective there is one more important lesson here and not just about Afghanistan.  It is about how the little people get co-opted when they speak truth to power and how those in power who can really make a difference are mostly those that sold their soul to get that power.  They are not in power to make major changes, but to carry the flag of those who co-opted them.  How else do you explain our Afghanistan, financial, economic, energy, and climate policy?  The way forward is obvious.  But those in power don’t like those answers.  Those damn little people.

On Meet the Press Yesterday, David Gregory was conducting an interview with Tavis Smiley and Joe Scarborough and he ran a clip of the Senator from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn, on his show last week making a statement about the virulence we were seeing in the Town Hall Meetings:

SEN. TOM COBURN (R-OK):  Well, I’m, I’m troubled any time when we stop having confidence in, in our government.  But we’ve earned it.  You know, this debate isn’t about health care.  Health care’s the symptom.  The debate is an uncontrolled federal government that’s going to run–50 percent of everything we’re spending this year we’re borrowing from the next generation.

MR. GREGORY:  That’s what–wait, hold on, I want to stop you there.  I’m talking about the tone.  I am talking about violence against the government. That’s what this is synonymous with.

SEN. COBURN:  But the, but the, but the tone is based on fear of loss of control of their own government.

(End videotape)

Then David then asked Tavis Smiley to comment:

MR. GREGORY:  Fear of loss of control over their own government.

MR. SMILEY:  This is…

MR. GREGORY:  Is that what’s out there?

MR. SMILEY:  No.  This is not about angst, this is not about anger, this is about hate.  There is a, there is, there’s a set of folk in this country–thankfully not, not, not everybody–but there is a group in this country that does not, will not accept a legitimate Democratic presidency, Joe, under any condition.

Here, I think, caught in a blinding flash, is the whole crux of the radical right’s thinking from the birthers to the screamers at Town Hall Meetings.  They are unwilling to participate in a democracy if they are in the minority.  In other words they do not believe in the implicit contract that the majority rules if they are not the majority.

Remember the woman wailing I want my country back?  I  thought I had just got my country back after the 2008 election and her attitude was that if the liberals won the election then it is time for revolution because they are having none of that.  This in embodied in the “I am going to wear my assault rifle on my shoulder to their Town Hall meetings so they are intimidated.  These people have no intention of accepting majority rule or leadership by progressives even though progressives won the election.

I always said the Republicans and the conservative philosophy was anti-democratic.  I just never though they would be so blatant about it.

Another Sunday morning getting the straight story from our tireless media, or is that tiresome?  So I watched my usual compliment of morning news shows and got filled up with a lot of nothing.  Well there is always one exception, but I will get to that.  So without further ado:

• Arlen Specter was the guest on Meet the Press and he did not disappoint.  I do have to hand it to David Gregory, he is getting better.  He asked Arlen all the right questions and Arlen did not dodge any of them.  Arlen is definitely a Republican in the Democratic Party.  Well not the new incarnation of Republicans, but even the moderate kind are still going to be a real hindrance to change.  I am not sure what the Democrats got out of this deal if he is going to vote as he always did.  The big one is health care and he is against a government single payer system along side private insurers.  This is change?  So exactly why is President Obama going to go to Pennsylvania and campaign for this guy?  The reality is that Arlen Specter is where the Republicans were back in the 80’s and I am not sure what we would gain from trying to recreate an era that isn’t worth recreating.
• The other two guests were Joe Scarborough and Ed Gillespie, both Republicans, who were there to talk about resurrecting the Republican Party.  This was also a topic on CNN with John King.  There was no new ground here.  Joe and Ed have obviously been drinking the Republican Kool-Aid.  They think that if the party gets out of the social issues, then the conservative message can be a big tent again.  They pointed out how in the 70’s the party was left for dead, and the same in the early nineties, but they made their comeback and it will happen again.   Uh Joe, Ed?   The world has changed and small government and miniscule spending doesn’t address this new world.  The social issue of abortion, gay marriage, and religion, are not the Republican Party’s big problem.  Their problem is that the conservative mantra of small government, free markets, and cutting taxes don’t address any of our real challenges.  If they did, they would have valid alternate strategies to what the Democrats are proposing. Sadly they think that present day Republicans just lost their way allowing deficits (mainly from cutting taxes) and big government (but little regulation). The reality is that the message no longer is viable.  I wonder why reporters don’t challenge them on this instead of going along with their fiction that they just need to find a new spokesperson.  Oh well.
• Then there were the endless discussions about who President Obama would choose for replacing David Souter.  I have to tell you I hate these discussions.  They are akin to metal masturbation.  No that is not quite correct, they are mental masturbation.  It is like sitting around listening to guys talk about the perfect football team.  It means nothing and it gets you nowhere.  Instead of endless what if scenarios why don’t we just let the President fill the position and then we can carefully dissect that person and ask all kinds of inane and embarrassing questions instead of wasting them on pretend candidates who may never make the cut.  Oh I forgot.  Watching the NFL draft is great drama so I guess this fills airtime.
• Let us not forget the discussions/hysteria about the swine flu.  Oh forgive me.  For the morons who think eating pigs is dangerous, it is the H1N1 influenza.  We have had one death in the United States and the way we are reacting to this, I am beginning to understand the panic around 9/11.  Thank god we have not had another terrorist attack or judging from our over reaction to this minor scare, we would have been burning the constitution in the street.  I grant you it can be scary, but in the meantime can we just stay home if we are sick, sneeze into our sleeves, and get on with our lives?
• Finally, Fareed Zackaria on CNN’s GPS interviewed Defense Secretary William Gates and this guy is one down to earth and honest human being.  We are very lucky to have him as our Secretary of Defense.  Afghanistan is a very difficult problem and listening to Secretary Gates let me know he knows what I know.  As I listened to his descriptions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and what was really possible there, I know that we are in good hands.  He is keenly aware of the Russian experience in Afghanistan and understands that troops are not the answer.  We are in for a long ride, but our troops can be very proud of their leadership.

So another Sunday morning talking about going nowhere fast.

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?

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…

The media bashing I am talking about is not the GOP’s, but mine.  The mainstream media has a long way to go before they are really doing “fair and balanced” coverage, and except for FOX noise, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs and some of the other blovators (yes even Keith Olberman from time to time), they are really trying to be balanced.  Their approach to this daunting task is fatally flawed by removing any judgment from their interviews by representing both sides with a passive moderator.  In effect they simply monitor the food fight.  They have eschewed any responsibility to ascertain the truth to avoid the appearance of bias and they will let the viewer decide.  So what is the problem?

The problem, which was described much more eloquently by Ruth Marcus in he Washington Post Op-Ed, True Whoppers, talking about misrepresentations and lies goes like this:

“All campaigns fall short, but some fall far shorter than others. And it is a phony evenhandedness, comfortable for journalists but ultimately misleading, that equates these failures without measuring the grossness of their deviation from the standard of decency.”

Said another way if the viewer isn’t given some frame of reference for the veracity of the statements being made by the participants from the moderator, he/she is left to let their own partisanship decide whose facts to believe.  If you have a debate between flat earthers and people who claim the world is round and you accord their claims equal footing, you are misleading people about the equality of the facts of each argument.  Note the media did this on the issue of Intelligent Design until the whole edifice of this faith-based system was destroyed in a Pennsylvania court room.   Now they try to avoid the whole debate because it seems rude to challenged faith with facts.  The economic argument may be proceeding in the same fashion.

At any rate, this kind of coverage is increasing the impact of the misrepresentations, and not clearing the air.  The critical thing that the journalist has to bring to these exchanges is knowledge of the facrs and push back.  Instead of allowing known misrepresentations to be voiced by one partisan spokesperson or the other, they push back where they know the facts are being misrepresented.  Of course they have to know the facts to push back which may be a reach for some of them.  The key is that the push back has to be unbiased i.e. usually David Schuster of MSNBC as opposed to Fox News or Lou Dobbs of CNN.  Then the debate would be on more level playing ground.  But because of their passive interview style of moderating debate, they are being run over by partisan flacks and their mission of balanced reporting goes out the window as they become a bullhorn for one side or the other.

I witnessed an example of what I call the passive aggressive attack on CNN’s Rick Sanchez as he was trying to inform the public about what is going on with the investigation of Sarah Palin in Alaska.  The moderator is passive, while the interviewee is agressive.  Having spent a portion of my career negotiating with bonding company lawyers in construction contract defaults, I immediately recognized the tactic.  A lawyer representing the McCain organization in Alaska was laying out their case for why the proceedings investigating Trooper Gate, in their view were tainted.  The technique is to begin a non-stop monologue/diatribe and get as many of your allegations in as quickly as possible so that the conclusion seems obvious while not allowing your opponent to question any of the allegations that makes up your argument.

The only journalist I have seen push back on this technique is Rachel Maddow, trying to stop the dialogue and examine some of the false allegations.  Well in this case poor Rick was trying to be fair and let the person state their case, but he got submarined by this technique as he let this monologue go on forever.  Worse, he appeared to not have a good grasp on the history of this investigation that could challenge some of the lawyer’s allegations.  He asked for a Democrat to come on the show to counter this argument, also showing his naiveté  in that no Democrats wants to get involved with this internal state investigation and make it a distracting (for the Democrats) campaign issue.

Here were some of the specific questions that Rick needed to ask to get a more balanced view of the claims of the McCain team.  The lawyer claimed the whole process was tainted by the Obama Campaign, but Rick never asked him how this could be when there was a team of twelve McCain Campaign people in Alaska helping manage this attack on the investigating board, but no personnel  with the Obama Campaign. He did press the lawyer for any evidence for contact with the Obama campaign and of course there wasn’t any except an alleged rumor.  He never asked why this investigation was biased when it started before the Governor was a candidate for VP and approved by a unanimous vote of the Republicans and Democrats in the legislature.  He never asked why the commission that was conducting this investigation made up of three Republicans and two Democrats could be biased if the majority were Republicans and could control its actions.  He never asked why the requested move to the personnel board would then be an unbiased review if the board was made up of Palin appointees that serve at her pleasure.  So all in all it was another example of nice try, but you became a soapbox for a very partisan view and participated in more disinformation.

Finally on Friday, I watched David Gregory of MSNBC (and of the famous quote, “I asked all the right questions before the invasion of Iraq” but never followed up on the lies he was told) ask his panel of commentators, isn’t this whole disaster on Wall Street due to the housing bubble?  In other words fix this problem and the rest of the system can press on which indicates to me he had little understanding of the real issues.  They had to explain to him that the housing crisis was just the effect, and the cause was the underlying structure of wall street to increase profits, short term gains and CEO compensation based upon those gains, greed and a culture of greed, and lack of regulation leading  all of which led to under capitalized and grossly leveraged firms.  I still don’t think he gets it so how is he going to help inform us of the choices for the future as each side makes their pitch and he has no basis for understanding their arguments?

I don’t know why journalists allow themselves to be abused by these partisan flacks.  I don’t know why they are so passive and allow themselves to be used to reinforce miss-information.  I don’t understand why they don’t fight back and start standing up for their profession.  I don’t know why we get pertty faces instead of smart and well informed journalists.  An interview should be a trial by fire for all concerned, not a chance to repeat your talking points.  Come on guys, get up to date, learn your subject, and start pushing back.  The fate of this country depends on you guys doing your job.  So far you get an F.