Most people probably know that today marks the official end of US operations in Iraq. I'm going to link to the CNN article covering the event:
I chose that one just because it was an easy way to link to video coverage of the actual ceremony. This might betray my sentimental tendencies, but I'm always fascinated when something culminates into a specific moment. Whether it's the flipping of the tassel at a graduation ceremony, getting the "I now pronounce you joined in matrimony" from the judge/priest/ship captain, or in this case, the lowering of our colors in Iraq so that they may finally come home.
Going back a ways, I remember watching the Berlin Wall come down.
I remember the experience of seeing similar footage on TV at the time and being moved, but I was fourteen at the time so I obviously has missed the bulk of the events and sentiment that led up to such a seminal moment.
With the Iraq War, I got to experience the event in its entirety. From the September 11th attacks, to the presentation by Colin Powell at the UN detailing (incorrectly it turned out) Iraq's efforts to obtain WMDs:
And beyond to President Bush's speech to our nation setting the stage to our invasion:
Part 2:
The official announcement that combat operations had begun:
At first, things seemed to be going pretty well:
Events like this led to what might have been a turning point in the conflict:
One thing to notice... the official commencement of combat operations happened in mid-March, the Mission Accomplished speech at the beginning of May. Roughly a month and a half passed between those two, a timeframe that would be dwarfed by the next eight-plus years spent in Iraq.
In the end, the Iraq War claimed almost 4,500 U.S. lives, possibly over 150,000 Iraqi lives (with some estimating 80% of those deaths as civilian), left 30,000 U.S. soldiers wounded, and cost over $800 billion.
I think the entire event is still too present in our minds to start calculating what lasting impression the conflict as a whole should have in the history books. But on last night's Rachel Maddow show, Ms. Maddow talked a little bit about the relationship between our country and our military.
In that clip, Rachel Maddow describes how our ten years and counting at war in Iraq and Afghanistan have essentially been shouldered by less than one percent of our population. The phrase "one percent" gets tossed around a lot these days in a very different context, one that represents those in this country who have benefitted (disproportionately) the most from what our country has to offer.
We let that one percent nuke the economy, get bailed out, and get massive tax breaks. The other one percent, those soldiers who fought in Iraq and still fight in Afghanistan, get to come home to this despicable mess to struggle to put their personal lives back together after such a massive disruption while trying to get by in a tough U.S. economy.
Our politics shouldered this other one percent with an unimaginable burden when we decided to invade Iraq. Our politics took this other one percent for granted while we fumbled our domestic policies, and now our politics look to continue the favoritism bestowed on the richest one percent while throwing the other one percent a jobs bill offering tax incentives for hiring veterans.
The GOP presidential candidates, except for Ron Paul, all expressed disappointment at the idea of all our troops in Iraq coming home. Some wanted to keep twenty thousand troops there, others teased at throwing down with Iran. Either way, I feel those GOP candidates fail to see that other one percent as fellow citizens, instead seeing them as a tool or a resource to throw at arbitrary goals, sort of like a credit default swap.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
If You Want Something Done Right...
From Bloomberg News:
So it appears that New York State may be about to do something that our federal government can't get done. A new income tax proposed would affect those making more than $2 million a year while cutting taxes for those making less than $300,000 a year.
New York State faces a possible $3.5 billion deficit in 2013, partially due to state revenue lost from shrinking Wall Street bonuses (take that naysayers... Wall Street was indeed hit by the current economic meltdown it fabricated). The new income tax would raise roughly $1.5 billion to go toward that deficit, with an additional $400 million going toward youth jobs programs and flood recovery efforts. From the article:
Basic economics demonstrates that people with less money spend higher percentages of what they have because they need it to get by. The middle class will now get more to spend and they most likely will. That means more money going into the New York State economy. Will it be enough to help right things locally? Who knows, but it won't hurt and it should be more effective than the alternative of cutting taxes for the wealthiest since they are more likely to hold onto that savings in some way. Either way, we get the chance to see how it plays out.
One possibility sometimes argued is that higher taxes drive the rich out of that geographical location. I guess now we'll get the chance to test that out. I imagine the bulk of these richest New Yorkers live around New York City, so lets see if New Jersey and Connecticut suddenly see an influx of millionaires. I don't think it will happen, but I guess we'll have to see, and now we get that chance.
Obviously the heart of our federal system of government intended for states to have a strong presence in governing, but I don't think our national system was ever intended to be as impotent as it currently is. So it's always good to see states taking the initiative.
Obviously California is known for having its own set of environmental guidelines. Massachusetts, under Mitt Romney, put a health care mandate in place requiring everyone to carry health insurance. Texas, under Rick Perry, put together measures to help young girls get the HPV vaccine. Vermont has a single payer health care system in place. Now New York State is going to tax the richest elite a little bit more to help deal with its current economic situation.
While these ideas may all seem like a classic liberal agenda, I would argue that they all rooted in common sense that many people, not just typical liberals, could get behind. Going back to all that market forces talk of taxes pushing millionaires to move, I'm curious to see if certain states that take the initiative to implement common sense ideas currently flummoxing Congress see any population movement. Will people leave Mississippi, one of the unhealthiest and poorest states in the country, to go to Massachusetts? Will businesses move to Vermont, incentivized by not having to deal with as much health care red tape?
I used to hear people joke/threaten to move to Canada if things kept tanking in the USA. Congress might achieve such a high level of uselessness that states themselves will have to find ways to actually listen to the people and get things done. Maybe if enough of that occurs, I won't need to move to Canada to find a government that listens, I'll just need to move to Vermont, or Massachusetts, or New York, or whatever state handles things in a way I feel makes sense.
Sure that might crystalize a state's redness or blueness, but it will also help minimize the impact of that because Congressional self-crotch-punching will also be less impacting.
So it appears that New York State may be about to do something that our federal government can't get done. A new income tax proposed would affect those making more than $2 million a year while cutting taxes for those making less than $300,000 a year.
New York State faces a possible $3.5 billion deficit in 2013, partially due to state revenue lost from shrinking Wall Street bonuses (take that naysayers... Wall Street was indeed hit by the current economic meltdown it fabricated). The new income tax would raise roughly $1.5 billion to go toward that deficit, with an additional $400 million going toward youth jobs programs and flood recovery efforts. From the article:
“As a matter of simple math, there is not an intelligent or productive way to close the current gap without generating revenue,” Cuomo said.The first part of that quote is sort of the shocker to me because of how clearly it states the issue. It's not a plea for morality, or a treatise on fairness, it just calls out the mathematical truth. New York State is short of cash, let's find a place to get some from. Simple as that. No revenue neutral obfuscation, no shifts of deficit burdens from the rich onto the poor and middle classes. Simply tax the very richest, put more money in the pockets of the middle class, and let's see what happens.
Basic economics demonstrates that people with less money spend higher percentages of what they have because they need it to get by. The middle class will now get more to spend and they most likely will. That means more money going into the New York State economy. Will it be enough to help right things locally? Who knows, but it won't hurt and it should be more effective than the alternative of cutting taxes for the wealthiest since they are more likely to hold onto that savings in some way. Either way, we get the chance to see how it plays out.
One possibility sometimes argued is that higher taxes drive the rich out of that geographical location. I guess now we'll get the chance to test that out. I imagine the bulk of these richest New Yorkers live around New York City, so lets see if New Jersey and Connecticut suddenly see an influx of millionaires. I don't think it will happen, but I guess we'll have to see, and now we get that chance.
Obviously the heart of our federal system of government intended for states to have a strong presence in governing, but I don't think our national system was ever intended to be as impotent as it currently is. So it's always good to see states taking the initiative.
Obviously California is known for having its own set of environmental guidelines. Massachusetts, under Mitt Romney, put a health care mandate in place requiring everyone to carry health insurance. Texas, under Rick Perry, put together measures to help young girls get the HPV vaccine. Vermont has a single payer health care system in place. Now New York State is going to tax the richest elite a little bit more to help deal with its current economic situation.
While these ideas may all seem like a classic liberal agenda, I would argue that they all rooted in common sense that many people, not just typical liberals, could get behind. Going back to all that market forces talk of taxes pushing millionaires to move, I'm curious to see if certain states that take the initiative to implement common sense ideas currently flummoxing Congress see any population movement. Will people leave Mississippi, one of the unhealthiest and poorest states in the country, to go to Massachusetts? Will businesses move to Vermont, incentivized by not having to deal with as much health care red tape?
I used to hear people joke/threaten to move to Canada if things kept tanking in the USA. Congress might achieve such a high level of uselessness that states themselves will have to find ways to actually listen to the people and get things done. Maybe if enough of that occurs, I won't need to move to Canada to find a government that listens, I'll just need to move to Vermont, or Massachusetts, or New York, or whatever state handles things in a way I feel makes sense.
Sure that might crystalize a state's redness or blueness, but it will also help minimize the impact of that because Congressional self-crotch-punching will also be less impacting.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
A Flashback Round-Up Filler Episode of Congress v. United States
Just some headlines here to keep my four readers informed on the goings on of the nation. First, and probably the biggest piece of news, is that Herman Cain has been accused of having a thirteen year affair.
First it was just cash settlements to women claiming Herman Cain played a bit of grab-ass with them. Now we've got someone coming forward alleging an affair that lasted longer than many marriages. The best part? If you watch the video that's part of the above linked ABC News article, you'll get to see Herman Cain addressing his supporters.
It feels surreal to listen to him talk about how "they" don't want him to win, and "they" just want to drag his name through the mud to hurt his presidential chances. I'm not sure that's what the original accusers had in mind all those years ago when they brought action against him, but maybe that's how Cain sees it. Cain's version:
For what it's worth, Cain's run has basically ended anyway, so it's really neither here nor there if he stays in the race. Turns out that being either a moron or an accused sexual harasser isn't enough to fall in the GOP polls. But put the two together and that might just be all that the voters can stand. Enjoy this nugget as Cain starts to fade away.
Yeah, Herman Cain really did quote the Pokemon movie in a GOP debate.
With Cain falling, Newt Gingrich has stepped into the GOP flavor of the month role. We already now all about Gingrich's tendencies to cheat on his current wife (usually when she's gravely ill, like divorcing his first wife as she recovered from cancer surgery and dumping the second wife for a 20-year younger aide just as the wife is diagnosed with MS). There doesn't seem to be any weird tweets, IMs, or texts to underaged dudes, so I'm not sure what dirt will scuttle his run at the top. Gingrich takes a lot of heat for not acting conservative enough, and he also has a flip-flopping problem.
Maybe stuff like this will also help to scuttle his efforts:
I guess we'll have to see how it goes. Meanwhile, Jon Huntsman, possibly the most rational and best match for Obama, can't seem to make any headway despite most of the GOP field coming across like contestants on a VH1 reality show.
Obviously the debate system our media has set up is deeply flawed, designed to help keep front-runners up front and the also-rans marginalized... but the fact that Huntsman won't even be allowed to enter the building seems harsh. Come on, the dude even did Saturday Night Live.
Huntsman admits that his campaign is all or nothing with New Hampshire, but that hasn't stopped him from hinting at the possibility of an independent run. One possible ally might be the newly formed Justice Party.
Wrong Justice, wrong Party. More like this:
French techno jokes aside, I may actually cast my ballot toward this effort if it can get off the ground. Former Salt Lake City mayor, Rocky Anderson, severed ties with the democratic party last summer because he got so fed up with corporate interests taking over the American political process. Here's a breakdown of the Justice Party's platform:
All good stuff that I could get behind. I think I heard that part of the Justice Party platform was donkey-elephant agnosticism, something else that I would happily embrace. Even though Rocky Anderson is running for president with his Justice Party, he has talked up Huntsman as well, not sure if that's to get Huntsman's independent efforts on board. Obviously the two both hail from Utah, so maybe Anderson is looking to get the band back together. We'll have to see how it plays out.
Michelle Bachmann started fading a long time ago, but I admire her efforts to stay relevant. Like this recent stumble:
Of course, we closed that business down in 1980. But maybe that's not really fair if you take into account her defense that she was speaking hypothetically, just like it's not really fair to post the following image:
When she really looks more like this:
But I guess that's the nature of politics.
Lest we forget Rick Perry, here's his latest;
And just for the hell of it, here's John Boehner crying a lot:
And that concludes our post-November sweeps flashback filler recap entry here at Congress v. United States.
First it was just cash settlements to women claiming Herman Cain played a bit of grab-ass with them. Now we've got someone coming forward alleging an affair that lasted longer than many marriages. The best part? If you watch the video that's part of the above linked ABC News article, you'll get to see Herman Cain addressing his supporters.
It feels surreal to listen to him talk about how "they" don't want him to win, and "they" just want to drag his name through the mud to hurt his presidential chances. I'm not sure that's what the original accusers had in mind all those years ago when they brought action against him, but maybe that's how Cain sees it. Cain's version:
"You know... just in case Herman Cain ever decides to run for president in the future, maybe I should sue him now just to insure his campaign gets scuttled."I think the more likely scenario plays out like this.
"Hey, that guy at table three just grabbed my ass!"Either way, Cain decided to reassess his campaign and spend the weekend with his wife, face to face, to see how she's holding up with all of this.
For what it's worth, Cain's run has basically ended anyway, so it's really neither here nor there if he stays in the race. Turns out that being either a moron or an accused sexual harasser isn't enough to fall in the GOP polls. But put the two together and that might just be all that the voters can stand. Enjoy this nugget as Cain starts to fade away.
Yeah, Herman Cain really did quote the Pokemon movie in a GOP debate.
With Cain falling, Newt Gingrich has stepped into the GOP flavor of the month role. We already now all about Gingrich's tendencies to cheat on his current wife (usually when she's gravely ill, like divorcing his first wife as she recovered from cancer surgery and dumping the second wife for a 20-year younger aide just as the wife is diagnosed with MS). There doesn't seem to be any weird tweets, IMs, or texts to underaged dudes, so I'm not sure what dirt will scuttle his run at the top. Gingrich takes a lot of heat for not acting conservative enough, and he also has a flip-flopping problem.
Maybe stuff like this will also help to scuttle his efforts:
I guess we'll have to see how it goes. Meanwhile, Jon Huntsman, possibly the most rational and best match for Obama, can't seem to make any headway despite most of the GOP field coming across like contestants on a VH1 reality show.
Obviously the debate system our media has set up is deeply flawed, designed to help keep front-runners up front and the also-rans marginalized... but the fact that Huntsman won't even be allowed to enter the building seems harsh. Come on, the dude even did Saturday Night Live.
Huntsman admits that his campaign is all or nothing with New Hampshire, but that hasn't stopped him from hinting at the possibility of an independent run. One possible ally might be the newly formed Justice Party.
Wrong Justice, wrong Party. More like this:
French techno jokes aside, I may actually cast my ballot toward this effort if it can get off the ground. Former Salt Lake City mayor, Rocky Anderson, severed ties with the democratic party last summer because he got so fed up with corporate interests taking over the American political process. Here's a breakdown of the Justice Party's platform:
- Hold the Banksters who destroyed our economy accountable. Who has been sent to jail yet?
- Bring to justice those who lied us into the Iraq War! Both Congress and the Administration have left this issue unaddressed
- No jobs, no justice, and there are a lot of people who don't have economic justice because there are no jobs. Time for a concerted push for jobs creation, which continues to be avoided.
- Bailouts for the fleeced homeowners, not Wall Street and auto manufacturers only. As major corporations continue to report record earnings, homeowners are facing bankruptcies and decreasing value of their homes, yet no one lifts a hand to help. Sure there have been a couple ineffective programs, but not enough to make a dent.
- Torturers in our midst must be brought to justice, and those who enabled them through twisted and weak legal arguments must be held accountable. How else can we be confident that they won't do it again?
- Fair elections - it's clear we have problems with our patchwork election system. Whether it be restrictive registration laws, gerrymandering of congressional and legislative districts, ignored sunshine laws, gutted (thanks Supremes!) campaign finance laws, no-paper-trail voting booths... enough said. We need uniformly fair elections if we are going to have justice.
- Filibuster reform - The filibuster is unconstitional. Say it with me again, the 60% majority required to overcome the filibuster in the US Senate is unconstitional. It must go. The majority rules in this nation, and it's time to get rid of this unfair provision that prevents progress and provides cover for gutless politicians.
- National Initiatives - Change you can believe in? Seems more like the same old, same old. National initiatives would surely change that. If Congress can't get off their butts to do the work of the people, we need a way for the people to step up and make the decisions. Time is long overdue.
- So on and so forth... think labor laws being gutted, GLBT citizens paying more taxes than their straight counterparts, seniors, low income and unemployed falling through our social safety net, immigrants that are criminalized when all they want to do is contribute to our society, etc. etc.
All good stuff that I could get behind. I think I heard that part of the Justice Party platform was donkey-elephant agnosticism, something else that I would happily embrace. Even though Rocky Anderson is running for president with his Justice Party, he has talked up Huntsman as well, not sure if that's to get Huntsman's independent efforts on board. Obviously the two both hail from Utah, so maybe Anderson is looking to get the band back together. We'll have to see how it plays out.
Michelle Bachmann started fading a long time ago, but I admire her efforts to stay relevant. Like this recent stumble:
Of course, we closed that business down in 1980. But maybe that's not really fair if you take into account her defense that she was speaking hypothetically, just like it's not really fair to post the following image:
When she really looks more like this:
But I guess that's the nature of politics.
Lest we forget Rick Perry, here's his latest;
And just for the hell of it, here's John Boehner crying a lot:
And that concludes our post-November sweeps flashback filler recap entry here at Congress v. United States.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Congress v. United States Goes To The Movies
Not sure how many people know this about me, but I studied economics as an undergraduate and then got my MFA in film production. Most of the time, it's tough to reconcile how the two go together, but there are some movies out there that let two of my main interests overlap. The obvious, unbelievably quotable classic Wall Street comes to mind, and then films trying to be quotable like Wall Street... namely Boiler Room and Wall Street 2.
It's feels rare to have a movie about money not go for the Wall Street quotability factor, but the recently released Margin Call takes that chance and turns out spectacularly. In fact, the script by writer/director J.C. Chandor often gets praised for taking straightforward, no frills dialogue to an artform. But let's cover the Basics first.
The film stars Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, Paul Bettany, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Stanley Tucci, and Mary McDonnell. The story takes place literally in the first 24 hours of the financial crisis as a fictional investment bank discovers just how screwed they set themselves up to be and tries to decide how to respond.
All of the actors turn in good performances with the slight but sometimes obvious separation between the movie vets and the TV stars. I was pleasantly surprised to see Demi Moore in this film because the last time I saw her in a Very Serious Movie About Grown Ups At Work, she was grabbing Michael Douglas' junk in the adaptation of Michael Chrichton's Disclosure. Here her work is far more subdued and intelligent, but I guess she and Michael Baker could be seen as the (very slightly) weaker links of the film.
Penn Badgley, Paul Bettany, and Zachary Quinto do a great job holding up the front half of the film while the "We're Screwed" puzzle gets cracked before handing it off to Jeremy Irons and Kevin Spacey to deal with the second half "How Do We Respond" moral slime realities.
While billed as a thriller, Margin Call isn't the type of thriller like The Firm with a Wilford "Diabetes" Brimley trying to convince the world he should absolutely be taken seriously as a killer. Margin Call stays completely in the realm of possibility. Everyone barks about how they need to get Stanely Tucci back ASAP, but there's no shadowy figure like in The Firm or the more recent Michael Clayton ready to drop the hammer. Instead Tucci felt free to say no and the more realistic buckets of cash acted as the carrot dangling at the end of the stick. While fictional, Margin Call felt very much like a peek behind one possible curtain at the start of the 2008 financial meltdown (J.C. Chandor's father worked at Merrill Lynch for nearly forty years, so that probably helped with the veracity).
As I mentioned, the script itself deserves some special praise as well. It's lean, skips the flowery speeches, and let's everyone say exactly what they need to say while still allowing the characters to have individual voices. I don't go for David Mamet style jerk-offs to the rhythms of words so that everyone sounds like stiff, speaking metronomes that never heard of a contraction (with the useless artificial cursing to substitute for real tough talk). I also don't go for the more tolerable set-ups and payoffs style of Aaron Sorkin (the opening five minutes of The Social Network physically caused me pain). So it was nice to experience a script that went in the other direction and did it really well.
One interesting note is that the script never completely dumbs itself down to let those who might be confused catch up. There are a few moments when one character gives the proverbial "explain this to me like I'm stupid" line, and what followed made it clear to the character in the film, but could leave laymen still a bit in the dark. I wasn't sure what to make of that at first, but the more I thought about it, the more that decision made sense. The point of the film isn't to explain the How behind the financial crisis, but to explore a bit of the Why. You don't need to know every detail to understand that investment banks (along with many others) acted unwisely to say the least. The second half "How Do We Respond" is obviously the heart of this film, and all you need to understand that is a moral compass.
In the end, I greatly enjoyed Margin Call. At 107 minutes, it's easy to get through, and the simultaneous theatrical and rental release makes it easy for areas that don't usually get smaller, independent films to take a look (I rented mine on the XBox). While Margin Call may not be as fun or melodramatic or quotable as Wall Street, it's actually better at getting to the heart of the matter.
Absolutely worth checking out, especially given how easy it is to rent. For a second opinion, here's a link to Margin Call's review in The New Yorker.
It's feels rare to have a movie about money not go for the Wall Street quotability factor, but the recently released Margin Call takes that chance and turns out spectacularly. In fact, the script by writer/director J.C. Chandor often gets praised for taking straightforward, no frills dialogue to an artform. But let's cover the Basics first.
The film stars Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, Paul Bettany, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Stanley Tucci, and Mary McDonnell. The story takes place literally in the first 24 hours of the financial crisis as a fictional investment bank discovers just how screwed they set themselves up to be and tries to decide how to respond.
All of the actors turn in good performances with the slight but sometimes obvious separation between the movie vets and the TV stars. I was pleasantly surprised to see Demi Moore in this film because the last time I saw her in a Very Serious Movie About Grown Ups At Work, she was grabbing Michael Douglas' junk in the adaptation of Michael Chrichton's Disclosure. Here her work is far more subdued and intelligent, but I guess she and Michael Baker could be seen as the (very slightly) weaker links of the film.
Penn Badgley, Paul Bettany, and Zachary Quinto do a great job holding up the front half of the film while the "We're Screwed" puzzle gets cracked before handing it off to Jeremy Irons and Kevin Spacey to deal with the second half "How Do We Respond" moral slime realities.
While billed as a thriller, Margin Call isn't the type of thriller like The Firm with a Wilford "Diabetes" Brimley trying to convince the world he should absolutely be taken seriously as a killer. Margin Call stays completely in the realm of possibility. Everyone barks about how they need to get Stanely Tucci back ASAP, but there's no shadowy figure like in The Firm or the more recent Michael Clayton ready to drop the hammer. Instead Tucci felt free to say no and the more realistic buckets of cash acted as the carrot dangling at the end of the stick. While fictional, Margin Call felt very much like a peek behind one possible curtain at the start of the 2008 financial meltdown (J.C. Chandor's father worked at Merrill Lynch for nearly forty years, so that probably helped with the veracity).
As I mentioned, the script itself deserves some special praise as well. It's lean, skips the flowery speeches, and let's everyone say exactly what they need to say while still allowing the characters to have individual voices. I don't go for David Mamet style jerk-offs to the rhythms of words so that everyone sounds like stiff, speaking metronomes that never heard of a contraction (with the useless artificial cursing to substitute for real tough talk). I also don't go for the more tolerable set-ups and payoffs style of Aaron Sorkin (the opening five minutes of The Social Network physically caused me pain). So it was nice to experience a script that went in the other direction and did it really well.
One interesting note is that the script never completely dumbs itself down to let those who might be confused catch up. There are a few moments when one character gives the proverbial "explain this to me like I'm stupid" line, and what followed made it clear to the character in the film, but could leave laymen still a bit in the dark. I wasn't sure what to make of that at first, but the more I thought about it, the more that decision made sense. The point of the film isn't to explain the How behind the financial crisis, but to explore a bit of the Why. You don't need to know every detail to understand that investment banks (along with many others) acted unwisely to say the least. The second half "How Do We Respond" is obviously the heart of this film, and all you need to understand that is a moral compass.
In the end, I greatly enjoyed Margin Call. At 107 minutes, it's easy to get through, and the simultaneous theatrical and rental release makes it easy for areas that don't usually get smaller, independent films to take a look (I rented mine on the XBox). While Margin Call may not be as fun or melodramatic or quotable as Wall Street, it's actually better at getting to the heart of the matter.
Absolutely worth checking out, especially given how easy it is to rent. For a second opinion, here's a link to Margin Call's review in The New Yorker.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Apparently The Flaming Wreck Comes First...
A few months ago, I wrote the following entry:
We will soon have the answer to that question, and it looks like the answer lands squarely on the flaming wreck side.
That post covered a news story from NPR's Planet Money that examined the Congressional Super-Committee through the lens of traditional game theory. When Congress tied their own shoelaces together and then decided to run around carrying open flames this summer, the result was our country's debt ceiling debacle. Luckily, a few people finally realized that tripping around while carrying open flames might burn the house down, so a default was narrowly avoided (but not avoided enough for our AAA credit rating to get knocked down on account of Crazy).
But to the credit of Congress, they had the maturity to look in the mirror and admit they might just be batshit crazy, out of touch, selfish, delusional, ineffective, useless, etc...
So they came up with a solution to avoid repeating the debt ceiling crisis. A super-committee consisting of twelve people, six from each side of the aisle. They needed to agree upon $1.2 trillion in budget cuts before Thanksgiving or else automatic budget cuts would take effect, hitting everyone's sacred budgetary cows.
My previous post link above talked about games of chicken, rationale minds swerving at the last second, traditional theories on persuasion, and how those theories often go out the window when small, more intimate groups of people are involved. Essentially, the super-committee idea set up a much more conducive atmosphere for compromise.
So now you're probably thinking, "Hey, Thanksgiving is three days away." Which means it's time to find out how our super-committee did.
Not surprisingly, they failed.
I've said it before, but maybe not on this blog. If I were as bad at my job (which happens to be millionaire playboy yacht racer man about town) as Congress collectively is, I would probably spend three hours a day crying and wondering aloud why God made me such an incompetent loser.
Instead of a small group where cooler heads could prevail, we seemed to have gotten a microcosm of the typical ineffective Congressional crap. I'll post some choice quotes, but I'm guessing you can already predict how they'll play out.
Half the cuts are required to come from defense, so I guess it's good that our time in Iraq is about to end. Still, the idea of not providing for those who put their lives on the line for this country doesn't feel good. Not surprisingly, top people in the military have already gone on record protesting these "doomsday" cuts.
So who else gets the shaft? The EPA and chunks of Medicare, but Social Security and Medicare programs for those most in need are exempt.
Given that failure seems the most likely outcome, what happens next? Well, the doomsday cuts aren't set to go into effect until 2013, so the impact wouldn't be immediately felt. But there is an incompetence loophole built into the procedures. Technically these mandates and super-committees are just the result of Congressional votes. There's nothing stopping Congress from throwing up some more votes that change the rules or negate the process entirely.
Apparently failure always is an option whenever Congress is concerned, and luckily that jockstrap stink of ineffectiveness doesn't have to go away anytime soon.
We will soon have the answer to that question, and it looks like the answer lands squarely on the flaming wreck side.
That post covered a news story from NPR's Planet Money that examined the Congressional Super-Committee through the lens of traditional game theory. When Congress tied their own shoelaces together and then decided to run around carrying open flames this summer, the result was our country's debt ceiling debacle. Luckily, a few people finally realized that tripping around while carrying open flames might burn the house down, so a default was narrowly avoided (but not avoided enough for our AAA credit rating to get knocked down on account of Crazy).
But to the credit of Congress, they had the maturity to look in the mirror and admit they might just be batshit crazy, out of touch, selfish, delusional, ineffective, useless, etc...
So they came up with a solution to avoid repeating the debt ceiling crisis. A super-committee consisting of twelve people, six from each side of the aisle. They needed to agree upon $1.2 trillion in budget cuts before Thanksgiving or else automatic budget cuts would take effect, hitting everyone's sacred budgetary cows.
My previous post link above talked about games of chicken, rationale minds swerving at the last second, traditional theories on persuasion, and how those theories often go out the window when small, more intimate groups of people are involved. Essentially, the super-committee idea set up a much more conducive atmosphere for compromise.
So now you're probably thinking, "Hey, Thanksgiving is three days away." Which means it's time to find out how our super-committee did.
Not surprisingly, they failed.
I've said it before, but maybe not on this blog. If I were as bad at my job (which happens to be millionaire playboy yacht racer man about town) as Congress collectively is, I would probably spend three hours a day crying and wondering aloud why God made me such an incompetent loser.
Instead of a small group where cooler heads could prevail, we seemed to have gotten a microcosm of the typical ineffective Congressional crap. I'll post some choice quotes, but I'm guessing you can already predict how they'll play out.
"I'm going to be waiting all day," Washington Sen. Patty Murray, Democratic co-chair of the committee told CNN's Candy Crowley on "State of the Union."
"I'll be at the table, as I've been, willing to talk to any Republican who says, look, my country is more important, this pile of bills is not going to go away, the challenges that we have is not going to disappear. We need to cross that divide," said Murray.Senator Murray continues:
"I'll tell you one of the problems has been a pledge that too many Republicans took to a Republican wealthy lobbyist by the name of Grover Norquist, whose name has come up in meetings time and time again," Murray said, adding she was optimistic a compromise would be reached.Ready for the cliche response from the right?
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, reiterated the GOP mantra that Bush-era tax cuts should continue and entitlement spending be cut. Democrats are keen on letting the Bush-era cuts expire for the highest-income Americans in 2012.
"In Washington, there are folks who won't cut a dollar unless we raise taxes," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"If you want to get serious about the deficit, our country has to grow economically," Kyl said. "You can't grow, if you raise taxes in the middle of a recession."So there you have it, all that hard work and we end up punching ourselves in the groin just like we did over the summer. So I guess it's a good time to recap who gets screwed by the automatic cuts set to take place.
Half the cuts are required to come from defense, so I guess it's good that our time in Iraq is about to end. Still, the idea of not providing for those who put their lives on the line for this country doesn't feel good. Not surprisingly, top people in the military have already gone on record protesting these "doomsday" cuts.
But those cuts affect more than just the brave men and women serving on the front line. Military contracts provide massive amounts of jobs.
Some quotes to get the numbers out there.
The cuts could hammer Everett, Wash., where some of the 30,000 Boeing employees are working on giant airborne refueling tankers for the Air Force, or Amarillo, Texas, where 1,100 Bell Helicopter Textron workers assemble the fuselage, wings, engines and transmissions for the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.
Billions in defense cuts would be a blow to the hundreds working on upgrades to the Abrams tank for General Dynamics in Lima, Ohio, or the employees of BAE Systems in Pennsylvania.
In Tewksbury and Andover, Mass., deep defense cuts could have serious ramifications for thousands of Raytheon employees working on the Patriot, the air and missile defense system. It was heralded for its effectiveness during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and is now sold to close to a dozen nations, including South Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates.Take a moment to go back to some of Senator Jon Kyl's comments above about not being able to grow a country by raising taxes in a recession. Seems like you can't grow a country by slashing massive amounts of jobs either. I guess we all have our opinions on which is the lesser of two evils, though.
So who else gets the shaft? The EPA and chunks of Medicare, but Social Security and Medicare programs for those most in need are exempt.
Given that failure seems the most likely outcome, what happens next? Well, the doomsday cuts aren't set to go into effect until 2013, so the impact wouldn't be immediately felt. But there is an incompetence loophole built into the procedures. Technically these mandates and super-committees are just the result of Congressional votes. There's nothing stopping Congress from throwing up some more votes that change the rules or negate the process entirely.
Apparently failure always is an option whenever Congress is concerned, and luckily that jockstrap stink of ineffectiveness doesn't have to go away anytime soon.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Overreaching Sometimes Results In An Armpit In Your Face
This headline from The Christian Science Monitor states it perfectly:
The words missing from the end of that headline? "On Tangents..."
But nonetheless, I'm glad to see that message sent regardless. Yesterday, voters in Maine, Ohio, Mississippi, Arizona, and even a little bit in North Carolina, went to the polls and cast their ballots to the "what the hell are you doing?" side of the issue.
Ohio voters overturned their GOP-lead effort to abolish collective bargaining rights. Maine voters overturned their GOP-lead effort to abolish the ability to register to vote when you show up at the polls (despite GOP efforts to introduce the Gay strawman into the equation):
Mississippi voters shot down a "Life Begins At Fertilization" law that would have not only instituted draconian anti-abortion measures, but could have made certain types of birth control (the pill, IUDs, morning after pills) and possibly in vitro fertilization, illegal. Arizona recalled the man that put together their controversial "Papers Please" law.
In North Carolina, Wake County gave control of their school board back to the democrats after GOP members tried to segregate schools based on socio-economic status.
But not everything came up roses for the liberal conspiracy looking to hate America from the inside. While Mississippi did vote down the anti-abortion measure, they passed a law that will make it tougher to cast your vote next election. From the Christian Science Monitor article at the top:
One quote:
Mitt Romney continues to be the iceberg lettuce of the republican field - it fills out the sandwich without adding any flavor whatsoever to the overall experience. Herman Cain continues to baffle. Aside from not knowing anything...
... he also happens to be a serial groper (something he also knows nothing about). Here's a little bit of how he's handling the whole scandal (two parts from Jimmy Kimmel Live):
After mentioning how the Cain campaign saw donations explode the same day these sexual harassment allegations broke, Kimmel jokingly asked if other Republican candidates should hire women to charge them with sexual harassment. Laughing, Cain said, "If they're smart, they will."
Funny stuff... really funny stuff. Thank goodness women are just gold-digging liars who aren't guaranteed the right to vote by the 19th amendment.
The Cain Train, nothing can stop it and it will probably grab your ass.
The words missing from the end of that headline? "On Tangents..."
But nonetheless, I'm glad to see that message sent regardless. Yesterday, voters in Maine, Ohio, Mississippi, Arizona, and even a little bit in North Carolina, went to the polls and cast their ballots to the "what the hell are you doing?" side of the issue.
Ohio voters overturned their GOP-lead effort to abolish collective bargaining rights. Maine voters overturned their GOP-lead effort to abolish the ability to register to vote when you show up at the polls (despite GOP efforts to introduce the Gay strawman into the equation):
Mississippi voters shot down a "Life Begins At Fertilization" law that would have not only instituted draconian anti-abortion measures, but could have made certain types of birth control (the pill, IUDs, morning after pills) and possibly in vitro fertilization, illegal. Arizona recalled the man that put together their controversial "Papers Please" law.
In North Carolina, Wake County gave control of their school board back to the democrats after GOP members tried to segregate schools based on socio-economic status.
But not everything came up roses for the liberal conspiracy looking to hate America from the inside. While Mississippi did vote down the anti-abortion measure, they passed a law that will make it tougher to cast your vote next election. From the Christian Science Monitor article at the top:
Mississippi voters approved a proposed constitutional amendment to require that voters present government-issued identification at the polls – a move that critics see as a effort to diminish minority voting. Thirty states require all voters to show ID at the polls – many of them in the Deep South, says the National Conference of State Legislatures. Fourteen of the 30 require photo ID.Similar laws are taking affect in other states, like Florida (which never has any important impact on national elections) and South Carolina. Not sure how those laws address the sagging economy or job creation, but I guess that's what's getting done in some states. If you need more proof that people who should be working on the economy are ignoring the issue, please refer to this Washington Post article:
One quote:
“In the House of Representatives, what have you guys been doing, John?” Obama said, calling out House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
“You’ve been debating a commemorative coin for baseball. You’ve had legislation reaffirming that ‘In God We Trust’ is our motto. That’s not putting people back to work,” Obama said. “I trust in God, “but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work.”Maybe that's partially why the Christian Science Monitor points out that while yesterday's election did send a message, it didn't necessarily blast trumpets of confidence for President Obama in 2012.
If those outcomes signal that many voters believe Republicans overreached coming out of their victorious 2010 midterm elections, it's hard to read Tuesday's overall results as giving any major boost to President Obama's bid for reelection. He will be battling high disapproval ratings over his own performance and public frustration over the weak economy. Traditionally, high unemployment rates pose a big obstacle to retaining the White House.
"Based on the likely state of the economy in 2012, President Obama faces a steep uphill task to secure reelection," said a recent analysis by economists at the forecasting firm IHS Global Insight, based in Lexington, Mass. "A Republican opponent lacking broad appeal could tilt the balance back in favor of the president. But it does appear that this is an election that is the Republicans' to lose."Since yesterday's elections had essentially nothing to say about the state of our economy, and since some politicians continue to sit on their hands whenever bills to help fix the economy come up for a vote, I could see how Obama couldn't personally take too much away from the results. Given that, I agree with the last sentence of that last quote... this should be an election that is the Republican's to lose. Luckily they are doing their best to make sure that happens.
Mitt Romney continues to be the iceberg lettuce of the republican field - it fills out the sandwich without adding any flavor whatsoever to the overall experience. Herman Cain continues to baffle. Aside from not knowing anything...
... he also happens to be a serial groper (something he also knows nothing about). Here's a little bit of how he's handling the whole scandal (two parts from Jimmy Kimmel Live):
After mentioning how the Cain campaign saw donations explode the same day these sexual harassment allegations broke, Kimmel jokingly asked if other Republican candidates should hire women to charge them with sexual harassment. Laughing, Cain said, "If they're smart, they will."
Funny stuff... really funny stuff. Thank goodness women are just gold-digging liars who aren't guaranteed the right to vote by the 19th amendment.
The Cain Train, nothing can stop it and it will probably grab your ass.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Hoping To Make Sunlight Obama's Stained Dress
From CNN:
The Congressional committee investigating the Solyndra scandal voted to widen its net for subpoenaing White House documents.
You may have heard about this scandal already, but the recap goes... the Department of Energy floated Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturing company, $535 million in loans back in 2010. Last summer, the company filed for bankruptcy, taking that federal loan down the toilet with it. What makes it troubling for Obama is that reviewers warned there were potential problems with the company back in 2009, but the White House urged for quick approval of the loan.
There's also stuff like this:
I actually wouldn't recommend watching the whole thing because it's pretty dry, but it's basically CSPAN footage of Obama doing a bit of comedy, then talking about how awesome Solyndra will be. There's also stuff like this:
It's not crazy to say that the White House took personal pride in this Solyndra deal, and here was Obama's response to Solyndra's failing:
Even though $535 million is a lot of money, it's true that there are risks involved with any loan, so there are a lot of people (probably led by Obama and Biden) who want to paint the whole Solyndra fiasco as regrettable, but otherwise not a big deal. The Washington Post disagrees:
Essentially, emails indicated that the White House wanted the loan review rushed so that Biden could announce the approval at a Solyndra ground-breaking press event. From the WP article:
And another:
All of this led to an FBI raiding Solyndra looking into potential wrong-doing. That led to a Congressional investigation, which led to hyperbole.
Green jobs declared guilty by association. I'm not saying what happened with Solyndra should be overlooked, but here's a factoid from the following article:
Specifically:
But going back to the CNN article at the top, this expanded subpoena stuff feels somewhat similar to Congressional investigations of the Clinton White House that led to the President himself committing perjury over a blow job. It started as Ken Starr's investigation into Whitewater, but, a hundred million dollars later, it ended up about Lewinsky (and to Starr's impeccable detecting credit, he never really found much to go after, including Lewinsky, which was dumped on his lap by Linda Tripp).
Now we have a Congressional investigation that hasn't really been able to find anything that sticks, so they decide to dig deeper. It's not necessarily a bad instinct as long as it's honorable and not a "long as it takes, as much as it costs" witch hunt.
And like the Clinton scandal, there are a few hypocrites working the opposing side (what's up former Reps and admitted adulterers Henry Hyde, Robert Livingston, Newt Gingrich - a possible two or three time offender, Dan Burton, and Helen Chenoweth-Hage).
We'll turn here for the full timeline:
The quick takeaway from that article:
I know it's not as sexy as Clinton being hounded for marital infidelity by a bunch of adulterers, but, to put it in Clinton-era BJ terms... the angle of the dangle does depend on the heat of the meat or something. It's the mentality that I feel permeates Congressional republicans when a democrat sits in the White House. Any opening needs to be turned into an effort to bring down the Presidency as fast as possible. One term is fine, but what if we impeached on that BJ perjury charge?
It's one thing to investigate on the merits of the case, it's another to hypocritically grandstand. Of course, there's no shortage of hypocritical grandstanding on either end of the political spectrum, but I feel the weaponization of that grandstanding is something the right has down a bit better than the left.
Regardless, it's part of the rot attacking our legislative core.
The Congressional committee investigating the Solyndra scandal voted to widen its net for subpoenaing White House documents.
You may have heard about this scandal already, but the recap goes... the Department of Energy floated Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturing company, $535 million in loans back in 2010. Last summer, the company filed for bankruptcy, taking that federal loan down the toilet with it. What makes it troubling for Obama is that reviewers warned there were potential problems with the company back in 2009, but the White House urged for quick approval of the loan.
There's also stuff like this:
I actually wouldn't recommend watching the whole thing because it's pretty dry, but it's basically CSPAN footage of Obama doing a bit of comedy, then talking about how awesome Solyndra will be. There's also stuff like this:
It's not crazy to say that the White House took personal pride in this Solyndra deal, and here was Obama's response to Solyndra's failing:
Even though $535 million is a lot of money, it's true that there are risks involved with any loan, so there are a lot of people (probably led by Obama and Biden) who want to paint the whole Solyndra fiasco as regrettable, but otherwise not a big deal. The Washington Post disagrees:
Essentially, emails indicated that the White House wanted the loan review rushed so that Biden could announce the approval at a Solyndra ground-breaking press event. From the WP article:
“We have ended up with a situation of having to do rushed approvals on a couple of occasions (and we are worried about Solyndra at the end of the week),” one official wrote. That Aug. 31, 2009, message, written by a senior OMB staffer and sent to Terrell P. McSweeny, Biden’s domestic policy adviser, concluded, “We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews.”And another:
In one e-mail, an assistant to Rahm Emanuel, then White House chief of staff, wrote on Aug. 31, 2009, to OMB about the upcoming Biden announcement on Solyndra and asked whether “there is anything we can help speed along on OMB side.”
An OMB staff member responded: “I would prefer that this announcement be postponed. . . . This is the first loan guarantee and we should have full review with all hands on deck to make sure we get it right.”
And another:
In August 2009, e-mail exchanges between Energy Department staff members pointed out that a credit-rating agency predicted that the project would run out of cash in September 2011. Solyndra shut its doors on the final day of August.Finally:
Questions about the selection process were first raised in a July 2010 audit by the Government Accountability Office. It concluded that the Energy Department “lacked appropriate tools for assessing the progress” of the loan program and that the department treated applicants inconsistently, “favoring some applicants and disadvantaging others.”So the White House was clearly guilty of being overeager... but they claim they had no interest in swaying the decision of the loan package, they were just annoyingly curious about the timing of the decision. They might say that maybe if the Energy Department had done its job competently, none of this would have happened.
All of this led to an FBI raiding Solyndra looking into potential wrong-doing. That led to a Congressional investigation, which led to hyperbole.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of that panel’s oversight and investigations subcommittee, said last week that the FBI raid confirmed their belief that the “darling” of Obama’s green-jobs program was a “bad bet” from the beginning.
“Solyndra was the hallmark of the President’s green jobs program and widely promoted by the administration as a stimulus success story, right up until its bankruptcy and FBI raid,” Upton and Stearns said in a statement on Tuesday. “Let’s learn the lessons of Solyndra before another dollar goes out the door.”
Green jobs declared guilty by association. I'm not saying what happened with Solyndra should be overlooked, but here's a factoid from the following article:
Specifically:
Solyndra proves that energy-loan guarantees are a flop. Not exactly. The Energy Department’s loan-guarantee program, enacted in 2005 with bipartisan support,has backed nearly $38 billion in loans for 40 projects around the country. Solyndra represents just 1.3 percent of that portfolio — and, as yet, it’s the only loan that has soured. Other solar beneficiaries, such as SunPower and First Solar, are still going strong. Meanwhile, just a small fraction of loan guarantees go toward solar. The program’s biggest bet to date is an $8.33 billion loan guarantee for a nuclear plant down in Georgia.So the plan on the whole seems to be working out (maybe because those loans weren't rushed).
But going back to the CNN article at the top, this expanded subpoena stuff feels somewhat similar to Congressional investigations of the Clinton White House that led to the President himself committing perjury over a blow job. It started as Ken Starr's investigation into Whitewater, but, a hundred million dollars later, it ended up about Lewinsky (and to Starr's impeccable detecting credit, he never really found much to go after, including Lewinsky, which was dumped on his lap by Linda Tripp).
Now we have a Congressional investigation that hasn't really been able to find anything that sticks, so they decide to dig deeper. It's not necessarily a bad instinct as long as it's honorable and not a "long as it takes, as much as it costs" witch hunt.
And like the Clinton scandal, there are a few hypocrites working the opposing side (what's up former Reps and admitted adulterers Henry Hyde, Robert Livingston, Newt Gingrich - a possible two or three time offender, Dan Burton, and Helen Chenoweth-Hage).
We'll turn here for the full timeline:
The quick takeaway from that article:
To set the record straight, Climate Progress is publishing this timeline — verified by Department of Energy officials — that shows how the loan guarantee came together under both administrations. In fact, rather than rushing the loan for Solyndra through, the Obama Administration restructured the original Bush-era deal to further protect the taxpayers’ investment
So it starts with the 2005 passing of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which establishes a fund for these kinds of loans. Bush tries his hardest to get the loan approved, even going so far as a last ditch effort right before leaving office so that he could take the credit. Obama's team comes in and restructures the review of the loan, their own push follows, and then the collapse.
Rep. Cliff Stearns leads the subcommittee subpoenaing the White House. He's quoted above knocking Obama's green jobs initiatives. Last year, he lobbied to get one of those green jobs things built in his district:
Saft America, a lithium-ion battery manufacturer, built a plant in Jacksonville, FL, a part of the district Stearns represents. From the article:
”Nearly half the cash for the new Saft America Inc. facility was provided through a cost-sharing arrangement funded through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act” — a stimulus program that Stearns has campaigned against.I guess he opposes the Act as a whole but still helped get Saft America built in Jacksonville with the Act's money.
I know it's not as sexy as Clinton being hounded for marital infidelity by a bunch of adulterers, but, to put it in Clinton-era BJ terms... the angle of the dangle does depend on the heat of the meat or something. It's the mentality that I feel permeates Congressional republicans when a democrat sits in the White House. Any opening needs to be turned into an effort to bring down the Presidency as fast as possible. One term is fine, but what if we impeached on that BJ perjury charge?
It's one thing to investigate on the merits of the case, it's another to hypocritically grandstand. Of course, there's no shortage of hypocritical grandstanding on either end of the political spectrum, but I feel the weaponization of that grandstanding is something the right has down a bit better than the left.
Regardless, it's part of the rot attacking our legislative core.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Occupy Wall Street: The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend Edition
A nice little article from Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone:
But back to Taibbi. His article first mentions that the people writing those stolen emails aren't actually organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Second, and to the point, it mentions that the poor Occupy Wall Street movement is now going to take hits from all sides as we try to compartmentalize it under convenient labels.
As a quick aside to the "suck up popular political support indirectly" from Matt Taibbi's quote above, I found this Rachel Maddow clip to be an interesting (albeit probably highly unlikely) solution to one of the biggest hurdles our country faces... private money corrupting our public elections.
We need the people who benefit the most from our current system to fix it, which will probably never happen. We shouldn't forget that our founding fathers ingeniously devised all sorts of paths to solve our problems, and maybe it's time we put a few more of them into practice.
The article starts off with a mention of how internet Spy Andrew Breitbart had clandestinely infiltrated some journal web hangouts, stole their correspondences about the Occupy Wall Street movement, and compiled them for a crowd-sourcing effort to study them in depth. Breitbart's last claim to fame was keeping a series of pictures of Anthony Wiener's junk on his personal phone (oh, and then releasing them to the public). Breitbart's call to action can be found here:
The gem from the Breitbart bit goes something like this:
The true purpose of the Occupy movement appears to be further economic and governmental destabilization, at a time when the world is already facing major financial and political challenges. By embracing the Occupy movement, President Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, and their union allies may be supporting an effort to harm both the domestic and global economies; to create social unrest throughout the democratic world; and to embrace other radical causes, including the anti-Israel movement.How awful that the Occupy Wall Streeters would want to destabilize economies further than they were already destabilized by all the batshit the Occupiers are protesting? There's two sides here... the first consists of banks (with a dash of government collusion) that nearly wrecked the global economy causing painful shockwaves that many people still feel today. The second side consists of a few thousand people world-wide essentially saying "Dude, that wasn't cool." I'm not sure convincing more people to agree with the "Dude, that wasn't cool" sentiment should be considered the greater destabilizing crime here. I honestly pity whoever downloads the 8800 pages of emails posted and pours through them drooling at the thought of catching dirty liberals red-handed like an episode of Murder She Wrote.
But back to Taibbi. His article first mentions that the people writing those stolen emails aren't actually organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Second, and to the point, it mentions that the poor Occupy Wall Street movement is now going to take hits from all sides as we try to compartmentalize it under convenient labels.
This whole episode to me underscores an unpleasant development for OWS. There is going to be a fusillade of attempts from many different corners to force these demonstrations into the liberal-conservative blue-red narrative.
This will be an effort to transform OWS from a populist and wholly non-partisan protest against bailouts, theft, insider trading, self-dealing, regulatory capture and the market-perverting effect of the Too-Big-To-Fail banks into something a little more familiar and less threatening, i.e. a captive "liberal" uprising that the right will use to whip up support and the Democrats will try to turn into electoral energy for 2012.Both sides are already guilty of sullying the pure idea at the core of Occupy Wall Street. Taibbi describes how
...Obama has already made it clear that he is "on the same side as the Wall Street protesters" and that the Democratic Party, through the DCCC (its House fundraising arm), has jumped into the fray by circulating a petition seeking 100,000 party supporters to affirm that “I stand with the Occupy Wall Street protests.”(I wonder how firmly the DCCC was standing with OWS sentiment back when it was pushing for the bailouts and the repeal of Glass-Steagall Act).
We've similarly heard about MoveOn.org jumping into the demonstrations and attempting, seemingly, to assume leadership roles in the movement.Given that, it seems pretty easy for the right to conjure up their response.
All of this is the flip side of the coin that has people like Breitbart trying to frame OWS as a socialist uprising and a liberal media conspiracy. The aim here is to redraw the protests along familiar battle lines.
The Rush Limbaughs of the world are very comfortable with a narrative that has Noam Chomsky, MoveOn and Barack Obama on one side, and the Tea Party and Republican leaders on the other. The rest of the traditional media won't mind that narrative either, if it can get enough "facts" to back it up. They know how to do that story and most of our political media is based upon that Crossfire paradigm of left-vs-right commentary shows and NFL Today-style team-vs-team campaign reporting.The point is that the Occupy Wall Street movement has its core idea down so close to the base, that it literally should strike a chord with everyone in the proverbial 99 percent-ers. It may strike a chord with me for different reasons than a hard core member of the tea party, but our goals can be achieved through the same means. There's no reason for anyone actually paying attention to need this couched into the comfortable terms Taibbi described. The core is simple enough for anyone to grasp, and it already has plenty of "with us or agin us" built in. As Taibbi states:
Both traditional constituencies want these companies off the public teat and back swimming on their own in the cruel seas of the free market, where they will inevitably be drowned in their corruption and greed, if they don't reform immediately. This is a major implicit complaint of the OWS protests and it should absolutely strike a nerve with Tea Partiers, many of whom were talking about some of the same things when they burst onto the scene a few years ago.Politicians and the media have turned us all into Pavlovian dogs, but our triggers are the words "tea party" or "liberal" instead of bells. The Occupy Wall Street movement gives us all the chance to put our knee-jerk slobbering to good use pushing for change that's actually worth affecting. Taibbi concludes by writing:
The only way the Goldmans and Citis and Bank of Americas can survive is if they can suck up popular political support indirectly, either by latching onto such vague right-populist concepts as "limited government" and "free-market capitalism" (ironic, because none of them would survive ten minutes without the federal government's bailouts and other protections) or, alternatively, by presenting themselves as society's bulwark against communism, lefty extremism, Noam Chomsky, etc.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying one thing: beware of provocateurs on both sides of the aisle. This movement is going to attract many Breitbarts, of both the left and right variety. They're going to try to identify fake leaders, draw phony battle lines, and then herd everybody back into the same left-right cage matches of old. Whenever that happens, we just have to remember not to fall for the trap.I know there are people on both sides that would rather spar with the opposition at all costs rather than stick to their ideology and push for useful change, but here's hoping they either come around or can somehow get drowned out from the conversation.
As a quick aside to the "suck up popular political support indirectly" from Matt Taibbi's quote above, I found this Rachel Maddow clip to be an interesting (albeit probably highly unlikely) solution to one of the biggest hurdles our country faces... private money corrupting our public elections.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Fool me once... shame on you......... Fool me- you can't get fooled again.
I'm going to kick this one off with an old favorite...
The reason I bring this up is because late last week, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney released his list of foreign advisors... something that Rachel Maddow looked at in great detail in the following clip.
The crux of the video addresses how Mitt Romney tapped a slew of former George W Bush foreign policy advisors and former members of neoconservative think tanks from the late nineties and from early in W Bush's presidency.
One of those think tanks was The Project For the New American Century, a group that actively campaigned to get our 9/11 response to include an invasion of Iraq. While the group is now defunct, the website still exists here. Maddow half-jokingly describes it as a collection of all the worst foreign policy ideas from the last decade together in one place. She goes on to say that
As Maddow rightly points out, if you've screwed up that badly in a particular area, you should be disqualified from ever working in that area again, and I tend to agree.
The reason I bring this up is because late last week, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney released his list of foreign advisors... something that Rachel Maddow looked at in great detail in the following clip.
The crux of the video addresses how Mitt Romney tapped a slew of former George W Bush foreign policy advisors and former members of neoconservative think tanks from the late nineties and from early in W Bush's presidency.
One of those think tanks was The Project For the New American Century, a group that actively campaigned to get our 9/11 response to include an invasion of Iraq. While the group is now defunct, the website still exists here. Maddow half-jokingly describes it as a collection of all the worst foreign policy ideas from the last decade together in one place. She goes on to say that
...with the greatest foreign policy failure in American history hung around their necks, with the Project for the New American Century neocon fantasy a punchline now, Mitt Romney, as a presidential candidate has decided to embrace them.Romney tapped six former members of The Project and three out of four members of the group that picked up where The Project left off when it dissolved (the Foreign Policy Initiative). One of the guys, Cofer Black, helps head up the security group Blackwater. Another guy, who Romney signed up for his anti-proliferation team, was the guy who pushed for President Bush to include the crap about British intelligence reporting that Iraq was all up in Niger's business trying to acquire yellow cake uranium.
As Maddow rightly points out, if you've screwed up that badly in a particular area, you should be disqualified from ever working in that area again, and I tend to agree.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Rick Perry: The "N Word" Edition
Sometimes you just have to take the easy pitch:
Not much to say beyond Rick Perry hunts animals at a camp called "Niggerhead." Granted, that was something painted on a rock by the lessee prior to Rick Perry's Dad, who took over the least in the early 1980's.
From the Washington Post article itself that the Vanity Fair piece references:
Rick Perry says that as soon as his Dad could, he painted over the offensive language and even later turned the rock over to cover the language further. I'm not really sure what more could be done given the unfortunate racism painted on the rock.
But the Washington Post piece interviews a number of people who hunted with Perry at the camp and their recollection of that rock differs. Here's Perry's:
The full Washington Post story doesn't try to duck the racism of the name of that camp, but it does dig deeper and provide a pretty interesting slice of history that puts it all in context. It doesn't forgive or excuse, but in providing a fuller picture, it helps crystalize that Perry isn't a racist and the camp name is a horrible relic left over from a more regretful time. It explores the institutional discrimination of our country and how that problem always exists in the fabric of our population (what's up GOP candidates who want to reinstate Don't Ask Don't Tell?),
But that doesn't stop Herman Cain from seizing his opportunity. From the Vanity Fair piece:
Cain did it anyway.
Not much to say beyond Rick Perry hunts animals at a camp called "Niggerhead." Granted, that was something painted on a rock by the lessee prior to Rick Perry's Dad, who took over the least in the early 1980's.
From the Washington Post article itself that the Vanity Fair piece references:
Rick Perry says that as soon as his Dad could, he painted over the offensive language and even later turned the rock over to cover the language further. I'm not really sure what more could be done given the unfortunate racism painted on the rock.
But the Washington Post piece interviews a number of people who hunted with Perry at the camp and their recollection of that rock differs. Here's Perry's:
“My mother and father went to the lease and painted the rock in either 1983 or 1984,” Perry wrote. “This occurred after I paid a visit to the property with a friend and saw the rock with the offensive word. After my visit I called my folks and mentioned it to them, and they painted it over during their next visit.”Straightforward. Perry saw it, told his Dad about it, they painted over it. Now, one dissenting account:
“I remember the first time I went through that pasture and saw that,” said Ronnie Brooks, a retired game warden who began working in the region in 1981 and who said he guided three or four turkey shoots for Rick Perry when Perry was a state legislator between 1985 and 1990. “. . . It kind of offended me, truthfully.”And another:
“I was just so taken aback that it was so blatant, so in your face,” said a person from the Dallas area who visited the camp once in 1990 or 1991 and did not want to be named in a story potentially critical of Perry. “It was just, ‘whop.’ It was a big rock, big enough to write that whole thing out.”And finally The Washington Post checked it out:
As recently as this summer, the rock was still there, according to photographs viewed by The Washington Post.
In the photos, it was to the left of the gate. It was laid down flat. The exposed face was brushed clean of dirt. White paint, dried drippings visible, covered a word across the surface. An N and two G's were faintly visible.Now, I have to admit, I don't read this story and think "Daaaaaamn, there goes Perry's campaign." I found a lot of the background in the article to be pretty interesting, describing Perry's section of Texas over the last sixty years or so. Two particular quotes jumped out at me:
Throckmorton County, where the hunting camp is located, was for years considered a virtual no-go zone for blacks because of old stories about the lynching of a black man there, locals said. The 1950 Census listed one black resident in Throckmorton County out of a population of about 3,600. In 1960, there were four; in 1970, two; in 1980, none. The 2010 Census shows 11 black residents.
Mae Lou Yeldell, who is black and has lived in Haskell County for 70 years, recalled a gas station refusing to sell her father fuel when he drove the family through Throckmorton in the 1950s. She said it was not uncommon in the 1950s and ’60s for whites to greet blacks with, “Morning, nigger!”
“I heard that so much it’s like a broken record,” said Yeldell, who had never heard of the hunting spot by the river.
Racial attitudes here have shifted slowly. Haskell County began observing Martin Luther King Jr. Day two years ago, according to a county commissioner. And many older white residents understand the civil rights movement as a struggle that addressed problems elsewhere.And the other:
“It’s just a name,” said Haskell County Judge David Davis, sitting in his courtroom and looking at a window. “Like those are vertical blinds. It’s just what it was called. There was no significance other than as a hunting deal.”
The name “Niggerhead” has a long and wide history. It was once applied to products such as soap and chewing tobacco, but most often to geographic features such as hills and rocks.
In 1962, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names changed more than a hundred such names, substituting "Negro."
“Typically these were in areas where African Americans were not all that common,” said Mark Monmonier, a geography professor at Syracuse University who wrote a book on the subject of racially offensive place names.
The federal action still left many local names unchanged. In Texas, Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady, lobbied to change the name of a mountain in Burnet, Tex., that had the same name as Perry’s hunting spot. In 1968, it became “Colored Mountain.” In 1989, the Texas NAACP began lobbying the state legislature to change many more names, such as “Nigger Creek” and “Niggerhead Hill,” although there has been resistance from private landowners, according to news accounts.I think a lot of elitist east coast liberal snobs often forget just how different this country can be from area to area. We get wrapped up thinking how could anyone in their right minds not agree with my compassionate, logical stance? We demonize people like those who live where Perry grew up and call them racists, writing them off completely as irrational. We also fail to try to dig a little deeper to understand the context and intent, leaving us with articles that feel like cheap shots like the Vanity Fair piece originally linked.
The full Washington Post story doesn't try to duck the racism of the name of that camp, but it does dig deeper and provide a pretty interesting slice of history that puts it all in context. It doesn't forgive or excuse, but in providing a fuller picture, it helps crystalize that Perry isn't a racist and the camp name is a horrible relic left over from a more regretful time. It explores the institutional discrimination of our country and how that problem always exists in the fabric of our population (what's up GOP candidates who want to reinstate Don't Ask Don't Tell?),
But that doesn't stop Herman Cain from seizing his opportunity. From the Vanity Fair piece:
Perry’s former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain appeared on Fox News yesterday and said, “For him to leave it there as long as he did, until before, I hear, they finally painted over it, is just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country.”I would imagine something else offensive to a lot of black people in this country would be equating slavery with political platform sound bytes in ways that cheapen the suffering that institution inflicted on millions of people and our country as a whole.
Cain did it anyway.
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