NEON GODS

This will probably not end well

Ezra Klein, this morning:

By the end of the debt-ceiling negotiations, the Obama administration had agreed to a deal that would reduce the deficit by $2.4 trillion, with $2 trillion of the total coming from spending cuts and $400 billion coming from tax increases. Taxes, in other words, would be about 17 percent of the final deal. Republicans rejected it. But as little as four months ago, it was the Republican ideal.

First of all, a deficit reduction deal of $2.4 trillion comprised of 83% spending cuts is devastating.  Spending cuts throw people out of work and it reduces the flow of money into the economy.  It will definitely increase unemployment - just what we need, huh? 

But even 83% is not enough for the GOP, they insist it must be 100%, and when the Democrats said NO, the Republicans got up and went home!  Now we find that just four months ago the Republicans were saying it would be super if they could get 85% of the deficit reduction in spending cuts.  Now that the Democrats have pretty much agreed to give them what they wanted, the Republicans have decided they want MORE!  It must now be 100%!

I would love to see the Democrats hold firm at 17% in tax increases.  They've already caved - that percentage should have been at least 33%.  But it appears as though the Republicans are willing to crash our economy to protect the very, very wealthy from modest tax increases.  Wow!  If that's the case, just imagine what they will do when it comes time for the Bush tax cuts to expire!

--Trakker

Conservatives: "...little regard to the realities"

I just saw this column about how loony conservative Republicans have become by Time magazine's Fareed Zakaria, a moderate conservative who usually has some pretty good insights about issues.

He is spot on about the current Republican party, but is he just noticing it? 

He begins:

From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, the greatest conservative thinkers have said that to change societies, one must understand them, accept them as they are and help them evolve.

Aristotle was a conservative?!  And what's this, "conservatives help societies evolve"?  Maybe before my time they did, but for most of my lifetime they have tried to bolt the door against any change (except backward).

Conservatives now espouse ideas drawn from abstract principles with little regard to the realities of America's present or past. This is a tragedy, ... 

Consider the debates over the economy. The Republican prescription is to cut taxes and slash government spending — then things will bounce back. Now, I would like to see lower rates in the context of tax simplification and reform, but what is the evidence that tax cuts are the best path to revive the U.S. economy? Taxes — federal and state combined — as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest level since 1950. The U.S. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies. So the case that America is grinding to a halt because of high taxation is not based on facts but is simply a theoretical assertion. The rich countries that are in the best shape right now, with strong growth and low unemployment, are ones like Germany and Denmark, neither one characterized by low taxes.

If only the Democrats would shout this from the rooftops!

Many Republican businessmen have told me that the Obama Administration is the most hostile to business in 50 years. Really? More than that of Richard Nixon, who presided over tax rates that reached 70%, regulations that spanned whole industries, and who actually instituted price and wage controls?

In fact, right now any discussion of government involvement in the economy — even to build vital infrastructure — is impossible because it is a cardinal tenet of the new conservatism that such [government] involvement is always and forever bad. ...  From Singapore to South Korea to Germany to Canada, evidence abounds that some strategic actions by the government can act as catalysts for free-market growth.

The fact that the Republicans use the word "hostile" when describing the Obama administration's attitude toward business should tip anyone off that this is off the wall.  No President can afford to be "hostile" toward business in this country.  Trying to protect consumers by ensuring they don't get ripped of by shady businesses, or trying to protect our economy from being destroyed by businesses who are too big to fail is hardly hostile.  You might say it's actually good for businesses. 

Moving on to health care.

When considering health care, for example, Republicans confidently assert that their ideas will lower costs, when we simply do not have much evidence for this. What we do know is that of the world's richest countries, the U.S. has by far the greatest involvement of free markets and the private sector in health care. It also consumes the largest share of GDP, with no significant gains in health on any measurable outcome. ... Republicans don't bother to study existing health care systems anywhere else in the world. They resemble the old Marxists, who refused to look around at actual experience. "I know it works in practice," the old saw goes, "but does it work in theory?"

Zakaria is right, the Republicans have an agenda, shrink government and let the corporations and the rich run the country.  To do that they just make up crap that has no basis in fact and haven't been proved, and hope we're too stupid to figure out that it's all smoke and mirrors.  So far they've gotten away with it.  Does this mean that conservatives like Zakaria at Time magazine will now continue to blow the whistle on them?  I doubt it.  I'm sure that he will continue to treat Republicans like a responsible, respectable party.

--Trakker

Guess who Obama will owe allegiance to if he wins in 2012?

President Obama wants to get re-elected in 2012.  One would think Obama is in a good position to win re-election.  His job approval ratings are not high, but pretty solid, and even higher percentages claim to like him as a person.  Polls also show that more voters prefer and trust the Democrats than Republicans.  And look at the roster of potential Republican candidates for President: those who appear to be almost sane are dull and uninspiring, and those who do generate excitement among the Republican base could easily be mistaken for characters on a zany sit-com.

The point is, it is hard for me to concieve that someone as clever and talented as Barack Obama could be beaten by any of the Republicans we've seen to date.  Remember the wild enthusiasm he generated among regular voters in 2008, and the huge number of small contributions they gave to his campaign?  It put him over the top. 

So why is Obama wooing the rich this time around? 

President Obama and top White House aides are waging a behind-the-scenes push to win over skeptical big-dollar donors — whose early money is needed to help fund a dramatic summertime expansion of his battleground-state machinery.

Campaign officials are working to broaden Obama’s network of “bundlers,” the well-connected rainmakers tasked with soliciting big checks from wealthy donors, while seeking to preserve the aura of a grass-roots movement by luring back the kind of small Internet donations that helped shatter fundraising records four years ago. [emphasis mine]

And why would the wealthy donors give Obama money if the Democratic party is supposed to be the party that looks out for the average Joe?  Do you think the wealthy really give a damn about the poor and the needy?  What do you think the wealthy are expecting to get from Obama in return for their huge checks?

It's pretty obvious to me that Obama has decided that it's better to suck up to the wealthy and pretend to appeal to the grass roots than actually earn the votes and enthusiasm of the poor, the working class, and middle class voters. 

It would be nice to see Obama visit homeless shelters, food kitchens, and unemployment offices, and encourage the press to focus on how the Republicans policies and obstructionism are impoverishing the country.  It would be nice to see Obama actually fight and fight hard for programs to put people back to work.  At least confront the Republicans head-on and make them refuse to help the poor and those who are out of work.  How about some public ridicule of those on the right who are overtly hostile to the workers, Mr. President?  Get us all back on your side like we were in 2008.  Isn't that a better way to win re-election than to sell out to the wealthy?

--Trakker

Sweden is a rather small European nation that drives American conservatives crazy.  Why?  Because Sweden is a "large government, high tax" nation that is very successful. Sweden is prosperous, the people are healthy and happy.  It's corporations are very profitable.  Their budget is balanced.  In short, Sweden is the greatest single proof that the American conservatives and libertarians are full of shit. Sweden is proof that a large government and high taxes does not bankrupt a nation or stifle the economy.

The Washington Post has a nice article about how Sweden has bounced back quickly from the global financial crisis while the rest of the word is still struggling.

This Scandinavian nation of 9 million people has accomplished what the United States, Britain and Japan can only dream of: Growing rapidly, creating jobs and gaining a competitive edge. The banks are lending, the housing market booming. The budget is balanced. ...

The overarching lesson the Swedes offer is this: When you have a financial crisis, and Sweden had a nasty one in the early 1990s, learn from it. Don’t simply muddle through and hope that growth will eventually return. Rather, address the underlying causes of the crisis to create an economic and financial system that will be more resilient when bad times return.

Sweden is a surprisingly rural country with a few large cities.  The countryside is gorgeous but the cities are rather bland.  The people are warm and open however. They value higher education and they take their role of citizen very seriously (82% voted in the 2006 elections!). 

To be honest, I've encouraged my kids to move to Sweden (or France) because I think it will take decades for the United States to recover from it's current culture of greed and spitefulness, if it ever does.  I think the middle class in our country is gong to be badly squeezed for years.  The Swedes appear to share the values my family rates high: education, citizenship, tolerance, helping those in need, and freedom from religious nuttery (at least half the Swedes are atheists!), and freedom from a population of self-centered, greedy, xenophobic righties.  Can you imagine living in a country where you can go months or even years without encountering people who want to demonize and punish the poor and tear down the middle class?

--Trakker

Don't tell the Tea Partiers

The tea partiers are fond of pretending THEY are the REAL Americans.   Hah!  Not even close!  No, the Real REAL Americans dined in New York Thursday night with President Obama.  What? You say you weren't invited?  Maybe that's because you couldn't afford the dinner: $35,800.  Yes, these are the REAL Americans, the ones that politicians listen to.  The REAL Americans are the ones who can afford to dine with the President and have the money to insure Congress hears them loud and clear.  You don't.  You are a worker, a consumer, and/or a taxpayer.  Once you can no longer serve the capitalists, you will be labelled a slacker, a parasite, and irresponsible, and will be relegated to sleeping in your car and picking up aluminum cans alongside the highway until you die, quickly if you know what's good for you.

--Trakker

Black Slaves Spied for the Union during the Civil War.

An interesting Associated Press story this morning detailing some of the more daring assistance that Blacks provided the Union Army during the Civil War. 

Ironically, it was the South's deeply held belief that Blacks were nothing more than simple, mindless, domesticated animals, devoid of any real intelligence, that allowed slaves, former slaves and freedmen to infiltrate the Confederate military and political structure, steal their plans, and turn them over to the Union government.

In the Confederate circles he navigated, John Scobell was considered just another Mississippi slave: singing, shuffling, illiterate and completely ignorant of the Civil War going on around him.

Confederate officers thought nothing of leaving important documents where Scobell could see them, or discussing troop movements in front of him. Whom would he tell? Scobell was only the butler, or the deckhand on a rebel sympathizer's steamboat, or the field hand belting out Negro spirituals in a powerful baritone.

In reality, Scobell was not a slave at all.

He was a spy sent by the Union army, one of a few black operatives who quietly gathered information in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse with Confederate spy-catchers and slave masters who could kill them on the spot. These unsung Civil War heroes were often successful, to the chagrin of Confederate leaders who never thought their disregard for blacks living among them would become a major tactical weakness.

"The chief source of information to the enemy," Gen. Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army, said in May 1863, "is through our negroes."

Often the most successful spies were Black women.  In mid-19th century America, the conventional wisdom was that women were intellectually inferior to men and too shallow to learn anything more than housekeeping.  In the South this probably made Black women seem even less a threat than Black males, so they probably had more access to secrets than Black men.

Another spy, Mary Elizabeth Bowser, was born a slave to the Van Lew family, who freed her and sent her to school. Bowser then returned to Richmond, where Elizabeth Van Lew was running one of the war's most sophisticated spy rings.

Somehow, Van Lew got Bowser a job inside the Confederate White House as a housekeeper. Bowser then proceeded to sneak classified information out from under Confederate President Jefferson Davis' nose.

According to the memoirs of Thomas McGiven, the Union spymaster in Richmond whose cover was that of a baker who delivered to the Confederate White House, Bowser "had a photographic mind. Everything she saw on the Rebel President's desk she could repeat word for word. Unlike most colored, she could read and write. She made the point of always coming out to my wagon when I made deliveries at the Davis' home to drop information."

I guess what makes this story so satisfying is that it was the South's own failure to recognize that their slave's were every bit as smart as they were that contributed to their defeat.  (To be fair, northern whites - even abolitionists - appear not to have had a much higher opinion of Black's intellect.  They vehemently opposed slavery on the basis that it is wrong for a person to own another person, but few considered Blacks as their intellectual equals. It seems that in parts of the country, many today still share that opinion.)

--Trakker

RW radio host says we need to shoot and kill "urban thugs" and throw their "Mommas" in jail

I really miss the old civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King who fought the racists and bigotry even knowing it would probably end in his death.  I miss the politicians with guts like Lyndon Johnson who pushed civil rights laws even though he knew it signaled the death of the Democratic Party in the South forever, and could put him in the cross-hairs like John Kennedy before him.

Where are today's leaders with the guts and internal moral outrage to humiliate and marginalize the overt racists like Rush Limbaugh and those Republicans who buy votes with racist comments?   This shit is on the rise and the bigots are becoming more emboldened every day because there is hardly anyone of stature willing to risk their life or position in Washington to take on these purveyors of racial hate.

Think I'm overreacting?  Here is a right wing purveyor of hate, Neal Boortz, on his Cox Syndicated radio show three days ago (from a transcript published on Media Matters):

"... I want you to look around. You drive into [Atlanta]. The railroad overpass is on the downtown connector covered with graffiti. And that-- That is just an advertisement for everybody coming into this town that we really don't give a damn about those who would screw up our quality of life around here. We really just don't care. We don't care enough to paint over graffiti on the overpasses that come into our city, advertising welcome to Atlanta, here's some of our finest graffiti, from some of our finest urban thugs and their little gang signs. And pick up the paper tomorrow morning. Read about all the carjackings. Read about the innocent people shot for the pure de-hell of it.

This town is starting to look like a garbage heap. And we got too damn many urban thugs, yo, ruining the quality of life for everybody. And I'll tell you what it's gonna take. You people, you are - you need to have a gun. You need to have training. You need to know how to use that gun. You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape in Atlanta. We need to see the next guy that tries to carjack you shot dead right where he stands. We need more dead thugs in this city. And let their -- let their mommas -- let their mommas say, "He was a good boy. He just fell in with the good crowd." And then lock her ass up. [emphasis mine]

Conservatives gleefully cut our government spending on anything and everything that benefits the poor, while at the same time doing everything they can to insure that inner city kids can get guns anytime they want.  They do everything they can to keep the inner cities a seething cauldron of poverty which of course breeds anger, crime, and violence.  And when young kids who have no hope and nothing worth living for act exactly as anyone would in a similar situation, the right goes all ape shit!  They decide the only solution is to arm the good citizens (whites), and tell them to shoot and kill the "urban thugs" - and then lock up their "Mommas!"

Why is Cox Radio Inc. and their AM radio outlet in Atlanta, WSB, still on the air?  Isn't this a case of "inciting violence"?  Doesn't the FCC have any teeth anymore? 

--Trakker

Keith is Back (if you can find him)!

I miss Keith Olbermann.  I miss his anger, I miss his humor, but most of all I miss his willingness to take on Bush, Cheney, the Republicans, the tea party, Rush, Fox News, and all the others trying to push us back to the dark ages.  I mean really take them on, to call them liars, unAmerican, unpatriotic, all those things you and I scream at them too, but no one can hear us because we're nobody.

Keith will soon be back on TV on a cable network called Current.  I know we don't have that network here at the cabin in West Virginia, and I'm not even sure we have it back in DC.  Probably do but I don't recall seeing it as I clicked through the channels.

I'll try to watch for him when we get back to DC.  I wish him well, but suspect his ratings won't threaten reruns of the Gong Show. The NY Times has a nice piece about him that describes a talented but thin-skinned, needy performer.  Ouch, sounds like Bill O'Reilly.  Still, Keith preserved my sanity during the bleakest years of the Bush/Cheney regime, and for that I'll be eternally grateful.

Here is the part of the Times article that really struck me.

Paul Begala, a commentator at CNN and a Democratic strategist, said that in spite of the obscurity of his new place in the cable world, Olbermann could find an audience. “I spend a lot of time talking to Democrats, and the question that you hear over and over is why nobody will stand up and fight back,” he said. “People are hungry for someone who will fight for them.”

Did you catch that? The question Paul Begala hears over and over is 'why won't anyone stand up and fight back?'  I wonder what his answer is (because I sure as hell don't know)?

[h/t BitburgBuddy]

--Trakker 

Republicanism: we tell you what to think so you don't have to

Annie Laurie at Balloon Juice posts an excerpt from an Esquire article about the Republican's hardening resistance to reality.

[Esquire]: ... [F]or most self-identified “conservatives,” it will never matter how high the water rises or how convincingly the evidence mounts, because from the start the debate about global warming has never been a debate in which rules of evidence apply. Rather, it has been a tectonic collision of belief systems, [where] the vision of America as a uniquely secular nation and the vision of America as a uniquely Christian one smash together and create earthquakes before they create mountain ranges, and in which secular Americans expressing concern for their children’s future and Christian Americans expressing concern for their children’s future turn out to be talking about two different things entirely…

... When Limbaugh derides global warming as a “religion,” he’s on to something, ... global warming has become a religion because Rush and Co. have succeeded in making it one. He has succeeded in recasting the global-warming debate in the same way he has succeeded in recasting the debate over everything else, from taxes to health care to gay marriage. He has made an issue that should be amenable only to fact amenable to faith, indeed subservient to it, so that if people don’t “believe” in global warming, it’s not happening. The great secret to the success of the Republican party since it became an arm of the American church and the American corporation is that it pretends to abide by “absolutes” while remaining committed to the relativism at the heart of all religion, which is that if you believe in something, it exists, and if you don’t, it doesn’t. [emphasis mine]

Laurie concludes with this: "It’s taken us some twelve thousand years to reach our current state of affairs, when a tiny minority of the population of one nation-state has the ability to use...“religious impulse” as a weapon that could potentially destroy the entire human biosphere, and not just that part of it within their own limited fiefdom. Ah, progress…"

Republicanism is a faith-based political party, no different than a religion.  To be a Christian or  Republican you have to believe things that common sense says is not true. The "preachers" in the Republican party are rich people who want to protect their wealth even if it means possibly destroying the planet.  They are hedonists who live only for today and the immediate future, and they succeed because too many Americans are too damn lazy (or stupid) to question why the experts are always "wrong" on issues important to Christians and right on everything else.

--Trakker

 

GOP: their goal is not to fix the economy, it's to make the rich richer

Republicans insist that raising taxes on the wealthy is bad because it would squelch job creation. Instead, we should lower their taxes to give them more money which they will use to create jobs in America.  No one ever asks them how that works.

Will they spend that extra money buying more TVs, will they go out to eat more, will they refurnish their bedrooms, will they buy an American made car, will they reroof the garage?  A few might but for the most part the very rich already have enough money to do the things they need, and want.  So that extra money won't increase demand enough to notice. 

Most of that extra money will be invested and that isn't what the economy needs right now.  Chances are that money will create jobs...overseas.  That's where the growth is right now.

Give a wealthy household an extra $20,000 a year and you won't see much difference in the economy, give the average household an extra $2000 and almost every penny of it will find it's way into the retail economy within months, creating demand, keeping small businesses open and maybe growing.

Would someone please corner these Republicans that insist tax cuts for the wealthy is the best way to create jobs?  Please, make them explain how it works and why it is more effective than a government stimulus package to create jobs, or a government check of $x,xxx to all households, or some other idea that would create jobs and get the unemployed working and paying taxes again.

--Trakker