I spent the weekend preparing to write my usual fly-by-night analysis of what I’ve come to affectionately think of as Great Depression II, wherein I was set to take the Obama Administration to task once more for its unapologetic use of the former Bushies and Clintonites who orchestrated this entire mess and their methods of printing and shoveling trillions of dollars into the collapsing financial markets, ostensibly so that we can continue to borrow and consume beyond our means, allowing the stock market to enjoy a few teensy upward ticks so a small number of investors can make off with a few more dollars, while the geniuses who stole everything in the first place walked away with “retention bonuses” and other multi-million dollar stipends with names that were euphemisms for “bonus” so the American public might not think that we’re paying them bonuses for crashing the industry that’s “too big to fail.”
I was going to castigate Obama for keeping guys like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, whose answer for our financial travails is to recycle Bush policy and purchase “toxic assets,” creating phony market values for them and hoping that some rube would come along in the future and buy them up like they were precious rocks of grade A Columbian blow.
And further, that we really don’t know what the plan is, and that we should be really upset that our tax dollars are going to pay off AIG debts to foreign banks and other financial institutions that have already received big glittery piles of bailout money from you and me, the American taxpayer. AIG posted the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history — about $61.7 billion — in the last quarter of 2008, by the way for those interested in the track record of the clowns who are getting those fat bonuses.
But my focus changed after Obama made his appearance on the teevee game show “60 minutes,” and answered Former Vice President “Dick” Cheney’s charge that his policies are making us “less safe.”
Cheney went on a national interview show on March 15 and was allowed to blather on about the effectiveness of torture and preemptive military attacks at keeping us safe from the “terr’sts.”
CNN interviewer/hack John King encouraged Cheney to continue the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) meme and trash Obama for his stated intention to close the American-sponsored torture camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“I think those programs were absolutely essential to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9-11. I think that's a great success story,” said the Dark Lord, about his obsession with torture. “President Obama campaigned against it all across the country. And now he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack.”
Let’s put aside the fact that had anyone criticized the Bush Administration is such stark terms, the national media would have been in an uproar and eventually the offender would have bowed his/her head in public shame over their perceived act of treason.
But a wonderful thing happened. Obama went on the teevee and actually shot down the urban legend that Bush policy was effective, and rather than making us “safer,” torture policies likely created more terrorism and enemies to the west in the Muslim world.
"The vice president is eager to defend a legacy that was unsustainable," said Obama, adding that the policies have “done incredible damage to our image and position in the world.
“You know, I think that Vice President Cheney has been at the head of a movement whose notion is somehow that we can't reconcile our core values, our constitution, our belief that we don't torture, with our national security interests. I think he's drawing the wrong lesson from history. The facts don't bear him out,” Obama said.
And then he went to the heart of what we “conspiracy theorists” have been saying for years:
"I mean, the fact of the matter is, after all these years, how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn't made us safer.”
It was doubly refreshing that Obama didn’t rush to bow down and kiss Cheney’s pasty white butt on Monday like any national Republican or many Democrats such as Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi might.
It reminded me why I voted for Obama. He’s articulate and usually the smartest guy in the room.
After more than 20 years of Kennebunkport/Hope Arkansas hillbillies and a decade of Reagan’s simplistic populism, it’s refreshing to have a hip, articulate urbanite in charge, who has his feet firmly in the “reality-based” community.
It was one of those brief moments where I gave up my bitter cynicism, and for a few moments believed that maybe things in my lifetime will be alright.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Ah, the joys of free choice
It’s kinda cool being human sometimes. Not only do we have opposable thumbs, but we also have what some people consider the god-given gift of free choice.
Oh sure, we have to wear clothes most of the time and create controlled climates in order to survive comfortably in a harsh, uncaring world, but we have other advantages not shared by the rest of the animal kingdom, not the least of which is the ability to record and learn from history.
For instance, in the art of war, military planners can look at battles that have gone before and learn tactics that can give them advantages on the battlefield in order to ensure a greater chance for success.
Unless of course, said military has far superior weaponry — thanks to centuries of scientific research and collective memory — and simply “shocks” and “awes” a technologically inferior enemy into temporary submission to declare “mission accomplished.”
The devil is in the details though, so in the aftermath of that sort of military action our commanders have the ability to turn to another playbook when the subsequent occupation turns into a quagmire, and our brilliant military leadership can then show us charts and graphs demonstrating how well the invasion is going. They can also orchestrate sham elections and talk about the occupied country “taking responsibility” for its own destiny.
Think “Vietnam-ization” here, and the Kabuki Theater of such geniuses as Robert McNamara, who later took his abilities to the Ford Motor Company.
It seems as if failing upwards is another quaint advantage afforded Homo Sapiens.
But free choice, personal responsibility and historical memory can extend to the areas of finance and economics as well.
For instance, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the financial industries of the U.S. became so large and incestuous that the entire world financial system collapsed, leading to a worldwide depression.
In an attempt to stanch the bleeding, our 32nd President Franklin Roosevelt enacted the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and created major banking reforms, some of which were designed to control speculation. It also prohibited banks from owning other financial businesses such as insurance companies (think Citigroup).
Roosevelt and many other observers of human nature thought free enterprise was fine, but when greed is allowed to go on unfettered, regulation helps to preserve a fair distribution of wealth. It’s also a matter of economic survival.
In more recent history, we can observe the “boom and bust” cycles of the economic bubbles that coincided with the final destruction of financial regulation thanks to 42nd President Bill Clinton, who was impeached for the wrong reason.
In 1999, Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall, after deregulating the communications industry in 1996.
The subsequent speculation exploded the tech market and led to a series of fiscal bombs, which became larger and more destructive as the financial industry gorged on empty profits and the agencies that remained to regulate them looked the other way.
A lot of people who should have known better claim that no one could have seen our fiscal collapse coming, but I don’t believe that. Those who predicted this collapse for years were marginalized, while the people who said we couldn’t have predicted it ignored history.
But like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, people in the “reality-based community” who warned of the folly of our fiscal irresponsibility were shouted down and called un-American or Chicken Littles by Pollyannas who insisted that the stock market would always go up, even if there were little burps.
But there is historical evidence to justify the nay-sayers, and now we have reality to match. It’s much like Intelligent Design butting up against the theory of evolution. Evolution has historical records in the form of fossils. End of discussion.
So maybe if we survive this economic meltdown we can learn from the past this time. Maybe we can learn that no entity should get “too big to fail”; maybe we can learn that it’s not a good idea for major financial industries to be deregulated to the point that we have no idea what’s really going on; maybe we can learn that personal responsibility is a two-way street and we cannot count on the good faith of greedy people to police themselves in the name of the common good.
I think history’s against me on that one, though.
Oh sure, we have to wear clothes most of the time and create controlled climates in order to survive comfortably in a harsh, uncaring world, but we have other advantages not shared by the rest of the animal kingdom, not the least of which is the ability to record and learn from history.
For instance, in the art of war, military planners can look at battles that have gone before and learn tactics that can give them advantages on the battlefield in order to ensure a greater chance for success.
Unless of course, said military has far superior weaponry — thanks to centuries of scientific research and collective memory — and simply “shocks” and “awes” a technologically inferior enemy into temporary submission to declare “mission accomplished.”
The devil is in the details though, so in the aftermath of that sort of military action our commanders have the ability to turn to another playbook when the subsequent occupation turns into a quagmire, and our brilliant military leadership can then show us charts and graphs demonstrating how well the invasion is going. They can also orchestrate sham elections and talk about the occupied country “taking responsibility” for its own destiny.
Think “Vietnam-ization” here, and the Kabuki Theater of such geniuses as Robert McNamara, who later took his abilities to the Ford Motor Company.
It seems as if failing upwards is another quaint advantage afforded Homo Sapiens.
But free choice, personal responsibility and historical memory can extend to the areas of finance and economics as well.
For instance, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the financial industries of the U.S. became so large and incestuous that the entire world financial system collapsed, leading to a worldwide depression.
In an attempt to stanch the bleeding, our 32nd President Franklin Roosevelt enacted the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and created major banking reforms, some of which were designed to control speculation. It also prohibited banks from owning other financial businesses such as insurance companies (think Citigroup).
Roosevelt and many other observers of human nature thought free enterprise was fine, but when greed is allowed to go on unfettered, regulation helps to preserve a fair distribution of wealth. It’s also a matter of economic survival.
In more recent history, we can observe the “boom and bust” cycles of the economic bubbles that coincided with the final destruction of financial regulation thanks to 42nd President Bill Clinton, who was impeached for the wrong reason.
In 1999, Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall, after deregulating the communications industry in 1996.
The subsequent speculation exploded the tech market and led to a series of fiscal bombs, which became larger and more destructive as the financial industry gorged on empty profits and the agencies that remained to regulate them looked the other way.
A lot of people who should have known better claim that no one could have seen our fiscal collapse coming, but I don’t believe that. Those who predicted this collapse for years were marginalized, while the people who said we couldn’t have predicted it ignored history.
But like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, people in the “reality-based community” who warned of the folly of our fiscal irresponsibility were shouted down and called un-American or Chicken Littles by Pollyannas who insisted that the stock market would always go up, even if there were little burps.
But there is historical evidence to justify the nay-sayers, and now we have reality to match. It’s much like Intelligent Design butting up against the theory of evolution. Evolution has historical records in the form of fossils. End of discussion.
So maybe if we survive this economic meltdown we can learn from the past this time. Maybe we can learn that no entity should get “too big to fail”; maybe we can learn that it’s not a good idea for major financial industries to be deregulated to the point that we have no idea what’s really going on; maybe we can learn that personal responsibility is a two-way street and we cannot count on the good faith of greedy people to police themselves in the name of the common good.
I think history’s against me on that one, though.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The refreshing sound of the English language
President Obama held his first press conference on Monday. It was the first presidential press conference in nearly a decade that didn’t feature slouching, sneering, and leaving me with a vague feeling that I was a 3 year old who’d just listened to a drunken father explain why mommy is such a tramp, and then forcing me to give gramps a sponge bath.
It was a pithy conference as well, with big properly used and annunciated words that seemed extemporaneous and not written back at the home office of the National Committee. Or in the bunker of an undisclosed location.
The part that really brought me out of my chair though, was when Ed Henry of CNN asked the president about his plans for
Henry asked the usual questions about escalation and eventual withdrawal, but then amazed me by asking the very question I’ve been waiting to hear but never dreamed that someone would ask.
“There's a Pentagon policy that bans media coverage of the flag-draped coffins from coming in to Dover Air Force Base,” Henry began. “In 2004, then-Senator Joe Biden said that it was shameful for dead soldiers to be, quote, ‘snuck back into the country under the cover of night.’
“You've promised unprecedented transparency, openness in your government,” he continued. “Will you overturn that policy so the American people can see the full human cost of war?”
When I heard that, I jumped up off of the couch and began to pound on the table. Finally, someone was asking the president to pull back the veil of obscurity and propaganda and let Americans begin to see the true costs of the wars in the
The policy against showing coffins returning was designed to cover a big Neo-con mistake made during the Vietnam War, and for months I’ve hoped that the first thing Obama would do on the war front would be to start showing coffins.
From there, maybe we could progress to actually attaching war costs to a real budget, and in my little dream world it could be the first step in losing the costly Bush-era “war on terr’” meme.
Public opinion of
Back then we had real news reporters such as David Halberstam, who were not “embedded,” and dragged through the mud with the troops. News anchors back then weren’t beholden to the corporations that co-owned the medium and the weapons manufacturers, or stockholders who demand 18 to 23 percent return on investments.
In some corners,
Unfortunately, Obama equivocated and did a fairly cleaver soft shoe around the issue, putting out the usual platitudes about how “thoughts and prayers go out to the families.”
He did it without the cheesy arrogance of his predecessor though, so I guess he gets some credit on that front.
“People have asked me, when did it hit you that you are now president?” he said. “And what I told them was the most sobering moment is signing letters to the families of our fallen heroes. It reminds you of the responsibilities that you carry in this office and — and the consequences of the decisions that you make.”
Wow. A president talking about consequences of his decisions. I could almost forget that in the next part of his answer, and in a subsequent answer to Helen Thomas, he picked up right where the Bush regime left off.
There was the usual blather about how we’ve brought “democracy” to the region and the 9/11, “terr’ist” talking points, as well as Soviet-style references to “der Homeland.”
The majority of his news conference though, was devoted to the very real threat of an imminent economic meltdown, which is a far more real threat than some shadowy gang of oil-rich heathens waiting in the shadows to attack our way of life.
And the truly sad, and dare I say, ironic part of the whole thing is that we are chasing shadowy threats to our own doom with the very funding that could save our economy.
Obama has been accused of cutting “defense” spending, when he’s actually raising it by about $14 billion, and the wars in
Just imagine what even a fraction of that spending could do get our economy running again.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Happy Holidays Bill-O
Well, another year has come and almost gone, so it’s time to fire up the traditions that begin with Thanksgiving Day football and end in a puddle of sick on New Year’s Day.
Next week those if us who are still employed and have not lost our homes, get to sit around and enjoy our thankfultude until the end of December, when we get to think about how fattening being thankful is and vow to change our ways until the big block of pseudo-religious holidays returns next year.
I’m not much of a religious person and my holiday celebrations tend toward the secular, sans the Disney-fied, shop-o-rama that has come to mark the American celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus.
There was a day when they were downright hedonistic, but now that I am a college graduate and respectable journalist, I’ve traded in my toga and sandals for an occasional pair of pants and shoes, with a lifestyle to match.
So in the hopeful spirit of the season, I offer a partial list of the things for which I am thankful, in one handy place for ease of ridicule.
First, I’m thankful to live in a country that values education, even though now that I have a degree I’m making less than when I was a truck driver. I managed to get out of SSU just in time for the system of higher education to become a hollow shell of what it once was, thanks to several decades of Reaganomics and trickle-down economic policy.
Looking at it from the outside, one might think that we really don’t value education, what with all the talk about Liberal elites thinking they’re smarter than Joe Sixpack, but we live in America, where innovation and individual effort will pull us out of our impending economic doom. Just as soon as the next season of “American Idol” is over.
I’m also thankful for media bozo Bill O’Reilly who exposed the Liberal “War on X-mas” and gave me a place to focus my righteous secular anger every year.
O’Reilly’s right. We are trying to destroy Christmas. Who really needs time off to hang around with family anyway? Most of them end up getting too drunk and puking on the carpet anyway.
Personally, I’d like to see the holidays turn into a time when we all wear the gray uniforms of the state and celebrate by yelling hateful anti-everything slogans in front of the teevee on X-mas Eve.
Next, I’m thankful to John McCain for choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, thus proving that the citizens of this great land of ours are not as stupid as the past few decades have led me to believe. Their loss showed me there is still hope that one day we might find our way out of this fog that we’ve allowed ourselves to descend into.
Ms. Palin may prove to be the final nail in the coffin of a wing of Republican Party that has risen to power through a 30-year campaign based on divisive social issues and name calling. Sure we still live in a one-party state, but soon I may no longer have to listen to nasty fundamentalists like Pat Robertson tell me I’m going to hell for not hating the gays enough.
In that vein, I’m also thankful to the Second Bush Administration. Sure, we may be teetering on the brink of financial collapse, and our reputation and moral authority has been shattered the world over. Oh, and environmental policy, scientific research, education and most other measures of civilization may be in tatters, but were it not for Bush II, John Kerry might be president and it would be the Democratic Party on the verge of extinction rather than the Republicans.
I am also thankful for Barack Obama. Despite the fact that I would have much rather voted for Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader, Obama has allowed me a brief respite from the bitter political cynicism that has practically smothered me since the long-gone days of the Dean Campaign.
I know there’s been a lot of talk about how he’s a Socialist and a Muslim — mostly by people who understand neither concept — but to me Barack Obama represents what it means to be an American.
He rose up from his humble beginnings and succeeded despite the odds against him. He was able to do that by working his way through an Ivy League school to become one of the brightest minds on the U.S. Senate.
Finally, I think we can all be thankful that it’s not next year when things are likely to be much worse despite all the change we can believe in.
Black Friday — the real traditional American holiday — has not looked so black in many years.
Next week those if us who are still employed and have not lost our homes, get to sit around and enjoy our thankfultude until the end of December, when we get to think about how fattening being thankful is and vow to change our ways until the big block of pseudo-religious holidays returns next year.
I’m not much of a religious person and my holiday celebrations tend toward the secular, sans the Disney-fied, shop-o-rama that has come to mark the American celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus.
There was a day when they were downright hedonistic, but now that I am a college graduate and respectable journalist, I’ve traded in my toga and sandals for an occasional pair of pants and shoes, with a lifestyle to match.
So in the hopeful spirit of the season, I offer a partial list of the things for which I am thankful, in one handy place for ease of ridicule.
First, I’m thankful to live in a country that values education, even though now that I have a degree I’m making less than when I was a truck driver. I managed to get out of SSU just in time for the system of higher education to become a hollow shell of what it once was, thanks to several decades of Reaganomics and trickle-down economic policy.
Looking at it from the outside, one might think that we really don’t value education, what with all the talk about Liberal elites thinking they’re smarter than Joe Sixpack, but we live in America, where innovation and individual effort will pull us out of our impending economic doom. Just as soon as the next season of “American Idol” is over.
I’m also thankful for media bozo Bill O’Reilly who exposed the Liberal “War on X-mas” and gave me a place to focus my righteous secular anger every year.
O’Reilly’s right. We are trying to destroy Christmas. Who really needs time off to hang around with family anyway? Most of them end up getting too drunk and puking on the carpet anyway.
Personally, I’d like to see the holidays turn into a time when we all wear the gray uniforms of the state and celebrate by yelling hateful anti-everything slogans in front of the teevee on X-mas Eve.
Next, I’m thankful to John McCain for choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, thus proving that the citizens of this great land of ours are not as stupid as the past few decades have led me to believe. Their loss showed me there is still hope that one day we might find our way out of this fog that we’ve allowed ourselves to descend into.
Ms. Palin may prove to be the final nail in the coffin of a wing of Republican Party that has risen to power through a 30-year campaign based on divisive social issues and name calling. Sure we still live in a one-party state, but soon I may no longer have to listen to nasty fundamentalists like Pat Robertson tell me I’m going to hell for not hating the gays enough.
In that vein, I’m also thankful to the Second Bush Administration. Sure, we may be teetering on the brink of financial collapse, and our reputation and moral authority has been shattered the world over. Oh, and environmental policy, scientific research, education and most other measures of civilization may be in tatters, but were it not for Bush II, John Kerry might be president and it would be the Democratic Party on the verge of extinction rather than the Republicans.
I am also thankful for Barack Obama. Despite the fact that I would have much rather voted for Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader, Obama has allowed me a brief respite from the bitter political cynicism that has practically smothered me since the long-gone days of the Dean Campaign.
I know there’s been a lot of talk about how he’s a Socialist and a Muslim — mostly by people who understand neither concept — but to me Barack Obama represents what it means to be an American.
He rose up from his humble beginnings and succeeded despite the odds against him. He was able to do that by working his way through an Ivy League school to become one of the brightest minds on the U.S. Senate.
Finally, I think we can all be thankful that it’s not next year when things are likely to be much worse despite all the change we can believe in.
Black Friday — the real traditional American holiday — has not looked so black in many years.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Finally
Just a little bit of justice...
Sad clown doesn't even realize it's all over...
Now if only they could tie the 'ho from Wasilla to the craven old bastard...
Sad clown doesn't even realize it's all over...
Now if only they could tie the 'ho from Wasilla to the craven old bastard...
Thursday, October 23, 2008
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