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Sunday, November 1, 2015
Weekend Roundup
Some scattered links this week:
Gary Legum: Sam Brownback is a harbinger of national doom: Bleeding
Kansas' scary lesson for America: Brownback's approval ratings
are down to 18%, about where Bush's were when his presidency ended.
Crowson put it like this:
Of course, Brownback wasn't much more popular when he was reëlected
governor in 2014, but the trick there is to play up the fear of the
unknown Democrat -- that plus a mysterious shift where Republicans
across the board ran about five points higher than the polls predicted.
Brownback's income tax cuts, including a free ride for business owners,
passed early in his first term, and immediately blew a $600 billion
hole in the state budget, leading to massive spending cuts and tax
increases (both state and local, all regressive) to keep government
marginally functional. Kansas had gotten through the early stages
of the Great Recession relatively well, mostly because there was
relatively little real estate bubble to pop, but since Brownback
became governor economic growth has lagged in every comparison.
This should be no surprise to anyone who knows the first thing
about macroeconomics: just as more government spending stimulates
more economic growth, less undermines growth (or worse). What's
harder to calculate is how much long-term damage this level of
economic strangulation will cause -- especially the hardships to
be inflicted on a whole generation of students -- but there can
be no doubt that harm is being done.
Legum properly sees Kansas
as a warning to the nation of what happens when Republicans get
too much (or actually any -- his other example is Wisconsin)
power, especially when led by an ambitious ideologue. Legum
quips: "The biggest mystery about Brownback at this point is
that he has been such an awful governor, it's a wonder he's not
running for president." Brownback did run for president in 2008
and quit after he couldn't top 2% in Iowa polls. He then decided
to give up his Senate seat and run for governor to prove himself
as an executive and, well, he simply hasn't done that yet -- in
fact, his unwillingness to compromise on rolling back some of his
income tax cuts last year shows he's still convinced that they'll
pan out eventually. Besides, the early field for governors with
hideous records was already overfull with Scott Walker and Bobby
Jindal (whose approval rates in Louisiana are even worse), plus
his Bible buddy Rick Perry was running -- sure, that niche has
opened up with Perry and Walker the first dropouts, but nothing
suggests that Brownback would do any better.
Paul Krugman: The Hamptons Hyperinflation Endorsement:
As a public service, some background to Marco Rubio's latest campaign
coup. As the Times reports, Paul Singer -- a huge contributor to
Republican causes -- has thrown his support behind Rubio.
What it doesn't mention are two facts about Paul Singer that are,
I think, relevant.
First, he's most famous for his practice of buying up distressed
debt of Third World governments, then suing to demand full repayment.
Second, he's an inflation truther -- with an unusual twist.
[ . . . ] But Singer has taken a different tack:
he knows, just knows, that inflation is running away because of what
it's doing to the prices of the things he cares about:
Check out London, Manhattan, Aspen and East Hampton real estate prices,
as well as high-end art prices, to see what the leading edge of
hyperinflation could look like.
Even if you only know one thing about economics, it's probably
that prices rise on fixed goods when buyers have more money to
spend. If the price of Aspen real estate is going up faster than
the general rate of inflation, it's because the people who are
in the market to buy that real estate are bidding each other up,
and what makes that possible is that they have more money to
spend. That would be obvious for a commodity, but real estate
and fine art are also thought of as assets, so it's easy for
buyers to fool themselves into thinking they're worth all they
paid. One sign of increasing inequality is asset inflation,
and the more the merrier.
Also see Richard Silverstein on Singer:
Pro-Israel Hedge Fund Billionaire, Paul Singer, Buys Large Stake
in Rubio Inc..
Rubio also appears in
Policy and Character, but more importantly Krugman gets to
remind you of how prescient he's been in the past, and it's a
case worth repeating:
My view here is strongly influenced by the story of George W. Bush.
Younger readers may not know or remember how it was back in 2000,
but back then the universal view of the commentariat was that W was
a moderate, amiable, bluff and honest guy. I was pretty much alone
taking his economic proposals -- on taxes and Social Security --
seriously. And what I saw was a level of dishonesty and irresponsibility,
plus radicalism, that was unprecedented in a major-party presidential
candidate. So I was out there warning that Bush was a bad, dangerous
guy no matter how amiable he seemed. [ . . . ]
And proposing wildly unaffordable stuff is itself a declaration of
priorities: Rubio is saying that keeping the Hair Club for Growth happy
is more important to him than even a pretense of fiscal responsibility.
Or if you like, what we've seen is a willingness to pander without
constraint or embarrassment.
Tom Engelhardt: Campaign 2016 as a Demobilizing Spectacle: No
less than a short history of post-WWII America pivoting around the
question of when and where the American public is actively engaged
("mobilized") in public affairs, or not. For instance, he quotes
Bernie Sanders: "We need to mobilize tens of millions of people to
begin to stand up and fight back and to reclaim the government,
which is now owned by big money." He ten adds a telling example:
"We do, of course, have one recent example of a mobilization in an
election season. In the 2008 election, the charismatic Barack Obama
created a youthful, grassroots movement, a kind of cult of personality
that helped sweep him to victory, only to demobilize it as soon as
he entered the Oval Office." He doesn't mention the Tea Party, but
that's another reflection of the sense that the government has turned
into an alien entity that needs to be "taken back" (perhaps because
they view it as something to be destroyed rather than restored as an
instrument of the public interest).
The desire to take the American public out of the "of the people, by
the people, for the people" business can minimally be traced back to
the Vietnam War, to the moment when a citizen's army began voting with
its feet and antiwar sentiment grew to startling proportions not just
on the home front, but inside a military in the field. It was then
that the high command began to fear the actual disintegration of the
U.S. Army.
Not surprisingly, there was a deep desire never to repeat such an
experience. (No more Vietnams! No more antiwar movements!) As a result,
on January 27, 1973, with a stroke of the pen, President Richard Nixon
abolished the draft, and so the citizen's army. With it went the sense
that Americans had an obligation to serve their country in time of war
(and peace).
From that moment on, the urge to demobilize the American people and
send them to Disney World would only grow. First, they were to be removed
from all imaginable aspects of war making. Later, the same principle
would be applied to the processes of government and to democracy itself.
In this context, for instance, you could write a history of the monstrous
growth of secrecy and surveillance as twin deities of the American state:
the urge to keep ever more information from the citizenry and to see ever
more of what those citizens were doing in their own private time. Both
should be considered demobilizing trends.
The line that stands out there is "No more antiwar movements!" --
most likely because antiwar movements question not just the strategy
of a particular war but the material basis that makes it possible to
fight wars, and the very morality of starting wars. Also, in the case
of the United States, it is very easy to uncover a long list of dubious
choices that led to war -- many taken in secret and covered up by the
self-perpetuating security state.
Robert Parry: A Glimmer of Hope for Syria: For many years one of
the best sources on the Middle East has been Paul Woodward's
War in Context blog, but
something unfunny happened a few years back when he started giving
half or more of his blog to articles that seemed to be promoting
western intervention in the Syrian Civil War. That didn't render
the blog worthless, but it gave it an off odor. (An example today is
Syria's horror shows the tragic price of Western inaction. I
wouldn't call any of these things inaction: Obama's speech telling
Assad he had to step down, the CIA's many attempts to train and arm
"moderate" opposition groups, the "red line" ultimatum on chemical
weapons, the arming of Kurdish troops operating in Syria, the bombing
of all things ISIS, last week's insertion of Special Forces into
Syria. And while I'm not sure what Woodward means by "Western" the
US, at least, is at least partly complicit in the acts of its allies
like Israel, Turkey (above and beyond NATO), Jordan, Saudi Arabia,
and Qatar -- the first three have bombed Syria, and the latter two
have at least shipped arms and money into the war. If anything there's
been way too much action -- a charge I don't exempt Russia, Iran, and
Hezbollah from.) Woodward doesn't flinch from the human tragedy the
war has wrought, but the notion that some "action" is what's needed
to bring the war to a just (or merely sane) close is magical thinking
of the most fantastical sort. The only thing that can work is some
form of agreement where all sides give up the war. Parry's article
gives you some background, and a bit of hope. (The part I don't see
as hopeful is that while he posits that Russia and Iran may press
Assad to compromise, which is indeed essential, I don't see any
comparable pressure to get the US to step down. Indeed, it seems
to be a common hope that an agreement on Damascus will make it
possible for the US, Russia, and Iran to join forces in demolishing
ISIS, which is to say in not ending the war.) Also worth reading
along these lines is
Jimmy Carter: A Five-Nation Plan to End the Syrian Crisis. Still,
even Carter's endgame leaves ISIS fighting:
Mr. Assad's governing authority could then be ended in an orderly
process, an acceptable government established in Syria, and a concerted
effort could then be made to stamp out the threat of the Islamic State.
Scaling the civil war back to just ISIS vs. the world would be
preferable to the status quo, but certainly isn't optimal.
The US Spends $35 Billion Helping Out the World . . . But Where Does All
This Money Really Go?: Well, the graphic says it all:
I doubt this factors in the money the Defense Department and the
CIA spend -- Afghanistan would be much larger -- but it does seem to
count some money not destined for established governments (e.g., Syria,
but where is Libya?). Of course, Israel you know about, and its two
neighboring dictatorships, primarily tasked with keeping Palestinians
pent up on their reservations in Gaza and the West Bank. One thing
this shows is the extent to which "economic aid" has been reduced to
a slush fund for America's imperial ventures. Another is that the US
is becoming increasingly entangled in Africa.
DR Tucker: The Dawn of Darkness:
This Wednesday marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of one of the great
tragedies in American history, a moment of indelible shame, a choice
that harmed so many in this country and around the world: the defeat
of President Jimmy Carter at the hands of right-wing former California
Governor Ronald Reagan. [ . . . ]
Reagan's economic agenda literally took from the poor and gave to
the rich. His race-baiting on the 1980 campaign trail and his demonization
of civil rights as president laid the foundation for reckless Republican
rhetoric on race during the Obama era. His illegal wars in Central America
and his irresponsible invasion of Grenada served as the model for George
W. Bush's Iraq misadventure. His scorn of environmental concerns put us
on the painful path to a climate crisis.
Amen. I'll add that while the full horror of those points only became
clear over time, even back when Reagan was president I frequently noted
that under him the only growth industry in America is fraud.
David Atkins: Will the Press Recognize the Existential Threat and Fight
Back, or Buckle Under?:
It should astonish even the jaded that Republicans are calling CNBC,
that stodgy home of supply-side Wall Street cheerleading, an agent of
the left.
Still apoplectic at being asked some basic questions at the debate,
Republican candidates are doubling down on their freakout.
Ted Cruz is flat-out calling CNBC debate moderators "left-wing
operatives" and demanding that right-wing radio hosts moderate their
debates, instead.
Donald Trump, who openly lied during the debate about what is on
his own website, called debate moderator John Harwood a "dope" and
a "fool."
All of this after Republican candidates spewed forth one of the
most embarrassing explosion of lies ever witnessed during a television
presidential debate.
The press is facing an existential threat. With Republicans
increasingly unashamed to tell grandiose lies and respond to any
press criticism with derogatory insults and whines about media bias
as well as blackmail threats to cancel appearances if the questions
are too tough, the press must decide how to respond on two fronts.
First, it must decide how to present an objective face while
acknowledging that both sides do not, in fact, behave equally
badly. Second, it must determine whether it will continue to ask
the tough questions that need answers regardless of the threats
made by the GOP, or whether it will meekly submit to the demands
for kid-glove treatment.
Atkins also argues that
Debate Questions Naturally Lean Left Because Mainstream Voters and
Reality Do. One piece of evidence here is how often the right
starts to dissemble when they plan on doing something unpopular --
like when Bush dubbed his giveaway bill to the timber industry the
"health forests initiative." Brownback moved heaven and earth in
2014 to try to convince Kansans that he was the education governor,
after years of underfunding schools and attacking teacher rights.
This doesn't necessarily mean that voters lean that far left --
all they need to do is come in left of the Republicans, which isn't
hard to do: a little decency and integrity suffices.
The fact that Republicans have more unpopular positions and a weaker
track record of success isn't the fault of debate moderators. It's
the fault of Republican candidates and their ideology.
Israel links:
Also, a few links for further study (briefly noted):
Rebecca Gordon: How the US Created Middle East Mayhem: Provides an
explanation why Tunisia alone among the "Arab Spring" countries seems
to have developed into a viable democracy -- while there are some local
factors of note, one big one is that the US hadn't had much involvement
or interest in Tunisia, especially its military. Gordon goes on to report
on the region's "Arab Spring" failures: Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and
Syria -- each of those are nations the US and/or its so-called allies
have repeatedly interfered in. Supposedly these are all nations the US
state and defense departments regard as "vital national interests" --
yet somehow stability, popular democratic rights, and social justice
aren't reckoned as things that matter.
James George Jatras: Benghazi: What Neither Hillary Nor the Republicans
Want to Talk About: I'm afraid I'm not following all of this, but
it is clear that the ending of the Gaddafi regime put a large amount of
weapons into circulation, and it seems not unlikely that the CIA was in
Benghazi to help direct some of those weapons to supposed allies/clients
in Syria and possibly elsewhere.
Dylan Matthews: Ben Carson accidentally stumbled on a great idea for
improving education: James Hamblin quotes Carson: "Wouldn't it
make more sense to put the money in a pot and redistribute it throughout
the country so that public schools are equal, whether you're in a poor
area or a wealthy area?" Carson eventually walked part of that back, but
he stumbled onto a basic truth: the federal government has much stronger
tax authority than state/local government, plus has the ability to run
deficits, but most government spending, especially on things that (unlike
the military) directly affect Americans, is done at the state and local
level. Figuring out a scheme to redistribute tax receipts from the federal
level down would eliminate a lot of inequities -- especially the current
race-to-the-bottom of giving tax subsidies to businesses -- and provide
more robust support for essential government spending.
George Monbiot: Indonesia is burning. So why is the world looking
away? Massive forest fires in the US have been a news staple,
but this one is new to me:
A great tract of Earth is on fire. It looks as you might imagine hell
to be. The air has turned ochre: visibility in some cities has been
reduced to 30 metres. Children are being prepared for evacuation in
warships; already some have choked to death. Species are going up in
smoke at an untold rate. It is almost certainly the greatest environmental
disaster of the 21st century -- so far.
Well, it is far away from here, but it's still the same planet, and
ultimately the same atmosphere:
Fire is raging across the 5,000km length of Indonesia. It is surely, on
any objective assessment, more important than anything else taking place
today. And it shouldn't require a columnist, writing in the middle of a
newspaper, to say so. It should be on everyone's front page. It is hard
to convey the scale of this inferno, but here's a comparison that might
help: it is currently producing more carbon dioxide than the US economy.
And in three weeks the fires have released more CO2 than the annual
emissions of Germany. [ . . . ]
It's not just the trees that are burning. It is the land itself.
Much of the forest sits on great domes of peat. When the fires penetrate
the earth, they smoulder for weeks, sometimes months, releasing clouds
of methane, carbon monoxide, ozone and exotic gases such as ammonium
cyanide. The plumes extend for hundreds of miles, causing diplomatic
conflicts with neighbouring countries.
Thomas Schaller: 55-45 Politics in a 50-50 Country: This looks into
various areas where the Republicans have built-in advantages which skew
power in their favor -- something which includes but extends beyond the
gerrymandered House districts. Then there's also the peculiarity that
Republicans ("the party of no") are more often satisfied simply to
obstruct Democratic initiatives -- a task that the system's numerous
checks and balances favors, as do historical quirks like the Senate
filibuster.
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