So President Hoover wants another term. I ask, why? None of the major banksters has gone to jail. The too-big-to-fail banks are even bigger and back to risky business. Nearly 14 million are unemployed, millions more underemployed or have given up looking for work. A record number of Americans are on food stamps. We have not merely two wars but three. Gitmo is still open and corporate lawyer Eric Holder made a cowardly about-face from trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the criminal he is in New York. BP committed the worst environmental disaster in our history, but deepwater drilling is back. Income inequality is at record highs. I could go on, and will shortly.
Most progressives are either defending the president, still hoping he's "playing chess" and all will work out, or will hold their noses and support him for fear of a worse Republican alternative. Perhaps anticipating my antipathy, commenter Koreyel made a post a few weeks ago that deserves to be quoted at length:
You go into the future with the population you have and not the population you wish you had. Look at the population we have. We don't know much about anything. Do we? So much so, I've thought of starting a blog to capture every news item that begins "half of all Americans don't know." Steve Allen saw it coming years ago. He gave it a name. He called it Dumbth. It's now here in the flesh and running for president in 2012. And you too can become a fan of it on Facebook.
Which also prompts me to ask: What do Americans know?
Well we have been watching Gunsmoke and its various incarnations since infancy. We've seen 1000s of hours of shows of this sort. So much so, that in our American minds violence is the universal hammer that works on every ilk of nail. The bad guys always get the bullet. The white hats win. We know how all our dramas end; yet still we applaud when the good guy pumps the bearded bankster (sic) full of lead. Catharsis! Happiness is a warm gun…
Now given all that…And given that I think that reelecting President Hoover with his Spock ears is absolute vital — and here I see you demurring, so let me explain why:
President Hoover and his administration believes in Science with a big S. And with 7 billion humans and with global warming drawing nigh, all desirable solutions to saving humanity going forward are totally dependent on science. Full double stop. The alternative is a Republican president who believes in talking snakes, thinks science is for pinkos, believes in the efficacy of prayer, and doubts global warming, the germ theory, and evolution. The only future with that sort of president is one that is hand-made with dirty nails and whooping coughs. Where we squat in our yurts and feed carefully husbanded cow pies into the heirloom brazier and mumble antique prayers for the return of the sun…
Please. We are too far along to go back. Get over your romantic ideas of the past. The bottom line is that Science will either save us or it won't. But nothing else will… So Science is the ticket going forward. Lots of it…And that's why President Hoover with the Spock ears must win in 2012…
Indeed, Mr. Obama's Energy Secretary is a Nobel laureate physicist, Steven Chu. What has that gotten us? No progress on addressing climate change. No mention of the looming water crises across the West, including the depletion of the priceless Ogallala Aquifer. And a Bushian speech on oil that was fully deserving of the merciless takedown it received from Jim Kunstler:
Blame Steven Chu, then, because when it comes to America's energy predicament, the president has been woefully misinformed. Mr. Obama pawned off a roster of notions and proposals already product-tested in the public meme-o-sphere. Almost everyone of these ideas is inconsistent with reality, based on faulty premises, or represents some kind of magical thinking. What they have in common is that they're ideas the public wants to hear, whether they are truthful or not, because we don't want to change the way we live.
So much for science. Politics is equally lacking. The president wasted a year on health-care "reform" that produced a windfall for insurance companies and extremist politicians, is incomprehensible to most Americans, and we still can't insure every citizen or control the runaway costs of profit-driven medicine. His stimulus was too small and too wasted on tax cuts. Indeed, at nearly every turn he has been co-opted by the assumptions of the corporatist/reactionary opposition. Thus, taxes must always be cut, never raised. Being steamrolled to preserve the Bush tax cuts, which are not only shameful but don't produce jobs or productive investment, is just the start. Now he's trying to restrain the GOP, but he doesn't dispute its central premise: That the deficit is the biggest issue facing the country and it must be addressed by draconian budget cuts. In the richest country the world has ever known, we must be firing teachers, police officers and firefighters, closing parks and libraries, and failing to invest in critical infrastructure, research and universities? To give more tax cuts to the rich in the great redistribution of wealth upward? To further coddle anti-American corporations that pay little if any taxes already, even as they use up the commons? Bullshit! Where is the leader who will call it that, and speak the truth to the American people, fight for us.
Often, he's not even around, as if the shattering of the social compact and the implementation of right-wing policies that have either been shown to be toxic or are completely theoritical and risky — as if fighting these battles is somehow beneath his dignity. Rep. Paul Ryan has put out a budget that would roll back the Great Society, including Medicare, to respectful treatment from the mainstream media. Where is the president? This is only the first step in repealing the New Deal, reneging on Social Security and reprising the Gilded Age. These Republicans shame the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. Robert Taft, "Mr. Conservative," would be shocked. Today's corporatist/white-right GOP has rarely even seen a poor person, much less walked in his shoes. The theocrats among them justify their cruel policies by invoking Jesus, "The poor you will always have with you…" As usual, it's out of context, for Jesus was trying to make the disciples understand that he would not always be with them in the flesh — and his ministry was heavily focused on the poor. Indeed, the book of Acts tells us of Christians living pretty much as communists.
So, four more years of this? And afterwards, likely a Republican president who will make George W. Bush look like a moderate. Here, I am with Lenin: The worse, the better. The old white-right already has their Social Security and Medicare ("keep your government hands off"). They have no qualms about sticking it to the Baby Boomers and younger. They are terrified of the changing demographics of the country outside of Utah. But there's no guarantee that the growing numbers of minorities will vote Democratic, or vote at all. The 50-plus-one Rove doctrine can rule for a long, long time, particularly with a subservient, ideologically driven Supreme Court and compromised corporate media. Obama has broken nearly every campaign promise. Forsaking "the fierce urgency of now," he seems content to mediate the Republican future: The rule of the strong . The rule of the jungle. What's worse is that the Democrats have failed to show how progressive governance, or even the governance of an Eisenhower or even Nixon, could work. Too many have abrogated the role as protector of the middle class and the poor. Too many have betrayed the public trust. So they deserve years in the wilderness, if not to go the way of the Whigs.
Four more years? No.
Since our choice is aways between two devils, there really is no choice. I’m with Christopher Hedges — I’ll vote for anyone who is NOT a Repub or Demo. I don’t care what goodness/evil spews forth from their campaign. My vote is already worthless.
It’s fascinating how a nation can become apoplectic about deficits – during Democratic administrations, that is – and their long-term consequences. But is climate change not a long-term problem, too? Yeah, but scientists made it all up! All those e-mails!
I’m not merely talking about the hysterics in the GOP base, either. It’s virtually the entire punditocracy, wringing its hands about revenue shortfalls decades in the future. Can we raise taxes? NO! Can we cut defense? Off the table, sweetheart. How about all those subsidies to GOP-coddled industries in energy and agribusiness? How dare you attack producers! If we’re an idiocracy, it’s not simply a function of low-information TV citizens. Our best and brightest are stumbling over themselves applauding the earnest Ayn Rand devotee, Paul Ryan. It’s a who’s who of the smart and “serious”, from David Brooks to Andrew Sullivan to Evan Bayh.
I’m not sure we can win this fight and it’s evident Obama doesn’t want to fight it on our behalf. The Democratic Party has morally collapsed as a functional champion of the working and middle classes. I applaud its boutique liberalism and scarcely know anyone who isn’t a lifestyle liberal himself. But the nation cannot survive if it simply cuts off its less fortunates. They’re too many of them for one thing and you can’t count on their docility in a Dickensian America.
I’ll vote for Obama because it buys us some time. I’m not sure the time is worth buying or if the contradictions don’t really need to be heightened. My fear is that we’ll never recover from complete Republican/Tea Party control of the government. Most people have little understanding of the scope of our problems, let alone the ear-splitting dissonance of our political noise. It’s hard enough to reach people who feel adrift in this panic-struck nation.
If we, in fact, need a revolution, I have no idea how we’ll overthrow the triumphant oligarchy that now controls both parties. Jim Kunstler has kept predicting angry mobs descending on the Hamptons demanding their money back from the banksters. But the truth is that the rubes don’t hate the rich. They hate the “others” they think are threatening their status as Real Americans, deserving and good. Policy, economics, or atmospheric physics hardly matter since they’re much too complicated.
The Republican advantage is that their message resonates because it’s simple: once there was a beautiful country and liberals ruined it! Obama in his own biography enables and amplifies this message. He understands this and hopes his own Vulcan lack of passion will mollify the center. But there’s no learning here because people’s own lives have not been reconciled to the harsh new reality of post-crash America. Obama promised them the good times would return. They won’t. And win or lose, Obama will suffer their rage.
It may seem far-fetched, but does it not seem like the Republicans and Tea Partyers have pushed too far, and now comes the push back? I may be making too much of little things here, but Glenn Beck was kicked out of Faux (FOX) News in lieu of his growing extremism. His attacks on President Obama received more and more viewer (Fox News’ viewers!) complaints. His ratings dropped 30% this year.
People, including those that went along with the Tea Party and gushed over Ryan, may now be thinking twice about their choices. Perhaps more Americans are realizing their doltishness and thus, will turn off the TV for a few hours a week? I’m holding out for a more progressive Obama in his second term; after all, he has nothing to lose at that point.
Holy. Shit.
(Pardon me.)
Most strident, impactive, hair-raising, *exciting* of your sane posts ever!
Excellent Jon. Without a doubt the start of a revolution.
Political capital, personal standing, be it infinitesimal, is always something to lose. Blue dog Obama is apparently very comfortable in the ‘middle zone’ wherever that is. Congress is not coming back for the Democrats and they’re not good at using that mandate when it does. Therefore candidate Obama is the most progressive that we will ever get – it’s “Death of the Liberal Class”.
Obama&Co should have done / do a lot more but the crisis has been cooking for decades and no “progressive governance” can overcome it. Beyond competent governing (it can always get worse) there is still an important role for political leadership to play as commentators like Kunstler and Kevin Phillips demand: to tell the truth. The common inability to take the truth will show that the failure is not one of politics alone but also of deficient citizenship. What comes after that should be very interesting.
Obama has done nothing to deserve reelection. I don’t recall if it was Roger Hodge or someone else, but the truth is that Obama did not come to rescue liberalism, but to bury it. He’s done a wonderful job. If we’re going to have a president who willingly destroys a century of social progress, it’s best that he not nominally be a Democrat. Can anyone point out a policy outcome that is different because Obama is president than would have been the result of W with at least one house of Congress held by Democrats? Because I can’t.
I have made it a point to never berate the mentally challenged, so I was always mad at W’s parents for letting him out of the closet. But I really get upset when a brilliant and beautiful mind does not use their intellect and abilities to benefit the planet and “manunkind.” Clinton couldn’t get his brilliance out of his pants and Obama can’t bring his brilliance to the stage of “The Art of War.” John Galt is back.
The President has little real power it seems, unless you run the office like former President Bush who had henchmen do his illegal deeds. The real power is with the Senate and House whose bought and paid for occupants play political games, not to help the middle class and their constituents but to keep themselves in office via the flow of money from corporate America. The public is constantly misinformed as to the details of our nation’s budget. With these problems and redistricting, its all over but the prison planet.
You have captured my thoughts. I am disappointed and demoralized. The entire country has become Phoenix.
I always hear people say that Obama “should do more”. He has “called” for just about every progressive agenda item I can think of from public health care to clean energy to high speed rail (!) to taxes on the wealthy to loophole closing.
Yes, he has had some mixed results. But he has accomplished a great deal with new regulations on health insurers, banks and major investments in renewable energy. Yes, we escalated the war in Afghanistan – exacty what he said he was going to do, over and over, during his campaign.
Obama has been all over the media. We have been barraged with speeches, day time talk show appearences, cool websites, social media, press conferences. The guy is setting records for bully pulpit use.
So, could it be that WE, not he, are the problem?
Yet another unclothed emperor of foreign adventures; while at home a blind, hamstrung gelding barely outpacing the pack of glue factory rejects stumbling headlong towards the very wrong precipice of the Right. Enough. Please.
Kevin, of course we’re the problem. We would be with or without effective leadership. Obama is obviously a scapegoat for the right wing but he’s a scapegoat for the left, too. We wanted a “fierce advocate” and got a punctilious arbiter instead.
This nation veers rightward in its moods and anger, and leftward in its policy preferences. Obama is surfing this wave but not challenging it. If we demand deficit reduction on the backs of the poor, he’ll probably deliver.
You can’t disconnect the catastrophe of a suburbanized – and disconnected – nation from its political dissociations. We’re politically feral because we’re socially isolated. When I talk to people about politics, I’m quietly amazed how liberal most are in their cultural norms but how reactionary they are about fundamental social obligations. There is no nation without a social contract of some kind. That’s why Paul Ryan’s proposal is so horrifying. It not only shreds that contract, it assumes the moral high ground while doing it. And, of course, he’s “serious”.
You go to war with the army you have, not the one you might want, pace Donald Rumsfeld. We’re that army. Or you can call us a herd of cats. Regardless, we’re mostly neutered so we won’t spray the oligarchy’s furniture.
I still rather amazed at how close the WI judges’ race was. I know the Walker clone outspent the Demo 2 to 1, but the razor-thin victory is no triumph of democracy. Money nearly bought an election of someone who hates the working man and there are enough others out there that will cut there own nose off to vote against their own best interest. A victory of the people would have been double digits, rather than 1/1000s. So the rhetoric and mean-spiritedness will continue (even if your own mandate is a mere 2%)!
Jon, I keep rereading this piece as it is a great piece of art work. And I have pushed it on along to a bunch of folks including some of my red neck republican friends. So far I have got all positive comments back.
Cal, did your redneck Repub friends enjoy Jon’s insert of Koreyel’s comment concerning global warming, science, and his blast against Repubs who believe in talking snakes? I wonder, will rednecks, poor southerners, and racists support Trumpism and a refocus on the birther issue?
https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iISI7ifh-AjUE3ejyC1wQmwFrMFw?docId=CNG.61c886c438708471a9f4ea23070fa70c.3a1
Phxsunfan, most them dudes are OK with the science and somewhat OK with the economics but they will probably go to their grave being racist and homophobic. Thus I am not allowed to bring a gay minority with me to their celebrations. Interestingly when I took a female friend that appeared North European (to them) with me every thing was OK until it came out she was an American Indian. Even now when I take mi Hispanic amiga with me she gets a slightly cold shoulder. I have met the snake handlers. Once while backpacking across America in 76 I ended up in a small church near Artesia NM in the mountains. The church was ministered by a convicted armed robber. First we had rock and roll music, then prayer, then some folks broke out in tongues, well you can see where this is going… But even before then, 1940’s I met the Elmer Gantry snake people that traveled in tents and stole and molested most everything.
Well said Jon!
Maybe after Obama is re-elected for not challenging the white right he’ll show a backbone. By then, unfortunately, it will be too late for middle wage earners.
Looks like the WI judges race is worse than I thought…
Debacle.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/2011-is-not-1995/2011/04/06/AFxPaT5C_blog.html
Great column, Mr. Talton. I really miss this blog.
In reporting on Obama’s new fundraising efforts, The Washington Post notes that Obama is turning increasingly to big money donors.
For purposes of comparison, note that 2/3 of his donors in the 2008 race donated more than $200 — scarcely the definition of Main Street, though the Post dutifully notes that this represents a “notably larger proportion” of ‘small’ donors (less than $200) than in previous races.
Now, it seems, even this reliance on big pockets isn’t enough to win, now that support has softened among grassroots supporters.
“His refusal to fight Republicans or Wall Street corporations has left small-dollar donors much less inspired than in 2008,” said Adam Green at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
Obama has also “formed a group of ‘bundlers’ who collected checks from their friends and earned special access to him and his staff, just as previous candidates of both parties had done before, and he declined public financing to avoid spending limits.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-reelection-campaign-expected-to-tap-big-dollar-donors/2011/03/26/AFKPO0wB_story.html?hpid=z3
Sounds like he knows who butters his bread, and it isn’t Floyd the Barber.
Obviously this is a feature of American political economy rather than anything intrinsic to Obama, and will continue to be as long as private money governs public political viability. That said, it’s clear that he is looking increasingly far from his political base for financial support.
As for votes, it’s true that disenchanted progressives would rather vote for Obama than for Mitt Romney or another Republican competitor, but that assumes they will vote. Apathy from the Left can only benefit the Right: and as Mr. Talton points out, a further decline in participation among already under-represented youth and minority voters is unlikely to carry the day, particularly when the tepid economic recovery is popularly associated, rightly or wrongly, with the plan and programs of the Chief Executive.
Obama simply doesn’t have the force of personality and personal opinion/will to defy the national leadership of the Democratic Party and the advisors they have recommended — those who surround him, give him constant “context”, and form his cabinet and other political nominations: if, in fact, it was ever his intent to be his own man.
Perhaps, as Bertram Gross wrote, the president “would neither ride the tiger nor try to steal its food; rather, he would be part of the tiger from the outset.” (Friendly Fascism, p. 190)
Regarding Mr. Talton’s reference to Republican obduracy and biblical injunctions, there is Matthew 25:41-46.
“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
“I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
“Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
“Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”
I’m holding out to see who survives the bloody GOP mill over the next year, all the while continuing to lobby the Obama administration hard from the left. I’m pragmatic that way. I’d love to see a Paul Wellstone presidency, but, alas, to follow the frame, we advance into the fray with the ones who are able and willing to serve. Russ Feingold? Hasn’t said he’s interested. In the realm of if-she-ever-asks-for-my-vote-she’d-have-it: Naomi Klein. If we don’t fix the money problem in politics (both on the revenue and cost sides – i.e., implementing real campaign finance reform and a new, improved version of the fairness doctrine, to keep media costs down) , we’ll never, ever, ever have a good pool of leaders and candidates.
Mr. Talton wrote:
“Indeed, the book of Acts tells us of Christians living pretty much as communists.”
While confirming this (“And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.” Acts 2:44-45), I came across another biblical passage (Luke 4:24) which struck me as apropos for the Rogue Columnist:
“Truly I tell you, he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.”
There are two parallels here: one is the parallel between Republicans in Congress (especially those in control of the House) at the federal level, and those dominating state legislatures such as Arizona’s; another is the comparative absence (again, both in the national media and in local newspapers of record) of trained journalists — whether or not functioning in whole or in part as columnists — who advocate on behalf of the politically underrepresented: typically the poor or otherwise downtrodden in a political system dominated by money and influence.
Some remarks recently sent to E.J. Montini at the Arizona Republic seem equally apropos for Mr. Talton, while bearing on the general theme of the “shattered social compact”; I include them below for whatever they might be worth.
* * *
Dear Mr. Montini,
I’ve been enjoying your columns a bit more of late, particularly those involving the transplant patients. As you note, it’s incredible that the state legislature can give corporations and wealthy individuals hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks — more than that really since such breaks continue indefinitely in practice — and yet obdurately refuse to restore $1.2 million in annual funding for medical treatment which can save lives, though this amount is only a small percentage of the state budget.
In reading these and other columns by you recently, I was on more than one occasion reminded of prose from a short story by Anton Chekhov:
” ‘I look at this life and see the arrogance and the idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak, the horrible poverty everywhere, overcrowding, drunkenness, hypocrisy, falsehood. . . . Meanwhile in all the houses, all the streets, there is peace; out of fifty thousand people who live in our town there is not one to kick against it all. Think of the people who go to the market for food: during the day they eat; at night they sleep, talk nonsense, marry, grow old, piously follow their dead to the cemetery; one never sees or hears those who suffer, and all the horror of life goes on somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is quiet, peaceful, and against it all there is only the silent protest of statistics; so many go mad, so many gallons are drunk, so many children die of starvation. . . . And such a state of things is obviously what we want; apparently a happy man only feels so because the unhappy bear their burden in silence, but for which happiness would be impossible. It is a general hypnosis. Every happy man should have some one with a little hammer at his door to knock and remind him that there are unhappy people, and that, however happy he may be, life will sooner or later show its claws, and some misfortune will befall him — illness, poverty, loss, and then no one will see or hear him, just as he now neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer, and the happy go on living, just a little fluttered with the petty cares of every day, like an aspen-tree in the wind — and everything is all right.’ ”
https://www.classicreader.com/book/1598/1/
You are a bit like the man with the little hammer. True, you do not knock at every door and disturb one’s tea at every hour — well and good, for it is inhuman (and counterproductive) to destroy every trivial and transitory happiness simply because someone, somewhere is unhappy — but neither should those in authority be left to ignore needless tragedy that they themselves created and have the power to prevent.
So, congratulations to you for bringing to mind such cogent prose: and I think you will agree that it remains both powerful and relevant even though it was published more than a century ago and half a world away. Please remember this when the state’s legislators and governor — and perhaps others — are berating you for your audacity in daring to speak truth in plain terms, not merely once, when it can be forgotten, but repeatedly.
Perhaps someone will suggest a Silver Hammer award and nominate yourself and Laurie Roberts (for her columns on the probate system) as possible recipients.
Regards,
E. Pulsifer
and on todays reading list, “Desert visions and the Making of Phoenix.”
I was one of 6 that showed up at Poisoned Pen for ASU professor Philip Vandermeer’s new book. Nice cover, lots of footnotes, I’ll get back to you.
I don’t put as much blame on President Obama as Mr. Talton does, but I see his point and share his disappointment. Our individualistic society’s tendency is to elevate the power of the rugged individual to shape the world, but I think we’re making a cognitive mistake in doing that. Nixon is now regarded as a moderate, centrist Republican (though in his day he was a mainstream conservative), but today he’d no doubt be shouted down as an America-hating socialist at any of the screamfests that now pass for public discourse in our country. Comrade Eisenhower and his 91% top marginal tax rate would be denounced by today’s Democratic party.
It’s going to have to get worse before we can look forward to things improving. The tea party shut-ins collecting age-based socialistic benefits, the fruits of a more enlightened era, will not vote for any party or plan that acknowledges the awful truth of our low-energy, high-cost, high-debt future. Why should they sacrifice? They see the finish line in sight, and there’ll always be politicians who say they don’t have to. Their younger cohorts, seeing the remnants of a once great middle class in terminal decline and facing pressures on both income and expenses (esp. gas), desperately cling to myths of high taxation and government intervention as the source of our decline. These people will keep voting for the politicians that offer easy solutions, until they can’t.
Investors have an adage about “Market trends continuing, until something forces them to stop.” Hoping our misguided society comes to its senses, absent a true, earth-shattering crisis, is wishful thinking. Someday, the Wall Street house of cards will come tumbling down. Or more frighteningly, ripped down violently. The question is whether we’ll still have a civil society in place capable rebuilding a stable, peaceful consensus.
Cal, I’ll be interested in your book report. Almost every history of Phoenix I’ve read is lacking. Particularly:
1. A deep look at the power of the LDS, how it’s changed and grown.
2. The behind-the-scenes of how we really won Arizona v. California and prevailed with the CAP.
3. Deep insights into such powerful but opaque entities as the SRP and APS.
4. Phoenix’s growth, politics, policies and their consequences after World War II. The personalities who shaped it, too.
5. Crime, from land fraud to mobsters to the Don Bolles killing to the crony world that set the stage for the Fiesta Bowl scandal now.
6. The beginnings and growth of political extremism.
7. Challenging the prevailing narratives, such as “Gene Pulliam stopped the freeway,” etc.
8. Phoenix in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s — to often doesn’t get the in-depth examination is should get. As part of this, was the old guard as corrupt as the Charter Government winners portrayed it.
I could go on an on, but if he just goes from Swilling’s Ditch to a celebration of growth, it’s a waste of trees.