Posted inPolitics: National

Difficult days ahead

Despite all the progressive wishing away, the election of a doctrinaire right-wing Republican to Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat is a calamity and a sign of calamities to come. The implications are national and international. Yes, Martha Coakley was a weak candidate who ran an inept campaign. Sure, the economy is bad and the party in power always suffers. And, yeah, the Obama and progressive voters stayed home in large numbers (this is to be comforting?). Meanwhile, the White House, said to be "blindsided" and "in disarray," seems to have interpreted the special election as an excuse to tack even more to "the center," i.e. the right.

We've got difficult days ahead.

Imagine if Franklin Roosevelt had failed in his first term: failed to enact meaningful legislation to immediately address the suffering of Americans and bring some fair play back to the republic; failed to take on, with relish, the "economic royalists"; failed to connect, in a visceral way, with Americans suffering from the Great Depression; failed to be wiley, cagey, downright dishonest in pursuit of his goals; failed to surround himself with a cadre of brilliant, independent, highly competent lieutenants, and failed to be willing to experiment with almost anything but a continuation of the Republican policies that had caused the Depression. Communism was popular, fascism perhaps even more so thanks to the seeming success and popularity of Mussolini. It was especially potent in the hands of populist demagogue Huey Long. The forces of reaction, although in disarray, still commanded great wealth and also had fascist sympathies. "Dictatorship" was a good word at the time.

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Posted inPolitics: National

The house of cards falls down

When experts and commentators talk about the "crisis of confidence" or "crisis of trust" in the markets, it can be read in different ways. One: it’s a nice way of saying, a la Phil Gramm, the recession is in our heads and if we just had some confidence happy days could return. Two, confidence and trust in the system have collapsed for reasons, including bankers not lending because they know companies will fail, and people in general no longer trusting the economic "House that Ronald Reagan (and Phil Gramm) Built."

It is most decidedly the latter. If nothing else, the Great Disruption we are now experiencing should discredit the "free market" theories that led us to this pass. We shall see. When the Depression hit, the world was awash with alternatives to capitalism, most of them bad, but also with an engaged electorate and a middle class that read. Now we have video games and social networking sites. The igno-geeks must be truly baffled as their future vanishes, even though they kill at Grand Theft Auto version whatever.

Where’s Cheney? As I write, George W. Bush is preparing to make another pitiful "statement" as markets plummet around the world. The veep is nowhere to be seen, running things as he did in Iraq. Perhaps he is preparing his defense fund, or place in a country with no extradition agreement. Meanwhile, Paulson and Bernanke are in change. Yet they represent the wisdom of the old order that is in crisis. They can’t fully comprehend what is happening, for it so goes against all their learned learning, all their orthodoxies. The Age of Greenspan is over.

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