Posted inPolitics: National

Say you want a revolution?

I was in Phoenix over the weekend to help celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Poisoned Pen Bookstore and mark the launch of the short-story collection, Phoenix Noir. For those of you with thin skins, be proud of the cool new restaurants downtown. And that Barry Schoeneman of Men's Apparel Club, who sells the best suits for the lowest prices in America and has toughed out a retail-hostile downtown for more than 4 years, is moving to a bigger store uptown, but still in the central core. And if you care (I don't), there are still plenty of hip, skinny, rich people at Snottsdale nightclubs despite the overall depression. More gravel. Less shade. More vacant lots. Fewer completed projects. Light rail still succeeds (gloat). Yea, my hometown.

But what caught my attention most was not this or even another well-intentioned civic project rolled out in the Information Center. It was an article on the front of the Viewpoints section, beneath pieces trumpeting this well-intentioned project. It was headlined, "A rebuttal: Why I am a conservative," by the "school choice movement" activist lawyer Clint Bolick, who now has what seems to be a well-endowed sinecure at the local Krack-Pot "Think" Tank. I thought: Why is this a rebuttal? The reactionaries have won in Arizona and the efforts of the latest well-intentioned project will go nowhere. They, not Bolick, should be the rebuttal to the ruling reactionary/growth status quo. But it was just bad newspaper design. Bolick was chastising my former colleague Richard Nilsen who had the guts to write an op-ed saying why he was not a conservative. In Arizona this is an enterprise akin to trying to teach opera to pigs (it's futile because it can't be done and it irritates the pigs).

Read and enjoy. But the biggest problem with the argument is that the "conservatives" that rose to prominence after 1980, and especially 1994, didn't want to conserve. As Sam Tanenhaus makes clear in his new book, The Death of Conservatism, today's "conservatives" are radicals, with little connection to the Burkean conservatives who sought to conserve the best of the old, showed respect for tradition and custom, etc. But thanks to the fecklessness and corruption of the Democratic Party, these radicals still control the agenda.

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Posted inPhoenix

Arizona, unstimulated

The political faith of the Kookocracy is not just that government "is the problem," but that government is outright evil. Without the socialist Jan Brewer restraining them, they dream of a state with a government out of the Coolidge years (without that pesky Herbert Hoover as Commerce Secretary). I'll never forget giving a speech to some Phoenix Young Republicans. A woman in her twenties said all aid to the less fortunate should be terminated. If they protest? "Shoot them in the streets," she said, chillingly serious.

Of course, in the reality based world Arizona is a government creation, and takes more in government services than it pays in taxes. It is a welfare queen. Despite all the cries of "SOCIALISM," it has taken federal stimulus money. Nevertheless, the faith persists. Low taxes, little regulation and a continuing battle to stifle any "activism" (such as funding Science Foundation Arizona or that Don Budinger and his efforts to improve impoverished schools) will produce the best "business climate" in the country. Anybody in need, well, deserves their lot. Best-practices used around the world for economic development are SOCIALISM!!

So how's that working out for you?

Arizona gets an F grade in the new Assets and Opportunities Scorecard from the non-partisan (and backed by big business) CFed. Arizona is one of only five states to get the lowest grade in this report that tracks 92 measures of well-being. Its peers are all in the South. You don't need a report to know the depression that is ravaging Phoenix. One out of four residents is uninsured.

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Posted inPolitics: National

Don’t get depressed — Get mad

Here’s my advice to Obama supporters: Turn off the television. Put away the depression. Get mad and get active. The race is far from over unless there has already been a stealth coup in this country — a subject for a future column. The Republicans are the party that wrecked America — and McCain and Palin are Republican to the core. They’re counting on Americans to be stupid and easily manipulated. Obama is counting on us to be smarter than that, to be Americans, a people who once were never "easily led" by demagogues.

I don’t trust the corporate media, especially the electronic kind. I don’t trust the polls. They are trying to game the outcome. The "economic royalists," to use FDR’s term, were never going to give up power easily — nor was the military industrial complex. I never doubted that the conservative base would come "home" eventually, or that this would be a close election. And there’s the elephant in the room: will enough white Americans vote for a black man?

It’s interesting to recall that, unlike many other democratic countries, America once had two mass parties. Republicans and Democrats had liberal and conservative wings. In 1936, for example, Gov. Alf Landon was a liberal Republican challenging FDR, and might have made a race of it had not his campaign been co-opted by the reactionaries in the GOP.

Now only one mass party remains: the Democrats.

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Posted inPolitics: National

Leggy blonde coed hooker foreign debt forces Frannie bailout

I’m late posting this morning on the takeover of Fannie and Freddie because I spent last night and part of today writing for the Seattle Times on the ouster of Washington Mutual’s chief executive. It’s not a far leap from one to the other, because both bags of trouble have their genesis in the collapse of the housing bubble. In the case of Fannie and Freddie, of course, the problem became so serious that it put the entire financial system at risk.

That’s right. Don’t be fooled by Hank Paulson’s "what this means to you" comments about how the federal takeover will make it easier for Americans to buy homes. The Bush Treasury was forced into using taxpayer money to back these two giant corporations to avoid a financial China Syndrome. And India, Japan, Britain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, et al. Here’s the chilling line buried in Gretchen Morgenson’s Sunday New York Times story:

The proposal to place both mortgage giants, which own or back $5.3
trillion in mortgages, into a government-run conservatorship also grew
out of deep concern among foreign investors that the companies’ debt
might not be repaid. Falling home prices, which are expected to lead to
more defaults among the mortgages held or guaranteed by Fannie and
Freddie, contributed to the urgency, regulators said.

Toes curled yet? This is what it means to be the world’s largest debtor nation. As the duhs and ignos rush to coronate McCain and Palin, there it little understanding of this predicament.

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Posted inUncategorized

Looking on while the world takes the lead

The Olympics have provided a showcase for China’s real leap forward, from the edgy Bird’s Nest stadium to the huge new terminal at the Beijing airport, which is twice the size of the Pentagon and claims to be the largest building in the world. But you don’t have to look to a giant nation that has scarily fused capitalism and authoritarianism to see nations moving ahead. Dubai is building a  subway and Vancouver is working on an ambitious expansion of its SkyTrain.

And where is America? Our airlines are collapsing — have you read about the CEOs cutting back on fuel to save money, raising safety concerns, or United pilots worrying about maintenance standards? Amtrak is seeing a record demand due to higher gasoline prices and the sheer awfulness of flying — but years of underfunding are causing it to struggle. Cities face huge roadblocks and long timelines to build transit systems they should have had years ago. America, which once led the world in accomplishments, seems tired, decadent, gridlocked — especially in the face of new global realities.

This was especially brought home when I saw an article in Trains magazine about the two-year-old Central Station in Berlin. It’s an architectural landmark of the kind of modernism I find tedious, but never mind that. Built under difficult conditions, with budget fights and NIMBYs, it was nevertheless built. It serves 300,000 passengers and 1,100 trains a day. It also has 80 stores, travelers lounges and office towers. On display is a 21st century transportation network that can handle global warming and Peak Oil.

Meanwhile, we talk — talk — about repairing "our roads and bridges" in our 1965 transportation system. Our elected leaders include Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who said Democrats "want Americans to take transit and move to the inner cities. They want
Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, [and] take
light rail to their government jobs. That’s their vision for America."

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Posted inPolitics: National

Can Americans be swayed by real issues?

Air America’s Tom Hartmann had a fascinating take on the McCain-Rove attack commercials, especially the ad that calls Obama "the One." While critics like David Gergen say they are code for uppity, designed to get out the racist vote, Hartmann said "the One" ad is code for end-time evangelicals.

A small group? They bought 68 million copies of the Left Behind series. The code of the highly misleading ads is that Obama is the Antichrist. These "communities of interest" are big enough to tip an election — or make it close enough to steal — especially when the corporate media continue to give McCain a free ride on the issues.

Obama may be running a very smart campaign: refusing to get in the gutter, showing a willingness to compromise on drilling if it also wins support for alternative energy and accountability for the oil companies. But enough Americans may be too addled, too addicted to promises of instant gratification, too ignorant to pay attention. Does that mean it’s foolish to hammer McCain on the issues? Not at all.

Here’s a partial list of what Obama and Democrats should be relentlessly pushing:   

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Posted inPolitics: National

The mess we’re in

The FDIC, one of those "liberal" "socialist" things foisted on free-market America by Franklin Roosevelt, had to step in Friday to avoid a major bank run. More failures are expected and — dirty little secret — only about $2.5 trillion of the $7 trillion deposited in U.S. banks are actually federally insured.

Seven trillion sounds like a lot. But Americans are in hock to $12 trillion in mortgage debt as housing prices have collapsed, the last big factory of America (making houses) has all but shut down, and foreclosures are reaching records. The Iraq war will cost another $3 trillion. The U.S. national debt is $10 trillion (nearly double from 2001). That ought to tell you something about the mess we’re in.

What’s being little reported about the seizure of IndyMac "Bank" is that the institution is a bastard child of Countrywide, Angelo Mozilo’s death star of subprime calamity (now a boulder around the neck of Bank of America). IndyMac was spun off because it was collatoralizing mortgages too big to be sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, now on federal life support. The bubble was so huge, fed by so much fraud and bad policy, that the barons had to find "innovative" ways to keep it going.  And all that time, the regulators waved it on. This is the mess we’re in.

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Posted inPolitics: National

In search of McCain conservatism

President-elect McCain, his worshipful media coterie in tow, visited New Orleans and declared that the response to Hurricane Katrina had been "disgraceful and terrible," and, according to the doting New York Times, "pledged it would never happen again." The corporate media seemed especially relieved that the "senator from Arizona" had distanced himself from the toxic Texan currently residing in the McCain’s next mansion.

Yet the federal response to Katrina was the natural outgrowth of "conservatism" as it has come to be practiced by the mainstream of the party of Lincoln. The calamity was not an aberration. It was pretty much what would be expected from the combination of ideology, policy and practice from today’s "conservatives."

Maybe the "senator from Arizona" will redefine conservatism. The media desperately want him to be Barry Goldwater (I hear from excellent sources that the elderly Barry, a real senator from Arizona, was dismissive of the carpetbagger McCain). But even Goldwater never ran the government, never contended with the issues facing a 21st century, continental, diverse empire/nation. My experience is that McCain is not much of a hard-core ideologue, except for being a tightwad, a naysayer and, oddly for a combat veteran, trigger happy with the armed forces and eager for foreign adventures.

So what will McCain Conservatism be?

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

The stack: Tempered, lost Camelback, the med school joke

Peggy Noonan, always a formidable writer and sometimes a formidable thinker, makes this point about a Barack Obama weakness:

His youth, his relative untriedness, the fact that he has not suffered,
been seasoned, been beat about the head by life and left struggling
back, as happens to most adults by a certain time. This is what I hear
from older people, who vote in great numbers. They are not hostile to
his race, they are skeptical of his inexperience.

I’m not sure I buy the second part. Many white Americans won’t vote for a black man. It’s that simple. Her first point is well-made, and frankly is a problem for most at the top echelons of American society now that meritocracy is dead. A Harry Truman couldn’t become president now. And the days are largely gone when a son of the elite, such as Jack Kennedy, served in combat alongside his fellow citizens of all walks.

Which brings us to John McCain. Noonan says slyly he should promise to be a one-term president. "For many in the middle it would be a twofer," she writes. "You get a good man, for
only four years, and Mr. Obama gets to grow and deepen. He’ll be better
older." This is her partisan side clouding judgment. McCain is seasoned and has suffered. But to what end? To promise a continuation of the disastrous policies of his callow successor, and the general ideological tilt by the elite untested theorists on the right? To burnish a temper that is legendary and unsettling? I’ve been beaten around the head by life enough to be not merely skeptical, but scared of this man.

There’s more in the stack. Read on.

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Posted inPolitics: National

A war against truth in the Iraq hearings

I wonder why news organizations are even covering, much less hyping, the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus before Congress this week. We know nothing will change. President Bush will do as he pleases. He has shown the president to be above the law on torture, eavesdropping of American citizens, environmental policy, etc. Why should the president be above common sense?

All three presidential candidates will be among the members of Congress questioning Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. This, too, will be entirely predictable. McCain, why is slyly trying to conflate Sunni and Shia extremists for a gullible public, will proclaim that the escalation ("surge") is a success. Obama and Clinton will try to look presidential and tough without alienating the anti-war elements of their party.

Nothing will change until we have a new president and more Democrats in Congress. The only question is whether anyone has the guts to level with the American people about what the change will be.

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Posted inPolitics: National

Making serious economic reform, part I

The candidates are giving speeches on the economy, ranging from Obama’s correct diagnosis that corporate political power has driven much destructive policy to Clinton’s programmatic wonkishness to McCain saying speculators should receive no federal bailout. Unfortunately, he means individuals who face foreclosure, not the big financial institutions that caused the housing and mortgage collapse.

The nation faces more economic challenges than at any time since the Great Depression. But overall America is so wealthy that the stresses and dangers are concealed; their most severe consequences may not be felt for decades. Nobody has all the answers, but I will lay down some markers to watch. These are based on history, the test of time and the reality of today’s economy. I wonder if the candidates will address them (we already know McCain’s answer)?

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Posted inPolitics: National

Is it already over for Obama, II?

From today’s New York Times, a story that adds ammo to my skepticism that Obama can win. The headline: "Obama’s Test: Can a Liberal be a Unifier." Imagine a similar question about McCain: Can a conservative be a unifier? The historical record says no, but set that aside for a moment. The supposedly liberal media continue not only to give McCain a free ride, but to buy into the destructive narrative about "liberals" and "conservatives."

The Times writes:

To achieve the change the country wants, he (Obama) says, “we need a leader
who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and
bring Democrats, independents and Republicans together to get things
done.”

But this promise leads, inevitably, to a question: Can
such a majority be built and led by Mr. Obama, whose voting record was,
by one ranking, the most liberal in the Senate last year?

Also,
and more immediately, if Mr. Obama wins the Democratic nomination, how
will his promise of a new and less polarized type of politics fare
against the Republican attacks that since the 1980s have portrayed
Democrats as far out of step with the country’s values?

So are we to believe that breaking the military in endless wars of choice, installing a theocracy of ‘family values’ intolerance, ignoring global warming, wrecking the constitutional separation of powers and whittling away the middle class in favor of a corporate elite are "in step with the country’s values"? God help us if they are.

 

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