Everything's Fine

[Another weekend political rant. Go no further if you came here for surgery.]


Like John McCain, I'm not especially knowledgeable about the economy. Unlike him, evidently, I can think in a straight line. Nothing could be more obvious: George Bush has ruined the economy in ways so disastrous that the necessary fixes are, very possibly, politically undoable. But John McCain has already pledged to keep the faith (which is exactly what it is.) He's promised "no tax hikes." Since he'll be the next president, as the Democrats self-immolate and the electorate inevitably votes once again on fear of terrorism -- despite the fact that Bush's war, which McCain loves more than his traveling team of lobbyists, has made us less safe -- we're screwed.

In the comments on a previous post, we had a bit of a back and forth about the concept that lowering taxes increases government revenues; let's think about it some more. Following the logic to its extreme, eliminating all taxes should make revenue infinite. Can we agree that's not possible? Likewise, I'll concede that taxing at 100% would end all commerce and life as we know it. So it must be that for a given set of circumstances there's a "sweet spot." And it's also obvious that Bush hasn't found it any more than he found WMD in Iraq. (Help me out here: wasn't there a guy in recent memory who raised taxes, balanced the budget, and saw the economy roar forward?)

The current budget deficit is more than 400 billion. The forward costs of the war are estimated to be two to three TRILLION (by Joe Stiglitz -- whom I knew in college -- who won a Nobel Prize in economics, and whose methods and predictions have yet to be refuted, or even, far as I can tell, criticized.) We have sold our future to the Chinese and the Saudis, who own most of our debt, with payment due from our kids and our kids' kids. The value of the dollar is at an all-time low, oil at an all-time high. (George Bush, when running in 2000, decried the fact that under Clinton the price of oil had climbed to thirty bucks a barrel; said it was a shocking failure. It's approaching quadruple that now.) From another website: "The federal debt has increased 54 percent since President Bush took office, from approximately $5.6 trillion at the end of 2000 to an estimated $8.6 trillion at the end of 2006. By 2011, the President’s budget would increase the public debt to $11.8 trillion. (U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Public Debt)" Calling Bush's economic policy a failure is like comparing the tsunami of 2004 to a flooded basement. Housing. Banks. Jobs. Oil. "No tax hikes." McCain thinks he can scratch behind his earmarks and find the money to solve the problem. Straight talk, indeed.*

That the myth of tax cuts persists can only be explained by the efforts of those who are beyond danger -- i.e. rich enough -- to convince those who are fodder to buy into it. Or to look away. To inveigle people into focusing on abortion and gay marriage, and fear of terrorists, rather than on that which is actually destroying us. It's political prestidigitation: look at my left hand while I reach into your kids' pockets with my right. (And when I have all I need, screw you.) It works like a 600 hp, dual overhead cam, supercharged V-10. With cup holders.

Because religiously insane people flew into buildings and might do so again, we are willingly looking the other way at policies that most inarguably have made us less safe. Because of George Bush's idiotic response to the threat, we are more in debt, more dependent on the providers of oil who are the very basis for that threat, more unable to respond militarily if the need arose, are witnessing rising terrorism worldwide and the reconstitution of al Queda in the very place from which they directed the attack. But when scare comes to shitless, we vote for more of the same. Raise taxes to pay for the war and the troops coming home, and to reduce deficits and solidify the dollar? Heh. People would scream and run to emergency rooms (where, it seems, they'll be greeted with sympathy.) (If you go to that link, you must also go to this one -- the one that's mine.)

Democrats will be no less happy about indexing Social Security and Medicare than Republicans will be about raising taxes. But both will have to happen, and not very much in the future. Liberals won't like looking into safer nuclear power, and conservatives will deny there are problems with depending on and burning carbon. But they're both wrong. Democrats at least talk about the danger to our economy and our planet; Republicans see danger only when they look into caves (or into non-white faces.) Invading countries that have little or nothing to do with terrorism won't stop terrorism. Republicans don't want to hear that. To protect ourselves from attacks, we need both high-tech and low-tech intelligence gathering. Some Democrats would rather not hear that. (Although for most, myself included, it's only about doing it legally, with a little oversight, which ought not be all that big a hurdle, once George and his Dick are gone.)

So what's my point? This: we really are in existential trouble, but it has much less to do with guys in caves (other than the fact that they suckered us into slitting our own wrists) than it does with problems of our own making: economic, strategic, energetic, Constitutional. Because people don't want to hear it, and because politicians (with, I'd like to hope, some exceptions) are too cynical and weak to say it (they know that after thirty-five years of being fed bumper-sticker phrases, most people have stopped thinking), the chances of fixing it are slipping away. It's only if the electorate were to grow up, smarten up, and demand it that there's any hope at all. But the old guard of both parties, who have too much invested (quite literally) in the old ways are seeing to it that that hope is smothered in its crib, while the masses acquiesce: enablers, deniers, diggers of holes for their heads.

On the left, too many heads are in the clouds; on the right, in the sand. I'd rather be the former, because at least they are seeing the problems from up there. The modus operandi of the right is to believe that which is no longer -- nor ever was -- believable. Faith-based problem avoidance. If there's hope, I'm not seeing it any more.

*One of the more amazing things about our current state of mind is the ho-hum that people evince over deficits. Fifty years or so ago, Senator Everett Dirksen is famously said to have said "A billion here, a billion there.... pretty soon you're talking about real money." Today, nobody blinks at the idea of twelve billion a month spent on the war, deficits of hundreds of billions, or debt in the trillions. I guess we're overloaded; no doubt it's intentional. So it's useful once in a while to consider what a trillion dollars really is. Not that even such analogies really make it grokable, but here's a few: here, here, and here. Bush has been right about everything else, so when he says the economy is fine, I believe him. And so, evidently, does John McCain.

Sad Times

[This post is another of my forewarned weekend rants, written in part a while ago, during my outage.]


The New York Times recently ran an article that hits home. For a variety of reasons, I've been feeling pretty depressed; if you put my mood on a pie-chart, the state of our nation and world occupies a large part of the dark areas. The rest, well, it's just who I am, and not worth sharing.

If anything, the article doesn't plumb deeply enough. The world IS depressing; and to the extent that some people don't see it that way, well, that's depressing, too. Where to start? OK, how about the war in Iraq?

I accept that some don't see it as the worst mistake ever made by a US president since the beginning of the Republic. It most certainly was, but that not everyone agrees isn't what disturbs me. What does, is that the argument for ending the war is characterized by all the Republican candidates as "surrender," as a great victory for al Queda. But it seems so obvious: our being there in the first place is an enormous victory for AQ. If you were a bunch of guys living in a cave, who had no army, no means on their own to take down this country, wouldn't it be perfect to sucker us into an endless war, depleting our military, our treasure, and our standing in the world, while providing them with a steady stream of recruits? In order to avoid "waving the white flag," as McCain et al like to put it, we must keep doing exactly what those cave-dwellers want: stay there forever, bleeding ourselves to death, and blatantly disregarding everything we've always stood for; not to mention ignoring the things that really might make us safer. On their own, terrorists could hurt but have no means to destroy us, yet it seems they inveigled us very possibly to have done it to ourselves. I'm not arguing that we have no obligation to the Iraqis whose country we so carelessly invaded, nor that leaving wouldn't potentially lead to big trouble within Iraq and beyond. I'm just saying that Bush's war is a win-win for al Queda, and a lose-lose for us. To frame the argument as "white flag" versus "love America" is depressing political bullshit. And stupidity. In his culminating project, ending his string of flip-flops du jour, Romney said, in effect, that voting for a Democrat is "surrendering to terror." How venal is that? How completely despicable!

"Stay on offense." "Strong on terror." What the hell does that mean? Invade another few countries? Of course we need to be intensely vigilant and to intervene when it makes sense. That requires the gathering intelligence; doing so, among other things, depends on having friends around the world who'll help provide it. Which is why it's so important to be respected and admired, rather than hated. Or laughed at. Mitt wanted to "double Guantanamo." If we are so insecure about the ability of democracy and our Constitution to deal with such an enemy, then what the hell are we doing trying to export such a system to the rest of the world?

It's depressing to hear the Republican candidates promise to be like George Bush only more so. McCain: more war, lower taxes. Giuliani wanted even bigger tax cuts. At their debates, they elbowed each other out of the way to exhume the corpse of Ronald Reagan. How many examples do we need before we agree that Reaganomics doesn't work? Reagan instituted tax cuts, everyone felt great, while the deficits mushroomed. It doomed George's dad, who followed him. Clinton raised taxes, Tom Delay and Newt Gingrich screamed, but it brought the budget into balance, the economy roared back; then Bush cut taxes, the Republicans felt great, the deficit once again skyrocketed, and the economy is crashing like the house of cards that it obviously was. And yet... all we hear from the right is a return to Reagan (who also, by the way, reversed all of Carter's initiatives to reduce oil consumption -- and look where that's gotten us.)

"George Bush has kept us safe." Reminds me of the guy falling off the Empire State Building who says, as he passes the thirtieth floor, "So far, so good." The things that HAVE kept us safe, any president would have done: airport security (anyone remember what a fiasco it was at first, because of Bush's insistence -- or was it Cheney's? -- that it be privatized); surveillance (any reason why it couldn't have been done legally; change the law if needed?) The centerpiece, the central front -- ie, Iraq -- has by no reality-based measure made us safer. The opposite is undeniably true. And the list of remaining needs is long.

Some things seem so obvious that they ought to transcend politics. Why is it only Republicans who deny global warming? Why do the people who believe Earth is six thousand years old (or is it twelve?), who want evolution out of school curricula and creationism in, come from the right wing? As the current government overtly tries to redact and ignore science, why isn't everyone screaming bloody murder?!!

How can anyone argue that the institution of marriage is threatened if people of the same sex who love each other have access to it? If your religion doesn't allow it, fine. No church ought to perform marriages of which it doesn't approve. But why prevent another from doing it? Why amend the Constitution? Where's the harm? I've been married thirty-six years. I feel not the slightest threat to my marriage if gays join together in love. Moreover, it's clear that sexual preference is for the most part genetically determined. Like claiming the age of the Earth is a few thousand years, arguing that homosexuality is some sort of abomination in the eyes of God is to ignore fact; at the very least, he has seen to it that there are gays in every culture, in every religion, in every age of man. If it's a perversion, who's the pervert? Clearly the fear-based need to cleave to certain beliefs trumps common sense and common decency.

Democrats, the hollerers spew, "blame America first." What crap!! There are those of us who know the transformative power this country can and has shown, who have seen its greatness, and who long for its return. To lament the last seven years is not to hate America, but to pine for lost love. I was in college when JFK was president; only two weeks before his assassination he spoke at my college, and I was there. His vision and his rhetoric, his wit and intelligence -- even his good looks -- were, to a young person like me (idealist, maybe, but not naive), inspiring and energizing. I hear echoes. But not from the right. From them (from their candidates and radio and TV hosts at least), I hear the peddling of fear, of divisiveness, of exclusion. To the extent that there's hope of harnessing the power of the diverse opinions and skills in this country and bringing it again to greatness of the positive kind, that hope resides not Rovian divide-and-conquer politics, but in imagining much more. From another website: "The reason Obama is winning and will win is so simple. Americans want to believe in themselves again." I think it's true for more than Democrats. But is it possible?

As a veteran, I find it depressing that for most Americans, "support our troops" seems to mean sticking a magnet on the back of their vehicle (well, I admit I have one: but it's this); that patriotism is defined only by loving the war in Iraq. When I was in Vietnam, my wife was working for George McGovern, and I felt supported as hell. How many nowadays would park their yellow-ribboned gas-guzzling SUV and agree to a tax surcharge to pay for the war and its long-lingering needs for our vets? Show of hands?

Ever since Ronald Reagan declared the US was once again "walking tall" after we (wow, successfully!!) invaded that super-power known as Grenada, keeping the world safe for people who couldn't get into American medical schools, there are some that are only proud of this country when it's "kicking ass." That form of patriotism is good for selling flags and ribbons and bumper stickers, but for not much else.

The people who would label me an America-hater and an infidel want to believe in fantasy, to live on borrowed money, to let another generation deal with the mess our politicians (and those who elected them) have made. Unfortunately, they may well have been successful to the point of no return. I'd like to think Barack Obama is right, that there is hope. In the thirst to be proud of this county again, and to be inspired one more time before senescence, I'm willing to risk disappointment. But I think it's too late. We're screwed, and we've done it to ourselves; by succumbing to fear and superstition, by twice electing a president who clearly does not believe in what has, until recently, made our country great. Respect: given and received. Laws: made and followed. Discourse: valued and encouraged. Reason: sought and produced. Power: respected and reserved.

Other than that, I'm feeling pretty good. And believe it or not, I edited a lot of stuff out before I posted this.