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If you can keep it

490px-Benjamin_Franklin_by_Joseph_Duplessis_1778

The Constitution is remarkable. But it is not magical. The founders designed the Congress to be a check on the Executive. But it's arguable that their working assumptions for America's future excluded one in which a political party would be complicit in a White House attempt to undermine that Constitution's democratic and Enlightenment underpinnings, and that that Presidential administration would enjoy the support of nearly one-half of the U.S. population. After all, most of our republic's founders seem to have assumed that there would be no political parties in our nation at all.

When Benjamin Franklin remarked to a fellow citizen that the Constitutional Convention had created "a republic, if you can keep it," I think he had in mind the reality that the Constitution is imperfect and might not withstand sufficiently strong and sustained anti-democratic and anti-Enlightenment sentiment within the republic itself. At the risk of sounding alarmist, hallmarks of the strength of such a sentiment are evident now. They're demonstrated by our President and many members of his administration and supported by millions of Americans and various media outlets. Consider: the scapegoating of minorities, the peddling in rank lies and conspiracy theories (such as former President Obama being Kenya-born or a non-existent invasion being funded by domestic political operatives), the rejection of standards of evidence, a disdain for the rule of law, evident in the President's desire to have the Department of Justice operate as a protective police force of and for his agenda and his administration and not for the nation, an embracing of social Darwinism (if you'll excuse the anachronism...the closest thing to that in Franklin's mind was probably a kind of archly cynical Machiavellianism), not to mention corruption and nepotism. And while the President himself is neither an ultimate or proximate cause of them, the increasing number of hate-crimes, including anti-Semitic ones, and the increasing visibility—the emboldening—of white nationalists in their pronouncements and activities speak to the rise of illiberal, anti-democratic ideas that the President does not discourage.

Last night's midterm elections were an important achievement for the Democratic Party, especially in light of the systemic obstacles of voter suppression and gerrymandering that the Democrats faced. But there is—it almost goes without saying—still work to do; it's just begun, actually. Last night's approximately 7% nationwide Democratic vote majority overall is less than Democrats managed against Republicans in midterms during George W. Bush's presidency. There are still hearts and minds to win, gerrymandering to be reversed, voter suppression to be stopped, the out-sized influence of corporate and oligarchic money to be lessened, the waning influence of relatively apolitical (or at least only slightly political) news sources to be addressed (if that's even possible), the rise in propaganda—especially via social media—to be countered, and a vitally important renaissance of civics education and awareness to be constructed. (I believe the undermining of all of the soft sciences and the humanities in U.S. education is a factor, one among many to be sure, in the rise of illiberalism, of which Trumpism is a symptom.)

That there is a political party in Congress, the Republican Party, that has not one member who would be a part of this project to bolster democracy's health is the kind of reality that will test the Constitution's viability. Our democracy is surprisingly robust. There is a lot of reason for hope. Nonetheless, the Constitution is an experiment, as is this republic. The republic may be stronger that Weimar or the ancient Roman republic but it is not any more than they were inherently a guaranteed or certain thing. Implicit in Franklin's words is the reality that it can be lost if it is not actively nurtured.

Image: Joseph Duplessis (1725–1802). Portrait of Benjamin Franklin. c. 1785. Oil on canvas. 28.5 in by 23.5 in. National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C., U.S.A.

November 07, 2018 in Call to Action, Democrats; progressivism, Equality, rights, liberty, History | Permalink | Comments (0)

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February 6, 1918 — Women (Some Anyway) Gain the Right to Vote in the United Kingdom

Unnamed

On the 6th of February in 1918, the Representation of the People Act 1918 was approved by Royal Assent and began the enfranchisement of women in the United Kingdom. Under the 1918 Act, all men over the age of 21, or over the age of 19 if they were servicemen, were enfranchised. So too, women over 30 years of age received the vote, but only if they were a member of or married to a member of the Local Government Register, if they were a property owner, or if they were a graduate voting in a University constituency.

Nonetheless, the Act was a huge step forward for democracy and women's suffrage in particular. By the end of 1918, the size of the British electorate tripled to about 21,400,000, which included voters in Ireland, then still under British rule, with women accounting for approximately 43% of eligible voters nationwide.

Today, Shadow Minister for Labour Laura Pidcock MP (North West Durham) tweeted:

The 1918 Act is a milestone that should be celebrated, but it's also important to remember that (a) the vote was not given to working class women & (b) when the vote was achieved, it was due to the protests & sacrifices of those women, not the gift of men.

And Prime Minister Theresa May tweeted:

What better way to start today's #Vote100 celebrations than by gathering with all the talented female MPs in Parliament. More must be done, but I'm proud that there are over 200 female MPs — our democracy is stronger as a result.

May pm and women mps

In the United States, women gained the right to vote through the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was ratified on August 18, 1920.

Image, click to enlarge: Suffragette in Trafalgar Sq., c. 1911. Charles Chusseau-Flaviens, photographer. Photograph from Spitalfields Life blog courtesy of George Eastman House.

Image, click to enlarge: Photograph posted to Twitter by British Prime Minister Theresa May.

#VOTE100

February 06, 2018 in Democrats; progressivism, Equality, rights, liberty, History, UK | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Trump said there'd be more winning. So far, he is

Trump wins

Last night on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, I saw a typically somnolent Sen. Richard Blumenthal attempt to stop the Trumpist political tide by invoking Richard Nixon ad nauseam. This is...attack? It's like being assaulted by wet bread. If it's the best that Democrats have, they're in big trouble.

That Trump supposedly ordered the firing of Robert Mueller, special counsel for the Department of Justice to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump, and any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation," may prove to be more interesting than it is significant. Evidence of intent to obstruct justice? Perhaps, but that decision will be reached in part in the court of public opinion, like it or not. In the end, Trump did not fire Mueller. To most of the American people, including many independents, that fact will far outweigh the fact that Trump tried to have Mueller fired. Again: like it or not.

Trump is welcomed at Davos, rescheduled to visit London, credited with the Koreas having re-engaged and even having marched unified in the Winter Olympics, basking in a long-sought GOP-style tax reform, and relatively secure in a 40% approval rating despite (for independents)—and because of (for his base)—his self-aggrandizement, impulsiveness, nastiness, mendacity so shockingly brazen and frequent that it suggests knavery is an essence of his character, de facto nepotism, and assaults on the softest vital elements of any Western liberal democracy: its democratic norms and institutions not explicitly delineated in a constitution. Examples of those norms are Enlightenment-born concepts of standards of evidence and the supremacy of law. He is running rings around a feckless Democratic Party that last weekend let Trump position them as caring more about illegal immigrants than about keeping the government functioning and Social Security checks being cut. (While those Democrats try to argue that the President can't or shouldn't govern, they shut down government. This weakened Democrats' position markedly.)

Democrats are getting desperate and floundering. I continue to predict that there will be no blue tsunami in November. I think there is a 50/50 chance that the Democrats capture of the House of Representatives, and that if they do so it will be by eight or fewer seats. Of course, much could change in the political landscape by November 2018, but one thing I think will not change: the passion of Trump's base.

All things being equal, President Trump will be a two-term president, too. Of course he may self-destruct or overreach, but it's unlikely given that so much of what he's done already was supposedly self-destructive or overreaching—until it was proved by his political survival that it wasn't.

He does, in fact, have fairly good instincts in some key regards, including how to appeal to voters in our social media, celebrity-driven age of economic insecurity and short attention spans. He's expert at prodding Democrats into acting like their opponents' caricatures of Democrats and keeping them off balance, unfocused, and defensively reactive. His 40% approval rating can easily become 50%+ with a continued strong stock market and an enduring perception that the economy is improving, the reduction in many American's taxes (for now), and a lengthening string of political successes (Americans like winners)—of which he's had several, the least-appreciated of which is the appointment of a record number of conservative judges.

All things being equal, Donald J. Trump will likely go down in history as, in a word: important, which is really to say revolutionary and significant—for good or ill. Andrew Jackson and FDR are also recorded as being such and only after breathless, agonizing cries from their opponents in their lifetime. Reevaluations have diminished the stature of the former more than the latter. (There's hope for us still, I suppose, if we value ethnic cleansing against indigenous people less than we do creating Social Security and vanquishing Nazis.)

Of course, all things will not remain equal. But if most things do—such as Trump's base's strength and his opponents' relative weakness—he'll endure. Yes, something seismic might occur. Mueller might actually find evidence of Trump's direct collusion with foreign anti-American actors, for instance. That seems about as likely as finding Jimmy Hoffa alive and well and living in Denmark. Or perhaps the Democrats will acquire the right message and messengers so that they offer something other than old ideas and tired political styles voiced by coastal eggheads who seem to forget that only one-third of U.S. adults have a college degree. That seems about as likely as a hit musical about Chester A. Arthur. But maybe that's not so far fetched. Ol' Chet reflects something of the spirit of our age, being, after all, the President who moved rightward to rip open Native American land to settlers by executive order and signed the anti-immigration Chinese Exclusion Act. Look for Elegant Arthur: The Musical—coming to Broadway soon!

Image from The Washington Post online: President Trump, center, listens during a dinner with European business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos. SAP CEO Bill McDermott, left, CEO of Seimens Joe Kaeser, second from right, and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. (Evan Vucci/AP)

January 26, 2018 in Democrats; progressivism, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Moral Maze on "Policing Offense" — When does personal opinion become morally unacceptable?

P01lcrrw(Michael Buerk)

The BBC Radio 4 series and podcast Moral Maze, a panel discussion program recorded live on the morality of current issues and timely topics, has been hosted since its first broadcast in 1990 by Michael Buerk, whose introductory remarks for each episode are nearly always a tour de force. Their shortened, variant version is posted on each episode's webpage, too.

The July 13, 2016 episode is "Policing Offense", when does personal opinion become morally unacceptable? I've edited Buerk's opening remarks and their published version on the webpage:

As the politics of offence, identity and rights become ever more toxic, they become equally hard to navigate, and the price of transgression is ever higher. We've had laws against "hate speech" for many years now, but are we too keen to create whole new categories of "-isms" to which we can take offence?

If morality rests on the ability to distinguish between groups and make judgments about their lifestyles, how do you distinguish between a legitimate verdict and an unjustifiable prejudice?

Why is it acceptable to say "It's good that the President is black" but not to say "It's good that the next President will be white"? Ditto women. Why is the insult "stale, male and pale" OK, but it wouldn't be if you changed gender and race?

Just when you'd learned to call the sexually ambiguous or at least transient "transgender", you're told the concept of gender is unacceptably binary and hence insulting.

There are exploding tripwires of social acceptability everywhere, with a new vocabulary of perceived offensiveness: "micro-aggression", so-called "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings" to protect students from ideas they don't agree with.

It only seems to work one way. Black or brown people can't be racist about whites. Women, if that's not too binary of a description, can't be sexist about men.

Is all this a good thing, stigmatizing and policing prejudice? Is this about defending the powerless against the powerful, or are we stifling debate, making the political personal, limiting people's rights to say what they think, and making identity more important than ideas?

Where do we draw the line between policing the basic principles of equal rights and mutual respect with a capacity to judge people by what lies in their heart? When does personal opinion become morally unacceptable?

Listen to the episode (streaming) or download it as an MP3 here. It's also available on iTunes.

Along with Buerk as chair, the program features four panelists and a series of witnesses. Regular panelists as the time of this writing are Claire Fox, Giles Fraser, Kenan Malik, Anne McElvoy, Michael Portillo, Melanie Phillips, and Matthew Taylor.

P026423c (Moral Maze live broadcast, 1994.)

Besides chairing Moral Maze, and co-hosting the ITV program Britain's Secret Treasures, Buerk is best known as the journalist whose October 23, 1984 report on the Ethiopia famine inspired Band Aide and Live Aide.

July 16, 2016 in A good thought, Books, Campaigns, elections, Democrats; progressivism, Economy, economic justice, Equality, rights, liberty, Foreign affairs, History, Media, Radio, Religion; church & state, Science & education, Security; military, UK | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Isebrand.com turned 10 years old and even I didn't notice.

Isebrand.com 1.0Isebrand.com turned 10 years old in January 2014. I wouldn't have expected anyone to notice.... But even I didn't! That's a bit pathetic. :)

Below is the first post, "Why This Site," that I published. Most of the links are dead. (Also, above is a screen cap (click to enlarge) of the top portion of the blog's first page. It's in my digital archives, not online anymore.

OK, I admit that I'm a tad impressed that a decade ago I was blogging about wealth disparity and the top 1%. Maybe I was a bit ahead of the curve. Frankly, they're topics I moved away from over time, though they're certainly on my mind again nowadays.

I launched Isebrand.com on January 7, 2004. It was entirely focused on U.S. politics and done in HTML. If TypePad or WordPress existed back then, I didn't know about them. What's annoying is that I went from several hundred daily unique visitors on average (getting more than 5,000 daily during the week of the 2004 General Election and the day after) to 100s fewer once I switched to TypePad in 2006. All of a sudden many followers couldn't find my blog as easily and it seemed lost to search engines.

Now, Isebrand.com 2.0, as it were, is just a sort of scrapbook of Web snippets, more likely to be about the UK or British history or a good cocktail recipe. On an extremely good day, I might get 200-300 visitors but that's rare; merely 50-80 unique visitors is more common.

If my initial post's tone seems angry, it's because I was. 9/11 and its aftermath showed the spitefulness of G. W. Bush and the GOP. I found the Republican Party's demagogic lies during the 2002 midterm campaigns to be utterly unconscionable. To successfully insinuate that the likes of Max Cleland and other Congressional Democrats were potentially traitorous or dangerous for opposing a rush into a war of choice against Iraq, a nation not involved in 9/11, almost literally sickened me. It sickened me that the GOP dared to do such knavish things and that so many voters bought into it.

By late 2003, I was part of the Draft Clark movement and agreed with Gore Vidal--now the late Gore Vidal (and I still agree with him on this)--that George W. Bush's administration was one of the worst to ever befall the republic, largely a calculating and grotesquely cynical cabal bent on warmongering globally for personal profit and glory, stirring up the religious right domestically, and deliberately spending while cutting taxes in order to cause a crisis of debt that could be used as an excuse to undo the New Deal.

My late and beloved Aunt Ardith Buffington was among the sweetest and least judgmental people I've ever had the privilege to know. She was not very political. I remember being taken aback when she somewhat sharply declared once to me and my uncle when President George W. Bush appeared on the television screen, maybe in 2005 or 2006, "Oo, when I see his face, I just want to slap him." There was something about that man. Not just the policies but the swagger, the smirk, the seeming lack of serious-mindedness, that could cause strong antipathy. In general, I think it was often warranted, and while I am usually good about avoiding the ad hominem these days (guideline: "attack the idea, the message, not the person or messenger") and think it is an important principle, back then on Isebrand.com, I often referred to the President as a "frat punk."

Why this site?

by IseFire - Wed. 01/07/04; 8:51 pm EST

BECAUSE the wealthiest 1% of Americans own more wealth than the bottom 95% combined;

BECAUSE the president threw away a $237 billion government surplus, leaving America no emergency funds;
BECAUSE his imprudence has given us a $400 billion deficit;
BECAUSE he feeds wealth disparity with tax give-aways that help the rich, force service cuts for the rest of us, and drive state and community taxes up;

BECAUSE on January 28, 2003 the president lied to America before Congress assembled;
BECAUSE he exploited the 9/11 tragedy to start an unrelated war, and deceived Americans to gain their support.
BECAUSE his war is diverting money and immeasurable resources from the fight against terrorism;
BECAUSE his warmongering showed contempt for our allies and squandered their goodwill;

BECAUSE he protects officials who treasonously betrayed an American intelligent agent;
BECAUSE he and his staff censor information and withhold from the American public even basic facts about their secret governance;

BECAUSE his environmental record is the worst of any president in American history.

BECAUSE savvy conservatives overwhelmed our insipid and lazy media (while Democratic Party leaders sat idly by) with well-funded think tank data, right-wing commentary, and partisan spin;

BECAUSE the grassroots campaigns of Howard Dean and Wesley Clark offer the hope of a resurgent Democratic Party;
BECAUSE Democrats are finally recognizing the need for better political communication;
BECAUSE grassroots organizations like MoveOn.org show that the Internet can help defend the republic and its constitution;

that's why this site.

June 07, 2014 in Campaigns, elections, Democrats; progressivism, Economy, economic justice, Gore Vidal, Republicans; conservatism, Security; military | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Capitalism simply isn't working and here are the reasons why, via The Observer (UK) — Thomas Piketty

Thomas-piketty-economist--0111970s anxieties about inflation [are being substituted by] today's concerns about the emergence of the plutocratic rich and their impact on economy and society. [Economist Thomas] Piketty is in no doubt, as he indicates in an interview in today's Observer New Review, that the current level of rising wealth inequality, set to grow still further, now imperils the very future of capitalism. He has proved it.

via www.theguardian.com

The situation that French economist Thomas Piketty describes in his best-seller Capital in the Twenty-First Century might be outlined more or less like this:

Wealth inequality rises as
1) return on capital rises faster than both workers' wages and general economic growth (see chart #1, click to enlarge, and for more on the related issue of decreasing income mobility in the U.S. see "Inequality Is Not the Problem," Jeff Madrick, NYR Blog, 2014),
2) super-high-income workers (e.g., CEOs) reward each other with mega-salaries to "keep up with the other rich" (see chart #2 from "We're More Unequal Than You Think," The New York Review of Books, 2012),
3) inherited wealth and corporate gains aren't greatly taxed (compared to the early post-WWII era especially), 
4) tax-reduction/-avoidance schemes abound especially for the rich who can afford the experts to manage their money globally, and
5) the cultural and societal insularity of the wealthy, their disconnectedness from the vast majority of those who are not exceedingly wealthy, combines with their money-driven power (e.g., campaign contributions and armies of lobbyists) to keep the system in place. Such power puts me in mind of the old "golden rule"—he who has the gold makes the rules.

Piketty

Importantly, due largely to #4 above, the middle class ends up with a disproportionate share of the tax burden to keep the social safety net, defense, services (sanitation, policing, fire fighting), education, and transportation infrastructure in place, even though the services, education, and infrastructure benefit the mega-wealthy, too, directly or indirectly.

Hacker_Table_B_jpg_600x663_q85

The result: it becomes more important who you're born to than what job you have or even what business you create. In the situation Piketty describes, not even typical entrepreneurs can ever expect to gain close to the kind of wealth that the rentier class will enjoy, will see grow (faster than will grow wages or the general economy), and will pass on to offspring...largely untaxed.

It might be noted, too, that with the middle-class's retirement funds so tired up in stocks due to the financial innovation of the 401k, the super-rich can use political rhetoric that suggests they and simple shareholders are on the same team, which they are not.

Another key point of Piketty's book is that the mid-20th-century period of reduced wealth inequality and reduced income inequality is the exception, not the rule, because, as a friend of mine summarized, the disruptions of two world wars and the Great Depressions hugely reduced the capital controlled by the upper classes both through direct destruction and by making very high taxation politically possible. (See that plunge in the rate of return on chart #1 above, 1913–1950.)

Stating that capitalism isn't working is not the same as stating that capitalism doesn't work. Piketty seems to promote a mixed economy. As I think is better understood by the voting public in much of Europe (perhaps especially Germany and the Scandinavian countries) than in the U.S., there is no strict, binary choice between socialism and capitalism. There are myriad gradations in between the two. Capitalism's tendency toward a final winner-take-all result can be curtailed and social unrest kept at bay by policies such as more progressive taxation, global wealth taxes, etc. However, these tactics are not practicable now. Outrage among the voting majority simply isn't great enough to precipitate change. And all of this is hard to tweet, so good luck getting anyone under the age of 30 to give a damn.

Piketty's book stems from many years of work and research. It will take some time for challenges to emerge robustly, but some are already published. Examples include these considerations via Forbes.com. (Scroll down on the linked-to page for additional Forbes posts by Tom Worstall and Scott Winship about possible problems with some of Piketty's ideas. For instance, Worstall suggests that taxation on consumption is a better approach than Piketty's suggestion to tax capital.)

Necessarily more thorough than the Guardian article about Piketty's book is Paul Krugman's review of Capital for the New York Review of Books.

The Scandinavian Model

ScotlandNordicSlightly off-topic but not entirely unrelated: As others have pointed out, one of the factors driving the Scottish independence referendum (September 18, 2014), which I think will pass by a very slim margin, is a laudable consensus among the Scots that they do not want the kind of radical wealth inequality seen in England and the U.S.A. (See, "Scottish nationalists look to Nordic model for independence," Financial Times.) However, whether independence is the best course for lessening or protecting again wealth inequality is arguable. (I side with the Better Together campaign.) The Conservatives who support continued union with Scotland may go down in history as the party that led the Government that lost the 307-year-old union between Scotland and the rest of Britain and [Northern] Ireland, despite their strenuous rhetorical efforts to preserve it. We'll find out in less that 5 months' time.

The Koch Brothers

Also, it is interesting to look in light of Piketty's book at the efforts of the billionaire Koch brothers, who are deeply tied to the fossil fuel industries, to have surcharges put upon users of solar power. Piketty notes that the very wealthy will engage in various efforts to maintain the status quo. As Piketty writes, "The experience of France in the Belle Époque proves, if proof were needed, that no hypocrisy is too great when economic and financial elites are obliged to defend their interest."

La-na-tt-koch-brothers-and-solar-power-2014042-001The assessment of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist David Horsey in his regular "Top of the Ticket" column in the Los Angeles Times is that

the Koch brothers have a new ploy to protect the traditional energy business that helped make them the planet’s fifth- and sixth-richest humans. They are funding a campaign to shackle solar energy consumers who have escaped the grip of big electric utilities.

Of all the pro-business, anti-government causes they have funded with their billions, this may be the most cynical and self-serving.

(Click any image to enlarge it.)

It seems to me that the mega-wealthy, like the Koch brothers, will happily and doggedly seek to further game the system and entrench their wealth through tax havens, low tax rates, falsehoods widely disseminated by their media operations—complete with crocodile tears for the middle class—and the political and societal influence that they buy through campaign contributions, armadas of lobbyists, and, frankly, their "charitable" giving, too. (To give a large donation to an arts institution or medical facility not only offers tax advantages but in a sense puts those entities' workers in your pocket; they dare not speak out or too obviously work to reform the status quo lest they lose a big-money donor, patron, lord.)

Those with great wealth will work both to rig the system and to keep the masses' outrage at bay by fueling the narrative of the government as being the only true enemy, by fueling misinformation against whatever hurts their interests, including—in the case of the Koch brothers especially—climate change, and by fueling media coverage of and political focus on non-economic issues.

In the U.S., with the (probably temporary) decrease in the public intensity of religious conservatives' concerns about social issues and, arguably, social conservatives dwindling numbers (for now), the economic right-wing (and the self-described libertarian wing) of the U.S. will increasingly attack government in all its forms and experiment with new distractions. Old distractions like gay marriage or the war on drugs are losing their appeal. But new ones will be found. You can count on it.

I suspect that the super-massively rich, the top 0.01%, like the Koch brothers, convince themselves that they are patriots. But I believe that the Koch brothers' efforts subvert the general welfare, and in that regard they are really more like oligarchic monarchists, insiders in the lordly court of plutocracy, than they are like true champions of liberty and equality before the law.

April 28, 2014 in Books, Democrats; progressivism, Economy, economic justice, Equality, rights, liberty, Foreign affairs, Politics, Republicans; conservatism, Security; military, UK | Permalink | Comments (0)

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"We’re part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right."

140127_r24535_p465From "Going the Distance," David Remnick's interview and article with President Barack Obama, The New Yorker, January 27, 2014:

“One of the things that I’ve learned to appreciate more as President is you are essentially a relay swimmer in a river full of rapids, and that river is history,” [President Obama] later told me. “You don’t start with a clean slate, and the things you start may not come to full fruition on your timetable. But you can move things forward. And sometimes the things that start small may turn out to be fairly significant. I suspect that Ronald Reagan, if you’d asked him, would not have considered the earned-income-tax-credit provision in tax reform to be at the top of his list of accomplishments. On the other hand, what the E.I.T.C. has done, starting with him, being added to by Clinton, being used by me during the Recovery Act, has probably kept more people out of poverty than a whole lot of other government programs that are currently in place."
..... 
"I think America was very lucky that Abraham Lincoln was President when he was President. If he hadn’t been, the course of history would be very different. But I also think that, despite being the greatest President, in my mind, in our history, it took another hundred and fifty years before African-Americans had anything approaching formal equality, much less real equality. I think that doesn’t diminish Lincoln’s achievements, but it acknowledges that at the end of the day we’re part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right.”

March 15, 2014 in A good thought, Democrats; progressivism, Economy, economic justice, Equality, rights, liberty, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Jack Kemp, happy warrior, "bleeding-heart" conservative....

I was intrigued by a recent segment on Up w/ Steve Kornacki that was a retrospective on Rep. Jack Kemp (1935–2009) within the context of new Republican Party outreach efforts to racial minorities.

I met Jack Kemp three or four times in 1988 in Iowa while he was campaigning for the Republican Party's presidential nomination. I was the founding President of the Kossuth County Teenage Republicans and wanted the GOP's nomination to go to either George H. W. Bush, then Vice-President under Ronald Reagan, or Congressman Kemp who represented New York's 38th District, a long-standing GOP New York "Eastern Establishment" stronghold (since 1939). It was represented in 1959–1963 by Jessica M. Weis (in 1948 she was the first woman to second the nomination for a presidential candidate by doing so for Thomas E. Dewey at the national convention in Philadelphia) and in 1963–1968 by liberal Republican Charles Goodell. 

I went from teenage Republican to Democrat by the time I was old enough to register to vote and in less than a handful of years. In the late 1980's, my interest in politics was an end in and of itself. Politics for me wasn't entirely or even mainly about ideology except insofar as I was something of a Cold War warrior in mentality. I liked realpolitik internationalist types who fit a sort of JFK-shaped mold I had in mind. To me, Bush and Kemp fit that mold. Certainly, one of their competitors for the party's nomination did not: Pentecostal television preacher Pat Robertson. I found him totally off-putting. But Robertson would go on to place second in the Iowa Caucuses with 25% of the vote behind Rep. Bob Dole with 37%. Bush and Kemp garnered 19% and 11% respectively.

Kemp126Robertson's success, though short-lived within the '88 nomination cycle itself, was a sign of things to come for the GOP. I know exactly when I started to dislike Pat Robertson and it pre-dated his run for office. Though I couldn't have known it at the time, the moment that I came to thoroughly dislike Robertson was also a small but very sure step--perhaps the first--along a path to Democratic Party membership. It was when I heard Robertson gravely warn of the Satanic nature of the game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Yep.

It was during a broadcast of the 700 Club, a religious television show he hosted on his own network. The show usually included a heavy emphasis on politics, human interest stories, and Robertson's prophecies. He also miraculously healed unnamed people through their television screens, sometimes of hemorrhoids.

It's an unlikely sort of political consciousness-raising moment. But, it was telling: Robertson was a public political figure, a leader of the religious right-wing, and therefore strongly focused on societal issues...even tabletop games. I had played role-playing games similar to D&D, and what Robertson said that evening on the 700 Club, like countless other of his comments before and since, was asinine. But, stunningly, Republicans in the future would later beat Robertson on the asininity scale: charges of Bill Clinton "body counts," cries of Affordable Care Act "death panels," conspiracy theories of Barack Obama being a foreign-born crypto-Muslim, and--along the way--other everything from Tinky Winky's purple triangular antenna to SpongeBob SquarePants's supposed gay agenda.

Robertson was the future of the GOP mindset that would be fuelled further by conservative PACs and think tanks as well as a conservative media echo chamber that includes sermons and conversations in conservative evangelical churches and Bible studies, and the massive conservative Christian media empire spanning radio, television, print, and online. The likes of Jack Kemp would become fewer. And not because Kemp was liberal, either. He was no liberal. But because Kemp's social conservatism was actually interested in governance, policy, and notions of community. He was comfortable with racial diversity. He understood the importance of America's cities. He was also a happy warrior. His work for conservative ideals was not based in anger or resentment. These qualities certainly wouldn't sit well with today's Tea Party.

From the religious right of the 1980s to the Tea Party of today is not as long or as complicated of a political evolutionary path as you might think. Studies by Pew and other institutions and academics have revealed the close connection between the Tea Party and the religious right-wing.* Tea Party leaders stress that the movement is about libertarianism. Maybe it is, to a point, but look just under the surface and it's often much about social conservatism, too.

Before Kemp, liberal Republican Charles Goodell had been ousted from that same Congressional seat by a challenger from the right. Kemp's election solidified the district's solidly conservative Republican reputation. But, nowadays, Kemp himself would probably be in the cross-hairs of the Tea Party. Kemp just wasn't the sort to despise a president or government so much as to shout "You lie!" during our republic's head of state's annual address to Congress.

Maybe the religious right's best days are behind it, and maybe the Tea Party movement has crested, too. John Boehner certainly seems fed-up with it. And Politico is asking, "Is Paul Ryan the GOP's Next Jack Kemp?" We'll see.

*See "Shocker: Tea Partiers More Evangelical, Socially Conservative", "Crashing the Tea Party?", and "Exposing Religious Fundamentalism in the U.S.".

Photo: Jack Kemp, former Congressman and United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

December 15, 2013 in Democrats; progressivism, Religion; church & state, Republicans; conservatism | Permalink | Comments (0)

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For New York City Comptroller, Democrats should vote on Sept. 10th for Scott Stringer, accomplished public servant

Stringer18n-19-web
The New York Times
 endorsement of Scott Stringer:

Scott Stringer has done an outstanding job as Manhattan borough president and would make a fine New York City comptroller.... The comptroller sits on many boards, committees and commissions. The ideal candidate is politically astute and ethically impeccable, and works well with others. Mr. Stringer has shown all those qualities as a public servant. As a state assemblyman, he was committed to the principles of good government. In his nearly eight years as borough president he has improved the scope, effectiveness and reputation of that sometimes marginal office. He has been a strong voice for civil rights and marriage equality, a defender of immigrants and the poor.

Mr. Stringer’s opponent, Eliot Spitzer, has intellect and cunning, but he lacks the qualities critical for this job.

The New York Daily News endorsement of Scott Stringer:

Scott Stringer [is] a steady, serious, well-prepared public official with an unblemished record of accomplishment. [Conversely, Spitzer, while] meeting with the Daily News Editorial Board for an endorsement interview, made definitively false statements in response to long-unanswered questions about the actions that put him at the heart of a federal criminal investigation.

The New York Observer endorsement of Scott Stringer:

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer showed that he was ready for citywide office just a few weeks ago, when he announced his support for Mayor Bloomberg’s rezoning plan for Midtown East. With a Democratic primary looming, it would have been easier for Mr. Stringer to pander to the ideologues and critics; instead, he stood up for visionary change. That’s good.

Mr. Stringer is a capable public servant. He represented the Upper West Side in the State Assembly for 13 years, earning a reputation as an irrepressibly earnest advocate for good government.... As the chief monitor of the city’s finances, Mr. Stringer would bring energy, independence and diligence to an office that requires all of those virtues.

am New York endorsement of Scott Stringer:

New York City Democrats who value good government and solid performance have a great choice in the Sept. 10 primary race for city comptroller. Scott Stringer, an Upper West Sider, has spent 20 years in office, first as an assemblyman and now as Manhattan borough president. In both positions he has built a strong reputation for thoughtfulness, attention to detail and solid constituent service.

As borough president, for example, he backed Columbia University's proposal to rezone 17 acres north of 125th Street for academic buildings -- after the school agreed to contribute $33 million for affordable housing and other public benefits.

But most important, as he runs for comptroller, Stringer shows a keen grasp of that office's nuances. The same can't be said for his opponent, [Eliot Spitzer].

The problem lies with Spitzer's expansive view of the comptroller's job. Sometimes he seems to yearn for a nostalgia tour as state attorney general. [Spitzer's] candidacy is more about Spitzer and less about New Yorkers.

[T]he comptroller must be able to sit at the table with the mayor and play an effective advisory role as City Hall hashes out the details of contracts with an army of private vendors who do business with the city.

It means the city must hold Wall Street to the highest standards of honesty and service as it invests the pension money of municipal workers. Yet it also means that the comptroller must work well with the financial industry to reduce, for example, the costs of investing.

The job requires a grown-up -- with sound judgment, unquestioned integrity and a talent for working well with others when the public interest demands it. We endorse Scott Stringer for comptroller in the Democratic primary.

September 07, 2013 in Campaigns, elections, Democrats; progressivism, Economy, economic justice, New York | Permalink | Comments (0)

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George Packer: Can Silicon Valley Embrace Politics? : The New Yorker

Clipboard01From George Packer's article in The New Yorker, "Change The World", about Silicon Valley, its bubble, its arrogance, its sincerity, its influence.....

A few years ago, when Barack Obama visited one Silicon Valley campus, an employee of the company told a colleague that he wasn’t going to take time from his work to go hear the President’s remarks, explaining, “I’m making more of a difference than anybody in government could possibly make.”
.....
Like industries that preceded it, Silicon Valley is not a philosophy, a revolution, or a cause. It’s a group of powerful corporations and wealthy individuals with their own well-guarded interests. Sometimes those interests can be aligned with the public’s, sometimes not. Though tech companies promote an open and connected world, they are extremely secretive, preventing outsiders from learning the most basic facts about their internal workings.
.....
Evgeny Morozov....: “They want to be ‘open,’ they want to be ‘disruptive,’ they want to ‘innovate'.... The open agenda is, in many ways, the opposite of equality and justice. They think anything that helps you to bypass institutions is, by default, empowering or liberating. You might not be able to pay for health care or your insurance, but if you have an app on your phone that alerts you to the fact that you need to exercise more, or you aren’t eating healthily enough, they think they are solving the problem.”
.....
There are fifty or so billionaires and tens of thousands of millionaires in Silicon Valley; last year’s Facebook public stock offering alone created half a dozen more of the former and more than a thousand of the latter. There are also record numbers of poor people, and the past two years have seen a twenty-per-cent rise in homelessness, largely because of the soaring cost of housing. After decades in which the country has become less and less equal, Silicon Valley is one of the most unequal places in America.
.....
Joshua Cohen, a Stanford political philosopher who also edits Boston Review, [founded Stanford's Program on Global Justice and is a half-time professor at Apple University for Apple execs] described a conversation he had with John Hennessy, the president of Stanford, who has extensive financial and professional ties to Silicon Valley. “He was talking about the incompetent people who are in government,” Cohen recalled. “I said, ‘If you think they’re so incompetent, why don’t you include in a speech you’re making some urging of Stanford students to go into government?’ He thought this was a ridiculous idea.”
.....
In his office, Cohen freely criticized the tech industry for its casual optimism in assuming that its products can change the world. He said, “There is this complete horseshit attitude, this ridiculous attitude out here, that if it’s new and different it must be really good, and there must be some new way of solving problems that avoids the old limitations, the roadblocks. And with a soupçon of ‘We’re smarter than everybody else.’ It’s total nonsense.”

But, when it came to Apple, he insisted that anything he said about the company had to be off the record, including the titles and the content of the courses he teaches. When I asked how he viewed the relation between the information revolution and inequality, he hesitated. He started to answer, then hesitated again: “Um. I don’t have any deep thoughts about it. I wish I did.” This seemed surprising, since Cohen, an expert on democracy and justice, co-edited a book called “The New Inequality,” in the late nineties, before it was a hot topic, and has devoted many pages of Boston Review to the subject. I had imagined that his perch at Apple University would give him the perfect vantage point to think about just this problem.
.....
[Nate Levine of start-up Delphi:] “They’re ignorant, because many of them don’t feel the need to educate themselves outside their little world, and they’re not rewarded for doing so.... If you’re an engineer in Silicon Valley, you have no incentive to read The Economist. It’s not brought up at parties, your friends aren’t going to talk about it, your employers don’t care.” [Levine] found that college friends who came out to the Valley to seek their fortune subsequently lost interest in the wider world. “People with whom I used to talk about politics or policy or the arts, they’re just not as into it anymore. They don’t read theWall Street Journal or the New York Times. They read TechCrunch andVentureBeat, and maybe they happen to see something from the Times on somebody’s Facebook news feed.” He went on, “The divide among people in my generation is not as much between traditional liberals and libertarians. It’s a divide between people who are inward-facing and outward-facing.”

via www.newyorker.com

Photo by Bruce Damonte; click to enlarge.

June 13, 2013 in Democrats; progressivism, Economy, economic justice, Equality, rights, liberty, Products, Web, tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

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