The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Category: politics

  • Burning Down the House

    Listening to the Republican leadership on how to fix the economy is like listening to the arsonist on how to put out the fire.

    Somehow the debate on the stimulus package has shifted to the Republicans and their criticisms.  Legitimate analyses are always welcome, of course, and when grown-ups want to help make a bill better, it’s a wonderful thing.  But we don’t have grown-ups running the Republican party any more.  These guys have had nearly fourteen years to try their one-size-fits-all “solution” — tax cuts and deregulation — and their experiment has landed us on the precipice of the worst economic situation since the Great Depression (and we’re not done yet).

    The economy is in free-fall and the President is trying to buy us a parachute, but these yahoos can only scream “If we just flap our arms harder, everything will be OK” while nitpicking the brand of rope the President chose for the shroud strands.  In some sense, you can see why:  For most of them, they have their own golden parachutes that will ensure that, when we hit rock bottom, they aren’t mangled like the rest of us.  And since their descent is safe, why help out anyone else?

    We are teeteering on the edge of a deflationary spiral, the single most destructive circumstance known to economics.  We’re already mired deep in a liquidity trap.  Our infrastructure is aging and inadequate, and our competitiors are breathing down our necks.

    The next time someone tells you that “government spending doesn’t create a single job or grow the economy”, ask them if they’ll email that you … over the Internet, funded and nurtured by the federal government long before anyone figured out how to make money off of it.  Ask them if they’ll ship it to you, via a truck running over the same Interstate that likely makes their comfy surburban lifestyle available.  Maybe they’ll type it up using the energy that comes from governmental hydro projects.

    Anyone spending money creates jobs.  Under many circumstances, the market is clearly superior.  Under some others, government is.  And under most, it’s still an open question.

    Could we please stop listening to the arsonists?

  • Health of the Republic: Reset to 50%

    It’s been a while since I’ve updated this ticker.  And it remains completely arbitrary, of course.  But with a new administration taking hold of the reins, it’s time for some (cautious) optimism about the restoration of the Republic.  I have genuine high hopes for Barack Obama and his people.  I think this is a smart, dedicated man who “gets” America — not the stupid rah-rah of the Bush years, but a deep and abiding commitment to the principles of this great nations — the principles that, in fact, make this nation great.

    On the other hand…  only 50%?  But yes, there are still the forces of malice and stupidity.  Over a quarter of the population somehow thinks the 43rd President did a good job.  Nearly 20% believe Saddam Hussein sent the 9/11 highjackers!  The Republicans are licking their wounds, but they’re not reforming.  We face a financial and economic criss of literally once-a-century severity, with a significantly weakened industrial and social base from which to launch a recovery.  We are still embroiled in two wars which appear intractable, and we still do have people out there hoping to cause us real harm.  And we’ve got all the long-lasting pernicious effects of the Bush administration — from torture to spying to “burrowing” — to overcome.

    So, here’s a glass lifted in celebration and anticipation of you, President Barack Hussein Obama.  Good luck and godspeed.

    Now, let’s get to work.

  • Worst. President. EVER.

    I know it’s early to ring in with the verdict of history and I know there’s room for reasonable debate. But I feel pretty sure that this will indeed be the epitaph of George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States (to our everlasting chagrin and shame). Hopefully the crimes committed by he and his cronies will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and the nation will reach a consensus on exactly how disastrous the past eight years have been – largely, I would point out, through acts of will, not acts of God. While others will compiled fuller lists, and while I intend to steal mercilessly as I compile this, what follows below the fold is my recitation of the sins of W:
    (more…)

  • Really interesting MLK clip

    Apparently, someone at the BBC unearthed this snippet of an interview with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in which he is asked about RFK’s 1964 prediction of a Negro President within 40 years.  King says he wouldn’t be amazed if it came sooner.  (Interesting that RFK was right within 4 years… not a bad piece of prognostication!)

  • America the Beautiful

    A stirring rendition, courtesy of Beyoncé at HBO’s “We Are One” Inauguration Concert.

  • Noted with approval

    emptywheel makes an excellent point we don’t hear enough, in commenting on the US Airways crash into the Hudson.  Noting that no one died and indeed injuries were comparatively slight, emptywheel reminds us that “This Miracle Brought to You by America’s Unions“.

  • Words Fail Me

    From the “sunset interview” in People (as quoted at Shakesville):

    Which moments from the last eight years do you revisit most often?

    THE PRESIDENT: I definitely think about the families I’ve met of the fallen soldiers—about the compassion, love and determination of the families, to make sure that the Commander-in-Chief hears their stories and knows their pride.

    I think about throwing out that pitch at the World Series on [Oct. 30] 2001. My heart was racing when I got to the mound. Didn’t want to bounce it. Didn’t want to let the fans down. My heart was pumping so hard, I wasn’t sure if I could lift my arm. I never felt that anxious any other time during my presidency, curiously enough.

    I cannot get my head around the self-absorption and (literal!) small-mindedness of this man who would be — who has been and regretabbly still is — President of the United States.  January 20 cannot arrive a nanosecond too soon…

  • Dawn Breaks

    A few minutes ago, Fox News — Fox News! — called the Presidential race for Senator Barack Obama. By now most networks have agreed, and apparently Senator John McCain has conceded the race.

    Wow.

    It’s going to take a while to absorb this. Words like “historic occasion” don’t cut it. This was an epochal moment at a critical time, and I am proud and amazed to realize that my nation once again rose to the moment. We put paid to some of the ugliness of our history and we recapture some of the promise of our future. People voted for change, for hope, for tomorrow. Against a rough and oft sleazy campaign, Senator Obama — no, President-elect Obama — ran an honorable campaign that took the high road, kept to issues, avoided the politics of personal destruction, and treated the American citizenry as adults, not animals to be cadged or corralled. Barack Obama staked his career on the premise that in a dark and dangerous time, this nation would listen to our better angels — and quite against expectation, the nation responded.

    The Reagan revolution has run its course. The Nixon Southern Strategy lies bankrupt on the dustbin of history. The wiles and vile counsel of Karl Rove and Lee Attwater has been refuted, rejected, and repudiated — we have decided that we will not be a nation ruled by fear, led by slander, demeaned and diminished by demagogy. We don’t have to agree on everything to agree that we are all Americans, we are all heirs of the great revolution, and we are all in this together.

    This campaign has lasted twenty months. It has aroused passion and resistance, hope and fear. It has elevated what is right about this nation and it has exposed all that remains wrong. It has been draining and it has been exhilarating. It has overlaid a touch of the transcendental into our everyday life. And at long last, it is finally over.

    Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States of America. History has been made. The future has been reclaimed. It is finally over…

    … Now, it’s time to get to work.

  • Why Bother to Vote?

    I wrote this at the request of my friend Maureen Leming, who is also Director of Annual Giving and Communications, and who wanted to send it out to the local media. No one bit, but I like it enough that I want it out there. So, self-publishing to the rescue!

    Why Bother to Vote?

    I teach physics to high school seniors, a large number of whom are eligible to vote. Dishearteningly, many of them have decided that they won’t be exercising their franchise because, as they tell me, “It’s not like my vote counts anyway”. With polls in New Jersey showing Barack Obama with double-digit leads, it seems at first glance that they have a point. But I argue fiercely that, despite that superficial impression, they should in fact get to the polls. My argument boils down to this: Elections aren’t about winning a contest. They’re about governing a nation.

    Let’s assume for the moment that the polls are accurate. Let’s assume further that you’re an Obama supporter. (If you’re supporting McCain, there’s more for you below.) Surely there’s no motivation to get out the polls, right? After all, Senator Obama is going to win those 15 electoral votes either way. If the election were just about winning, then those votes are all that matter. But since it’s also about governing, there are other considerations — one of which, for example, is the popular vote. A president who wins the electoral college but just squeaks by on the popular vote (or loses it) can be crippled right out of the gate. Consider George W. Bush, whose first nine months in office were roundly criticized for drift and inertia.

    On the other hand, if Senator Obama wins the election and wins the popular vote handily, it would give his agenda quite the boost. For example, if he wins by an excess of 20 million votes, it would be a landslide comparable to FDR’s election in 1932. Even a more likely outcome of six or seven million votes strengthens his hands and makes rapid adoption of his program much more likely. The length of the presidential “honeymoon” is strongly influenced by the extent by which the president wins the popular vote. In that race, every vote in New Jersey counts just as much as one cast anywhere else — even if that vote doesn’t affect the electoral total.

    Obviously, if you are a McCain supporter in New Jersey, similar but reverse arguments apply: You would want to reduce the margin of an Obama victory, or (of course) increase the margin of a McCain victory. And even if Obama takes New Jersey, McCain could win the presidency — and in that case, you would want his margin of popular votes to be as large as possible. In essence, if your side wins, you want to maximize its advantage in the popular vote so as to advance the agenda with which you agree. And if your side loses, you certainly want to diminish the margin of victory for the other guys, so as to retard their agenda as much as possible. Both possible scenarios dictate that you get out and vote.

    And of course, there are issues here bigger than simple partisan calculus. Democracy depends on an engaged electorate. There is no excuse for sitting out any election, particularly one so fraught with historic import. When turnout is low, politicians know that the road to victory lies in pandering to small but focused interest groups. The key becomes energizing your voter base and ignoring the rest of the population. But when turnout is high, the game changes. Pandering to everyone is the same as not pandering. Discourse and compromise become more viable, indeed, more necessary. When you can’t tailor your message to a narrow group and still win, you feel the pressure to formulate real solutions that appeal to a wider array of voters. Raise voter turnout and you improve the entire political process.

    Think your vote doesn’t count? Heck, on the contrary — it just might save democracy.

  • About that “overhead projector”

    At the debate tonight, Senator John McCain tried to make hay out of an earmark requested by his opponent, Senator Barrack Obama:

    He voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois

    Kinda makes it sound like Sen. Obama wanted $3 million for one of those things you remember from boring sociology lectures, where the prof dragged slide after acetate slide across the glass of a long-necked, dimly-lit contraption. I mean, isn’t that what an overhead projector is?

    Not so much, at least, not in a planetarium. You see, a planetarium shows images by projecting up on the dome… you know, overhead. If you don’t have a projector, you pretty much don’t have a planetarium. According to Sen. Obama’s office:

    The projection equipment in this theater is 40 years old, and is no longer supported with parts or service by the manufacturer

    (quoted at PolitiFact)

    The projector was for the Adler Planetarium and Space Museum, which like most museums does an awful lot of educational outreach. So the question becomes: Why doesn’t John McCain support science education? Doesn’t he love America’s children? Doesn’t he want them to compete in the 21st century? Or does he dislike Adler Planetarium because they teach the newfangled stuff like heliocentrism?