thoughts from a brokenSoldier

Many people in today’s political climate make continual references to a new kind of political methodology that has become prominent in recent years.  They call it "Rovian politics," and though it probably surfaced long before that gutter weasel ever did, he is the one that has made it so annoyingly efficient as of late.  It involves boiling down everything you talk about into slogans, and - in effect - running the nation in the exact same way politicians have come to run their campaigns.  The results of this have given us a political system that is utterly averse to deep analysis of the issues by the majority of the voters.  Naturally, it is easier for the great multitude of the population to be taken hostage by the production and marketing of political agendas that have been simplified down to the point that they can be conveyed in one phrase.  This also comes with the added bonus that such politicians can point to their opponent, who may have a more details-driven proposal, and say that his stance does not make sense, or is somehow "out of touch" because it cannot be explained in catch phrases. 

The effects of this are definitely not limited to our country, either.  In true American fashion, we have taken a product that works and exported it to the nations of the rest of the world.  If you ever catch The Daily Show, you might have seen an interview with James Harding, an English citizen who wrote a booke called Alpha Dogs: The Americans Who Turned Political Spin into a Global Business.  He tells a short anecdote about how American political strategists have worked their way into his country’s political scene, all while their patrons are promising a new kind of politics.  It is insidious because it is altogether dishonest, in that their "product" is what has driven our nation’s politics for most of the recent years past, and it has gotten us into a huge hole.

But, I digress.  To get back to my original point, I presented all of that in order to show a current example that centers around our upcoming Presidential election and the issue that will be the absolute most central to whether or not we will be able to climb out of that huge hole we’ve fallen into.  When it comes to the economy, we are going to need a President that can make serious moves to staunch the bleeding of our market, along with patching up our infrastructure and improving the situations of our citizens.  When it comes to such a monumental task, simple, catchy slogans and generic, easily memorized phrases are not going to fix the problem.  It is precisely because we are in such dire straits that we need to fashion a solution that takes longer than five minutes to explain.

I was reading through the New York Times site today, when I came across this article:

How Obama Reconciles Dueling Views on Economy

It is a long, detailed account of why Obama holds seemingly contrasting views on the economy at one time, and how he has come to hold those views.  It became apparent to me after about ten minutes of reading that this is something everyone needs to read, because once I did, the views were not contrasting at all.  It only seems that way because Obama’s economic ideology is well thought out, highly detailed, and cannot be bolied down into five minutes of rhetoric.  If you tried to simplify it like that, you’d get…you guessed it - the impression that he holds conflicting views on the economy. 

In the article, which will be released Sunday, David Leonhardt skillfully explains that Obama’s views are actually a melding of the two different schools of economic thought within the Democratic Party, the origins of which lie with two men from President Clinton’s administration, Bob Reich and Bob Lubin.  He goes on to show that in the days since the "Battle of the Bobs," these two men have changed their views somewhat:

To understand where Obama stands, you first have to know that, for 15 years, Democratic Party economics have been defined by a struggle that took place during the start of the Clinton administration. It was the battle of the Bobs. On one side was Clinton’s labor secretary and longtime friend, Bob Reich, who argued that the government should invest in roads, bridges, worker training and the like to stimulate the economy and help the middle class. On the other side was Bob Rubin, a former Goldman Sachs executive turned White House aide, who favored reducing the deficit to soothe the bond market, bring down interest rates and get the economy moving again. Clinton cast his lot with Rubin, and to this day the first question about any Democrat’s economic outlook is often where his heart lies, with Reich or Rubin, the left or the center, the government or the market.

Obama has obviously studied this debate, and early on during the flight to Chicago, he told me a story about Reich and Rubin. The previous week, Obama convened a discussion with a high-powered group of economists and chief executives. He was sitting at a conference table, with Rubin two seats to his left and Reich across from him. “One of the points I raised,” Obama told me, “is if you just use you, Bob, and you, Bob, as caricatures, the truth is, both of you acknowledge the world is more complicated.” By this, Obama didn’t simply mean that their views were more nuanced than many outsiders understood. He meant that both have come to acknowledge that the other man is, in part, correct. The two now occupy more similar ideological places than they did in 1993. The battle of the Bobs may not be completely over, but it has certainly been suspended.

In short, it takes the time to sit down and actually pay attention to what Obama thinks and how he has come to those viewpoints to truly understand where he thinks the nation needs to go economically, and how he thinks we can get there.  To contrast, I looked up McCain’s economic vision on his own campaign’s website, and I got the following.

McCain’s Economic Plans

If you go to that link and look around, you’ll find things such as this:

Health Care Reform -

Chronic Disease: Chronic conditions account for three-quarters of the nation’s annual health care bill. By emphasizing prevention, early intervention, healthy habits, new treatment models, new public health infrastructure and the use of information technology, we can significantly reduce these costs. We should dedicate more federal research to treating and curing chronic disease.

Cheaper Drugs: John McCain will look to bring greater affordability and competition to our drug markets through safe re-importation of drugs and faster introduction of generic drugs.

Gas and Food Prices -

John McCain believes we should send a strong message to world markets. Under his plan, the United States will be telling oil producing countries and oil speculators that our dependence on foreign oil will come to an end - and the impact will be lower prices at the pump.

John McCain’s policies will increase the value of the dollar and thus reduce the price of oil. In recent years, the declining value of the dollar has added to the cost of imported oil. This will change. Americans will have a stronger economy, a stronger dollar and greater purchasing power for oil, gas and food.

Balance the Budget by 2013 -

Reasonable economic growth. Growth is an imperative - historically the greatest success in reducing deficits (late 1980s; late 1990s) took place in the context of economic growth.

Comprehensive spending controls. Bringing the budget to balance will require across-the-board scrutiny of spending and making tough choices on new spending proposals.

Taxes -

Cut The Corporate Tax Rate From 35 To 25 Percent: A lower corporate tax rate is essential to keeping good jobs in the United States. America was once a low-tax business environment, but as our trade partners lowered their rates, America failed to keep pace. We now have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, making America a less attractive place for companies to do business. American workers deserve the chance to make fine products here and sell them around the globe.

Keep Tax Rates Low: Entrepreneurs are at the heart of American innovation, growth and prosperity. Entrepreneurs create the ultimate job security - a new, better opportunity if your current job goes away. Entrepreneurs should not be taxed into submission. John McCain will keep the top tax rate at 35 percent, maintain the 15 percent rates on dividends and capital gains, and phase-out the Alternative Minimum Tax. Small businesses are the heart of job growth; raising taxes on them hurts every worker.

That is by no means all-inclusive, but it does give you an idea of how he is presenting his plan.  All of the eight issues in his plan consist of no more than one or two pages worth of text, and rarely does it ever drop down into the weeds to tell us exactly how he is going to do all these things he is proposing.  Just look at his entire tax page for a good example.  Every single bullet point on his tax page addresses how he will cut, credit, or ban taxes.  This may sound great in a five minute sound bite, but dig a little deeper into the issue, and you’ll see that the rest of his proposals, such as his $300 million prize for a more efficient car battery and $5,000 tax credit for "each and every family" that buys a zero-emissions car, involve paying out or crediting huge amounts of money in order to reach his goals.  Low taxes sounds good, but exactly how are we going to pay for all of these new incentive-based programs if we’re paying substantially lower taxes?  (And cutting out the war cannot be a reason, because he has famously opposed such a thing, saying that the war can be ended by 2013 - the end of his first term, by which time he will have also balanced the budget.)

My point in all of this is that McCain is banking on the fact that voters typically - and especially in our current climate of oversimplification of vital issues in politics - will not dig too deep into his actual policies and plans.  The link I posted to McCain’s plan was his very own campaign website, and yet it still did not dip down to the level of explanation the would allow the voters to evaluate exactly how he proposes to carry out his policies.  If there is any place where it is feasible to go into that kind of detail, it would be a website where voters could go and spend as much - or as little - time as they pleased in an effort to understand his policies. (To be fair, Obama’s economy page - while going into more detail than McCain’s - still leaves a bit to be desired, but the site also gives you a link to his full agenda.  McCain’s site offers links to seemingly the same thing, but when you click on them at the bottom of each section, you get routed to another page where he lists almost the same topics and statements with additional platitudes added, but not much more in the way of detail and methods.)

I’ll wrap up this novel now, but the length of this post only goes to show my point even more clearly.  When it comes to things that are as vital to our future as how we can climb out of this rut we are in economically, the impetus is upon us all to take a good, hard look at our options and truly consider what we should do.  That takes longer than a few minutes, and it is damn well worth it.  Our unique form of democracy lives - and can very well die - upon the assumption that we have an adequately educated electorate that makes informed decisions.  Please, for your sake, and for the sake of our country and our future, take the time.

Reading through an article about McCain’s campaign and their Paris/ Britney smear ad against Obama, I was again reminded of a truism that reflects the Republican Party’s true motivations.  This could hold true for any party, but in recent years the GOP has been the party most at odds with the American public when it comes to judging the success of policy.  The article was from the Huffington Post:

Paris Hilton Ad Helped Internet Fundraising, McCain Campaign Manager Says

In the article, McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis outlines why he thinks the overtly negative and disrespectful ad was a success for his candidate:

"Many of you all know the [Hilton] advertisement got more hits on YouTube than any other YouTube video," he adding [sic], noting that that was a "first" for the McCain campaign. "We definitely saw an uptick in internet receipts" as the "Celeb" ad reached one million hits, Davis revealed.

Their view on this reflects their larger view on policy and its criteria for success or failure.  Simply put, the only criteria they judge to be relevant is whether or not it puts money in their pockets.  This goes for campaign ads as well as policy matters concerning energy, foreign policy, and any number of other issues facing our nation.  A lot of their policies are advanced in lockstep with the religious right, who enjoy an disproportionate amount of monetary and political influence.  For example:

The US Supreme Court’s Abortion decision on 18 August 2008:

John McCain:

"Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a victory for those who cherish the sanctity of life and integrity of the judiciary."

Mitt Romney:

"Today, our nation’s highest court reaffirmed the value of life in America by upholding a ban on a practice that offends basic human decency."

You’d think that people who pontificate so profusely about the "sanctity of life" and "basic human decency" would not go around making statements like this:

John McCain:

Responding to a question about a survey that shows increased exports to Iran, mainly from cigarettes, McCain said, "Maybe that’s a way of killing them."

Or, concerning a place that has been documented thoroughly as a site rife with human rights abuses, this:

Mitt Romney:

"I am glad [detainees] are at Guantanamo. I don’t want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don’t get the access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil. I don’t want them in our prisons, I want them there. Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo."

The answer, of course, is that these positions - as contradictory as they are - are parrots of the positions of the religious right, which are major contibutors to the Republican cause.  It doesn’t matter that their "sanctity of life" and "basic human decency" arguments are not consistent with their other positions, because the people who dole out money to them don’t care that they don’t add up - they just care about their agenda being advanced by those they fund.

Many Americans see the Bush administration’s policies as failures, and can’t understand why more Republicans don’t see the situation the same way.  It is - at its core - because their criteria for success includes only how much said policies benefit them, regardless of their effects on the country.  Do you wonder why McCain and Bush are trying to force the expansion of domestic drilling down our collective throats?  Do you wonder why so few Republicans stood up to say that Bush’s methods in his handling of the Iraq war needed to stop?  Do you wonder why McCain has prostituted his convictions - especially on things as heavy and personal to him as torture - in his bid for the Presidency? The reason is simply that these policies - while faulty in most of our eyes - has put an inordinate amount of money in their pockets.  Thus, these policies were a hit for them, and they see no reason to change course.  The only reason some of them are doing so now is because they’re facing the spectre of an election in the coming months. 

All of this talk about Bush’s "failed policies" among the GOP members was largely muted until we entered an election year.  McCain, as has been pointed out many times before, has jumped the fence numerous times on issues that had previously made him the "maverick" that he fraudulently still claims to be. (See my "Paging Dr. Freud Post, with this link, to see how McCain’s own stances have radically changed in response to his chances of winning the White House.) It is ironic that the GOP can still tag the Democrats with the label of "flip-flopper," considering how many times their presumptive nominee has switched his positions in this year alone.

When it is all said and done, it comes down to the fact that policies that adversely affect the people of America are still being pushed by the Republicans, and the only reason for that is that they do not consider them to be failures.  They could give a damn if their policies harm us as citizens, as long as their coffers and pocketbooks remain filled.  Even though many people have pointed out that McCain’s Celebrity ad is both lacking in substance and seriously disrespectful to a family that donated the maximum amount to McCain’s own campaign, this ad is considered by that campaign to be a success, simply because it brought in the dough.

Imagine what McCain will consider a success if he attains the highest office in the nation…  As long as it keeps him and his henchmen in the upper strata of our economy, it will be fine by him.  As long as he can maintain his 10 family homes, his family’s jet-setting lifestyle (excluding half-siblings that reside in the lower classes, of course), and his exorbitant personal expenditures like his $500+ imported Italian loafers, then he’ll be all for it. 

This is how they gauge success, and this is how they would run our country.  It does not bode well for us as a nation, but then again, they just don’t seem to care.  What a strange way to put "Country First."

I know this is a bit dated, but this article is one that I have been saving to write about, for reasons that will soon be obvious.  At the end of last month, I ran across a column written by neo-con and partisan hack Bill Kristol that betrayed the true desires of the neoconservative movement in this election cycle, though I am sure that was not his intent.  This op-ed was in the New York Times on July 28th, and was an attempt at humor - which failed - mixed with his commentary on the prospects of the upcoming Presidential election.

Bill Kristol - Be Afraid. Please.

In this op-ed, Kristol begins with an attempt to be funny, but the joke is quite nonsensical.

Early Friday, I went to the Real Clear Politics Web site, as I do every morning, for my fix of political news and commentary. I perked up when I saw the third entry on the list of that day’s notable articles — “No. 44 Has Spoken.”

“Hank Aaron has spoken? Wow,” I thought as I clicked through.

He goes on to explain that it was instead an article by a German Magazine, Der Spiegel, that was a commentary hailing Barack Obama as the likely 44th President of the United States.  After he finishes his petulant attempt at being funny, he goes on to explain why this should be utterly frightening to Americans, and how the article was somehow an affront to all Americans in that it assumed to predict the outcome of the election before one vote has even been cast.

First, let’s look at his try at humor.  He somehow thought that his daily stop for news, Real Clear Politics, had written an article about Hank Aaron.  Sidestepping the "no shit" reaction I had at Kristol revealing that he gets his news from RCP, I decided to look on RCP and see how many times Hank Aaron, and even baseball, had been written about on that site.  The links below are what I found, with baseball listed first, and Jackie Robinson second.  Upon searching for baseball, I found four pages worth of results, most of which only mentioned the word baseball in the context of political commentary. A few actually centered around baseball, but only to deal with steroids, the Mitchell Report, the use of instant replay, and commentary on how the sport is changing.  When I searched for Hank Aaron, I found - squat.  There was not one profile, interview or bio that would sugest RCP had ever broached the subject of the man who broke the most storied record in baseball.

Real Clear Politics search - baseball

Real Clear Politics search - Hank Aaron

What really happened, I surmise, is that Kristol read this article, thought about it for a minute, and found a way to try to lampoon the title of the German article.  Because if he actually thought RCP was hosting an article - which he himself describes as being third billing on their home page - about the words of Mr. Aaron, he is even more deluded that I originally thought him to be.  And as for his feigned indignance towards anyone being presumptuous enough to predict the outcome of an election prior to voting, Kristol is most definitely the proverbial pot calling the kettle black - as can be seen here, where he, in 2006, predicts that Obama will not best Hilary Clinton in a single primary contest.

Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single democratic primary. I’ll predict that right now.

It seems that Mr. Kristol is just as helpless in predicting future events as our own current administration - and John McCain, for that matter.

From 3/18/03, Fox, "O’Reilly Factor"

O’Reilly: "All right, Senator, if you were president, what would you have done differently in the run-up to this war?"

McCain: "Nothing."

O’Reilly: "Nothing?"

McCain: "The president has handled this, in my view, skillfully."

From 3/24/03, MSNBC, "Hardball"

"There’s no doubt in my mind that once these people are gone that we will be welcomed as liberators."

Kristol goes on to say that the propsect of an Obama presidency should scare us, because along with his election, the Democrats are trying to attain a veto-proof majority in Congress, which to Kristol - someone that has profited obscenely from the neo-con manipulation of our national government for the better part of the last decade - is instead an "unchecked Democratic majority."  He ignores the fact that Bush II has wielded the veto pen and his executive order abilities to unabashedly further his and his party’s narrow partisan agendas during his two terms, and somehow comes to the conclusion that - even in the face of the damage that has already been done by the Bush administration to our military, our Constitution, our Department of Justice, and countless other facets of our national government and identity - somehow a change to the rival party will be disastrous.  Someone needs to remind Bill that his guys had their shot at power, and they have royally fucked things up.

He then goes on to point out that voters should not choose Obama, because he has been a member of the majority party in the Congress that has caused all the problems of the years recently passed:

"And McCain will then assert that if you don’t like the Congress in which Senator Obama serves in the majority right now, you really should be alarmed about a President Obama rubber-stamping the deeds of a Democratic Congress next year. A President McCain, on the other hand, could check Congressional appetites — as well as work across the aisle with a Democratic Congress in a bipartisan spirit where appropriate."

What he misses is that while Obama has been in the majority party for two whole years, McCain has been a member of that same Congress for the last quarter of a century, including more than a few years in which he has been a member of the majority party.  How he deduces that McCain is less of an entrenched member of the establishment than Obama is beyond me.  And his statement that McCain should be President simply because the Congress has a Democratic majority is a thinly-veiled plea for mercy from the electorate.  He doesn’t want his beloved party to lose everything come November, and he’s resorting to vacuous logic to try and keep some of the influence he has wielded over the past eight years.

And that gets back to the title of this post concerning the Freudian slip that was his article’s title.  He wants us to be afraid.  He says we should be afraid of an Obama Presidency, but all it comes across to me as is a whining plea for we voters to let fear motivate our electoral decision.  And what else has his neo-con movement been so good at in the past eight years besides using fear as leverage over the population?  He must think he is talking to a voting population that is still in the dark as to the motivations and methods of his cronies. (Admittedly a lot of voters still are, but I’d put money on the fact that a great deal of NYT readers do not fall into that category these days.

To Bill Kristol - We are not afraid.  And even if we were, if the past two terms have shown us anything, it is that you and your ilk are definitely not the ones we should be taking cues from when it comes to what we should be wary of when considering our choices for President.  Isn’t it about time for the NY Times to fire this idiot?

Hey guys and girls!  I promise I haven’t abandoned this blog like I have done with many of my other writing endeavors, but I am just so swamped between dealing with my conditions and their treatments and replying and contributing to the multitude of offers of help I have received in the aftermath of PZ’s publicization of my situation at Pharyngula that I haven’t had enough time to get on here and wax sarcastic about my thoughts of the goings on in our world.  However, I do pledge to return to my rants once I get my situation settled down enough to do so.  I hope my absence hasn’t put off you few readers who have graciously included me in your rounds, and once I return, you can be sure that I’ve got some great stuff to expound upon (however belatedly).  Thanks again for all your support, and I hope to see you again when I can resume my work here.  Best wishes to all, and I hope this finds each and every one of you doing well and feeling great!