The Year in Review: Apocalyptics
Jeff Alworth
In past Decembers, I have enjoyed looking back through the archives at the year that was. It's an exercise in sifting fine grain, reminding myself (and a few of you with memories as bad as mine) of some of the events that passed in distant months. To do the same in 2009, however, would miss the point. This past year was not a time of small events--it was a year of big craziness. We apparently delayed our millennial insanity a decade and had it all in 2009. You have to go way, way back in the archives to find anything this strange. Probably all the way back to 1979, w hen the political winds were blowing from red to blue on the heels of the famous "malaise speech."
America is, of course, a country that regularly blows its cool. Hell, it was settled by people who blew their cool. Puritans bailed on Europe because it was too laid back for their liking. As a consequence, every few decades, a kind of fever sweeps the country and we start talking about the end times. It's in our DNA. Stiff upper lips are for those we left back in England. In the US, we're all about the panic. When people look back on 2009, they will see a lot of change, most of it positive, but also a country in the throes of hysteria.
Tea Party Madness
“We call them progressives now, but back in Samuel Adams’ day, they used to call them tyrants. A little later, I think they were also called slave owners." Glenn Beck)
"Keep your government hands off my Medicare." (Speaker at a town hall meeting in SC)
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel." (Sarah Palin)
The most vivid displays of panic were staged by the right wing. What was striking in these protests (and they happened all over Oregon) was not the odd shameful sign, but the bizarre sincerity. What seemed to animate the right was a new-found sense of fiscal constraint not seen during the catastrophic Bush years. This was a real panic, and a dim understanding of history didn't prevent tea partiers from expressing their fears by equating Obama to Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.
Julian Sanchez recently named these as the politics of ressentiment. It is the most astute, clear analysis I have seen, capturing the various infusions in the tea party brew. Here's an especially important piece:
Or consider the study Ryan Sager highlighted a while back, showing that many SUV owners don’t merely think their choice of vehicles is harmless or morally neutral, but positively virtuous. Apparently the “moralistic critique of their consumption choices readily inspired Hummer owners to adopt the role of the moral protagonist who defends American national ideals.” Note two things here. First, this is classic ressentiment: It’s not just that SUVs are great in themselves because they somehow “embody” some set of ideals. They’re good just because they symbolize an inversion of the “anti-American” values of critics. Second, think what it reveals that people feel the need to construct these kinds of absurd rationalizations—to make their cars heroic rather than simply denying that they do much harm. It betrays an incredible sensitivity, not to excessive taxes or regulations on the vehicles, but to the feeling of being judged
Indeed, the right had a lot to be mightily pissed off about. They had absolute rule for six years--not just command of all branches of government, but the cover of two wars to enact whatever legislation they wished. This is what makes the Obama years seem so terrifying to the right: if total control of the government produced such tiny returns as in the '00s, what must a return to Democratic rule under an eloquent liberal mean? His race and middle name made it all the worse, and let us never forget that obscene "birther" backlash. Unforgivable--but perhaps not un-understandable. Things are changing, including the color and worldliness of our presidents.
So the apocalypse for the right has already happened. Fire is falling from the sky, brimstone is in the air. Looking forward, conservatives think that only a show of very strict moral rectitude might restore the country to favor. They will advocate for party purity in a way that will make Karl Rove and Grover Norquist look like pikers. I have little doubt but that this panic will continue right through to the midterms next year and possibly well beyond.
Progressive Panic
"It's scary to think that people this obscenely stupid are running the country." (Jane Hamsher)
"There are very few U.S. Presidents who have squandered as many once-in-a-generation opportunities as Barack Obama." (Naomi Klein)
"Yesterday's speech and the odd, extremely bipartisan reaction to [Obama's Afghanistan speech] underscored one of the real dangers of the Obama presidency: taking what had been ideas previously discredited as Republican or right-wing dogma and transforming them into bipartisan consensus." (Glenn Greenwald)
But the craziness didn't only happen on the right. I was shocked to see so many on the left denounce the Obama presidency--and those complicit with it--as no better, and possibly worse, than Bush's. As with all apocalyptic renderings, this is more a moral than policy failure. The White House, working with Congress, managed to accomplish an enormous amount in 2009, but most of these victories were less than absolute--and for progressives, they weren't good enough.
In stopping a catastrophic economic collapse, Obama (and Congress) worked with banks and investment firms. He (and Congress) did not push for single-payer health care or sufficiently defend the public option. He did declare an end to Gitmo, but even this was a phyrric victory, thanks to congressional stonewalling, for which he is culpable. In Copenhagen, Obama walked away with less than a guarantee from 180 countries to roll back carbon emissions. And Afghanistan? Obama's decision to double down there was the final straw for many progressives.
As a beleaguered liberal, I get it. We always lose. The opportunity to wring a victory is rare, and the opportunities we had in 2009 looked unprecedented. Obama was poised to become a new generation's FDR, re-establishing liberalism for 40 years and advancing liberal policy by miles. Now the gloom of what appears like missed opportunities has settled in. As losers, we figure this was it, a chance lost.
In reality, 2009 was a pretty good year. We must recall where it started. A year ago, Bush was still guiding the country into the ditch. Many economists wondered if we were headed back into another Great Depression. When
economist Patrick Emerson ran a poll asking readers where they thought
Oregon's unemployment would top out, a substantial number guessed the
13%-16% range.
Instead, unemployment has stabilized. The housing market has stabilized. Wall Street hasn't collapsed. I never expected to see any progress on climate change, yet despite the mixed results from Copenhagen, we made substantial steps this year. By nearly every measure, we're better off this year than we were a year ago. And where we remain worse off, the trend line is headed in the right direction, rather than off the cliff like at year's start.
Those of us here in Oregon should actually look at local developments if we want to gaze into the future. Change doesn't happen overnight. You build incrementally. After taking it in the pants for years, Dems finally got control of the legislature. They were able to provide some relief to departments devastated by the economic collapse, and I am pretty optimistic about the chances of keeping these tax hikes in place. In Washington, our senators and reps made serious contributions to the governing coalition. Politics is a slow game. Even FDR experienced that.
Future generations will have the benefit of perspective when they examine 2009. Right now, Americans aren't thinking about what is happening, they're panicking about what's around the corner. We'll have to wait to see if this anxiety is warranted, but the anxiety itself is the lesson of 2009.
In Memoriam
Dom DeLuise, Farrah Fawcett, Paul Harvey, Don Hewitt, John Hughes, Michael Jackson, Jack Kemp, Ted Kennedy, Irving Kristol, Walter Kronkite, Karl Malden, Robert McNamara, Brittany Murphy, Bob Novak, Les Paul, Oral Roberts, William Safire, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Patrick Swayze, John Updike
_______________
ART CREDIT: ALI BORDBAR
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3:40 p.m.
Dec 29, '09
Good stuff, man. Thank you.
3:48 p.m.
Dec 29, '09
It's a sad state of affairs when the frequency of my posts has dwindled to such a small trickle that a new one elicits thanks from a co-founder. But there it is!
Isn't it about time for new year's resolutions?
4:06 p.m.
Dec 29, '09
OK everybody, Go read that Julian Sanchez article.
Twice.
(Hell, I watched AVATAR 3D twice last week, but then the off switches on my hearing aids do come in handy for Cameron dialogue.....)
<hr/>I don't think it's just Kari and infrequency of your posting Jeff. These meta-topics have been at the edges of my peripheral vision for years now, like an itchy spot right between the shoulder blades. There's another tangent that seems to have migrated from Fundy Evangelical Christianity into the larger political Right Wing in their Winter of Discontent: "We are God's people and 'they' persecute 'us' for our moral superiority." Easy to see how the SUV owner stance fits in here.
Then there's this pullquote:
This is what makes the Obama years seem so terrifying to the right: if total control of the government produced such tiny returns as in the '00s, what must a return to Democratic rule under an eloquent liberal mean? His race and middle name made it all the worse, and let us never forget that obscene "birther" backlash. Unforgivable--but perhaps not un-understandable. Things are changing, including the color and worldliness of our presidents.
To which Larry Willhite responded on the Daily Show:
"All men are created equal - how'd you think that would end?"
"This is what happens when you have a melting pot, the stew gets darker."
4:31 p.m.
Dec 29, '09
Julian Sanchez exposes the twisted nihilism embedded deep within the psyche of the Right.
Let's call it what it is: nihilism.
All of the apocolyptic mumbo-jumbo and tea-bagging and death paneling... it's all just facets of their collective psyche.
The truly scary thing is to realize that they NEED for America to implode. Because the alternative means that Becks and Roves and Robertsons and DeLays and Palins are all false prophets. And if that's the case then... well... suffice to say that nihilism is the path of least resistance for these astro-turfed foot soldiers of the right.
Dec 29, '09
Kevin, your comment reminds me of a cartoon from maybe 1990. A bunch of old guys (maybe at a party for anti-communists) are standing around saying "what do we do now?".
And there is an animated Tenales cartoon on the Washington post that is similar. A middle aged white guy with the voice of Rush Limbaugh is saying there should be special airline screening for every Mohammed, Achmed, etc.---and he is run over by a truck that says OKLAHOMA CITY OR BUST.
Dec 29, '09
Excellent piece. Thanks for pulling this info together. More of this please.
Dec 29, '09
OK, my first test at trying to remain calm, not be snarky or disagreeable. Here we go:
Many rural Oregonians have a difficult time taking ANY city dweller seriously when they rant on about our choice in vehicles. Ryan Sager fits that mold. Jeff, since you felt a need to quote his work, perhaps you also feel that way. Too bad.
Out here in the hinterlands I proudly drive my 2000 Ford expedition 4 wheel drive in the winter. For the past 10 years and 188,000 miles it has faithfully taken our family of 5 skiing, boating and has served triple duty ferrying 6-7 soccer players all over the Pacific Northwest. I agree, there is no place on a civilian road for a Hummer. However, my rig has often taken the place of 2 vehicles and will get me safely home tonight through the blizzard and back into town tomorrow. Can't say the same for some Honda or Toyota econo-box.
To the other observations; Obama must be doing something right if he has the extremes of both parties upset. However as he ends his first year in office I give him a tepid "C" and worry that he, like Jimmy carter will become a great former President after serving just one lackluster term.
Dec 29, '09
Jeff Alworth wrote: Puritans bailed on Europe because it was too laid back for their liking.
Hardly...
Jeff, really... best not to include a comment like this in a posting that makes it so readily obvious you have no idea what you're talking about.
The religious persecution that drove settlers from Europe to the British North American colonies sprang from the conviction, held by Protestants and Catholics alike, that uniformity of religion must exist in any given society. This conviction rested on the belief that there was one true religion and that it was the duty of the civil authorities to impose it, forcibly if necessary, in the interest of saving the souls of all citizens. Nonconformists could expect no mercy and might be executed as heretics. The dominance of the concept, denounced by Roger Williams as "inforced uniformity of religion," meant majority religious groups who controlled political power punished dissenters in their midst. In some areas Catholics persecuted Protestants, in others Protestants persecuted Catholics, and in still others Catholics and Protestants persecuted wayward co-religionists (i.e., so much for your theory about Europe being 'too laid back'...)
Although England renounced religious persecution in 1689, it persisted on the European continent. Religious persecution, as observers in every century have commented, is often bloody and implacable and is remembered and resented for generations (see Hitler, Adolf and the extermination of Jewish people in the late 1930s into 1945 for a more modern example...)
10:03 p.m.
Dec 29, '09
Kurt, that was a mighty effort to miss the point of Sanchez's analysis--but effective at proving his point.
Alca, eschatology has always been at the heart of fundamentalist Protestantism--and my light ephemism won't change that fact.
10:20 p.m.
Dec 29, '09
i've had it with the Hamshers & Kliens, the uber-moral, all-knowing lefties who have never actually gotten elected to anything, much less have the burden of running the whole goddamn country. of course, if they did, they'd fix it all in a single year, because it is that easy. not saying he hasn't made mistakes, some pretty big, but given the task and the circumstances, he's done a hell of a job.
the ones who've not done their job is the millions of people who worked to get him elected and then did nothing to help him bring about change. he said he couldn't do it alone, but people didn't want to pay attention. as soon as people start getting their asses involved -- in their community, first and foremost -- then we'll make some headway. but sitting back and demanding Obama fix it all for us: fail.
Dec 29, '09
It's typical Blue Oregon that, if someone disagrees with you and is sincere, that sincerity must be "bizarre"... It's almost as if Jeff and the BO crowd can't handle the thought of someone actually being sincere yet not agreeing with them. Oh, the pain!
As for the rest, plus the comments -- again, typical well-poisoning language, assuming of conclusions, and other grade school logical fallacies.
Jeff, a series of questions for you: Is it possible for a person of good faith to disagree with you? Could they do so sincerely? Must that sincerity necessarily be "bizarre"?
Finally, have you truly not noticed the nearly 100% of the time the Tea Party crowd will condemn both Obama and Bush, both Democrats and Republicans, and the very difficult time most "normal" Republican candidates are having with getting the Tea Party groups to support them?
It's an article of faith with the Left that the entire Tea Party movement must be astroturf. Final question for you, Jeff, and this may seem like a sci-fi question: what if it's not astroturf? What would that mean?
Dec 30, '09
Jeff, I thought you were doing great 'til you got to, "By nearly every measure, we're better off this year than we were a year ago. And where we remain worse off, the trend line is headed in the right direction, rather than off the cliff like at year's start." I think if you listed our biggest problems, #1 would be going bankrupt - an economic implosion such as the Soviet Union faced that literally broke the country up. This is not the crazed rhetoric of the anti-Obama crowd. President Obama himself even talks openly about the United States going bankrupt if healthcare costs aren't reined in. Right now we're facing the world's increasing reluctance to purchase more of our out-of-control debt. We can print the money ourselves but we risk destroying the dollar. That's the box we're in. To say the situation with the national debt is better now than it was a year ago, or that the trend line is better is simply not true. That's a level of optimism that the numbers don't support. As far as Afghanistan: I've heard Mary Matalin and Bill Kristol spinning President Obama's decision as vindication that maybe George W. wasn't that big a dope after all. Karl Rove also raved about it as did Newt Gingrich. So I have to give it to you there: George Bush had a pretty good year in 2009 watching President Obama carry on so many of his policies. At the beginning of the year Cheney probably wondered if he'd face prosecution for war crimes, but by the end of 2009 he's back bragging about them. So there's another example proving your point: Dick Cheney must have felt 2009 was a pretty good year too.
9:08 a.m.
Dec 30, '09
what if it's not astroturf? What would that mean?
Pretty much by definition, for astroturfing to be effective the large majority of the ground troops have to believe that they are critically-thinking sovereign agents. Otherwise they would demand some sort of compensation for their Tea-Bagging.
9:36 a.m.
Dec 30, '09
Jeff, well put - excellent summary. And Kurt, yes, you proved the point, and yes, I get around in the snow just fine in my 1989 Toyota Camry "econo-box." Except for all those Portlanders who don't know how to drive in the snow... ;) But I suppose that's a sidebar to Kari's post, instead.
9:52 a.m.
Dec 30, '09
Anon, I don't know what you're talking about. The point is that they are sincere--which is not in dispute. What's bizarre about it is that all the things they claim to be pissed off about have nothing to do with Obama, or, to the extent they do, are because Bush drove the country into the ditch. Fiscal irresponsibility? Please. Tyranny? Have they forgotten the spying and torturing? It's bizarre because it's a fascinating case of misplaced fury: righties are certainly nurturing resentment, but they should be royally pissed at the GOP.
Bill, is it your argument that the country's worse off now than it was in December 2008? If so, I'd like to hear your reasoning.
I find your comments disingenuous with regard to Obama and health care bankruptcy--he never argued it was imminent, as you imply. And no serious person thinks debt is a short-term problem. Reigning in spending--that would be a huge problem. (Debt is, of course, not a bad thing. We finance education, houses, and cars with debt. Countries finance bailouts on debt.)
As for Afghanistan, I am saddened that Obama went the direction he did, but certainly not surprised. He campaigned on it. One of the few issues with which I took issue. In politics, c'est la vie, right?
Dec 30, '09
I think the country might stand a good chance of overcoming this anxiety and getting back on track except for the fact that the right wing, to a man and woman, in the form of Faux Noise, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, The WSJ, The WaPo, the entire conservative media infrastructure and the republican party has dedicated itself wholly and completely to doing everything in its power to cause this country to fail and by doing that cause President Obama to fail.
When did republicans and conservatives decide to hate America by putting their own political interests ahead of the welfare of our great nation?
It's treason.
Dec 30, '09
I strongly disagree with T.A. Barnhart (who, if I remember correctly, recently wrote a column wherein he argued that the U.S. must maintain its global military deployments in order for the U.S. to function in the world economy; whereas an actual progressive or even leftist position would be that we certainly don't need the empire for any reason, especially rationalization of neoliberal economic principles).
The health care "reform" is a complete sellout. Waxman-Markey anmd the pathetic stance the U.S. took in Copenhagen are complete sellouts. The foreign policy is more of the same and root causes of antagonism towards the U.S. (as in no tough stance against Israeli policy) are not addressed.
But T.A. Barnhart wants to blame this on the rank-and-file activists who, somehow, have not been able to "hold their feet to the fire". I think there's been a lot of phoning and e-mailing and letter-writing. Problem is, the Dem leadership does not want its "feet held to the fire".
Dec 30, '09
The rabid left somewhere along the way made the fictitious claim that they own the Democratic Party, Barack Obama, and his election victory, and now they think they can exercise power by disowning what they never owned to begin with, and claim a betrayal that isn't a betrayal. The Jane Hamshers of the world are simply angry, petulant people who can't get over the fact that neither America nor the Democratic Party fits their ideological measuring stick, and want to blame and hurt President Obama now because that fact is true. So the next step for the rabid left seems to be self marginalization and self destruction. They have become the left wing version of the tea-baggers. Who do Jane Hamsher, Glenn Greenwald, and Naomi Klein speak for? Nobody, except for a handful of bloggers.
Dec 30, '09
Bill R.: so you're saying that a majority of people who are registered Democrat would support the positions the Obama Admin. has taken on health care, the war(s), ecological policy as regards climate change, reauthorization of the Patriot Act, to name a few?
No, I'd say most people registered as Dems voted for Obama in hopes that he would really be a major change agent; also, they had no other realistic choice as, of course, it's winner-take-all with only two choices having any chance.
I think a lot of the defense of Obama, at this point, is merely people having some emotional identity with the Dem Party which is somehow embodied in the current leadership.
Dec 30, '09
Jeff, The national debt is worse off now than it was last year. That's a measurable number. You said, "By nearly every measure, we're better off this year than we were a year ago. And where we remain worse off, the trend line is headed in the right direction, rather than off the cliff like at year's start." That is happy talk. It is not true. Now if we had an unlimited ceiling on our debt, it wouldn't matter, but as we found out last year, dramatically unsustainable economic situations can jump up and bite you at anytime. I once heard our spending described as an alcoholic guy not knowing when his liver will fail. Incidentally, I've read that the derivatives problem is worse now than before. We have more exposure financially if they unravel than ever before. We are still allowing banks to engage in risky trading on deals they can't possibly pay for if the deals go bad. The casino that was Wall Street after deregulation, is still open for business. Nothing has changed. We just covered them when they ran out of chips last year. You could even argue that it is worse now because they're at the crap tables possibly thinking their former colleagues in the government will just bail them out if they screw up again.
But let's not get carried away with statements that you can't support. The national debt is not better than it was a year ago, and it's not trending in a good direction. It is getting worse. To say otherwise is just happy talk spin. As tedious and boring as it may be for a feel-good society like ours, we may have to go on concentrating on the downers of our situation to avoid those sudden jolts of catastrophe again. Aww, screw it! It's nearly New Year's Eve. Everything is better. Let's blow another 3 trillion on some more unnecessary wars. What do we have to lose?
Dec 30, '09
The apocalyptics is going to be on this website if you keep allowing Turkish perverts to post vile, degrading, highly illegal content links, while surgically deleting the posts that had a link to Carla's entry in the UD and admonsishing her that she should be a bit more grateful toward those she was insulting.
That's just a power play. That's just saying, "yeah, what do you think you can do back"? Just like the US, in general. Maybe you can moan along with the Reprehensibles, "why do they hate us"?
Too laid back? The Puritans were rude, crude mother fuckers. They weren't people to be proud of. That's why the US is the brunt.
Dec 30, '09
Jeff Alworth commented: '...eschatology has always been at the heart of fundamentalist Protestantism--and my light ephemism won't change that fact.'
I'm not denying the existence of fundamentalist religions - but your comment implied 16th-17th century Europe was either an enlightened and religiously tolerant society (it wasn't...) or the largely secular liberal socialist paradise (sic) of today (it wasn't...) fled by petulant extreme fundamentalist (and likely conservative Republican) bible thumpers all in a snit. Your use of the big university words as some sort of defense here doesn't excuse an idiotic snarky comment that at best presents only part of the picture - and at worst betrays an apparent faulty interpretation/knowledge of the history of why the Puritans came to North America.
Like I said, best just not to include a comment like that in such a context. Pick something with a sound basis in fact.
2:48 p.m.
Dec 30, '09
This has turned out to be a bit more rigorous in the discussion department than I expected. Okay, here goes...
Bill,
We disagree about whether debt is a meaningful number or not. You believe that the spike represents catastrophe (as do new-found fiscal conservatives who spent money like drunk sailors on shore leave for the previous eight years); I think it represents the opposite. If the US starts worrying about debt now, we could easily see the country fall into a protracted recession/depression. Saving a few hundred billion now might well cost trillions down the road. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is fine by historical standards. If you want to get panicked about debt, that's your prerogative, but I won't retract the statement--this doesn't qualify as a "worsening" measure.
alcatross,
For what it's worth, my educational background is in religion, and I'm plenty familiar with the history. You're right, the comment was meant to amuse, not inform. Your own version redacts the Puritans' role in their own theological spat, however. Religiously, they couldn't tolerate the overly Catholic Anglicans, and so they involved themselves in a political battle that they lost.
Even 400 years ago, fundamentalists Protestants were unyielding, self-righteous, and gloomy. That they had a democratic sense of communion with God was useful for the new republic on this side of the pond, but let's not rewrite history to accommodate a vision of Puritans as a helpless, oppressed minority. Put simply, they couldn't live and let live, so they set off to find greener pastures.
For those who think the past is unimportant, it's worth considering how much we remain in the throes of those who just refuse to live and let live. And what happens when they lose power? They throw a terrible, end-times tantrum. Which sort of takes us right back into my post.
Dec 30, '09
Jeff, How many times did the Bush administration do exactly the opposite of what they said they were doing? Wasn't there one bill called the Clean Air act, and of course there's the Patriot Act which you had to be unpatriotic to support. I think it applies to national security as well. All that time they were talking about national security they were hurting it - transferring ours to China and other countries through debt. China could wake up tomorrow and decide that even though they are in a dollar trap and it would cost them dearly, they want to destroy the United States dollar and economy. That's one way this huge national debt has made things worse. The debt to GDP standard is one way to look at it, but these aren't war bonds owned by Americans. We are at the mercy of foreign powers when it comes to our economic stability and that is a direct result of these trillions in new debts. Even more troubling is that we got into these debt problems because our own people on Wall Street went on an insane greed-fest. Derivatives: One number that jumps out is 600 trillion - the amount of financial exposure if these things all unraveled. Forget our GDP - try the ratio of that number to the world's economy. (I think it's around 10 times the yearly GDP of Planet Earth.) Never mind that as we go into the next decade, something real could come along where we need those trillions we spent making up for derivatives. Oh well, we'll see.
My impression as a concerned citizen trying to grasp this stuff is that Brand America - the world's impression of what the dollar stands for is increasingly at odds with its true worth. That's where the debt seems like a huge problem to me. Gross domestic product would be more impressive if we still were a manufacturing powerhouse. I mean what is our product that we're sending out to the world? Hollywood movies and depleted uranium? I hope you're right that things are getting better. I'm not pulling for Obama to fail - far from it. But Stephen Colbert's famous word "truthiness" could be at play here. That's where you feel something in your gut that isn't really true.
Dec 30, '09
If 2009 drove home one notion to be more strongly than any other it would have to be that at least 67% of the U.S. population is...well, nuts to one degree or another with wide, dark swaths of absolute ignorance on many subjects. Doesn't seem to matter which end of the socio-political spectrum they happen to claim affiliation with, the irrational mindset is essentially the same. For example, take a stereotypical right-winger and mildly suggest that the election of Barack Obama isn't all bad. Stand back and be fascinated by the emotional vitriol that spews forth. Then conduct the same simple experiment with your liberal friends by simply suggesting that W. & Cheney were not the physical incarnation of the Antichrist. Based on my lab experience, your findings will be quite similar. Same type of mindset & fervent beliefs, they just claimed a different team much like a sports franchise. One gets their talking points/marching orders from MoveOn, the other from Rush Limbaugh. Both are highly dogmatic and value faction over objective reasoning. What's a man to do other than shrug, have another beer and delve further into the sweet apathetic abyss? Then again, maybe it's just me.
Dec 30, '09
Brian C., I hear the comment about "wide, dark swaths of absolute ignorance on many subjects" - I know I'm a part of that. One thing I have been trying to do is fill in some of the gaps on this economy stuff - which by the way, I find to be terrifically dull if it weren't so frightening. I really resent that the suits have screwed things up to the point that a musician/comedy writer such as myself has to get involved. Take this wonderfully sexy topic of the national debt as a percentage of GDP. Jeff is not worried about it, and indeed when I looked up the table over our entire history, 2009 wasn't listed as a bigger number than say during WW1 and WW2. But then I started reading other articles in the offhand chance that the 2009 number was actually not telling the whole story. One of these claims that we often use short-term debt and roll it over. This article claims that in the next 12 months we have to refinance 2 trillion dollars of short term debt in addition to the 1.5 trillion dollars that we'll need for our budget deficit. Add those numbers together and that's 30% of our GDP. At another point in the article it mentions 40% of GDP. Who knows what that's about? Foreign central banks are starting to shy away from buying more of our debt, so that leaves us with printing the money out of thin air. The fear is that this could lead to a collapse of the dollar as investors flee their US debt holdings for gold or something else. I don't pretend to understand all this, but comparing our national debt now to during WW2 just seems like a false comfort zone. We are higher now than all the other years besides those war years at something like 12% on the list as I recall. So should we be calm knowing the number is lower than America in 1945? I don't think so. America was a manufacturing powerhouse then - now we're relying on the kindness of foreign bankers and our printing presses. That is what we manufacture now: Dollar bills. With all due respect to Jeff on this, I'm going with the idea that the national debt is a major problem that's getting worse by the minute much less the year. I don't agree with them that 2009 has seen an improvement here or any sign that the trend is improving. Sorry.
Dec 31, '09
We've never learned to live within our means. For years it was impossible not to, given all the virgin, natural resources. As that is no longer an option, guess who's caught out the worst?
How about some basic history with the Puritans? For one thing, they had "left England" a decade before they started to come here. And they didn't leave many friends. Where did the Mayflower sail from? "Plymouth" really doesn't cut it as an answer. Yeah, that was their last port of call. Thing is, they were living in Leiden for a decade, and only put into Plymouth because they got ripped off when they bought the Speedwell, and only made it as far as Plymouth. In fact- they way they were looking at it- they left from Delftshaven (as in the blue and white china). That speaks volumes. Any English community that would live in Leiden in exile, and not be much liked by that community either, was so rabidly protestant that they would have offended even today's evangelicals. At the other end of the horse, they landed where they did because they were out of ale, and you don't build a fire on board a ship.
Fortunately a very different kind of people started coming in the subsequent 15 years. My ancestors were engineers in the service of the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, that moved to Boston in the 1640s. Completely different people, and, even by then, the Puritans were in the minority. Bottom line, they're a rather inconsequential, not very admirable part of our history that only get remembered because they seem to fit what we want to believe about ourselves. Trotting them out in discussions like this serves the same function as John Wayne saying "pilgrim". It's not about history. And that is why you are having to think about an American created apocalypse.
Did no one mention that bit? It's our fault. Consider any other national reading this on New Year's eve. They ain't thinkin' about Pilgrims.
Dec 31, '09
Dr. Ravi Batra predicted a second depression by the end of 2010 on the Hartmann program today, due to the incompetence of the Obama economic team.
If he is correct, the DP is toast, along with most of the RP. That leaves the tea partiers (not "tea baggers", which is a slur against the sexual practices of gay men and hetero women) and those of us who remain to your left. Happy New Year in hell.
Jan 1, '10
...the Justice Department, planning for future detentions, set up in 2006 a segregated facility, the Communication Management Unit, at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. Nearly all the inmates transferred to Terre Haute are Muslims. A second facility has been set up at Marion, Ill., where the inmates again are mostly Muslim but also include a sprinkling of animal rights and environmental activists, among them Daniel McGowan, who was charged with two arsons at logging operations in Oregon. His sentence was given “terrorism enhancements” under the Patriot Act. Amnesty International has called the Marion prison facility “inhumane.” All calls and mail—although communication customarily is off-limits to prison officials—are monitored in these two Communication Management Units. Communication among prisoners is required to be only in English. The highest-level terrorists are housed at the Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, known as Supermax, in Florence, Colo., where prisoners have almost no human interaction, physical exercise or mental stimulation, replicating the conditions for most of those held at Guantánamo. If detainees are transferred from Guantánamo to the prison in Thomson, Ill., they will find little change. They will endure Guantánamo-like conditions in colder weather.
Our descent is the familiar disease of decaying empires. The tyranny we impose on others we finally impose on ourselves. The influx of non-Muslim American activists into these facilities is another ominous development. It presages the continued dismantling of the rule of law, the widening of a system where prisoners are psychologically broken by sensory deprivation, extreme isolation and secretive kangaroo courts where suspects are sentenced on rumors and innuendo and denied the right to view the evidence against them. Dissent is no longer the duty of the engaged citizen but is becoming an act of terrorism.
(One Day We’ll All Be Terrorists, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/one_day_well_all_be_terrorists_20091228/)
Jan 1, '10
Meanwhile, over on the "Smart on Crime" thread, the good folks are considering special courts where you get re-educated to recant the folly of your statutory, non-violent crime under the threat of incarceration, aka "Drug Courts".
Basically, saying that smart on crime is realizing that most Americans will cave in and don't have to be locked up. Just have them allow you to monitor them, have them recant publicly, and get their name in the system, and save the prisons you mention (and the ones being built by Bechtel) for the hard core thinkers.
The regulars on here that can't stand a goodly number of the progressives have nothing to worry about. Someday we'll all be locked up, and the good party animal asskissers will still be blogging away for the DP!
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