Solving nothing.
Status quo ante.
Why am I not surprised?
Monday, December 31, 2012
Sunday, December 30, 2012
A-Holes
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/12/29/161520/96
This has long been a lament for us Northeasterners. We pay more in taxes than we get in services. Part of that is because we have a lot of the nation's money. Another part is that we don't have military bases, although we do have Groton, Electric Boat and Sikorsky. And yet another part is we don't require disaster aid.
At least we used to not need it, before global warming started screwing with the weather.
It's unlikely that the weather is going to unscrew itself, so we are going to need more disaster aid all over the country. Cleaning up the mess from climate change-induced megastorms is about to become a major part of our budgetary process.
Once again, the GOP takes the "F you, I got mine" approach to our commonwealth. Once again, they overturn the Christian principle of treat others as you wish to be treated.
Once again... assholes.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
The Black Jimmy Carter pt 2
The other thing that struck me about Carter's presidency was the conflict between the moderate wing of the party and the liberal wing. This of course culminated in Ted Kennedy's run against Carter in 1980. Only Hoover lost the presidency since 1900 without an intraparty challenge.
Carter was a center-left politician. But the long liberal ascendancy in Congress created a lack of perspective among the liberal lions of the Senate and House. As a result, they often defeated Carter's half measures. Carter had a health care plan remarkably similar to the one Obama just passed. Kennedy helped defeat it. Now, if Kennedy had the votes for a single player system, why wasn't that passed? One would have to think that Carter would have signed it.
Some of the conflict between Carter and the Congressional liberals was a matter of Carter's prickly, pious personality. But some of it came from ideological certainty.
In other words, what we see now from the GOP is what we saw in the late '70s Congress.
We do not have a parliamentary system. Compromise is essential for American governance.
What the GOP failed to realize is that Carter was sunk because his own party wouldn't work with him or he with them. Few blamed Obama because the GOP blocked everything he wanted for two years.
And few will blame him when we go "over the cliff".
Friday, December 28, 2012
The Black Jimmy Carter
On the long drive to Georgia, we were listening - off and on - to Sean Wilentz's The Age of Reagan. We were about half way through Carter's foreign policy, having started with the fallout from Watergate, the Ford Presidency and Carter's domestic travails.
What were striking about the book was the familiarity of the names: Rumsfeld, Cheney, Podhoretz, Kristol, Perle, Weyrich, Scaife, Falwell...
What animated and unified these disparate factions of conservatism was the Cold War and a sort of unthinking, reflexive almost illogical anti-communism. For this group, the US was constantly on the verge of falling under the sway of an ascending Soviet Union. America's descent into drugs, women's rights, racial tolerance and environmentalism combined to weaken the American character and make us susceptible to the power of communism.
It was a curious, paradoxical combination of beliefs in American exceptionalism and a conviction that America was in decline.
As we know, it was the Soviet Union that was in decline, and all the things that were eviscerated by the conservatives: the Helsinki Accords, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and America's withdrawal from Vietnam all helped "win" the Cold War for the West.
And yet that paradoxical belief in American exceptionalism and American decline is still at the heart of American conservatism.
For instance, the most consistent criticism of Obama is that he doesn't "believe in America" and is embracing "socialism". Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Has any recent president come from a less likely background than Obama? And therefore has any recent president more embodied the "American Dream"? And only in the per fervid dreams of the conservative mind can requiring Americans to buy private health insurance become "socialism".
They believe that America is the greatest nation on earth and yet they have open contempt for half the country.
What's striking is that forty years later, they really don't have any new, fresh ideas. Having implemented the plans they wanted, they have no second act. Nor do they have the ideological flexibility to act in practical ways that might improve the civic life of the country.
Hence the fiscal cliff, the "dairy cliff", the debt ceiling crisis, the lack of action on global warming and a host of other problems that the GOP simply will not help solve.
They are frozen in the ideas of 40 years ago.
And we are going to suffer for it.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Arrived
Gasoline is about a dollar cheaper down South. Is that because of proximity to refineries? Or lower gas taxes?
Or is it just those Texas oilmen sticking it to the blue states?
Or is it just those Texas oilmen sticking it to the blue states?
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
RIP Charles Durning
I always loved him in his serio-comedic roles like Tootsie and Rescue Me. He was the quintessential character actor. I knew he landed on D-Day, but the rest of his bio escaped me.
Durning was part of the U.S. force that landed at Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion in June 1944. A few days later he was shot in the hip - he said he carried the bullet in his body thereafter - and after six months of recovery was sent to the Battle of the Bulge.
Durning, who was wounded twice more, was captured and was one of the few survivors of the Malmedy massacre when German troops opened fire on dozens of American prisoners. In addition to three Purple Heart medals for his wounds, Durning was presented the Silver Star for valor.
At an observation of the 60th anniversary of D-Day in Washington, Durning told of the terror he felt and carnage he saw when hitting the beach on D-Day. He said he had to jettison his weapon and gear in order to swim ashore and saw mortally wounded comrades offering themselves as human shields.
"I forget a lot of stuff now but I still wake up once in a while and it's still there," he said. "I can't count how many of my buddies are in the cemetery at Normandy."
Just like with Daniel Inouye, we are losing a generation of heroes who were mostly quiet about what they went through.
Sadly, we are creating another generation of young men and women who will bear terrible burdens for the rest of their lives.
Peace on earth, people. Peace on earth.
Merry Christmas
May there be peace on earth.
Failing that, may there be peace between Thing One and Thing Two, neither of whom got enough sleep last night.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Inside The Hive Mind
Sadly, Willy Wonka Meme was not on the cruise.
NY Magazine, which has become a pretty good political rag, sent some poor bastard on the NRO Cruise after the election. Most of the article was about - you guessed it gentle reader - old, wealthy white people complaining about what was wrong with an America that could re-elect Barack Obama. Any attempt to penetrate their warped delusions about what happened on election day was rebuffed. Weirdly, one of the saner voices turned out to be Jonah Goldberg:
“Their conception of what the country is about, they really were sure the country would reject Barack Obama,” he continued. “I do think it hits them hard. The fear I have, why this election stung, I think, Obama has successfully de-ratified some of the Reagan revolution in a way that Clinton never could and didn’t even try to. That’s what freaks people out, that feeling in their gut, either Obama has changed the country, or the country has sufficiently changed that they don’t have a problem with Obama. That’s what eats at people.”
The underlining is mine, and this is something that I don't think people on the Left give Obama credit for. As they are busy pillorying him for Chained CPI, they don't realize that he's a transformative figure in the way that Clinton wasn't.
Another voice of reason was John Yoo's mother who is not political.
“To protect the ego, you have a defense mechanism: denial and projection,” she told me as her son leaned in to hear over the party din. “You deny your problem, saying it’s your fault and not mine. Instead of projection, blaming other people, we have to think of a positive solution. But I didn’t hear that yet.”
“They are still grieving,” she concluded as her son winced and began to break in, fearing she’d gone too far. “I hope not for more than six months. The grieving process should only be six months. If it goes on for more than six months, it could go into a major depression.”
Again, I think this goes to Obama potential effect on transforming the American electorate.
Because things aren't going to get better for the Right as long as they cling to their crazed delusions. Go read the whole thing. It's sad and frightening.
How Is This Wrong?
But reasonable compromise to avert the fiscal cliff is impossible. Republicans, as a whole, don’t even seem capable of linear thinking about the budget. Theydon’t know what they actually want on spending. They don’t understand why Obama wants more revenue or what role this would play in the broader fiscal picture. They don’t even seem capable of politically organizing in a way that maximizes their fanatic principles. The House Republican caucus is simply a teeming pit of revanchist anger.
Chait's description seems empirically true. Why must we pretend otherwise?
Chait's description seems empirically true. Why must we pretend otherwise?
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Crapo Arrested For Being Shit-Faced
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/12/sen_crapo_arrested_for_dui.php?ref=fpblg
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
Serious Question
I'm watching The Fellowship of the Rings. I own it on DVD, but I'm watching it on TNT with commercials.
Why are songs and movies better when they appear on TV and radio as opposed to your DVD player or iPod?
Why are songs and movies better when they appear on TV and radio as opposed to your DVD player or iPod?
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