A 1968 Analogy

The word ‘historic’ was used often in the coverage of Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa. Which got me to reminiscing. I’m reminded of the 1968 campaign (OhmyGod, 40 years ago!) when as a college student I campaigned for Gene McCarthy in Wisconsin and Illinois. Those memories remain indelible, especially the hallowed night when LBJ withdrew from the race. I was in Wisconsin with the campaign and we all stood watching the small TV that had been set up. (The polls released that day showed the insurgent McCarthy substantially ahead of the president, so we were all walking on air and highly energized.)

When Johnson said the words of withdrawal, the place went screaming nuts for many minutes. We had done it!!! We had deposed the evil king! We had ended (we thought) the war in Vietnam! We had changed America!

Well, things worked out differently than we imagined in those mountaintop moments. Bobby K. knocked out McCarthy, then was killed, then the crazy convention, then HHH being defeated by Nixon. (And 6 more years of war to follow.)

Are there parallels? I hope not, but let’s analogize anyway. Any such attempted portraiture will be flawed, but in this case it may be instructive. Obama has the role of the intellectual insurgent (McCarthy) who energizes the young and wins, surprisingly, in the early going. Edwards’ campaign reminds one of Kennedy, a rich man who thrives on communicating empathy with the working class, and promises fundamental change. And Hillary ... is Hubert!! the pre-ordained establishment liberal who has the support of the party machinery. (Damn, this analogy isn’t all that flawed!!)

Assuming, and praying, that no one gets shot, what we may see (if the analogy holds throughout) is Obama and Edwards splitting the "fundamental change" crowd, and no one amassing enough delegates when the convention opens. Hillary then gets the nomination through political maneuvering, i.e., pressure from the party leaders and a deal with Edwards (VP or maybe a promise of Attorney General). And then, as in 1968, when the country was immersed in an unpopular war, the Republicans win with a candidate who’s strong on national defense, like McCain or Giuliani, or even Romney. We then have a prolongation of the war, nothing much done on social issues, and a generation that withdraws from political experience.

But maybe this time it will be different. My attitude toward Senator Obama has been, "How charming that he’s running this year and getting some practical experience for when he’s all grown up." I watched, like everyone else, how he surged to the front of the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, but couldn’t quite believe what the numbers were broadcasting.

So here I was Thursday night, sitting and enjoying Barack Obama’s victory speech, and suddenly experiencing a transcending emotion. I don’t know, maybe it’s what he was terming Hope. I felt something resurface inside me that I had thought went moribund long ago. An end -- however short-lived it may turn out to be -- of cynicism.

I saw in Obama a transformation too, in his renewed confidence, in the fact that he had been Justified after all. There was something a bit different in his voice, slightly deeper, and his eyes, more steely and resolved. Of course it was the difference between an insurgent contender and the new mantle of a frontrunner, but it also betokened his change, before our eyes, from a wunderkind man-child into a fully mature man, one that was strong enough to take on the burdensome challenge, a man who could indeed go all the way to the White House.

I have two books that focus on that year 1968, and how it represented a sea change in American life. I wonder if the future will look back on 2008 and see it as a historical shift in this nation’s political consciousness.

A Parable/Warning

Imagine this spooky scenario: In 20-25 years the U.S. has gotten much more right-wing, militaristic and totalitarian. Personal freedoms are a thing of the past. Life resembles that in the book 1984. The government has a detailed file on everything everyone does — purchases, entertainment, associations, etc. The media is state run, for "security purposes," which is the ostensible reason given for all of the above abrogations of personal freedom.

China, by then a rampantly zealous democracy, has become the top economic and military superpower in the world, dwarfing the U.S. and everyone else. They not only command an army which is 200 million strong, they have mastered several technologies that are currently only the stuff of science fiction. For one thing, our nuclear arsenal has been rendered useless. They have "re-colonized" Central and South America into entirely dependent economic entities, providing those countries with a high standard of living in exchange for its crops and factories. Over 30 million Chinese have moved to the Southern Hemisphere.

The U.S., ever-resentful of this incursion, does what it can to destabilize the Chinese presence south of our border. Tensions between the two countries is high and finally flares out of control in a dispute over, yes, let’s say Cuba. Citing its "legitimate national security considerations," China launches a massive attack on the United States, after first de-electrifying us from coast to coast.

Pledging at the U.N. to reestablish democracy in the North American States (oh yeah, we’ve merged Canada into our union) China gets the blessing of the Security Council — which we’ve been voted off of for various transgressions.

What ensues here at that point is a protracted guerilla war, combining the remnants of our once-proud military with our many heavily-armed citizens. In the midst of this insurgency, the Chinese manage to stage elections and return to the newsmedia the freedoms it once had. Personal liberties are re-established. The Chinese promise a speedy withdrawal as soon as the nation is sufficiently stabilized so as not to be a threat to its neighbors. All of our WMD are either destroyed or sent out of the country.

The majority of Americans are onboard with these developments, as their pre-invasion lives (their daily 5 hours of work, many from their own residence; their 2500 television stations; instant access to over a million DVDs and old TV shows; virtuality booths in every home; and of course the flying cars) are barely affected. But the insurgency fights on, using suicide bombers, car bombs and sneak attacks to harass the Chinese occupiers and their "yellow-bellied stooges." A day hardly goes by without news of dozens of deaths, mostly civilians, but the vast majority of citizens are too consumed with their entertainment regimen to pay much heed.

But there were a few areas of contention that rankled the cognizant. One involved the fact that the Chinese were using all their own companies and employees for the post-war rebuilding, while our own construction businesses were languishing in a slow cycle. This and the fact that the Asian Alliance (the economic cartel that will include Japan, New Korea, etc.) were using the in-country opportunity to forge hundreds of contracts, on favorable terms, with our major corporations and industries.

After the fourth year of the occupation (billed as "The Glorious Liberation" by the Chinese and most of the kowtowing world) support among our citizens begins to wane, as it’s clear that as long as they are here, their presence feeds the bloody insurgency. Chinese leadership proclaims that it will not leave until the violence is abated, pledging not to act like a scared dog in the face of the malignant evildoers.

How does it all end? Well, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.

One Feasible Solution

I'm over here in Luxembourg writing this. I know I've stated how fed up I am with the politics and bad government over there, and how it's all a lost cause. At some point I came to the realization that only desperate, radical measures could save the country from its money/power-fueled politicians, and that Americans were too distracted by things like entertainment and gadget overload, celebrity worship, financial struggles, sexual licentiousness and career competitiveness to pay much attention to the doings in Washington. And the media, almost no help at all, reports mostly on partisan conflicts, D.C. power struggles and various ongoing scandals.

But since the Katrina events, compounded by continuing losses in Iraq, Republican leader indictments and ethics violations, as well as rising gasoline, heating oil, insurance and utilities costs, a sense of outrage and disillusionment has been building. Although, for the reasons mentioned above regarding the dis-focus of the populace, I'm not terribly optimistic that this will lead to any kind of governmental sea change, I will at least put this concept forth. What this represents is a possible solution to the downward spiral that you in the States find yourselves in, with your cognizance that it would take something this drastically remedial to turn that big ship of yours away from the looming icebergs.

Part and parcel of the following proposal is that full-scale campaign-finance reform has eliminated all contributions except individual donations (say, $5,000 per person) and no more "soft money," dinners, trips or other gifts are allowed. And no pollution of the airwaves with attack ads from 527's. Also, and this is an ever so important component, there has to be a strict ban on the sleazy practice of corporations and lobbying firms giving jobs to politicians' family, staffers, friends and the politicians themselves after they retire. (This proscription needs to be extended to include all government agencies, especially the FDA and FCC, which are suffused with this form of corruption.)

Since this reform, along with lobbying reform, is absolutely essential if the citizens are going to gain back control of their government, something compensatory has to be given back to the most influential economic power centers, those who will no longer be allowed to rent politicians, or it will never have a chance at actualization. I've read and heard endless caterwauling about getting rid of money-peddling in D.C., yet no one seems to realize the stark reality that the vested interests, and those in so-called public service who benefit from their patronage, will not just submit to eradication. They need to be compensated with another form of legislative influence, or else it's a non-starter.

Labor and Capital (banks, Wall Street firms, large corporations, etc.) would each appoint 10 people to represent their interests in an undiluted manner, serving on a board (The Economic Board) which would operate out of Washington as a kind of adjunct to Congress.

The president, the House and Senate all place a representative on this board as well, making it total 23. This group proposes three pieces of legislation per year to be sent to Congress, and is granted a kind of veto over all economic-based bills passed by Congress. If two-thirds of The Economic Board vote no on one of these bills, it goes back to Congress to be reworked. But if a piece of legislation is thus voted down twice, a seven-member panel from the board is empowered: the president's and congressional representatives, along with two designated members from labor, and two from capital (called The Settlement Panel). They meet in closed session, discuss and debate the issues involved, then vote it up or down. If passed, it proceeds to the president's desk as would a normal bill. If it’s defeated, it’s dead for that term.

A possible aspect of The Economic Board’s voting might be that their votes are by secret ballot. This would allow members the freedom to agree with the other side on compromise measures without inviting the wrath of those who appointed them. Either that or give them 10-12 year terms.

If such a new semi-legislative body were implemented, it would remedy much of what currently ails governance over there, vastly improving the fairness and quality of legislation without hurting any segment of society or depriving any interest group of a voice in our government. (There are those who, somewhat fallaciously, equate campaign contributions with free speech; this plan would quell that quarter's murmurings.)

As things now stand, the need for massive funding of campaigns makes politicians the clients of the monied interests. Proof of this is everywhere evident: the bankruptcy bill, the energy bill, the transportation bill, huge corporate tax cuts, the seniors’ drug bill, various environmental bills, etc.

Add to this list the absence of healthcare reform because the powerful (i.e., campaign-money cash cows) medical interests – the AMA, the insurance companies, hospital corporations, pharmaceutical companies -- don’t want anything that might impede their hand-over-fist looting of the public. It’s clearly time for an overhaul of how we the people manage our national legislation.

One question that may appear unanswered from the above outline is what to do about the non-economic interest groups, like the NRA, NAACP, the Christian Right, NOW, AARP, etc. What these groups all have in common is that they are highly motivated and well organized. They would be barred from making block donations under this new system, but they can all have election-time websites, a la MoveOn.org, and get out the vote among their members in November. They would still be forces to be reckoned with; they just couldn't target candidates for destruction with negative ad campaigns. (And wouldn't we all welcome a respite from those nasty things?)

Almost as bad as the fact that most elected politicians are somewhere between co-opted and outright corrupt is their duplicitous speechifying and practiced sophistry regarding their reasons for voting the way they do. This leads, at least among the more intelligent types, to a disillusionment regarding government, to less participation by the citizenry, which leads, in turn, to less awareness in the electorate – an atmosphere in which the politicians can do their dirty deeds in relative seclusion from public scrutiny.

Something needs to be done, and soon. This country is about two-thirds sold down the river right now, and given another five years the corporate hijackers and their legislator minions will undoubtedly sell us out the rest of the way.

Wrong-Way-Bush Down One-Way Streets

Back now from an extended stay in Europe, I’ve been catching up with the latest follies from Washington. I’m also reading polls showing that the Bush administration’s incompetence and greed is finally becoming obvious to the majority of Americans, hitherto distracted by either their struggle for survival (poor and lower middle class) or the abundance of toys and gadgets available to them (the upper middles and wealthy).

What the polls are showing, besides GWB’s worst job approval numbers, is a solid two-thirds of the nation believing "the country is heading in the wrong direction." About a year too late for this realization, but, again, we’re a highly distracted people, and this White House crew is eminently skilled at manipulation techniques.

The mass media, long a semi-obsequious pawn to the White House, seemed to find its voice of outrage in the aftermath of Katrina, and is now actually doing stories about cronyism and corruption – things they should have been spotlighting all along. In addition to the Katrina/FEMA fallout, three of the most powerful Republicans – Bill Frist, Tom Delay and Karl Rove, are in some measure of hot water, and the mainstream media, if nothing else, knows how to respond to blood on that water.

The traditional arguments between Democrats, Republicans, and independents, between liberals, conservatives and moderates, has been centered on ideological questions. Is the decision-making and courses of action of an administration too liberal or conservative, or too co-opted by middle-of-the-road compromises? Is the president’s policy on this or that veering to the right or left when confronted with the various forks in the road?

But what’s become different under the Bushies (and why there is a burgeoning revolt from independents and some Republicans) is that it’s not the wrong fork that they’ve been taking but, in instance after instance, an entirely wrong direction, often diametrically opposed to what objective observers see as best for the nation.

An incomplete list would include the following important policy mistakes:

Informed by the outgoing Clinton administration that their number one foreign policy problem was Islamic terrorism, they ignored this completely, not holding their first top-level meeting on the subject until early September of 2001.

Confronted with a fiscal situation where the country faced large deficits, an expensive war and a huge entitlements shortfall during the next 20 years, the administration proposed and passed four tax cuts, many corporate tax breaks and bloated giveaways like the seniors' drug bill and the energy bill.

Regarding Social Security's coming insolvency crisis, the president made it his mission to enact a private accounts system which would make the solvency situation worse.

At a time when global warming is increasingly evident yet still manageable, the fossil fuel boys of the Bush administration have belittled the studies that most of the world's scientists recognize as credible, made it easier for polluters to befoul the air and water, scoffed at conservation proposals and gave large tax breaks to people who bought Hummers, meanwhile doing nothing to curb dangerous emissions.

Opposed by most of the world, they invaded Iraq under false pretenses and horribly mishandled every aspect of the war effort, then granted bloated no-bid contracts to Halliburton and other cozy-crony companies.

Given the responsibility, the public trust, of putting competent people in positions of authority, the Bushies have instead blatantly installed many incompetent cronies into important positions of power.

During these wrong-way excursions down various one-way streets and avenues, people on the sidewalks and other cars have been yelling and honking at them to turn back, but their arrogant response has always been to instead speed up and then accuse those who made objections of being the wrong-headed ones -- the "liberal elite" or "biased academics," or "activist judges" or "America-hating foreigners."

The result of all this massively bad policy, I predict, is that the Democrats will regain the House, Senate and presidency by 2008. One can only hope that we will then see a return to competent governance, dictated more by the public good than private greed.

Probably Good-Bye

This is probably going to be my last posting, as I am moving to London to oversee my business, and I'm frankly quite fed up with domestic politics here in general, and the Bush administration in particular. Also, it seems now that there are many, many sources of Bush-directed vitriol, many of them as vociferous in their denouncements as I have been. So I'll just vent some and be done with it.

First off, let me say that I was stunned and stupifified that George W. Bush became president in 2000 then, considering his job performance, then surprised and staggered by his re-election in 2004. The man did not deserve to even be governor of Texas (a job which he did poorly, ecxcept for the PR part) let alone a candidate for the highest office in the land -- let alone winning his party's nomination, then the office itself.

GW's ascendancy to the White House meant, in old-fashioned parlance, that the foxes had been put in charge of guarding the chicken coop. This administration has no core social philosophy or foreign policy except for one: The rich need to get richer, especially their actual cronies and supporters. Everything else, all the platitudes and political platform-making, is only a smokescreen for an unprecedented looting of the U.S. Treasury by this band of thieving greedsters.

Every major initiative by the Bushies has had this one purpose of enriching the already-wealthy by displacing federal money directly into the coffers of rich individuals and major corporations. From the tax cuts to the prescription drug bill (blatant corporate giveaway) to the energy bill (massive corporate giveaway) to the transportation bill (over 6000 pork projects; basically payoffs to supporters) to last year's 100+ billion in corporate tax cuts to the no-bid contracts doled out in Iraq to companies like Halliburton, the haves are becoming the super-haves, while the almost-haves and don't-haves are slowly getting squeezed with higher prices.

Now we have the Gulf Coast Reconstruction. This may end up helping some poor and middle class people, but have no doubt that its main purpose is to distribute large portions of the projected 200-400 billion dollars into the pockets of politically connected corporations. (And yes, for those of you paying attention, Halliburton already has its nose in this new multi-billion dollar trough.) How utterly co-opted must the Democratic Party and the mainstream media be to treat this culture of corruption and cronyism as part of the natural landscape.

And how has the general public fared under this administration while this unconscionable looting has been going on? Any crumbs from the overlords hitting the floor for us to scarf up? Fact is, the numbers just came out that show that the average household income of Americans has gone down again, which makes it every year so far under Bush. Also, the number of people who are living in poverty has increased every year under this den of thieves, as has the homeless population, and those without health insurance.

So, to summarize, what we've had in this country has been a rampant betrayal of public trust, of truly historic proportions, a scandal for the ages, yet, there is no scandal. The nation remains asleep, and I have decided to let sleeping babes lie ... and bid all a fond adieu.

Vacation Report (Europe's Retort)

Well, I had planned on sitting out a blogger's vacation for as long as President Bush stayed on vacation but, alas, I must desist and admit him as the winner of this contest. I have been away to Europe on business (Madrid and London) and am now about to re-embark for London.

On this last trip to Europe, I had occasion to have several conversations with thoughtful individuals, ranging from a journalist to a baker of bread, on their attitudes regarding these United States of America. First of all, let me be perhaps the first to report to you that we are no longer considered to be "The Leader of the Free World." To wit: The other free nations of the world no longer look to us for protection and guidance; in point of fact, they are, in this Bush era, prone to the opposite course.

And why shouldn't they have had this epiphany of disillusionment? They see an America which disregards their collective wisdom at every turn, be it what to do about Iraq or global warming, or any of a number of common issues. They see an America that, by nearly every yardstick (or meterstick) is inferior to them -- be it the achievement levels of high school graduates, our national debt spiraling out of control, ever-larger U.S. trade deficits of gargantuan proportions, violent crime, homelessness, and disease levels several multiplications higher than what they have, or other things that could be listed. (Plus, I have to mention, they're starting to chortle about how we're bogged down in Iraq, after the Bushies bragged in advance about how easy it would be.)

Compounding this to the extreme, especially for those who travel here or have verbal contact with Americans, is the almost surrealistically misplaced arrogance of many of our citizens, who insist on trumpeting the belief that the U.S. is the greatest country in the world. The common reply to this statement in Europe, Canada, Australia and around a globe we once bestraddled with our military, financial and, yes, moral might, has become, "Based on what?"

Time to Punt

One of America’s dirty little secrets, which soon threatens to become public knowledge and public shame, is how the colleges are passing along huge numbers of poorly-prepared students to the workforce, just as the high schools passed them along to the colleges.

People whose job it is to hire and train the young as they enter the job market have become increasingly appalled, and challenged by, the descending levels of aptitude -- the results of a failed educational system. In fairness though, only a portion of the blame should be on the educators as this is a systemic cultural crisis, with causal factors ranging from entertainment overload to empty diets to the breakdown of family discipline.

It’s gotten so bad that Toyota recently announced that it was placing its new auto plant in Canada, instead of in one of the several U.S. locales which were hungrily vying for it. They were clear about their reason for turning down the lavish American incentives: The workforce in this country has great difficulty with written instructions, and combined with their very low memory retention, this leads to overly long training periods followed by many workplace errors.



In their dark-seated hearts, the ultra-conservatives want it back to 1905 — women and blacks in their God-ordained positions of servitude, the robber barons and their installed political cronies calling the shots on Wall Street, Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, nobody in the press doubting America’s "big stick" foreign policy, and a clear understanding of the class structure in this country.

Short and Sour
In June, CNN, FOX News, and the three major network news outfits ran 50 times as many stories about Michael Jackson and 12 times as many stories about Tom Cruise as they did about the ongoing genocide in Darfur.