Month: November 2009

The Lesson

by digby

I’ve received a couple of comments and emails wondering why I haven’t weighed in on the health care vote. I did, it was just done before the vote was taken. Sadly, my predictions were correct.

One of the things that those of us who follow politics from afar tend to see that those who are involved in the minutia often understandably miss, is the over arching themes that guide the politicians and the villagers. I don’t suppose that they are necessarily aware of it, although some of the influential strategists may be, but it’s there nonetheless.

I knew that after all the sturm and drang over the past few months over the public option, the number one liberal priority in the health care debate, there would be a price for its success. The ruling elite could never allow an unambiguous liberal victory. It would endanger their narrative that says fealty to business, religion, military and other authoritarian structures is democratically inspired. They have to maintain the fiction that the people prefer to be subjects. If politicians aren’t convinced that there will be a price for being liberals, they might get the idea that they can actually govern liberally.

This is why changing the media narratives and forcing Democrats to use liberal rhetoric and reject right wing framing is as important to the process as anything else. By perpetuating this default, conservative ideology, even as they are excoriated for being liberals (see: Obama campaign) they permanently tilt the playing field to the right, even in a liberal era or one in which the only pragmatic answers to difficult problems are liberal.

This problem isn’t just a matter of good negotiating or putting pressure on politicians. Yes, these things are important. But in my opinion, unless we begin to change how this country defines itself, and how it projects its values, liberal policies are going to be impossible to implement to the extent that’s necessary. Everything in our system is designed to prevent it.

Universal health care is something any decent, wealthy society shouldn’t even have to think twice about. It’s a global embarrassment that the United States, the chest thumping superpower, is even having this debate at this late date. It’s equally embarrassing that we have put together a Frankenstein of a system because our democratic government is in league with wealthy interests which are exploiting its people. It’s hard to believe that anyone would call that system liberal, much less socialist, but as you can see every day on Fox news, it’s set off a tantrum among a vocal minority that would hardly be less hysterical if aliens from a foreign planet landed in Washington. (And that hysteria is also a tool of the permanent establishment, funded by big money, and used as a way of keeping the debate focused on the right, even if it’s taking on an absurdist quality.)

Any legislation such as health care reform must therefore be tempered by a liberal sacrifice, something real, a principle that will make them hate themselves and loathe each other for having done it. It cannot be a clean victory, lest they come to believe they can do more. In the end, the “moral” must always be that you cannot go too far left.

The Stupak amendment was designed to do just that, a power move easily predicted by anyone who has watched the way policy victories are managed over the last couple of decades. The one consistent characteristic is that they are never unambiguously positive for the left. The arguments are always self-servingly pragmatic — “blue dogs have to vote their district” — but the real purpose is to drive home the absolute certainty that liberals are never really in charge. That is why there is never any desire among the ruling elite to sell the idea that liberalism itself — its philosophy, its values, its ideology — is something positive with which a majority of people, including Blue Dogs, can identify. If the public ever came to believe that, who knows what might happen?

Health care reform is extremely likely to pass in some form. But let’s not kid ourselves that it’s passing because the Democrats and the public have seen the light and understand that we need to be a more decent society. It’s passing because medical industry has been greedy to the point where it’s now unsustainable. That presented an opening for liberals to enact some policies they have believed in for a long time. But they didn’t do it by making the liberal arguments straight up and have created some kind of strange hybrid system for which the best argument is that it might lead to opportunities for more reform. It’s better than nothing. But it isn’t liberal and it wasn’t designed to be. And just in case, the powers-that-be stuck it to the pro-choicers to make sure nobody got the idea that it was.

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Times Watch

by tristero

Frank Rich has a great column on the importance of Owens’ win in NY-23 as well as the resurgent banksters.

Speaking of banksters, Rich linked to a Business Week article which informs us that some of the worst of them are getting first dibs on the H1N1 SWINE FLU vaccine because, you know, they’re too big to ail.

Nick Kristof has been columning recently on food and health issues. Today he has a terrific column on the perils of BPA, which has been found not only in food/water containers but in food itself:

[M]ore than 200 other studies have shown links between low doses of BPA and adverse health effects, according to the Breast Cancer Fund, which is trying to ban the chemical from food and beverage containers.

“The vast majority of independent scientists — those not working for industry — are concerned about early-life low-dose exposures to BPA,” said Janet Gray, a Vassar College professor who is science adviser to the Breast Cancer Fund.

Published journal articles have found that BPA given to pregnant rats or mice can cause malformed genitals in their offspring, as well as reduced sperm count among males. For example, a European journal found that male mice exposed to BPA were less likely to make females pregnant, and the Journal of Occupational Health found that male rats administered BPA had less sperm production and lower testicular weight.

This year, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that pregnant mice exposed to BPA had babies with abnormalities in the cervix, uterus and vagina. Reproductive Toxicology found that even low-level exposure to BPA led to the mouse equivalent of early puberty for females. And an array of animal studies link prenatal BPA exposure to breast cancer and prostate cancer.

While most of the studies are on animals, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported last year that humans with higher levels of BPA in their blood have “an increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and liver-enzyme abnormalities.” Another published study found that women with higher levels of BPA in their blood had more miscarriages.

Scholars have noted some increasing reports of boys born with malformed genitals, girls who begin puberty at age 6 or 8 or even earlier, breast cancer in women and men alike, and declining sperm counts among men. The Endocrine Society, an association of endocrinologists, warned this year that these kinds of abnormalities may be a consequence of the rise of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and it specifically called on regulators to re-evaluate BPA.

Last year, Canada became the first country to conclude that BPA can be hazardous to humans, and Massachusetts issued a public health advisory in August warning against any exposure to BPA by pregnant or breast-feeding women or by children under the age of 2.

Mark Danner tears George Packer a new one. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Saturday Night At The Movies

Ay, cabron! The Men Who Stare at Goats

By Dennis Hartley

“These are not the droids you are looking for.”

So what do you get when you cross Ishtar with Catch-22? Perhaps you would get something along the lines of The Men Who Stare at Goats, the first genuine goofball farce that anyone has managed to squeeze out utilizing the generally unfunny Iraq War, Mark II as a backdrop. Whether that is a good or a bad thing is a matter of personal taste.

Ewan McGregor stars as Bob Wilton, a recently cuckolded Michigan newspaper reporter who, desperate to break out of his self-pitying reverie, decides on a whim to become a freelancing Iraq War journalist (circa 2003). As he tarries in Kuwait City, uncertain about how to actually go about getting himself into Iraq (he hadn’t quite thought that part through before heading overseas) he comes across a mysterious, intriguing fellow named Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) who “happens” to be heading that way. Initially playing it coy and denying that he is any kind of spook (in spite of veritably oozing Eau de Black Ops), Cassady does a 360 and opens up to Wilton, spinning him quite a wild narrative.

Before he knows it, the reporter is tagging along with Cassady on his nebulous “mission”, too gob smacked by tales of top-secret U.S. military programs involving the development of “psychic warriors” who liken themselves to Jedi knights, devoted to honing their mastery of various psychokinetic arts, to realize that he could be heading into the middle of the Iraqi desert with a man who is completely delusional and dangerously unhinged (it’s sort of like a Hope and Crosby “on the road” flick-except with insurgents and IEDs).

As Cassady recounts the history of his personal involvement with these experiments, we are introduced to two significant characters in his past via flashback sequences (throughout which Clooney, sporting shoulder-length hair and mustache, bears an uncanny resemblance to a White Album-era George Harrison). One is Cassady’s mentor, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges, in full Dude mode), a Vietnam vet who has written a bible of sorts, from which springs the concept of the “New Earth Army” (comprised of the aforementioned psychic warriors, with a litany of tenets co-opted from the Human Potential Movement to help guide them…think of it as a kind of a “hug thy enemy” approach-like if Wavy Gravy was the Secretary of Defense). The other is Cassady’s nemesis, Larry Hooper (the perennially hammy Kevin Spacey) a former brother-in-arms who has turned to the Dark Side (Okay, I’ll just say what everyone is thinking right about now-Bridges is Obi-Wan, and Spacey is Darth Vader…happy?). And now, it seems Luke Skywalker, oops, I mean, Lyn Cassady is on a “mission” to get the band back together.

The fact that Ewan McGregor was the young Obi-Wan in the Star Wars prequels is not lost on the filmmakers, who provide him with opportunity for self-referential spoofing reminiscent of Ryan O’Neal’s classic deadpan in What’s Up, Doc? (when he responds to Barbara Streisand’s Love Story quote, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” with “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard”). As I inferred earlier, Jeff Bridges seems to be doing a nod or two to the Ghost of Lebowski Past; and Clooney’s character definitely vibes the CIA operative that he played in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

There is some unevenness in the film’s tone, but with a dream cast, who are all obviously having such a great time, it’s pretty easy to enjoy the ride (I mean, c’mon-Bridges, Clooney, Spacey, AND a gifted “fainting goat” who knows how to pick up his cues? It all adds up to black comedy gold, my friend). In fact, the film is kind of a throwback to a certain style of quirky, unfettered, freewheeling satire that pervaded the mid-to-late 60s; totally-blown fare like The Magic Christian, Skidoo, Candy and The Loved One. The film is directed by Grant Heslove (Clooney’s partner in their Smokehouse Pictures production company) and written by Peter Straughn, who adapted from Jon Ronson’s, uh, “non-fiction” book (all you have to do is tell the truth, and no one will believe you).

I have one potential caveat for some viewers. This is a little weird, but I feel that it bears mentioning. The screening I attended was held this past Thursday evening. Right before I left for the theatre, I was watching the network news coverage of the tragic events at Fort Hood that had occurred earlier in the day. There is a scene in the film, where a soldier stationed at Fort Bragg loses his shit and threatens to start shooting fellow soldiers who are all gathered en masse doing PT. In the context of the film, it’s played strictly for laughs (after all, he’s peaking on acid and running around naked waving a loaded .45). But viewing that scene with the footage from the evening news still fresh in my mind was quite eerie. Obviously, the filmmakers could have had no way of predicting this bizarre kismet, but I just thought I’d throw that out there; if you are someone who was deeply or personally affected by this awful incident, you should know there is a scene that could be potentially traumatic for you. On a lighter note, I have one final “FYI”. There are two songs you will not be able to get out of your head for days: Boston’s “More Than a Feeling”, and the theme from Barney the Dinosaur’s TV show. You have been warned!

I’m just sayin’…

Previous posts with related themes:

The Comedies of Terror

Military Intelligence and You!

War, Inc.

Charlie Wilson’s War

Update:

…and one more thing

Just before the lights went down for the screening, we were treated to a surprise visit from a rep from a Seattle-area abandoned farm animal sanctuary, who had brought along a couple of goats for us to, uh, stare at. Okay, I’ll just say it-they were fucking adorable, all right? Actually, I did learn a few things of interest (aside from soon gleaning as to why they had duct-taped Visqueen down on the floor in the presentation area). Apparently, there is a growing problem (at least here in Washington state) of people in urban areas buying goats as a sort of novelty organic lawnmower. Of course, the perpetually peckish little fellas make quick work of the local shrubbery; unfortunately, many owners then realize that care and feeding is going to require more work and responsibility than they had thought, so the poor creatures are ultimately abandoned.

At any rate, here’s a link to more information about the New Moon Farm Goat Rescue and Sanctuary, if you want to help them out a little (they also provide links on their site to similar operations all around the country if you’re looking for one in your neck of the woods to help out). BTW they don’t limit their rescue operation to goats; they extend a hand (cloven hoof?) to all manner of domesticated farm critters brought to them via owner surrender or animal control. There’s a bazillion rescue organizations for dogs and cats, but I thought that this was a pretty cool and unique idea. Who knew? Bleat!

DH
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Finally Free

by digby

Everyone should watch this video to remind ourselves of where hysterical Keyboard Commando rhetoric leads:

The men in this video were held at Guantánamo for years without charge and denied any meaningful opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention. But now they are finally free. This is their story.

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Fallout

by digby

Reader Sleon wrote to me about Ft Hood massacre and had some provocative thoughts about the potential ramifications:

Because of the way our political and media elites operate, I feel unfortunately secure in predicting that one bit of fallout from this event will be to make itmore difficult, if not impossible for President Obama to withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq. Not that he seems inclined to make that tough, but oh, so necessary call anyway, but that likelihood is now somewhere near zero. And that will be an even greater tragedy because it can only mean more US casualties, many more Muslim dead, and the irreplaceable loss of treasure and freedom, here and throughout the world and it will accomplish nothing positive in the end.

Glenn Greenwald regularly points out that a state of continual warfare is incompatible with civil liberties. Ironically, it’s also incompatible with maintaining political hegemony. From “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000” by Paul Kennedy:

“The triumph of any one Great Power…or the collapse of another, has usually been the consequence of lengthy fighting by its armed forces; but it has also been the consequence of the more or less efficient utilization of the state’s economic resources in wartime, and, further in the background, of the way in which the state’s economy had been rising or falling, relative to the other leading nations, in the decades preceding the actual conflict. For that reason , how a great Power’s position steadily alters in peacetime is as important…as how it fights in wartime.

“It sounds crudely mercantilist to express it this way, but wealth is usually needed to underpin military power and military power is usually needed to acquire and protect wealth. If, however, too large a proportion of the state’s resources is diverted from wealth creation and allocated instead to military purposes, then that is likely to lead to a weakening of national power over the longer term. in the same way, if a state overextends itself strategically – by, say, the conquest of extensive territories or the waging of costly wars – it runs the risk that the potential benefits…may be outweighed by the great expense of it all-a dilemma that becomes acute if the nation concerned has entered a period of relative economic decline.

“Militarily the United States and USSR stayed in the forefront as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, because they both interpreted international problems in bipolar, and often Manichean terms, their rivalry has driven them into an ever escalating arms race which no other Powers feel capable of matching. Over the same few decades, however, the global productive balances have been altering faster than ever before. The Third World’s share of total manufacturing output,depressed to an all-time low in the decade after 1945 has, has steadily expanded since that time. The European Economic Community has become the world’s largest trading unit. The People’s Republic of China is leaping forward at an impressive rate, …by contrast, both the American and Russian growth rates have become more sluggish, and their shares of global production and wealth have shrunk dramatically since the 1960s.”

We really do stand at the edge of an abyss. One of the most salient indictments of the Bush-Cheney regime was that they were stupid enough to fall for the biggest sucker bet in history, a pointless land war in the Middle East. A sane person might wonder how, with the benefit of 500 years of repetitive history to guide us,and the fall of the ancient empires to boot, even they could have been such idiots. But, as Orwell reminds us in “1984”, the very purpose of war has changed, with the sole object now being to keep the elites in power perpetually:

“The primary aim of modern warfare…is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living…The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence in the long run too intelligent.”

Will the President have the brains and guts to steer us away from this course of self-destruction? Even if he does – and I become lass sanguine about that every day – it’s hard to believe the Owners will let him. And yet with their aversion to reform, their short-sighted greed, their celebration of their own ignorance, they are going to end up being failed parasites; because once they kill the host – we, the people – they’ll end up on history’s trash heap too.

Another Iceberg

by digby

Gosh, I hate to sound like a gloomy gus all day, but I keep reading about this and yet it seems as though it’s inevitable:

Banks are in for another ugly year in 2010. But this time the problem will be the big batch of deteriorating commercial real estate loans on their books. That’s because the big banks were operating with the same loose standards—and aggressive behavoir—as the investment banks in order to compete in the real estate market during the boom years. (Read our cover story about why this real estate bust is different.) Commercial real estate loans that banks underwrote and held on their books skyrocketed to approximately $190 billion in 2007, up from $11 billion in a single year, a decade earlier. In all, banks hold some $1.8 trillion of commercial real estate debt on their books.

Trouble is, nobody knows just what the values of the loans on bank books’ are since they are not required to mark them to market prices. Since the stress tests conducted by the Feds never looked far enough into the future, the ability to “fully grapple with the prospect of massive future commercial real estate (CRE) loan defaults is uncertain,” admitted Jon D. Greenlee, associate director at the Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation in congressional testimony on July 9 and again on Nov. 2.

Of particular concern, says Greenlee: Almost $500 billion of commercial real estate loans that will mature during each of the next few years. “In addition to losses caused by declining property cash flows and deteriorating conditions for construction loans, losses will also be boosted by the depreciating collateral value underlying those maturing loans. The losses will place continued pressure on banks’ earnings, especially those of smaller regional and community banks that have high concentrations of CRE loans,” says Greenlee.

According to the article, the Fed is doing some audits and the TALF is in play, but for the most part, the banks are just doing the Big Ostrich:

In the meantime, many banks have been forestalling the day of reckoning. The latest strategy, called “extend and pretend,” appears to be in full swing—a head-in-the-sand approach that provides temporary extensions to troubled borrowers on maturing commercial loans to give them, and the bank, some breathing room.

But surging delinquencies and defaults will eventually catch up with them. So who is most at risk? The biggest exposures are in the regional banks which have much closer ties with their local communities and developers. Some banks, have concentrations of CRE loans equal to several multiples of their capital; many of those loans are in speculative new properties, the Feds say.

Kamal Mustafa, chairman of Invictus Consulting Group and former head of Citigroup’s Global M&A and corporate finance departments, says many of these banks will fail as a result. “Right now there are a lot of banks that are showing no charge offs but when the CRE market dives, we’ll see a lot of banks going down.”

I don’t pretend to be an expert, but the “leading indicator” of the equity markets aside, this looks to me like another financial iceberg.

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Cautionary Tale

by digby

Howie on former netroots candidate, Larry Kissel.

I’m afraid what Kissell has done was confuse himself about what happened in Virginia Tuesday. The conservative Democrat, Creigh Deeds, got up during a debate and said he would opt out of the public option if he were elected. The result wasn’t to make Republicans– the only ones who support that position– vote for him. They voted for the Republican, of course. But what killed Deeds– and what will kill Kissell and cowards like him– is that Democrats get turned off by this kind of bullshit. Bush won NC-08 in 2000 and in 2004. But Obama beat McCain 53-47%– considerably better than he did statewide. And Kissell beat the incumbent, Robin Hayes, 55-45%.

Next year, Kissell– who has a reputation as an abysmal fundraiser, and won’t get a dime from the netroots ever again– is being challenged by retired Army Col. Lou Huddleston. Huddleston and GOP front groups will call Kissell a Nancy Pelosi clone no matter how he votes and no matter what he does. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh fans are not going to vote for Larry Kissell. And if he follows through with his threats to vote against health care reform, neither will Democrats, just the way they didn’t come out to vote for Deeds in Virginia.

These “moderate” Dems really are so impressed with the Creigh Deeds strategy that they plan to run on it in 2010. Smart as a whip.

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Crazyland

by digby

In case you were wondering how the Republicans are conducting themselves in the debate, here’s a taste:

There’s been a lot of that stuff going around.

Update: Think Progress and Media Matters have more on the GOP Gone Wild in the House this morning.

Remember when people used to call them the grown-ups?

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Human Sacrifice

by digby

Dday reports:

…Wow, it looks like the Stupak amendment will get a floor vote. The Democratic leadership is making a bet that, if it doesn’t pass, Stupak and his cadres will sign on to the bill (I highly doubt it; most of them are no votes on health care entirely); and if it does pass, pro-choice Democrats won’t sink the bill entirely (also, I highly doubt it). I’m a bit surprised that it’s come to this. Also, Stupak appeared to have lied in the Rules Committee about how the deal “fell apart,” since he got what he wanted.

I’m not surprised. In fact, I’ve been writing that this was likely to happen for quite some time. I think the amendment will pass and I think liberal, pro-choice Democrats will vote for it in the final bill. This has always been the predictable dynamic on health care. I will not be happy to be right. (And I really, really hope I’m wrong.)

I suspect that the leadership decided that abortion was the least important thing they could throw to the slavering Blue Dogs to take home as a victory over the liberals in this debate. And they had to find a hippie to punch to make the thing acceptable to the villagers, so they decided to punch the desperate pregnant girl. She’s used to it.

Since the Republicans have made themselves irrelevant with their obstructionism the Democrats have decided that in order to further the president’s edict to change the tone and further bipartisanship they will just have to compromise with themselves.
Democrats everywhere will now be able to brag about furthering the Godly cause of forced pregnancy, while having also voted to pass health care.

If this passes it will have been an historic week for the denial of constitutional rights under our new “liberal” majority. I’m sure conservatives are very impressed and will vote for Democrats forever and ever because of it.

Update: if you want to make a call on this HCAN has an advomatic page for it.

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Cheney-Rumsfeld Replay

by digby

Edward Harrison at Naked Capitalism offers up a convincing look at the dynamics that led Obama to choose the path he’s chosen in dealing with the financial sector. Here’s the conclusion:

When historians look back at the Bush 42 presidency, it will be defined by 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While George W. Bush was politically pre-disposed to the Neo-con world view, it was really advice from Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld which made Afghanistan and Iraq possible. George W. Bush was famously not well-versed in foreign affairs, having almost never travelled abroad. He was completely dependent on Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to make foreign policy (although he could have listened more to Colin Powell, his actual Secretary of State; again it goes to predisposition). So, I see George W. Bush’s presidency as having been defined by foreign policy and the War on Terror and, by extension, on Rumsfeld and Cheney. Fast-forward to Barack Obama’s presidency and you have an almost identical situation, this time with the economy instead of foreign policy and Tim Geithner and Larry Summers instead of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. But, as with George W. Bush, it goes to pre-disposition. Paul Volcker was a critical member of the Obama 2008 campaign. He also was a key member of Obama’s economic policy team. But, he has been speaking a very discordant message that is not in sync with team Obama. So, as with Bush and his marginalization of Powell, one has to believe Barack Obama has chosen to side with Geithner and Summers over Volcker.

I don’t know about Volcker, whom I always thought of as a shock doctrine sort of guy, but Obama certainly was predisposed to ignore the Krugman camp, which includes a number of other economists, like Harrison, who argued for bank “nationalization” and other more aggressive methods of containing the damage. As the termperamentally thrill seeking Bush threw in with the nuttiest foreign policy elders of his own party, Obama, being a far more deliberate type, threw in with the most staid and establishmentarian economic elders of his.

It’s not all that surprising. When confronted with a crisis, people turn to those with whom they have an instinctive bond. But in both cases, they made the wrong decision for the moment in which they found themselves. It’s an interesting problem but I don’t have an answer for how to reasonably anticipate such a thing, much less change it.

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