Month: May 2012

“After you lose, there’s a circular firing squad that occurs,” says a former senior aide to the Senate Republican leadership. “You’ll have a wing of the party standing up and saying we did not adhere to our values strictly enough. And you’ll have a wing saying we did not appeal to independents.”

In a scenario where Republicans are willing to work with Obama — where they would accept $1 trillion or more in new revenue in return for cuts to entitlement programs — the president’s team can imagine getting quite a lot done, in part because there’s a lot that both sides want to do.

Both sides are aching to do tax reform, for instance. Both sides want an intelligent set of spending cuts. And both sides are seeking changes to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

But agreeing on goals isn’t the same as agreeing on the policies needed to achieve those goals. Sure, both sides want tax reform, but they disagree on whether it should raise new revenue. And both sides want to replace the supercommittee’s automatic spending cuts, but Republicans want to substitute deeper reductions to domestic programs, and Democrats don’t. If these issues could be successfully navigated, however, that could build the necessary trust to take a run at entitlement reform.

It’s easier to see Democrats and Republicans coming together on a deal around Social Security than on Medicare and Medicaid. Bipartisan changes to the two health-care programs are complicated by the Affordable Care Act and GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, which have committed the parties to opposing visions for the health-care system.

But the two parties have largely left Social Security out of their arguments. Ryan’s budget leaves it alone. Obama’s plans do, too. The two sides haven’t polarized around irreconcilable ideas. It’s possible to imagine them going into a room and coming out with a deal. It could even be coupled with tax reform, since much of what needs to be done for Social Security relates to changing what and how it taxes.

Of course, if the post-election Republican Party pulls further to the right, then big deals are probably impossible. In that scenario, our fiscal problems might be solved when Congress fails to come to an agreement, and the Bush tax cuts expire and the spending cuts kick in. That would be devastating to the economy — I consulted some forecasters who thought we’d be in double-dip-recession territory — but it would cut the deficit in a hurry.

Every half century or so, whether we need it or not…

by digby

Tom Hayden looks back on the Port Huron statement:

“We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.”

Those were the opening words of the Port Huron Statement, which I helped draft 50 years ago this summer as the founding document of Students for a Democratic Society. The statement, written in the idealistic early days of the New Left, laid out a vision for a nation in which racial equality would be finally achieved, disarmament embraced and true participatory democracy would become the norm.

The group that gathered in Port Huron, Mich., in 1962 to produce the statement included children who’d rejected the Old Left of their parents, black student civil rights activists seeking Northern campus allies, children of the New Deal labor-left and student journalists from Austin, Texas; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and elsewhere in the country. We gathered in small groups at a conference center near Lake Huron to discuss and revise sections of the draft that addressed racism and poverty, the Cold War and the nuclear arms race, campus apathy and the need for a new majority movement with students as the catalysts of social change[…]

It was hardly a perfect document. It contained sexist language (it was written a year before the publication of Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique”), and there were many things it didn’t foresee, such as the assassination of President Kennedy, the 1965 escalation in Vietnam and the looming environmental threats to the planet. But when we finished, it seemed like “a holy moment,” as my then-wife, Sandra Cason, later put it. Al Haber and I even drove to the White House to deliver a copy to presidential advisor Arthur Schlesinger Jr., in case the Cold War liberals could be engaged in discussion.

That sounds weirdly familiar.

In case you think it was all a big fat failure though, consider this:

The achievements that came from participatory democratic activism in the years that followed the statement’s publication were considerable: the ending of the Vietnam War and the draft, the enfranchisement of Southern blacks and young people, the rise of the feminist movement, the Roe vs. Wade decision, the growth and strengthening of public employee unions and California farmworkers, Richard Nixon’s unsurpassed environmental laws (in response to the first Earth Day), the Americans with Disabilities Act (in response to activists in wheelchairs occupying federal buildings), and much more. Former Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg remembers carrying her copy of the statement to study groups during the free-speech movement, and Carl Wittman, a Port Huron-era activist who was closeted in 1962, later drew on it for inspiration in writing “A Gay Manifesto.”

The American left tends to be the lovers not the fighters. But every now and then, it gets riled up. And what follows is progress, one painful step at a time.

He concludes with the observation that he sees the same spirit today in the DREAM students and the Wisconsin uprising and Occupy Wall Street, And he concludes with this:

These new movements have grown up because courageous people saw wrong and decided to push for what was right. And if they should begin to grow cynical or discouraged by how difficult it is to make change, they might consider how things looked to us in 1962. As we put it in the final words of the Port Huron Statement:

“If we appear to seek the unattainable, as it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable.”

In those days, of course, the unimaginable was a constant threat of nuclear war. Who says things never get better?

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War on women? What war on women?

by David Atkins

It’s a day old, but…well…I have no words for this:

The GOP-led House’s version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) would not only strip away Senate-passed protections for undocumented, LGBT, and Native American victims, it also contains a dangerous provision that violates an undocumented victim’s confidentiality by allowing immigration officials to speak with, and ask for evidence from, his or her abuser.

Visas offered to undocumented victims of domestic violence are called “U Visas” and the Senate version of the bill expanded the number of U Visas offered to victims. The House bill not only strips out the additional visas, it also contains a new provision enabling government officials to inform “the accused” that their victim blew the whistle on their abuse.

I guess I’m supposed to be civil with these people, have a nice sit-down dinner with them, and abandon my “polarized” attitude.

But then I look at they actually do and…hell no. If I don’t fight them to my last breath, I’d abandon my humanity and any sense of self-respect I might have had. They’re wrong. Morally, factually, and every which way anyone can be wrong. And I’m not going to pretend that their “perspective” is valid. Because it isn’t.

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Saturday Night at the Movies

The owl and the pussycats

By Dennis Hartley

Deadline Pressure: La Binoche in Elles

Let’s face it. At some juncture, we’ve all been whores. Take me, for example. I used to be a rent boy. OK, a “stand-up comic” (same thing). I think it was Jay Leno who once drew some astute parallels. I’m paraphrasing, but it was along the lines of: “So you repeatedly degrade yourself entertaining strangers, but it’s over in 20 minutes and you get fifty bucks.” Or, have you ever had a job that you despised, but didn’t quit because the money was too good? If you answered “guilty”, I submit, sir or madam, that you have prostituted yourself! Social observers have gleaned similar parallels with (smelling salts and fainting couch on standby?) the institution of marriage. In her book Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter posits: “What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many?” The great Emma Goldman once offered this: “To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.” And so it is that Polish writer-director Malgorzata Szumowska has dusted off this somewhat, erm, hoary feminist conundrum for reexamination in Elles: If a woman chooses to profit from her sexuality, is she empowering…or enslaving herself?

Juliette Binoche portrays Anne, a writer for ELLE magazine. She is working on an investigative piece profiling two young Parisian women (Anais Demoustier and Joanna Kulig) who are “working their way through college” as call girls. At first, Anne manages to maintain a professional distance from her subjects; however as she delves deeper and deeper into their lives, she transmogrifies from objective journalist into giggly confidante. Intoxicated by their youth, independence and sexual candor, Anne is copping something akin to a mainline rush as the women regale her with intimate details about their work. On the down side, the interviews are plunging Anne into an existential crisis.

On the surface, Anne’s lot in life doesn’t appear to be analogous to that of the two young women; in fact it is the very antithesis. Anne is older, financially secure, and settled into a comfortable bourgeois life with her husband and two children. What reason would she have to envy them? Perhaps, when Anne contrasts the relatively adventurous lifestyles of the prostitutes with her own daily drudge of familial obligations and job deadlines, she discerns a sort of empowerment there (not unlike Catherine Deneuve’s bored housewife ‘Severine’ in Luis Bunuel’s 1967 film, Belle de Jour ). It is arguable, of course, that any true empowerment there is purely academic. That is, unless you feel “empowered” by allowing someone to urinate on you, or (even worse) sexually violate you Fatty Arbuckle style (as demonstrated in the two most disturbing and unnecessary scenes in the movie).

No, what Anne is really questioning is her role as a wife and homemaker, which comes to a head as she prepares a dinner party for her husband’s boss. This is something she has likely done many times before, but suddenly the whole concept becomes anathema to her (much to her husband’s chagrin). Why is it so important that she doll herself up and play the perfect little hostess, anyway? Just to “please” her husband? What am I, his whore? Oh, the humanity! Cue the meltdown. When the film makes this sudden and awkward shift into Diary of a Mad Housewife territory, it loses credibility. Are we really supposed to believe that all it takes is several interviews with a couple of student hookers for this woman, who has a great career, loving family and a fabulous Parisian apartment, to suddenly determine that all men suck and that her life is total shit? I’m just not buying it.

That being said, when you’ve got Binoche on board (one of the finest actresses currently strolling the planet), you can almost forgive the film’s weak script and narrative flaws. Frankly, she is the sole reason to watch it (if you’re looking for a reason). Binoche can hold your attention by simply staring out of a sunlit window (there’s a lot of that). If not for her presence, I would have summed up the film thusly: Eat Pray Love with an NC-17.

Previous posts with related themes:

Eat Pray Love

Saturday Night at the Movies review archives

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I met Adam Yauch once back in the 80s, walking down Sunset Blvd with my new friend Gloria, who walked up to him and said, “hey Ad.” He said, “Hey Gloria, howsit going?” They chatted for a few minutes and Gloria introduced me and we walked on. My chin was dragging on the ground and I said “how in the hell do you know a Beastie Boy?” She’d gone to college with them, as it turns out. Small world.

RIP, Adam Yauch, you were one of the Elvis Presleys of hip-hop and a deeply decent human being.

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Chris Hayes hosted a must see discussion about ideological polarization. I am struck by Chris saying that he now believes that the only way to solve global challenges like climate change is for us to find a way to “de-polarize” the population. He may be right, but I also think this polarization is the natural state of human beings — particularly Americans whose national identity has been one of division along some distinct fault lines. The way I see it, the only thing that ever “de-polarizes” is serious crisis, unfortunately. And the problem with that is that you never know if it’s going to have the opposite effect — sometimes crisis results in radicalization and withdrawal to their respective fighting camps.

It’s always got something to do with the penis

by digby

Can a Republican run for office without making a reference to it?

h/t HuffPostHill

Here’s a fun parlor game: what do you think is driving Wall Street to be so contemptuous of President Obama when he’s treated them with kid gloves?

The source of the problem between Obama and Wall Street is, in a word, naivete. Back in 2008, the article notes, Obama’s Wall Street backers considered him “a reflection of their imagined best selves: brainy, self-made, above the mewlings and histrionics of partisan politics.” Obama, like them, believed deeply in empirical evidence and rational argument. If elected, they assumed, he’d make decisions the way they did: purely on the merits.

Matt Yglesias thinks they are just looking at their own economic well being like everyone else:

Steep recessions and sluggish subsequent growth have a really negative impact on the wealth and incomes of a wide range of people. That includes wealthy finance guys and jobless young people and underwater middle class homeowners and everyone. And the natural human instinct when you wind up with less pie than you thought you could reasonably expect is to assume that the people in charge gave your pie to someone else. So Wall Street feels that run-amok populism has impoverished them (relative to expectations) for roughly the same reasons that Obama’s liberal critics feel that his constant succor of the banksters has impoverished them—everyone is poorer than they thought they were going to be.

I have written many times that I think they are a bunch of overfed, privileged twits who can’t stand the fact that they’ve lost their exalted social position now that they’ve been exposed for frauds.

And there’s yet another possibility: perhaps this is all poker playing — withholding donations in hopes of keeping the president in line. This article indicates that the Obama campaign is trying very hard to get those dollars. Maybe all these job creatin’ winners are just holding out for the right deal.

It’s always possible that it’s a combination of all these things. But what’s most interesting to me is that in all these cases, these people care nothing for the health of the financial system itself and only care about their own personal wealth, which they falsely believe has been stymied by government rather than the self-created systemic problems that caused the 2008 crash. That indicates that rather than being people who make decisions “on the merits” we are dealing with irrational, irresponsible fools who are blaming the wrong culprits — indeed, they are blaming the very institution that kept the system alive so they could live to pillage another day.

This is why I lean toward the spoiled aristocrat thesis. These are people who have come to believe their own hype — they aren’t just rich Masters of the Universe. They are Gods who must be worshiped by the polloi. The idea that they are “disappointed” in the president — or their portfolios — makes no sense in light of this:

I’m sure they had originally expected the Dow to be far higher than this by now. I don’t know when these people got it in their head that capitalism was all about “certainty” but if they really believe that they need to get into a different business. Considering that many of the boys at the very top were responsible for that crash in the first place, they really should be grateful to have had such a nice run-up since the trough in 2009. And nobody’s gone to jail and nobody’s even had to give back their ill-gotten gains. If they had any decency at all they’d just quietly go about their business and hope nobody notices that they’re doing very well while everyone else is still mired in the muck they left in their wake.

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Krugman and Spitzer: a conversation your apolitical relatives need to hear

by digby

Nobel Prize-winning economist, New York Times columnist and Princeton University professor Paul Krugman joins “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer for a wide-ranging discussion, including highlights from Krugman’s latest book, “End This Depression Now!” Among other topics, Krugman describes how the economy is moving sideways and emphasizes the need for job creation and government spending. He warns against the “continuing damage” of the low labor force participation rate in the U.S.: “We’re not just suffering in the short run, we’re also endangering the long run because we are pushing people out of the labor force, many of whom will never come back. We’re reducing our future ability to produce, our future ability to employ people.”

“We need a counterweight to the power of big money in this country,” implores Krugman, citing union organizing, raising the minimum wage and guaranteed health insurance as steps that would help relieve the economic situation. “All of the things that would make life a little less insecure for the American worker would also increase that worker’s bargaining power and help to redress this imbalance in our society.”

I had the misfortune to be forced to watch the Fox “money” shows this morning. They had the answer to all this. Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Cutting spending. So the job creators will have confidence. And certainty. I think I caught a few of them actually nodding off as they said it.

Don’t think, Meat. Just throw

by digby

So the newly dubbed “sage of capitol hill” Luke Russert is now emceeing fundraisers:

Things began innocently enough Thursday night: The NBC correspondent and event emcee asked guests to text donations to a phone number, and all the texts would appear on a large screen during the meal. Donations poured in, along with a few personal messages for Russert.

“Luke, you should meet my daughter. We are good for $1,000.”

The bids for Russert’s hand continued. “Hands off Luke, ladies. He’s mine!” read one. “Luke. It’s me again. Daughters are one thing, but I’m another,” said another, drawing laughs.

Things got strange when Russert returned to the mic to address the texts.

“I’m happy to raise money off my sex appeal,” he said, to chuckles. “But I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that at my table I’ve got five upstanding young bachelors who are St. Albans graduates. College graduates. They all have five-year plans.” The audience continued to chuckle until Russert added, “So there’s plenty of meat to go around.”

Yeah. I’d say the meat needs a little more aging and a lot more seasoning.

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