Twilight for grownups
by digby
If you have some time to spare today and feel like having some entertaining, intellectual stimulation, check out the talk last night between Chris Hayes and Katrina vanden Heuvel last night at the New School about his great new book Twilight of the Elites.
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The real meaning of political courage
MSNBC commentator: … The subtext of all of this [call to service] is “hey Americans, you’re gonna have to do your part too. There may be some sacrifices involved for you too.” Do you think he’s going to use his political capital to make those arguments and will it go beyond rhetoric?
Andrea Mitchell: It does go beyond rhetoric. He needs to engage the American people in this joint venture. That’s part of the call. That’s part of what he needs to accomplish in his spech and in the days following the speech. He needs to make people feel that this is their venture as well and that people are going to need to be more patient and have to contribute and that there will have to be some sacrifice.
And certainly, if he is serious about what he told the Washington Post last week, that he wants to take on entitlement reform, there will be greater sacrifice required from a nation already suffering from economic crisis — to ask people to take a look at their health care and their other entitlements and realize that for the long term health and vitality of the country we’re going to have to give up something that we already enjoy.
I’m sure she was petrified about losing her health care and government “entitlements” but it was mighty big of her to offer to give them up for the greater good.
It is always so inspiring to see elites like Mitchell with the courage and fortitude to admit that other people are going to need to make sacrifices. Hell, she might have even meant that she would have to pay some higher taxes on her millions, which would be just terrible, I’m sure. Not being able to leave quite as huge a financial legacy as you expected has got to hurt — a million here a million there and pretty soon you’re talking about only leaving a few million behind when you die. (Not to mention all the job-killing.)
But Mitchell isn’t the only one. Every day we are treated to another wealthy celebrity giving us a little more of that tough love and straight talk. The latest is Fareed Zakaria, who suggests that the most important thing in America is for the union movement, Democrats and liberals to commit electoral suicide:
“on the central issue of the recall–the costs of public-sector employees–the Democratic Party is wrong on the substance, clinging to its constituents rather than doing the right thing…
Public-sector unions are strong supporters of the Democratic Party, so their clout has drowned out the voices of the poor, the young, students and average citizens. That is why real credit for courage should go to those few Democrats who are taking on these issues, even at the cost of losing support from one of their key constituencies. That includes mayors like Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Reed as well as governors like Andrew Cuomo and Pat Quinn. Sadly, they are too few and too isolated. Democrats should take note: the ideals of liberalism are now being sacrificed for the interest groups of liberals.
Imagine that? And whose interests are Emanuel, Reed, Cuomo et al serving, do you suppose? The “average citizens” the poor and the young? Or could it possibly be the same interests Zakaria serves when he takes his hefty fees from such interest groups” as Baker Capital, Catterton Partners, Driehaus Capital Management, ING, Merrill Lynch, Oak Investment Partners, Charles Schwab and T. Rowe Price?
Dean Baker handily dispatches all the misinformation in Zakaria’s font of wingnut propaganda posing as fact. Unsurprisingly, the comparison to Greece, like all comparisons to Greece, is utter bullshit. And while pensions are a problem, let’s not forget that all those “other” special interests who are paying people like Zakaria and supporting politicians like Emanuel and Cuomo stand to make a nice fat profit if they can end all defined benefits pensions once and for all and get those employee contributions to play with in the big Wall Street 401K casino game. Let’s just say there’s a lot of money to be made for the 1% if they can break those public employee unions.
But never fear, Zakaria and the rest of the millionaire TV celebrities who spend all their time first class with other wealthy people will make sure that the public is so uninformed they’ll think they’re actually getting a good deal even though they’re being squeezed by billionaires who literally cannot ever have enough money.
This is why we shouldn’t listen to the top 1% when they tell us we all need to sacrifice and that unions should give up their pensions and that the country is going to hell in a handbasket because of the selfishness of average workers who would like to live a decent life. They’re being just the tiniest bit self-serving.
Let’s do this instead: all those people who are “in the pink” in that chart there can be the first to sacrifice for the greater good. And they don’t even have to sentence themselves to penury and insecurity as they insist the rest of us must do. All they have to do is give up their selfish, piggish ways and allow the middle class to flourish one again. They can still be wealthy. They just don’t get to have it all.
Once that’s accomplished, we’ll take a look at the situation and see what else has to be done. But let these fine folks be an inspiration to us all.
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DREAMing of presidential power
by digby
It’s interesting that in the wake of a blistering analysis of the administration’s blind eye toward Latinos in the Washington Post, the president issues an executive order today allowing the DREAM kids to stay in country. In the article the president seemed befuddled by angry activists, saying, “I’m not a king” and telling them to go talk to congress. But it turns out the president does have some power, after all. Who knew?
Adam Serwer gives the rundown:
Here’s why this is a big deal: Obama has previously issued executive orders setting priorities for immigration enforcement, but this order would grant DREAM Act-eligible undocumented immigrants work authorization—that is, allow them to obtain jobs legally in the United States. That will afford them the opportunity to stay in the US and work without fear of deportation, though a temporary and fragile standing that could easily be reversed if Mitt Romney moves into the White House next year.
Republicans will call this “amnesty.” Yet this move doesn’t grant citizenship or legal status. It’s essentially a promise not to deport and permission to work—unless the order is reversed. This is a temporary solution to a policy problem that Congress has consistently lacked the courage to resolve: the presence of undocumented immigrants who are here through no fault of their own and who have never known another home. And the devil is in the implementation. Previous promises to excercize discretion by the administration haven’t panned out as advertised.
And I don’t want to hear one word about the president’s “courage” in doing it. It’s great that he is, and he deserves credit. But it’s late.
Here’s one of the most famous:
Update: Jonathan Chait’s post on the subject includes this analysis:
Obama came into office with a two-part plan to handle immigration. First, he increased enforcement of the laws, stepping up deportations, in hopes that this would convince hard-liners to make a deal on large-scale reform. Second, he tried to pass, as an immediate compromise measure, the DREAM Act. That would offer legal status to people who came to the United States as children, so long as they have avoided legal trouble and completed a certain level of education or served in the military.
Deportations increased but the DREAM Act failed and the only people who gained were the right wingers who were thrilled to see undocumented workers and their innocent children torn from their homes. I think this is a perfect example of the how the administration managed to enact conservative policies while being simultaneously portrayed as a left winger and socialist. For me, it’s the worst of both worlds in that bad policies are enacted, either as useless efforts to show good will or some presidential desire to have it both ways, while liberalism gets systematically weakened even more than it is.
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It’s the Rhetoric, Stupid
by tristero
Two things strike me about this NY Times editorial. First is this:
Mr. Romney’s entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites. The stimulus failed. (Three million employed people beg to differ.) The auto bailout was a mistake. (Another million jobs.) Spending is out of control. (Spending growth is actually lower than under all modern Republican presidents.) He says these kinds of things so often that millions of Americans believe them to be the truth.
It is hard to challenge these lies…
As all of us Grey Lady readers know, it is very rare for the Times to use language like “utterly false” and “lies” when talking about politicians. Apparently, someone Up There thinks there’s nothing to be gained by mincing words. Good.
What also struck me is the basic issue the editorial addresses: rhetoric. Agreed: Obama needs to find much more compelling language to articulate his differences with Romney. Whatever his failings, Obama is no Romney, either in terms of policies and ideas or character. Obama has by far the stronger ideas and is a more principled human being (Note: I did not say he was perfect).
It’s the rhetoric, stupid – a point I’ve been making for years (e.g. here in an email discussion of rightwing rhetorical tactic I had with two professors ). True, we’ve come a long way from the days when rational people with a national platform couldn’t and wouldn’t articulate how mad the Bush/Iraq misadventure was. But we’ve still got quite a way to go if someone as articulate as Barack Obama struggles to find crisp, moving language in order to confront the right’s cunning, misleading, and lying nonsense.
The president has less than five months to find a way to make a vital message sink in.
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When offering contraception is totally the same as beheading
by David Atkins
The bishops have decided to go off the deep end again.
The bishops did not shrink from attacking the administration in a dispute that has become their signature issue, one involving what Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton called “the most serious intrusion of government that we have ever experienced.”
One speaker at the annual spring meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops went so far as to compare the situation confronting the American church to the one that faced Thomas More, the Catholic saint who was beheaded in the 16th century for refusing to accept the supremacy of the English king over the pope.
“We protect the freedom of religion because we think it is wrong to coerce belief,” said John Garvey, president of Catholic University. “Thomas More’s story shows what can happen when those protections break down.”
Aren’t these people part of the same crowd that wants the government to crack down on “Shari’a law”? Ironic on so many levels.
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A clarification concerning mistermix and Darcy Burner
by David Atkins
Mistermix at Balloon Juice is strongly objecting to my earlier post in defense of Darcy Burner, and taking issue especially with my characterization of his original post.
First, I should note that I am a regular and long-time Balloon Juice reader, and have admired the work of most of the contributing editors there for years. I read the Balloon Juice article before I read the Seatlle PI piece riffing on it.
Mistermix’ central argument is that he never called Darcy too extreme on abortion, but rather said that she didn’t connect well with the audience, particularly compared with Elizabeth Warren. Here’s what he actually said:
I was at the Burner keynote that Anne Laurie posted, which was followed by Mazie Hirono and Elizabeth Warren. Now, don’t get me wrong—I think it’s fine for a politician to stand up in front of a gathering of core supporters and ask for big things, and I’m not going to fault Burner for that. And women have been enduring a retrograde assault on what should be settled rights over the last couple of years, and maybe the ERA needs to be revived. All that said, by the time that keynote was done, it was clear to me why Darcy Burner can’t win an election, and it was clear the minute that Elizabeth Warren stood up to talk…
You can watch the speech and call out the highlights, but the net of the whole thing is that Warren talked about real issues that are excruciatingly relevant to the election a few months away, she did so in plain language, and she connected the Democrats’ progress in the past to a future of more progress. Good politics looks simple when someone with real talent does it, and Warren is an exceptionally gifted politician.
For example, pay close attention to Warren’s body language if you do watch the speech. She’s open and inviting to her audience. When she gestures to make a point, she never points her finger at us. Darcy Burner’s most-used gesture during the Q&A was a pointed finger because she was lecturing us how it should be. Darcy Burner says “You Must” when Elizabeth Warren says “We Can”…
Finally, Warren’s voice is hoarse because she was at parties talking to actual human beings. Hell, my voice is still hoarse from the conference, and I’m a goddam misanthrope. Warren could have helicoptered in and out of Netroots and nobody would have been the wiser. Instead, she did what good politicians do: she talked to supporters to energize them to get out and work for her. Burner’s voice is crystal-clear, as it will be next year when she attends Netroots to lecture that group about her next sure-to-fail run for office.
What Mistermix is saying is that Darcy is too aggressive in talking “at” her audience, her approaches are useless, and her issues aren’t “relevant” at this moment. He isn’t calling her too extreme in her views but rather impolitic in her assertiveness and myopic in her choice of issues. He then moved from that position to declaring her an unskilled politician.
With all respect to Mistermix, all of those are false and frankly insulting positions. Most people I know who were at Netroots Nation were thrilled with Darcy’s speech. Regular readers here know that I spend the vast majority of my time talking about economic issues, but nonetheless I also think it’s long past time that men and women stood up and fought back aggressively on the subject of abortion. And not just to insist on “my body my choice” for the ten thousandth time, but to stand up and declare “I am Spartacus!”, removing the shame and reminding regular Americans that they probably know more people who have had abortions than they even know gay people. The familiarization and destigmatization that worked so well in the LGBT movement can apply and should apply just as easily to abortion rights.
Moreover, while Warren’s speech as an excellent example of framing economic narratives, Darcy’s speech offered examples of direct action that could be taken quickly and fairly easily. We’ve all heard great framing. We’re short on direct action. Further, the given the President’s inept handling of economic messaging (often overlooked by bloggers at Balloon Juice) combined with the revanchist conservative attacks on women, it’s entirely likely that the President’s reelection will hinge just as much on mobilizing women on social issues than on anything done on the economic front.
I do owe Mistermix one apology, though: on re-reading my post it seemed that I was lumping Mistermix in with the Seattle PI writer as an uncomfortable defender of patriarchal power. That was not the intent, and the blame lies squarely on my poor and shorthand writing. I simply think Mistermix misapprehends the rhetorical and tactical necessities of our particular political moment.
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Gimme Mitt
by digby
Oh my God, this is real:
It was from 2008, but it’s getting play this time too, according to Greg Mitchell (whose campaign blog you should bookmark right away.)
I especially like the line about how he “straightened out America one firm at a time” in reference to his Bain years. I’ve never seen LBOs as patriotic, but hey, we’re so far down the rabbit hole it makes perfect sense.
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About those poor confused military contractors
by digby
I wrote earlier about how the MIC is threatening to destroy the country if the congress follows through on it’s earlier deal to cut defense. The Senators are all in a dither because the economy will be destroyed if the MIC has to lay off all those workers.(And here I thought the government couldn’t create jobs …)
Guess what? Aside from the issue of all the useless killing machines they produce, defense contracts are the costliest way to create jobs. The PERI institue of UMass issued a report showing that for every $1 billion spent by the Pentagon, roughly 11k jobs are created while that same money on domestic priorities (or even tax cuts) would create far more jobs:
Also too, they are making record profits at the moment and Lockheed’s CEO took home $25.4 million (twice what Goldman’s CEO made) in 2011. Maybe they could hold off on the panic for just a little while.
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If they don’t want to talk about them, maybe they should stop regulating them
by digby
So the Michigan House of Representatives banned one of its members from speaking today. Why?
“What she said was offensive,” said Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville. “It was so offensive, I don’t even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company.”
What did she say? She said … “vagina”.
Word to the wise: among neanderthal Republican men, the proper medical term is “snatch”.
Update: Speaking of genitals:
Alan Simpson has a plan for stimulating members of Congress to finally act on the budget crisis.
It’s called the “Cialis solution,” he says, pausing for effect. “When it’s ready, it’ll be ready.”
Simpson credits the phrase to Erskine Bowles, his co-chairman on the presidential commission that produced a bold plan to slash the huge deficit, only to find both parties fleeing in horror. But with lawmakers now facing a fiscal calamity at year’s end, Simpson believes the looming deadline will stiffen their, uh, spines.
While members of both parties have begun to hold secret strategy sessions on the Hill, Simpson says flatly: “Nobody’s going to touch anything between now and Nov. 6.”
Oh Jesus, please get that picture out of my head. Please.
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The rarest experience in the world
by digby
These Gallup Poll numbers are all pretty much what one would expect in this environment:
I cannot help but wonder about the five percent of Romney voters who think he is more experienced/qualified and than President Obama. Say what you will about him, but I’m pretty sure the only living people who have as much as experience at this job as he does (and are not disqualified from running because they already served two terms) are George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter.
Now, it’s entirely reasonable to believe that that experience is overrated and fresh thinking is necessary, but the fact is that even if you hate him personally and disagree with his policies, you simply can’t compare the president’s experience with Romney’s. Romney has years of experience wrecking companies and one term as Governor of Massachusetts. Obama has been running the world for almost four years. We can count on one hand the number of people alive with that on their resumes.
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