Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Modus Operandi Podcast episode 41 - Road Show
Show Notes:
[In case you can't tell from the audio, MOpod was recorded on the highway in my artcar, in the dark, with a video camera. Sorry for the roar of my little, insulation free car. - A]
We've been dealing with a fake Taliban leader in Afghanistan, paying him huge amounts of money.
Finally we settle with the "Ground Zero" workers after a "seven year battle."
Costa Rica invaded thanks to Google maps.
Record profits for major corporations in the last year while poverty level highest since New Deal.
Battle of Dutton Hill
Pulaski County possibly driest county in the country.
127 sale, world's longest yard sale.
Alan on the Spot
Kentucky v Tennessee football: Kentucky loses (maybe by five) [UK lost]
Kentucky in Maui: Kentucky will win but it will be clumsy [UK lost]
Saints v Cowboys: Saints will win [Saints win]
How long 'til someone will run over a bicyclist in NYC? Next Tuesday (11/30) [none killed so far]
Linky Dinks
Tom Tomorrow on Bi-Partisanship
Focus on the Family decides to keep teaching kids to hate fags.
The U.S. now in Afghanistan longer than the U.S.S.R. We're number one!
Candorville reveals GOP strategy.
Despite convictions for two felonies (pretty much for fucking Democracy like a dead whore), Tom Delay probably will not do any prison time. There is no justice in the USA.
Yes, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and that's the way they like it.
Rush Limbaugh hates Thanksgiving (or at least when Obama says anything about it).
Willie Nelson arrested for possession of pot. What a stupid country this is.
58% of Republican voters say their newly elected representatives should refuse public health care.
TSA continues to waste our time and money: a few examples of how awful and stupid the pat downs are.
Focus on the Family decides to keep teaching kids to hate fags.
The U.S. now in Afghanistan longer than the U.S.S.R. We're number one!
Candorville reveals GOP strategy.
Despite convictions for two felonies (pretty much for fucking Democracy like a dead whore), Tom Delay probably will not do any prison time. There is no justice in the USA.
Yes, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and that's the way they like it.
Rush Limbaugh hates Thanksgiving (or at least when Obama says anything about it).
Willie Nelson arrested for possession of pot. What a stupid country this is.
58% of Republican voters say their newly elected representatives should refuse public health care.
TSA continues to waste our time and money: a few examples of how awful and stupid the pat downs are.
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Philip K. Howard Extended Interview | ||||
| ||||
Value of economic-recovery bonds sold by Louisiana since Katrina: $5,900,000,000; percentage spent on New Orleans: 1%; on lower 9th Ward: 0; amount spent on the oil industry: 29%
Full body scanners waste of money says Israeli expert.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Ogre-oids, 29 November
Escalation between North and South Korea: The latest sign that America's military build up and constant war-mongering over the last three decades is the most effective way to bring about long-term peace and good relations among the nations of the world. North Korea, which has nuclear capability, and South Korea, supported by America, are on the brink of war, with the North already striking fatally an island near the border. America's dependence on Chinese intervention demonstrates its weakening power in an era of unrelenting belligerence.
Taliban Imposter: American military and NATO (a difference?) officials admittedly paid a six-figure salary for years to someone they thought was high in the Taliban command who turned out to be someone else, e.g. an imposter. Just goes to show you that you don't need to have a high literacy rate to fool an enemy who does.
The Miami Heat: One month into the NBA season, the posers of dominance are 9-8, having lost four out of their last five. Over-rated LeBron James and the overpaid Heat have the 14th best record in the NBA. It's still early, but by now dominant teams are clearly separating themselves from the rest of the league, a la the Celtics in 2008. From a cultural standpoint, the Heat are the latest example of an inverse ratio between hype and performance characteristic of post-Sept. 11 America. Eight teams in the Western Conference have a better record than the Heat, and five teams in the East have a better record. That'd make the Heat a No. 6 seed in the playoffs. Here's another way to think about it: one month into the season and the Heat have one loss less than the 72-9 1998 Chicago Bulls, a team with a player people recognized as great because he won, not because how great everybody said he was.
Louisville Orchestra on Verge of Bankruptcy: Another example of how a bailout economy rigs the arts to fail. What did the Louisville Orchestra do wrong? Be an orchestra, that's what. They didn't put together the Abacus investment package, the didn't pawn the euro on Europe, and their string section does not foreclose on families, the poor, or the handicapped. They get punished for being good at music, while the banks get rewarded for sucking at finance. What does the American mob say? Encore!
Taliban Imposter: American military and NATO (a difference?) officials admittedly paid a six-figure salary for years to someone they thought was high in the Taliban command who turned out to be someone else, e.g. an imposter. Just goes to show you that you don't need to have a high literacy rate to fool an enemy who does.
The Miami Heat: One month into the NBA season, the posers of dominance are 9-8, having lost four out of their last five. Over-rated LeBron James and the overpaid Heat have the 14th best record in the NBA. It's still early, but by now dominant teams are clearly separating themselves from the rest of the league, a la the Celtics in 2008. From a cultural standpoint, the Heat are the latest example of an inverse ratio between hype and performance characteristic of post-Sept. 11 America. Eight teams in the Western Conference have a better record than the Heat, and five teams in the East have a better record. That'd make the Heat a No. 6 seed in the playoffs. Here's another way to think about it: one month into the season and the Heat have one loss less than the 72-9 1998 Chicago Bulls, a team with a player people recognized as great because he won, not because how great everybody said he was.
Louisville Orchestra on Verge of Bankruptcy: Another example of how a bailout economy rigs the arts to fail. What did the Louisville Orchestra do wrong? Be an orchestra, that's what. They didn't put together the Abacus investment package, the didn't pawn the euro on Europe, and their string section does not foreclose on families, the poor, or the handicapped. They get punished for being good at music, while the banks get rewarded for sucking at finance. What does the American mob say? Encore!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Bat Shit Crazy Report - Minn. State Rep. Tom Hackbarth
So, some guy gets out of a pick-up in the Planned Parenthood parking lot with a pistol strapped to his leg and then slips into the alley. The security guard spots him and calls the cops who arrest him. In the truck they find binoculars, maps, and more ammunition. The guy claims he is "checking up on" his "girlfriend." "What's her name?" ask the police. He doesn't know, he met her on line and has only had coffee with her once. No, he doesn't have her phone number. No, he can't remember the name of the dating site. When he asked her for a date she turned him down saying she was eating with a friend in the neighborhood but he thought she was lying so now he's "checking up on her." This guy does have a concealed carry permit for his gun. Who is this guy? Rep. Tom Hackbarth (R), from the same district that brings us the queen of bat shit crazy, Michelle Bachmann. Is he just a really creepy and dangerous stalker or was he about to do something involving the Planned Parenthood clinic (Hackbarth is a rabid anti-abortion activist)? I don't know the answer but I do know he is bat shit crazy.
via
via
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Modus Operandi Podcast episode 40
96:47
Show notes:
We crank along for about 41 minutes bouncing smoothly from subject to subject, most of which is on the blog, but some new personal stories and philosophical musings until we start talking about the TSA. I have new information as to who is blowing whom when it comes to these full body scanners and it makes it all the more obvious that Obama is just a continuation of the Bush/Cheney clusterfuck:
Former Department of Homeland Security Head (and utter goddamned failure) Michael Chertoff is the lead lobbyist for the company that makes the machines that are suddenly required everywhere. AND Former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority Rafi Sela says, "I don't know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747."
And as long as we're on TSA stupidity:
Jim Morrison indecent exposure pardon?
We end with sports and I think Dave calls college sports Aryan Idealism or something that might cause us to apologize to the Anti-Defamation League or somebody. Jeez, dude.
Special Ogre-fest theme way at the very end for you dedicated listeners.
Bat Shit Crazy Report: Bachmann Still Reining Queen
I'm kind of afraid to try to keep this recurring element of the blog going with the crop of incoming teabagger Congressional freshmen. It might require creating an entire new blog... just as soon as someone will pay me to do it. So, on to the insanity:
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Modus Operandi Podcast episode 39
Alan On The Spot:
Saints win (They didn't play so THEY WIN!)
Cardinals win LOSE
UK v Vanderbilt: Vanderbilt win by between 3 & 6 (UK WIN)
UofL v Butler @ Yum! Center [puking noises]: Butler by 15 (UofL by 15)
(The conversation that comes from this UofL game leads me to wish Dr. Overbey would put the same amount of brain space into remembering who and what of politics that he puts into remembering basketball players' names. - AM)
Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Linky Dinks
Rand Paul pledged to end earmarks. Seconds after victory he declares he will defend earmarks for Kentucky.
Lou Reed co-directs video for Susan Boyle. Sign of the end times.
Joyce Kaufman, Allen West's Chief Of Staff, Advocated Hanging Illegal Immigrants Who Commit Crimes
AZ Tea Partiers oppose garbage collection plan that will save city of 25,000 a million dollars a year because it's "socialist."
A new species of clone lizard (they are all female, genetically identical, and they reproduce via parthenogenesis) is found thanks to being a common ingredient in Vietnamese cuisine.
John Shimkus: 'Global warming won't destroy planet because God promised Noah'
Ogre-oid: Fred H. Bartlit, Jr.
The prominent trial lawyer appointed as lead investigator of a presidential panel examining the BP Gulf oil disaster issued a statement this week saying, "to date we have not seen a single instance where a human being made a conscious decision to favor dollars over safety," the NY Times quotes Bartlit, Jr. He continues, "They want to be efficient, they don't want to waste money, but they also don't want to see their buddies killed." Apparently, testimony after testimony that establishes that BP used only six centralizers instead of the recommended 21 to stabilize the well casing that gave way to gushing gas and oil does not have any relevance to "conscious decisions," just bad ones, I guess.
The fact that Bartlit, Jr. treats these two priorities as equals betrays his callous bias toward the inverted value system of industry. What I can't figure is why "55 days" Obama would appoint a lead investigator so ostensibly sympathetic to industry to make an assessment of BP's liability. It's almost like Obama is just another big-money, big-oil conservative, with Bartlit, Jr. as the point man for a Harvard law hair-splitting legal discourse where everything BP did wrong still doesn't amount to the evidence necessary to point to liability. In other words, the investigation is likely to criticize BP for lots of things, up until the point such criticisms could amount to grounds for liability. As Americans, we can use our freedom of speech to blame BP all we want--we just can't make them pay for the immeasurable damage they've caused. I don't suppose the idea of negligence--where there is no "conscious" sinister decision to harm but absence of sensible decisions that should have been made--would apply here. And I certainly don't think that an explosion, eleven dead bodies, or a dead ocean floor qualify as evidence that anyone did anything wrong. Only a hot-headed liberal would get worked up over that.
The fact that Bartlit, Jr. treats these two priorities as equals betrays his callous bias toward the inverted value system of industry. What I can't figure is why "55 days" Obama would appoint a lead investigator so ostensibly sympathetic to industry to make an assessment of BP's liability. It's almost like Obama is just another big-money, big-oil conservative, with Bartlit, Jr. as the point man for a Harvard law hair-splitting legal discourse where everything BP did wrong still doesn't amount to the evidence necessary to point to liability. In other words, the investigation is likely to criticize BP for lots of things, up until the point such criticisms could amount to grounds for liability. As Americans, we can use our freedom of speech to blame BP all we want--we just can't make them pay for the immeasurable damage they've caused. I don't suppose the idea of negligence--where there is no "conscious" sinister decision to harm but absence of sensible decisions that should have been made--would apply here. And I certainly don't think that an explosion, eleven dead bodies, or a dead ocean floor qualify as evidence that anyone did anything wrong. Only a hot-headed liberal would get worked up over that.
Old McConnell
Old McConnell had a farm
eey-aye-eey-aye-ooh
And on that farm he had an Obama
eey-aye-eey-aye-ooh
With compromise here and a concession there
Here a waste, there a waste
Everywhere a waste, waste
eey-aye-eey-aye-ooh
And on that farm he had an Obama
eey-aye-eey-aye-ooh
With compromise here and a concession there
Here a waste, there a waste
Everywhere a waste, waste
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Health Care Chart
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows some interesting things about Americans' opinions about the health care reform bill. It came in as the fourth most important reason people were voting (at 17%) but when you break it down into against some/all or for some/all people seem to come up about 50/50 with a slight advantage to the against side. But if you dig in just a little bit about this there's really only one thing people are totally opposed to: the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.
The KFF's charts pack (.pdf format) is a really interesting study of the health care issue's impact on the last election and of American's opinions on it. Well worth studying the entire poll and the questions asked, if you're the kind of person that like to know what he/she is talking about. I know this will not affect our conservative friends as they will have stopped reading at the first line above that opposes their world view.
The KFF's charts pack (.pdf format) is a really interesting study of the health care issue's impact on the last election and of American's opinions on it. Well worth studying the entire poll and the questions asked, if you're the kind of person that like to know what he/she is talking about. I know this will not affect our conservative friends as they will have stopped reading at the first line above that opposes their world view.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Modus Operandi Podcast is on Vacation
Now that the elections are over we've decided to take the week off from the podcast. Dave has been doing some kind of play, so he says. I think he's doing stand-up at a titty club but I could be wrong. I have been allowing the echoes of the monumental upheaval of last Tuesday settle into my brain tissues, hoping they will become coherent. -A
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Historical?
Very bad but not unusual.
The 65 seat loss in the House is pretty awful and puts Obama slightly better than Grant, Harrison, Cleveland (-116!), Harding, and FDR. Still, there have been 8 other Presidents that have lost more than 45 seats (including Clinton) and since the House grew with the country's population until 1963 the percentage of seats lost (which I can't find in a nice, neat, chart done by someone else) of 435 is a smaller number today than it was under, say, Taft in 1910 with 57 of 386 seats. But it's still horrible.
Somehow Dems managed to keep control of the Senate but their majority is now wafer thin. The historical average loss of Senate seats has been four and eight isn't very far off that mean on a bell curve. That being said the Dems have taken a trouncing.
Now here's an odd thing: the swing has been "independents" that voted for Democrats last time but went Republican this time. We have an enormous chunk of the population that will simply vote against the people in office because nobody seems to know what they're doing. But one has to wonder about the person that would vote back in again the same bunch of thieves and fools that has run this country's government and economy into the ground. Only 12% of Americans said we should let it play out, around 30% wanted it repealed but over 40% said it didn't go far enough and for reasons I cannot explain people from both ends of the spectrum voted against Democrats because of it.
Is this continuous yo yo effect of American voting because we're a nation of idiots, because we have no third (or more) party, or because of the wild imbalance created by the staggering influence of the vast right wing propaganda machine (Fox et. al.) and gazillions of dollars sprayed on the elections by corporations and the ultra wealthy? What is the Tea Party movement and where does its money come from? How can Sarah Palin be jetting back and forth across the country continuously? 4% of Americans are actually members of the "Tea Party" but 40% of Americans "agree with" the Tea Party. How can this possibly square with the fact that only 12% of Americans approve of the Republican Party, fewer than the pathetic 21% that approves of the Democrats?1 Something is very off-kilter in the system, especially considering there is no other party to step up and fill the gaping hole of Americans that despise all of our leadership. People vote against the people in office but to do this they have to vote for people they hate more than the ones they've already got. Is this the snake eating its own tail or is the snake being force fed by the true Powers That Be?
There is only one thing I am sure about: this election has made me sick to my stomach. After this week's podcast I think I'm going to take a month off of following politics to work on art and music.
With only four exceptions, EVERY single President since Lincoln has lost seats in the House in the midterm elections. The only ones to buck the trend were the Roosevelts (TR because he was the mostly popular President EVER his first term, FDR because of the Depression), Clinton (because of Republican miscues during the Impeachment) and Bush '43 (because of 9/11). [freerepublic]
The 65 seat loss in the House is pretty awful and puts Obama slightly better than Grant, Harrison, Cleveland (-116!), Harding, and FDR. Still, there have been 8 other Presidents that have lost more than 45 seats (including Clinton) and since the House grew with the country's population until 1963 the percentage of seats lost (which I can't find in a nice, neat, chart done by someone else) of 435 is a smaller number today than it was under, say, Taft in 1910 with 57 of 386 seats. But it's still horrible.
Somehow Dems managed to keep control of the Senate but their majority is now wafer thin. The historical average loss of Senate seats has been four and eight isn't very far off that mean on a bell curve. That being said the Dems have taken a trouncing.
Now here's an odd thing: the swing has been "independents" that voted for Democrats last time but went Republican this time. We have an enormous chunk of the population that will simply vote against the people in office because nobody seems to know what they're doing. But one has to wonder about the person that would vote back in again the same bunch of thieves and fools that has run this country's government and economy into the ground. Only 12% of Americans said we should let it play out, around 30% wanted it repealed but over 40% said it didn't go far enough and for reasons I cannot explain people from both ends of the spectrum voted against Democrats because of it.
Is this continuous yo yo effect of American voting because we're a nation of idiots, because we have no third (or more) party, or because of the wild imbalance created by the staggering influence of the vast right wing propaganda machine (Fox et. al.) and gazillions of dollars sprayed on the elections by corporations and the ultra wealthy? What is the Tea Party movement and where does its money come from? How can Sarah Palin be jetting back and forth across the country continuously? 4% of Americans are actually members of the "Tea Party" but 40% of Americans "agree with" the Tea Party. How can this possibly square with the fact that only 12% of Americans approve of the Republican Party, fewer than the pathetic 21% that approves of the Democrats?1 Something is very off-kilter in the system, especially considering there is no other party to step up and fill the gaping hole of Americans that despise all of our leadership. People vote against the people in office but to do this they have to vote for people they hate more than the ones they've already got. Is this the snake eating its own tail or is the snake being force fed by the true Powers That Be?
There is only one thing I am sure about: this election has made me sick to my stomach. After this week's podcast I think I'm going to take a month off of following politics to work on art and music.
OBAMA MUST RESIGN
Nov. 2, 2010: The Day America Officially Became Hopeless
Let it not be said that Barack Obama did not achieve anything amazing in his first two years in office. Somehow, incredibly, in that short time span, he made possible the revival of a conservative Republican party reeling from large-scale political freefall. President Bush was historically unpopular, the war in Iraq was (and still is) a quagmire, and the only thing falling harder and faster than the G.O.P. was the economy--on the brink of total collapse thanks to a runaway, debt-driven system that amounted to a financial version of Russian roulette.
How can you have a record turnout of supporters turning out on a freezing day, ignoring their bladders in the cold just so they can get a glimpse of you and maybe shake your hand, while your predecessor sits--quiet, isolated, ridiculed--in ceremonial exile, and two years later find yourself right there, taking his place as the icon of rejection en vogue. How does that happen?
Because Obama has spent most of his first two years in office mimicking the policies of his predecessor and pandering to his political enemies who have made it no secret they wish to erase him from the political power game. As puzzling as yesterday's election and the resurgence of a seemingly has-been G.O.P. is, there are two pretty simple explanations: America's chronic conservatism, and Obama's reticence in attacking that conservatism--a symptom of his symptomatic conservatism.
How in the world could anyone want more conservatism after 2000-2008 and larger post-1980 Reagan Era? The social inequality, oppression, and malaise that come with conservative policies can't even be rationalized anymore by a booming economy based on a rejection of Soviet-style government regulation, not when the American economy fell apart precisely because it has been driven by subsidies, bailouts, and prohibition--all forms of government control of the economy--during the Reagan era.
So the American people elected Obama because they were tired of conservative policies that didn't work. Obama then gave Americans a similar version of the same programs, they still don't work, and now Americans have voted again for the same party they voted against two years ago when they voted for Obama, presumably because they now want the G.O.P. to continue the same policies that don't work instead of Democrats.
This knot of self-destruction is a vicious spiral of societal collapse, and Obama the conservative is clearly clueless that he is calmly paddling at the front of a sinking boat. When failure is systemic, no options work to correct and stabilize serious problems. The available options simply do not correspond in type or proportion to the problems that need to be stabilized. More mayonnaise doesn't help when the cupboard is bare. Obama and the Democrats have been rejected by voters who want a return to the very politics responsible for the mess they blame Obama for--yet as crazy as that is, the voters are right, since his policies have not made a measurable departure from the failed policies of the conservative era he was presumably elected to usher the country out of. The economy remains stagnant not simply because Obama has not had enough time to make it better but because it is just another version of trickle-down economics. That explains why GM, the banks, and the insurance companies are rolling on while the non-rich remain mired in a state of growing despair and desperation. Trickle down concentrates wealth at the top of the economic hierarchy, so that's where it stays. And as long as some version of that policy remains intact, that's what you'll get. You can have all the time in the world (which real people in the real world do not have) and your policies won't work if they are re-hashed versions of policies that have already been shown to fail. Simply putting someone from the other party in the White House and switching from a foolish conservative to a smug conservative doesn't change anything. Incredible, the American people associate Obama with an agenda that deviates too far from the policies that were in place before him, when a) one would think people would embrace such a mode of governing when it's obvious the old policies have failed and were never designed to work in the people's interest and b) when Obama's policies have failed not because they deviated too far from what came before but because they mimic them too closely and don't boldly move away from them. The voters are both wrong about why Obama has failed and wrong to fault a significant departure from prevailing policies, because those policies are failures. Hence the continued failure.
Taken as a whole, this is an ideological traffic jam: a dead end. By now, Obama has no one to blame but himself for failing to fight back against those who have attacked him and alienating those who supported him because they did rightly want him to change the policies that have led us to this present state of failure. In two short years, Obama has become the Louise Ridgeway of American politics, the doomed heiress in Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile" who, in the observant eyes of detective Hercule Poirot, "makes enemies of them all." Obama, like America, is his own worst enemy, squandering a historical political moment and the opportunity of a lifetime simply because his own complacent, conservative motives have been in the way. It is apparent from the way he acts, talks, and governs that everything is more or less OK from where he sits. The only time he gets antagonist and goes on the offensive is when he's being interviewed by John Stewart. He lectures and condescends to the nation's smartest and most politically active demographic, one without which he would have never gotten to be President.
Obama is another Bill Clinton, a conservative who wanted to be President and got what he wanted thanks to the progressive, non-rich population, and then ignored them, instead favoring the pro-corporate, pro-war, pro-police state policies of what came before him. When things are bad and nothing ever changes, one thing is for certain: they've gone from bad to worse. Clinton's daughter goes to Stanford and has a world-famous celebrity wedding while we're supposed to believe he, Obama, and the rest of the Democrats actually care about the people of this country and have some coherent, unified agenda other than to make sure as many of them can stay in office for as long as they can. And they continue to operate this way even though they no longer can make credible claims that the conservative policies they effectively have supported in the Reagan era.
Social oppression can't be worth economic prosperity when there is no economic prosperity. But you can forget about any kind of intelligent conversation interested in explanations of how and why economies succeed or fail in this country, no matter how urgent the need for it is. As with yesterday, we'll get more of the same: "the economy goes in cycles," "the Lord will provide," "low taxes," and "deregulate" are beliefs and policies, not explanations. You can't operate something you don't understand, and if you can't explain how it works, you don't understand it, no matter how many times you go back and forth between two conservative parties and their chronically conservative candidates. That's the really troubling thing about Obama--by now he seems as clueless and conservative as the people who have supported him and rejected in two years because they have no interest in doing anything besides beating up on the punching bag of the day, a la Tea Party.
In early 1968, after a disturbingly narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary, when LBJ realized he had lost all support, he announced that he would not run for re-election. Obama must do the same. There can be no break from the conservative policies that are ruining this country as long as he remains the only option to those policies. Two short years ago he had off-the-charts popularity, widespread support, and an opposing political party on the ropes. Yet somehow, here we are today.
And that's just it: two years ago, who would have thought anyone could have done worse than the previous administration? Indeed, for Obama to have been bad enough at being president to make him even worse than what came before him is indeed quite amazing . . . especially for someone who's only been in office two years.
Let it not be said that Barack Obama did not achieve anything amazing in his first two years in office. Somehow, incredibly, in that short time span, he made possible the revival of a conservative Republican party reeling from large-scale political freefall. President Bush was historically unpopular, the war in Iraq was (and still is) a quagmire, and the only thing falling harder and faster than the G.O.P. was the economy--on the brink of total collapse thanks to a runaway, debt-driven system that amounted to a financial version of Russian roulette.
How can you have a record turnout of supporters turning out on a freezing day, ignoring their bladders in the cold just so they can get a glimpse of you and maybe shake your hand, while your predecessor sits--quiet, isolated, ridiculed--in ceremonial exile, and two years later find yourself right there, taking his place as the icon of rejection en vogue. How does that happen?
Because Obama has spent most of his first two years in office mimicking the policies of his predecessor and pandering to his political enemies who have made it no secret they wish to erase him from the political power game. As puzzling as yesterday's election and the resurgence of a seemingly has-been G.O.P. is, there are two pretty simple explanations: America's chronic conservatism, and Obama's reticence in attacking that conservatism--a symptom of his symptomatic conservatism.
How in the world could anyone want more conservatism after 2000-2008 and larger post-1980 Reagan Era? The social inequality, oppression, and malaise that come with conservative policies can't even be rationalized anymore by a booming economy based on a rejection of Soviet-style government regulation, not when the American economy fell apart precisely because it has been driven by subsidies, bailouts, and prohibition--all forms of government control of the economy--during the Reagan era.
So the American people elected Obama because they were tired of conservative policies that didn't work. Obama then gave Americans a similar version of the same programs, they still don't work, and now Americans have voted again for the same party they voted against two years ago when they voted for Obama, presumably because they now want the G.O.P. to continue the same policies that don't work instead of Democrats.
This knot of self-destruction is a vicious spiral of societal collapse, and Obama the conservative is clearly clueless that he is calmly paddling at the front of a sinking boat. When failure is systemic, no options work to correct and stabilize serious problems. The available options simply do not correspond in type or proportion to the problems that need to be stabilized. More mayonnaise doesn't help when the cupboard is bare. Obama and the Democrats have been rejected by voters who want a return to the very politics responsible for the mess they blame Obama for--yet as crazy as that is, the voters are right, since his policies have not made a measurable departure from the failed policies of the conservative era he was presumably elected to usher the country out of. The economy remains stagnant not simply because Obama has not had enough time to make it better but because it is just another version of trickle-down economics. That explains why GM, the banks, and the insurance companies are rolling on while the non-rich remain mired in a state of growing despair and desperation. Trickle down concentrates wealth at the top of the economic hierarchy, so that's where it stays. And as long as some version of that policy remains intact, that's what you'll get. You can have all the time in the world (which real people in the real world do not have) and your policies won't work if they are re-hashed versions of policies that have already been shown to fail. Simply putting someone from the other party in the White House and switching from a foolish conservative to a smug conservative doesn't change anything. Incredible, the American people associate Obama with an agenda that deviates too far from the policies that were in place before him, when a) one would think people would embrace such a mode of governing when it's obvious the old policies have failed and were never designed to work in the people's interest and b) when Obama's policies have failed not because they deviated too far from what came before but because they mimic them too closely and don't boldly move away from them. The voters are both wrong about why Obama has failed and wrong to fault a significant departure from prevailing policies, because those policies are failures. Hence the continued failure.
Taken as a whole, this is an ideological traffic jam: a dead end. By now, Obama has no one to blame but himself for failing to fight back against those who have attacked him and alienating those who supported him because they did rightly want him to change the policies that have led us to this present state of failure. In two short years, Obama has become the Louise Ridgeway of American politics, the doomed heiress in Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile" who, in the observant eyes of detective Hercule Poirot, "makes enemies of them all." Obama, like America, is his own worst enemy, squandering a historical political moment and the opportunity of a lifetime simply because his own complacent, conservative motives have been in the way. It is apparent from the way he acts, talks, and governs that everything is more or less OK from where he sits. The only time he gets antagonist and goes on the offensive is when he's being interviewed by John Stewart. He lectures and condescends to the nation's smartest and most politically active demographic, one without which he would have never gotten to be President.
Obama is another Bill Clinton, a conservative who wanted to be President and got what he wanted thanks to the progressive, non-rich population, and then ignored them, instead favoring the pro-corporate, pro-war, pro-police state policies of what came before him. When things are bad and nothing ever changes, one thing is for certain: they've gone from bad to worse. Clinton's daughter goes to Stanford and has a world-famous celebrity wedding while we're supposed to believe he, Obama, and the rest of the Democrats actually care about the people of this country and have some coherent, unified agenda other than to make sure as many of them can stay in office for as long as they can. And they continue to operate this way even though they no longer can make credible claims that the conservative policies they effectively have supported in the Reagan era.
Social oppression can't be worth economic prosperity when there is no economic prosperity. But you can forget about any kind of intelligent conversation interested in explanations of how and why economies succeed or fail in this country, no matter how urgent the need for it is. As with yesterday, we'll get more of the same: "the economy goes in cycles," "the Lord will provide," "low taxes," and "deregulate" are beliefs and policies, not explanations. You can't operate something you don't understand, and if you can't explain how it works, you don't understand it, no matter how many times you go back and forth between two conservative parties and their chronically conservative candidates. That's the really troubling thing about Obama--by now he seems as clueless and conservative as the people who have supported him and rejected in two years because they have no interest in doing anything besides beating up on the punching bag of the day, a la Tea Party.
In early 1968, after a disturbingly narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary, when LBJ realized he had lost all support, he announced that he would not run for re-election. Obama must do the same. There can be no break from the conservative policies that are ruining this country as long as he remains the only option to those policies. Two short years ago he had off-the-charts popularity, widespread support, and an opposing political party on the ropes. Yet somehow, here we are today.
And that's just it: two years ago, who would have thought anyone could have done worse than the previous administration? Indeed, for Obama to have been bad enough at being president to make him even worse than what came before him is indeed quite amazing . . . especially for someone who's only been in office two years.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Modus Operandi Podcast episode 38
Show notes:
[Kind of edited this one in a hurry but hope to fill things in a little in the next couple of days. - Ed]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)