The Relative Value of Labor

Here’s a quote the Party of Lincoln might want to consider, since it was Lincoln who said it:
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
(Credit to E.J. Dionne, via Carola Dunn.)

A Peek Behind the Republican Curtain

This is a tad long, but Mike Lofgren, who worked as a Republican congressional staffer for thirty years, steps outside the tent and gives the inside scoop on Republican goals, motives, and strategy better than any fifty blog posts that could be written from the outside. Well worth the read.

(Thanks to Jon Loomis for pointing this out on Facebook.)

Misdirected Outrage

Bob Herbert of the New York Times made the same points in today’s column as I made in yesterday’s post, though Mr. Herbert was far more eloquent. He also raised an interesting point I wish I had thought of:

It is 2010, which means it is way past time for decent Americans to rise up against this kind of garbage, to fight it aggressively wherever it appears. And it is time for every American of good will to hold the Republican Party accountable for its role in tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters.

For years now we’ve listened to people hurl insults at Muslims in general because of terrorist attacks. The justification has always been that reasonable Muslims don’t speak out enough about the terrorists in their midst, and are therefore somehow culpable themselves.

Same rules apply. If you’re a conservative, Republican, or tea partier of good conscience, where’s your outrage? Where were you when John Lewis was spat upon and called names you’ll swear never pass your lips? Where were you when Barney Frank had to walk the gauntlet over the weekend? Based on conservative Republican principles, silence is approval; if you’re not calling them out, you must agree with them. Instead, Republican “leaders” stand on the Capitol balcony and encourage more of the same, even indulge it themselves on the floor of the House.

The lack of civility in public discourse is breathtaking and alarming, and the bulk of the blame belongs to conservatives and Republicans. It wasn’t Pat Leahy who said, “go fuck yourself” to Dick Cheney; it was Cheney speaking to Leahy. (And don’t even mention what Joe Biden said to Obama yesterday as being in the same league. A personal comment inadvertently caught by an open microphone is nothing like shouting it across the floor of the Senate.) Racial and gay slurs. Spit. Demeaning the sick. Allegedly good Christians calling the president the anti-Christ.

Where’s your sense of outrage, Republicans? Conservatives? If you’re good with this, then keep quiet. Just don’t complain about being tarred with the same brush. Anyone who takes even vicarious pride in these actions has no shame.

Civilian Trials for Terrorists

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick wants to know why Republicans are so afraid of open trials for terrorists, especially wanna-be Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

It's the Abdulmutallab trial the confuses me. (Like spelling his name isn't confusing enough.) It's not like anyone has to worry about any super-secret intelligence and counter-terrorism techniques will be exposed if he's tried. A civilian airline passenger--a foreigner, no less--caught him red-handed. They have everything they need to convict him right there; it's a slam dunk. If they don't introduce evidence obtained in a secret manner--which they shouldn't need to--the defense can't ask for it, as it's not germane.

Really, what are they so afraid of, when our criminal justice system was just the ticket for Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid?

Independent Day

My symbolic resignation from the Democratic Party went into the mail today: I changed my voter registration to Independent.

The Beloved Spousal Equivalent is not amused. She’s focusing on my loss of voting privileges in primary elections. I’ve voted in primary elections for thirty years. It hasn’t helped.

My change of registration is not the same as a change of heart. I was a Democrat because Democrats wanted to do things more closely aligned with my philosophy than Republicans. They say they still do. I have just run out of patience with their reluctance to take positive action and stand by it.

I’ve been harshly critical of Republicans since Reagan’s election in 1980, and my distaste for their agenda and methods has only grown in the intervening years. Their policies are largely responsible for our current economic crisis, an unprecedented re-distribution of wealth away from those who could least afford it and toward those who least needed it, the overextension of our military, great steps backward in the area of personal rights, and establishing the United States as a bellicose pariah in much of the world. All of the above, and more, deserved all the criticism they received. In fairness, the Republicans knew what they wanted to do, and they did it. Unapologetic, heedless of consequences, ruthless even, but they got their agenda through with fewer votes in Congress than the Democrats have available now.

The Democrats have policies I’m happy to support; it’s their support that’s questionable. Party leaders appear to be more concerned about building bi-partisan coalitions than they are in getting their programs passed. After watching this for six months, I can only conclude they’re more interested in political cover than in bi-partisanship. This is not change I can believe in.

The Democrats have a solid majority in the House, and 58 effective votes in the Senate. (Kennedy and Byrd aren’t voting for health reasons.) True, that’s two votes short of what’s needed to shut down a filibuster, but it’s more votes than Bill Frist ever had when he shoved the Bush Agenda—Patriot Act, Department of Homeland Security, Iraq War, budget-busting tax cuts—through Harry Reid’s opposition like a fire hose through a wall of soap bubbles.

I can’t bear to even read about the Sotomayor hearings. We all know what everyone will say before they say it, so there’s no point in wasting time watching or listening. The media reports it as though each side’s talking points are proven facts, and the pundits drive home their side’s preferred positions, so nothing is to be gained there, either.

Enough of this switching parties shit. It’s time for people of strong conviction and good conscience to start dropping out of both parties. If things ever evolve to the point where Democrats and Republicans together can’t get fifty percent of the registered voters, some honest-to-god other parties might take hold. Two or three new ones should be sufficient. Then everyone would have to look for a coalition to govern, veto overrides would always be in question. Each party could actually stand for something, and would, hopefully, promote candidates that did the same.

For years I had to put up with George W. Bush as the face this country—and, by association, I—projected to the world. Quitting the country of your birth is one thing. Walking away from a political party joined by choice because you probably wouldn’t have joined in the first place if you knew then what you know know, is something else altogether.

(For more depth on my discontent, read this excellent column by Steven Pearlstein.)

Life on Planet Republica

Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) wrote today in today’s Washington Post:

[Obama’s budget] shows very clearly where the president and the Democratic majority want to take our country: sharply to the left

With all due respect, Senator Gregg, have you seen the 2008 election results? Did you watch the campaign? That’s exactly what they said they would do, and that’s why they’re the majority today. That’s what most people want.

Reaganite Republicans have grown so fossilized in their thinking that accepting reality is now considered to be a leftist principle. The prime precepts of their alternative budget are to cut taxes, freeze most spending for five years, halt stimulus and slash federal health programs for the poor and elderly. This is basically saying the fiscal policies that exacerbated the current situation can fix it if we just do them to a greater degree. Yes, the bursting of the housing bubble brought this on, but the uneven expansion of the Bush era, a lack of reliable spending on infrastructure maintenance, and weakening of the social safety net have made the current recession much deeper than it needs to be. All they left out was a loosening on bank and financial regulations. That should fix things right up.

These guys honest to God don’t get it. For weeks I thought liberal-leaning commentators were overexuberant when predicting the Republicans were on their to becoming a rump party. If they keep this up, I’m not so sure.

Throw Money at It

That’s the standard Republic Party reply when Democrats come up with a program. “Those tax and spend Democrats just want to throw money at the problem.” Let’s see how well that argument holds up.

Since the Depression, Democrats have preferred government-sponsored job programs for economic stimulus. The Depression was full of them: WPA, TVA, Rural Electrification. Whatever kept people working and off welfare. Build roads, bridges, buildings. Run phone and electrical lines. Keep people busy while preparing the nation for the eventual good times, because having to play catch-up can stifle an economic rebound faster than anything.

This approach has benefits. First and foremost, the money wasn’t just flowing one way. People who are working pay taxes, as opposed to just taking in money like those collecting unemployment insurance and welfare. (Republics shouldn’t have to be reminded of this.) Same thing for the companies who get the contracts to actually do the work.

Even better, the program doesn’t have to work as well as expected in order to reap its rewards. Even if the economy doesn’t recover as much as you’d like, you’ve still fixed the roads and bridges, laid cable and fiber (the 21st Century equivalent of electric and phone lines). These are tangible benefits that will be there, ready and waiting, when things finally do get going again.

The Republic Party, on the other hand, likes to put checks in the mail, in the hope that people will spend them on goods and services. This approach, which owes much to the “trickle down” school of economics, is unreliable at best. Sometimes it’s a downright fallacy, as is so much of trickle down theory.

Let’s take this year’s example, where millions of people got $300 checks. What was the root of the economic problem? Overextension of credit. What did a lot of people do with the money? They paid bills. A worth endeavor, but hardly stimulating to the manufacturing or sales segments of the economy. Even worse, when it didn’t work, all we had to show for it was a bugger deficit.

Getting real work to take place will create a “bubble up” economy by putting the money in the hands of the people who need it most, and will be most likely to recirculate it in the desired manner, namely those who actually need it to make ends meet. Why this remains such a revolutionary concept is the real puzzler.

Putting people to work to accomplish something, or sending checks and hoping for the best. Who’s really throwing money at the problem?

Random Political Thought

Does anyone else wonder how many of the members of the Republic Party now clamoring for Obama to begin a period of post-partisanship were also telling John McCain they’d desert him if he chose Joe Lieberman as his running mate?

Mighty Like a Whale

John McCain’s acceptance speech last night once again showed the Republicans’ bizarre concepts of consistency. Last night McCain said this about workers whose jobs moved overseas:

For workers in industries that have been hard hit, we'll help make up part of the difference in wages between their old job and a temporary, lower paid one while they receive retraining that will help them find secure new employment at a decent wage.

This sounds suspiciously like the party of less government—who wants to keeps government’s filthy hands out of your pockets—coming up with another unnecessary government program. Wouldn’t it be better, and cheaper, to make it advantageous for companies to keep jobs with a “decent wage” here in the first place, and penalize those who ship those jobs overseas? Not to seem like a Neanderthal on the topic of globalization, but isn’t it in our national interest to keep at least some good, working class jobs here?

This is not just a socio-economic issue; national security is also at stake. The recent spike in oil prices produced a swell of comments about the possible consequences to globalization if transportation prices made it unfeasible to continue to transport raw materials and finished goods overseas. A war could do the same, depending on its location and scope. It is in this country’s national security interest to keep many of these jobs handy, lest we have crucial goods and services made unavailable at a time when they may be needed most.

The ultimate irony—as pointed out by Joe Klein in Time magazine online—is that John McCain has become the “standard-bearer of a failed ideology — ironically, a belief in 'me first' before country.” McCain leverages his history of personal service and sacrifice in the name of a party whose idea of “service” is to support the troops in Iraq by shopping, and thinks of “sacrifice” as not playing golf. It demeans him, and it’s sad, to hear promises of tax cuts draw greater cheers than mentions of country.

Make no mistake: Republicans are definitely the party of “me first.” Democrats are not immune to the charge, but “Republican” has become virtually synonymous with “conservative,” and Twenty-first Century conservatives are interested in conserving little aside from what’s theirs already. John McCain deserves better, as do the rest of us.

They're Serious About This

Maybe the reason I’m not a published author is a lack of imagination. I worry constantly about how much—and for how long—the audience is willing to suspend disbelief; maybe I should talk with House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). He seems to think people are willing to forget things that actually happened.

Last week Boehner unveiled the new Republican “strategy.” Faced with public’s slow but insistent realization that Republicans have presided over an ill-conceived and mismanaged war, a failing economy, unprecedented separation between rich and poor, a policy of actions we’d call war crimes if anyone else did them, and an erosion of Constitutional rights more extreme than the McCarthy era, Boehner knows they can’t run on their record. So he’s going for marketing. To use a Madison Avenue term, they’re changing the brand. The Republicans are now pushing themselves as “The Change They Deserve.”

To quote Budweiser: Dude. You’re the guys we want a change from. House Republicans are so steadfastly against changing anything “accomplished” during their tenure, they voted against mothers, as a stalling tactic. Their regular whining about how Democrats haven’t implemented their promised changes have the sincerity of the Menendez brother asking for mercy because they’re orphans. For Republicans to realize now they’ve spent ten years going down the wrong road is like pulling the emergency brake after the car has gone over the cliff.

Republicans claim to be the party of Bible-reading, God-fearing Americans. It looks more every day like voters may be ready to administer some Biblical lessons on that whole “reaping what you sow” thing. One can only hope.

Economics 101

It is often said the Republican Party is the party of business. That the economy does better when Republican administrations allow it to operate unfettered by oppressive regulation and allow the natural order of business to balance things out on its own.

If that’s true, how come Republicans seem to own the franchise on financial collapse?

1929 stock market crash, leading to the Great Depression – Herbert Hoover, President.

1981-1982 liberalization of saving and loan regulations leads to S&L crisis – Ronald Reagan, President.

“Black Monday” stock market crash, October 19, 1987 – Ronald Reagan, President.

Subprime lending crisis – George W. Bush, President.

Is it true that Republicans have a better understanding of economics, or that they can’t tell the difference between sound policy and unsustainable greed?

The MBAs can leave now.

No Shame on the Right

Here’s a short piece from the current issue of Salon, describing the new Republican ad pushing for passage of the Protect America Act, also known as The Fourth Amendment is for Pussies Act.

My reply, to the Republican National Committee:

I have just watched your new ad, America at Risk. How can you shameless whores live with yourselves? It is President Bush who allowed this law to expire, through his "all or nothing" insistence, and refusal to accept an extension while a valid compromise is worked out.

Where do you draw the line between freedom and acceptable risk? It appears Republicans see no acceptable trade-offs; all freedoms are worth sacrificing for any scintilla of perceived safety.

You claim to be such patriots, and students of the original intent of the Founding Fathers. How do you reconcile these claims with the words of Benjamin Franklin "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security?"

Shame on you all.

Heroism in Government

Somewhere there must be a more craven, spineless, and detestable job than member of the United States House of Representatives. If so, it occupies a rung so low illegal immigrants won’t do it. Only lawyers and MBAs need apply.

General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker made the rounds of the House and Senate this week to deliver their much anticipated “report” on the status of Iraq. There were few surprises, as they painted a picture optimistic enough to allow hawks to roll out the predictable “stay the course” rhetoric, while staying on the safe side of what can be said under oath.

My day job prevented me from listening during the day, so I caught as much as I could stand in the car after work. Fortunately, the drive took only about an hour. Fully half of the “questioners” I heard – regardless of which side of the aisle they occupied – failed to ask a question. Ass coverings in the form of speeches abounded. Democrats, sensitive to charges they do not sufficiently support the troops, praised Petraeus as though he was Eisenhower, Grant, and MacArthur reincarnated in one package. Republicans – who really don’t support the troops except with verbiage, but are impervious to criticism – lobbed him softballs all day. Petraeus’s contention that he had not vetted or coordinated his testimony would have been more convincing had he not answered several Republican questions before they were asked.

The Senate was better: less overt partisanship, more probing questions. It doesn’t matter; nothing will change, except the level of vitriol directed at Democrats by those who don’t think they’re moving fast enough. They’re not moving fast enough, but it’s not because they think the war is accomplishing anything. It’s because they’re Democrats, who live their lives afraid that anything they say, do, or think will offend someone, somewhere, even if that person was no more likely to vote Democratic than George Bush is to win the Nobel Peace prize.

Republicans, good for so long at framing any political discussion, have missed the boat one hundred eighty degrees. It’s not that the Democrats lack the courage to stay in Iraq. The Democrats lack the courage to leave.