Category: Uncategorized

On the GOP victor named Moore.

He’s right-wing to his very core.

So Bannon has won.

When it’s all said and done

Can the Democrats show him the door?

As I noted previously, the Schroder labor reforms made Germany more prosperous, but they divided and demoralized the SPD, to the benefit of the CDU.  Hollande, on the other hand, initiated half-hearted reforms that accomplished little, but also divided and demoralized his party, which, however, still exists.

Macron is in a different position than either Schroder or Hollande.  The whole reason for being of his presidency is his willingness to push through reforms over the opposition of extreme left-wing unions.  He doesn’t have any symbols or history or class-consciousness to fall back on if he fails.  His presidency will simply wither and die.

And so, he has no choice but to move forward even if the polls are unfavorable and a Socialist, in his position, would have to back down. The former basketball coach at my alma mater referred to this as “the luxury of no alternative;” life is simpler if there is no viable Plan B.

It sounds kind of Napoleonic, doesn’t it?

In 2009, with the economy crashing around his ears, Barack Obama proposed a stimulus package that included both spending increases and tax cuts.  Virtually every respectable economist who has reviewed the history of the stimulus has concluded that the spending increases in particular had a relatively high multiplier, and that the economy would have been far worse without the legislation.  The GOP, however, derided the stimulus and claimed that it was a complete failure. The theory, of course, was that there was no multiplier, and that spending today only increased the deficit and resulted in less spending later, so a stimulus by definition only served to displace more productive spending by the private sector.

Today, with the unemployment rate below 5 percent and interest rates rising, the GOP is proposing tax cuts to increase existing levels of growth.  There is virtually unanimous Republican support for the idea of “dynamic scoring,” and some diehards will even say that the tax cuts will create so much growth, they will pay for themselves, even in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

I’m guessing you can see the inconsistency here.  You might even think there was another agenda at work.

NASCAR, hunting, and fishing are red sports.  The NBA and Formula One are blue sports.  Most other sports are in the middle, including the NFL.

Given its violence and military analogy and the facelessness of the players, you would expect the NFL to lean a bit to the red side, and it does.  However, it has plenty of blue fans, including me, and times are changing.  Many of the players are African-American, and the recent revelations regarding safety are a long-term threat to the viability of the league.  The NFL, in short, doesn’t need any more sources of controversy right now.

Trump probably thought that commenting on national anthem protests would play well with his base, which, of course, is the only thing he knows how to do. The impact of his comments, however, was to unite the players against him, and the owners, who are natural allies of his, were in no position to resist under the current circumstances.

The bottom line is that the NFL isn’t NASCAR, and when Jerry Jones, Bob Kraft, and Tom Brady disagree with you, you know you just screwed up.

The Burns/Novick series on Vietnam is an amazingly vivid and powerful piece of filmmaking.  I know it is because I can’t stop watching even though it is giving me nightmares.

One of the running themes of the program is that three American presidents continued to escalate the war and tell the public we were “winning” in spite of strong privately-held doubts because the fear of the consequences of “losing” was just too great.  The unspoken conclusion is that if only one of them had possessed the moral courage to stand in front of the escalation train and do what needed to be done, the story would have ended more happily.

That is exactly what Barack Obama did when he refused to enforce the red line, and why takes pride in his inaction, in spite of a foreign policy consensus to the contrary.  He could see that a short bombing campaign, by itself, would not bring down the Assad regime, but would lead to demands for further action, which could not logically have been stopped short of an occupation that he was determined to avoid.

Obama was half right.  Refusing to bomb wasn’t a mistake.  Drawing the line, however, was.

The great paradox of German politics is that Angela Merkel largely owes her position to Gerhard Schroder, whose labor reforms brought prosperity to the country and divided the SPD.  Being the junior partner in a coalition doesn’t exactly help your electoral prospects, either:  just ask the Liberal Democrats.

Merkel’s problem is that she has to wear two hats:  one as the German Chancellor, and the other as the leader of Europe.  They frequently take her in different directions, most notably on austerity.  How will she balance her responsibilities in what almost certainly will be her last term?  Will she work with Macron to try to bring some coherence to the EU, or just pursue Germany’s interests and muddle through?  Only time will tell.

I admit it:  Ta-Nehisi Coates drives me nuts.

Having spent the Obama Administration complaining that Obama was too white, calling for white people to pay reparations, and arguing that white people are fixated on breaking the bodies of black men (not something I’ve ever once thought about, and neither have you), he has belatedly discovered the virtues of the Obama years, and is appropriately indignant about Trump and his supporters in a new article in The Atlantic.  As usual, however, he goes way too far, and insists that the outcome of the election was solely dictated by racial views, and had nothing to do with the economic frustrations of white working people.

I don’t accept that West Virginia voted overwhelmingly for Trump because its citizens are bigots–not because they wanted their coal mining jobs back.  I don’t accept that businessmen voted for Trump because they are bigots, and not because they wanted deregulation and a big tax cut.  I don’t accept that evangelical Christians all voted for Trump because they are bigots, and not because they think their morals and their way of life is under threat.  I don’t accept that the vast majority of the white working class cares more about racial issues than their own economic well-being just because small farmers in the South were willing to fight for the Confederacy 150 years ago.

And what if he’s right?  How, exactly, is the Democratic Party supposed to regain power if it has no chance to regain the votes of millions of bigoted white workers? Going to West Virginia and telling unemployed miners that they should pay reparations is not exactly a winning electoral strategy.

I agree with Coates that Bernie Sanders’ class-based approach to American politics is simple-minded, and that identity issues, by and large, are much more important.  I do not agree, however, that race is the only part of identity that truly matters to the average voter.  Coates is almost as simple-minded and wrong as Sanders on that point.

 

Trump has a natural affinity for athletes and soldiers, because he can divide them into “winners” and “losers.”  That makes his new battle with LeBron James and Steph Curry very awkward for him.

What’s he going to do, call them “losers?”  They have five rings between them, and they are much more popular than he is.

Sometimes even the Wizard of Id should know that keeping his trap shut is the best option.

I’ve previously noted that the GOP’s stance on climate change is dramatically different from that of conservative parties in other energy-producing countries, such as Canada and Australia.  I attributed the difference to the greater popularity of right-wing religion and higher amounts of anti-state DNA in American culture.  I’m thinking now, however, that there is another culprit;  the environment is collateral damage in the culture wars.

What do I mean by that?  Well, the Reactionary faction of the GOP has no inherent interest in protecting the pocketbooks of fossil fuel producers. However, the Reactionaries view the American government as being nothing less than evil, given that it allegedly promotes the interests of “those people” over salt-of-the-earth white Christians, so any attempt to increase its power to do anything must be opposed to its utmost.  Since any effort to combat climate change inevitably involves both the use of scientists (a highly suspect non-Christian group) and the augmentation of state power, it must be resisted regardless of its policy implications.

I say “conservatives” because there is nothing genuinely conservative about pretending that an existential threat doesn’t exist.  As I see it, there are three separate strands of “conservative” thought:

1.  Climate change is a hoax.  It doesn’t exist.  Unfortunately, there is a mountain of objective, undisputed data which shows that the planet is warming. Taking this position requires you to ignore the evidence.

2.  Climate change is real, but is a purely natural phenomenon.  If you truly believe this, the logical response is to funnel money into capital improvements that address the symptoms of climate change, if not its causes.  That would require increased federal spending and a larger state.  As a result, #1 is more popular among “conservatives.”

3.  Climate change is real, and at least partly man-made, but doing anything about it won’t be cost-effective.  This approach essentially shifts the costs of climate change from fossil fuel producers to the victims of natural disasters; it doesn’t make them go away.  No politician is going to admit to believing that the fossil fuel industries are more important than the lives of the victims of Harvey, Irma, and Maria, but there you have it.

The best we can hope for in the foreseeable future is a shift to #2 and a realization, without openly admitting it, that it is more cost-effective to prepare for disasters than to pay for clean-up.

 

Donald Trump enters a room in a hotel in Beijing.  Kim Jong-un is waiting for him.  A Chinese government official is there as an observer.

KIM:  Mr. President!  Good to meet you at last!

TRUMP:  It’s good to meet you, too!  How should I address you?

KIM:  As Rocket Man?

TRUMP:  No, that was just a joke.

KIM:  Well, Dictator-for-Life sounds kind of formal and stuffy.  You can call me Mr. Kim.

TRUMP:  I wanted to start by saying that, in spite of appearances, we have plenty in common, and there is lots about you and your country that I admire.

KIM:  Such as?

TRUMP:  First of all, we both have awesome, outrageous hair.

KIM:  True.

TRUMP:  We’re both great trash-talkers.

KIM:  I agree.

TRUMP:  We both love golf.

KIM:  No, that was my dad.  I’m more into basketball.

TRUMP:  And that’s the fourth thing:  we both know and admire Dennis Rodman, although I had to fire him from Celebrity Apprentice.

KIM:  That was a big mistake.

TRUMP:  I also admire the way you stomp out your opponents.  You’re a winner! The way you execute your enemies shows great flair and imagination.  And you have great parades, with lots of impressive military hardware.  I want to do some of that, myself.

KIM:  Yeah, there’s nothing like a good military parade to show people you’re a winner and a real man.  Particularly with nukes!  There’s a reason missiles are shaped the way they are.

TRUMP:  I understand why you want to keep your nukes, but I have to tell you, we will have to turn your country into a cinder if you keep up the nuclear and missile tests.  My credibility as a winner is on the line.  I can’t lose on this.

KIM:  But we need those nukes to protect ourselves and impress the population. Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with the situation?

TRUMP:  Actually, I do.  I promise to you that we have no interest in regime change in your country.  In exchange for that, you would ship all of your nuclear material to China for safekeeping without telling anyone.  You can still do your missile launches and threaten us, and I’ll periodically say we’re going to destroy you.  No one will be the wiser, so your people will still be impressed.

KIM:  What if the information leaks?

TRUMP:  I’ll just call it fake news.  That’s what I always do.  My base believes anything I say.

KIM:  Why should I trust you?  You may be ripping up the Iran deal, and you even stiff your contractors.  How will I know that you’re not taking me to Trump University?

TRUMP:  That’s a legitimate point, but I would note that the US could have destroyed your country for the last sixty years, but we didn’t, because the ramifications to South Korea and China were too dangerous.  You have that as a guarantee.  Also, the Chinese could give you your stuff back if we violate the agreement.

KIM:  I’ll think about it.

Both men leave the hotel through a back door.

According to The Economist, both American envoys and General Suleimani have been trying to persuade the Kurds to postpone their referendum, which tells you that America’s relationship with Iran is more complicated than Trump makes it out to be.

Our policy since the Bush Administration has been to hold Iraq together, at least in part because we believed we would be the predominant outside influence on the Iraqi government.  In fact, the current Iraqi leadership is about as friendly to us as anyone could plausibly hope.  On the other hand, the Iranians also have plenty of reason to believe that a unified Iraq will always be subject to their control.   Only one of the two countries can be right.

If, for purposes of argument, you assume that the Iranians will probably gain the upper hand in Iraq, and that Iran is the devil, then isn’t it time to try something else? Wouldn’t it make sense to adopt something like the Biden Plan, support the Kurdish referendum, and start to patronize the Iraqi Sunnis?  An “Iraq” consisting of three parts, two of them friendly to the United States, would make more sense than a unified nation doing the bidding of a mortal enemy.

Admittedly, supporting Kurdish independence would piss off Erdogan, but he’s already playing footsie with Putin, so it might be a good idea to show him that we have other options, as well.

It’s worth considering.

My thoughts on the General Assembly speech:

1.  If the idea was to come across as an angry, bellicose, snarling force of nature, it worked admirably.
2.  Part of the purpose of the speech apparently was to try to reconcile the two opposing strands of Bannonism:  extreme nationalism and international cooperation against enemies of the West.  As such, it was a complete and utter failure.  We apparently believe in universal human rights in places like Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea, but in “sovereignty” for places like Saudi Arabia. You can be sure that the Russians and Chinese will have taken note.
3.  I can’t help thinking that Trump is prepared to go to war with North Korea if he is driven to it, but he really wants to go to war with Iran.
4. Who was the audience for this speech?  The strident tone won’t reassure our erstwhile allies.  Our enemies won’t be intimidated.  I can only conclude that it was just more red meat for his base, which in this context includes the governments of Israel and the Arab nations that hate Iran.

This one practically wrote itself.

Rocket Man

I packed my bags last night, for flight.

Zero hour, nine a.m.

‘Cause the bomb’ll be higher than a kite flies then.

I miss my home so much; I miss my wife.

It’s lonely underground.

On such an endless flight.

 

(Chorus)

And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time

Till fallout’s all cleaned out; survivors find

I’m not the man I used to be at all.

Oh, no, no, no.

I’m a rocket man.

Rocket man

Living on what’s left for everyone.

 

This ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids.

In fact, it’s dark as hell.

And there’s no one there to raise them

If you did.

And all the conflict I don’t understand.

I only know I have to go.

A rocket man.

A rocket man.

 

(Repeat chorus)

 

Parody of “Rocket Man” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

 

So Trump wants to have a big military parade (glorifying himself) on July 4. What a shock!  The only problem is that D.C. doesn’t have a street or a square suitable for the purpose.

I can see it now:  let’s demolish some useless old 19th century buildings and create Trump Square for our parade!  It would have to be bigger than Red Square, of course.  It would be yuge!