Motley Moose – Archive

When my son was three, every time he was faced with something that went against his desires, he would scrunch up his little face, clench his little fists, and veritably roar “THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY FAIR!!!”  Anyone who has raised, worked with, or spent any time with pre-schoolers will be familiar with the fact that they are obsessed with fairness, which to them means getting what they want.  Ayn Rand’s acolytes would certainly advocate we encourage them to retain this preliminary definition of fairness.  Consider John Galt’s oath from Atlas Shrugged: “I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.”  This has become the guiding principle of modern conservativism, which simultaneously tries to maintain it’s claim to being the party of patriotism, the party that reveres military service, traditional marriage, and devotion to family and community.  They then demean liberals as spoiled cry-babies who want free handouts.  Even though they think a society of people who understand fairness as selfishness will function productively and ethically, they denigrate those who want our economic and political system to be more fair for all Americans as inherently immature and selfish.  Then they argue that their selfishness, the selfishness of the free market, of the ultra-rich and corporate elites will restore us to prosperity.  It’s perverse.  Knots of perversity here.  But this also suggests that we aren’t making the most effective argument.

Instead of moralizing about fairness and equal opportunity, which I indeed see as guiding principles of any ethical society, we need to argue for our policies from a different but equally true and potentially more persuasive angle.  The levels of income inequality we are seeing aren’t just morally and ethically unacceptable, they are unsustainable.  Instead of arguing that the 1% must pay their fair share, we’ve got to hammer away at the fact that the 1% are cannibalizing the system by devouring the middle class.  To paraphrase Yeats, if the center will not hold, things will fall apart.  

We aren’t trying to fleece or soak the rich out of envy or resentment or laziness or entitlement.  We are trying to save the system.  There is no historical evidence that the market contains the mechanisms to correct and sustain itself.  Marx recognized that capitalism was vulnerable to increasingly radical cycles of boom and bust.  He was right on that point.  He was also optimistic that this would lead to a moment of unsustainability that would also represent an opportunity for the proletariat created by these cycles to rise up and create something better.  Not so sure on that one.  And as I have written before, I used to think the revolution a beautiful idea, but somehow they always end up shooting the Jewish professors and that’s not really gonna work out for me.  What’s left is Keynes.  Keynes ultimately agreed with Marx’s critique, but eschewed his teleological optimism.  So he envisioned a limited but targeted and activist role for government to intervene and guarantee the system’s sustainability when necessary.  If he recognized the progression of capitalism’s symptoms, he feared any radical cure and instead sought to manage it as a flawed but reasonably maintainable chronic condition.  And even Marx evinced great respect for the productive and creative ability of capitalism.

The market will not restore its own balance.  The moneyed elites will fiddle while we all burn if they can’t see opportunities to profit.  We could hand the contents of Fort Knox to the top 1% and the so-called “job creators” wouldn’t create a single job.  They’d look at the instability and lack of demand and sit on it just as they are doing now.  Government must tax them in order to create jobs that will demonstrate the stable growth of demand for products and services.  Even if we double taxes on the top 1%, if they recognize that demand, i.e. the opportunity to profit, they will begin to hire people.  Then government will step back and they will continue to prosper.

So let’s stop screaming “THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY FAIR” and start focusing, with a fanatic republican-style devotion to simple rhetorical talking points, on trying to save the system for everybody.  Then our arguments for how that must happen will explode the simplistic assumptions about taxes and government spouted by conservatives who applaud their own selfishness and degrade others as selfish.

Preaching to the choir here.  I know.  I’ve written much of this before.  Just had to get it out.  

Imagine you were citizen of a country that, at a moment of economic turmoil, insecurity, and disappointment in the majority of public and private institutions of power, elected a man with the following qualifications as your president:

– Poet with three volumes of original verse in print

– Former University lecturer with a Ph.D. in Sociology

– Former mayor of a major city and longstanding member of the lower legislative house (like the Commons or House of Representatives) known for bi-lingual speeches that cite authorities ranging from Kant to contemporary economic theories and writers and poets from multiple traditions

– Internationally renowned Human Rights activist and advocate

– The leader of a social democratic party for a generations that has never controlled a government but has held fast to principles of individual dignity and equality of opportunity for all citizens even when irresponsible free market exuberance was at its zenith

– A man who is recognized as a political and humanitarian idealist of unimpeachable personal integrity

Well, that’s what Ireland did when it elected Michael D. Higgins as its ninth president this weekend.  

–after the fold for more

And ANOTHER conservative talking point runs head first into DATA and ANALYSIS (my apologies to conservative Americans for the condescension inherent in recourse to credible knowledge).  It won’t stop self-proclaimed “private sector problem solvers” who are seeking the Republican nomination from continuing to repeat the canard, nor will the canard disappear from every floor speech and interview given by McConnell, Boehner, Kyl, DeMint, Cantor, and Ryan (damn I’m glad not to be British and have to refer to them as “the right honourable….”).

Anyway, here ’tis:

Last week at a Senate hearing Secretary Geithner said, “I’m very sympathetic to the argument you want to be careful to get the rules better and smarter, but I don’t think there’s good evidence in support of the proposition that it’s regulatory burden or uncertainty that’s causing the economy to grow more slowly than any of us would like.”

Economists from across the political spectrum have also weighed into this debate and reached the same conclusion.  Bruce Bartlett, a senior advisor in both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, said that “no hard evidence” has been offered for claims that regulation is the “principal factor holding back employment.”  And in a recent Wall Street Journal survey of economists, 65 percent of respondents concluded that a lack of demand, not government policy, was the main impediment to increased hiring.

Nonetheless, two commonly repeated misconceptions are that uncertainty created by proposed regulations is holding back business investment and hiring and that the overall burden of existing regulations is so high that firms have reduced their hiring.

If regulatory uncertainty was a major impediment to hiring right now, we would expect to see indications of this in one or more of the following: business profits; trends in the workforce, capacity utilization, and business investment; differences between industries undergoing significant regulatory changes and those that are not; differences between the United States and other countries that are not undergoing the same changes; or surveys of business owners and economists.  As discussed in a detailed review of the evidence below, none of these data support the claim that regulatory uncertainty is holding back hiring.

Read the whole thing:http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Is-Regulatory-Uncertainty-a-Major-Impediment-to-Job-Growth.aspx

Once you have done this, you will qualify as either a condescending elitist or a dupe of George Soros.  But it should make it clear how hard we must fight against these liars.  These are not differences of opinion anymore.  Posturing has replaced problem solving.  And everything hangs in the balance.  

So last night at the latest in this new reality TV series that we call “Republican Debates,” Governor Rick Perry, who has been derided for performances that suggest he hasn’t done his homework seemed to quote a great American poet:

Charlie, as the son of tenant farmers and a young man who had the opportunity to wear the uniform of my country, and then the great privilege to serve as the governor of the second- largest state in this country, I’ve got not only the CEO experience but also working with the private sector to create the jobs.  And that’s what people are begging for.  Talking to that out-of-work rig worker out in the Gulf of Mexico today, they’re begging for someone to make America America again.

Now it’s not clear that this was intentional.  Indeed, it seems unlikely, not only because the poet in question, Langston Hughes, differed so significantly from Perry on just about everything, but because Perry seems an unlikely reader of poetry by anyone and an unlikely reader generally.

But I can’t think of a better poet, or a better poem of his, to recommend to Perry and his fellow republican candidates.  Forgive me for taking the editorial liberty of bolding the most pertinent passages for them.

Let America Be America Again  

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one’s own greed!



I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That’s made America the land it has become.

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home–

For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,

And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came

To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?

Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we’ve dreamed

And all the songs we’ve sung

And all the hopes we’ve held

And all the flags we’ve hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay–

Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again–

The land that never has been yet–

And yet must be–the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath–

America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain–

All, all the stretch of these great green states–

And make America again!

In this age of growing wealth disparity, words like these are derided as divisive class warfare, as sentiments that oppress and impede those who hold the possibilities of prosperity in reserve.  The message seems to be that if we stop demanding it and cease to seek it, they will dispense it.

When in history has that ever happened before.

Unlike Herman Cain, I guess Hughes never quite made it off “the liberal plantation.”  I guess he just wanted “someone else’s cadillac.”  

Searing poem.  Yesterday, I taught the St, Crispin’s day speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V.  It is also framed to inspire a sense of shared national purpose and unity.  This poem is every bit its aesthetic equal, with a better argument.  Cain and Perry and all of the rest of them should read it.  I suggest at next week’s Las Vegas gathering, they open by having the candidates read it out loud, alternating stanzas in a circle.

Then the should answer a question about whether they support the poem’s message, whether or not they thing it is still relevant, and if not then they should explain why the oppose it.

In answer to repeated queries regarding David Frum’s republican bona fides and commitments, Frum posted the following reasons, or principles of his continued commitment to a party that he has been eloquently describing as off the rails.  He’s a serious contemporary American political thinker and his piece (http://www.frumforum.com/why-i-am-a-republican) raises questions about what it means to be a republican, past, present, and future.  Here are my considerations of these principles.

The Republicans are the party of American nationalism. We live in a world in which powerful economic, demographic and cultural forces are breaking down the concept of the nation altogether. But if nations don’t matter, why should rich Americans care about the distress of poorer Americans – who, after all, remain inconceivably wealthy by the standards of poor Africans? The flag-and-country themes of the GOP can be kitschy. They also are the indispensable basis of any idea of social cohesion across the vast continent.

First off, how is the party of FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, and Hubert Humphrey not also a “party of American nationalism”???  I was a bit surprised that he started out with this, as it simply echoes a longstanding republican canard and does so in an uncritical way.  But beyond that, what he argues here is that only nationalism, as opposed to social structures and mechanisms can ensure a necessary communitarian break on an unstastainable radical libertarian liberalism.  While I applaud his acknowledgment that a successful modern society must locate itself somewhere on the spectrum between communitarianism and [classical] liberalism, and between socialism and capitalism, and that these terms describe outer limits in their purest and most abstract form as opposed to conflicting opposites, it seems odd (particularly in light of the past decade) that he still believes that a nationalist sentiment can and will regulate this balance in a productive and sustainable manner.  Furthermore, he can only see nationhood through the lens of a chauvanistic nationalism.  There are other options.  I agree that some fellow feeling, some cultural and narrative bond between citizens is necessary for a republic of our size.  But why can’t it be a sense of nationhood that sees itself as inclusive on the one hand and as participating within a cosmopolitan whole on the other?  But again, if he really believes that nationalism can maintain us in a sustainable position on the spectrum between communitarian socialism and liberal capitalism, he’s got to get over his fantasy.  And the Democratic Party needs to reexamine this premise as much as the republicans do.

more below the fold

This evening at sundown, many Jews all over the world begin observing Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.  Contrary to some popular beliefs and medieval slanders, the day is not a “get out of all obligations free” card.  The sages carefully distinguish between transgressions relating to what are solely religious obligations and ethical obligations.  The former may be atoned through Yom Kippur.  The latter may not, unless there is a prior effort not only to seek forgiveness from those one might have offended or wronged, but a sincere offer to make amends.  If one attempts to do so three separate times and is refused, then the issue moves into the other category.  Accordingly, it is traditional for Jews to ask pardon of everyone they know on the eve of the holiday for any offense they might have given, consciously or not.  In that spirit, I ask pardon of all Moose for any offense I have given in the past year, whether known to me or not, and offer to make amends in any way that I can.

(I told you this was random in the freaking title, so don’t look for elegant segues here).

OWS is a distinctly promising phenomenon.  One of the criticisms is that it isn’t completely clear what the movement is trying to accomplish.  I’m of the opinion that this is less of a problem than the lack of any organizing symbol or image or name.  Occupy Wall Street is wholly negative, and amorphously so.  Should the financial system simply close up shop?  Then what?  Is it supposed to hand over all its profits to the protesters?  There might be a few participants who feel that way, but most aren’t looking for an immediate structural revolution to transform us into something we haven’t yet articulated.  At this juncture, there needs to be some symbol or rallying cry that resonates.  The “Tea Party” has that.  This movement, if it’s going to provide a counter-balance, needs something comparable.

If democrats are going to successfully push conservatives back on their heels, they have to start running against the Tea Party.  This isn’t purely tactical.  The Republican Party has ceased to function in any real sense.  There are no GOP  moderates, and no diversity of opinion in the GOP.  Boehner, Cantor, Ryan, McConnell, Romney, all of them operate at the beck and call of the Tea Party.  We need to run against the Tea Party directly.  Voting for any republican at this point is tantamount to voting for an idiot in a tricorn hat with tea bags hanging off of it (oddly resembling tampons, but that might just be my issue) and screaming for government to leave his medicare alone.  Let’s isolate the degree to which these people, who constantly invoke the “will of the people” do not hold opinions on any significant issue that even approaches representing the perspectives of most Americans.  How many Americans support higher taxes for those making over a million dollars?  75%.  That’s right.  75% of Americans are for increasing taxes on millionaires and billionaires.

And we’ve got to stop avoiding the demonization of taxes.  Michael Medved revealed the degree to which he is a bona fide ass yesterday when he quoted Obama and others who saluted the ingenuity and creative economic contributions of Steve Jobs and asked whether Jobs should have been “punished” with higher taxes.  First of all, he’s a real guy who just died, and so Medved, in tune with conservative patterns of decorum and decency, used him to try to score a political point.  Secondly, Jobs was vocally committed to liberal causes.  I’d be shocked if he would have objected to paying a higher tax rate.  But most importantly, it’s unamerican to call federal taxes a punishment, or slavery, or rape, or theft, or anything else they call them.  Every time one of these people speaks in this manner, they should face a fire storm of accusations exposing how absurd these analogies are, how insensitive to real injustices, and mostly how distinctly anti-American they are.  Taxes pay for soldiers and teachers and firefighters, and humanitarian aid, and infrastructure, and the regulations that keep companies from poisoning us in an attempt to squeeze another quarter of percent of profit.  It may be impossible to make a full on enthusiastic pro-tax argument.  But we must defend the principle and practice of taxation from the tee party slanders.  That is something we can and must do.  

And for John in sincere solidarity: GO TIGERS!!!

It wasn’t much.  Things are tight.  But getting Warren’s voice in the Senate seems even bigger than taking a seat back.

I think we should start a practice at the Moose, where when one of us makes a contribution to any cause we post an announcement diary.  If the two minutes it’s taking me to type this plants the idea and even one moose thinks they can send a little something, it’s worth it.  It’s also a way of sharing our priorities and commitments and discussing them.

Here’s the Warren ActBlue page:

https://secure.actblue.com/con…

We are used to conservatives employing “wedge issues” to swing elections.  We often see these as cynical.  But for may conservatives, who are sincerely committed to these social issues, it also works the other way around.  Presidential elections offer opportunities to pursue their social agenda, as well as using that agenda to maximize support for their presidential candidate.  We often consider this a divisive tactic, but only because the issues they pursue (opposition to reproductive rights and marriage equality) are inherently divisive stances.  I’ll never forget commercials supporting the highly regressive and restrictive 2004 referendum on marriage here in MI.  A saccharine and ingratiating female voice over proclaiming “One fair set of laws for everyone” or something like that.  Every man is free to marry a woman and every woman is free to marry a man.  How can anyone fail to see how “fair” legally enforced hetero-normativity can be?  But my point is that there is nothing wrong with using an election year to promote a social issue and using a social issue to promote support for a candidate.

I’m wondering whether it might not be time to dust off the Equal Rights Amendment (with apologies to those devoted activists who have never flinched from promoting it).  We are only 3 states short.  The list of states that have not ratified it includes: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.  Several of these are swing states (FL, MO, NC, VA) that will depend upon turnout.

Here’s the text:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

Opponents argue that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment already covers this.  But that same amendment identifies the electorate as “male” explicitly, for the first time in the Constitution.  Justice Antonin Scalia has expressed doubt that its wording provides legal protection from discrimination based on sex.

It would certainly help maximize women’s turnout and progressive turnout and affect the composition of state legislatures.  

The bonus?  If we succeed, there could be no greater tribute to Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg, one of the finest individuals in American public life in the past fifty years.  She has been recognized, by President Clinton among many others, as the “Thurgood Marshall of women’s rights.”  What better way to affirm that her contributions will reverberate for generations.

The official (and quite helpful) official site:

http://www.equalrightsamendmen…

SO what do you think?  Would there be real political benefit?  Is there another issue to rev up the base and activate some independents?

How am I supposed to keep up?  5 new diaries a day?  Introductions demanding welcoming responses?  And fogiv wants me to be banging on stuff and Peter’s gone on a nostalgia trip re-living MyDD by re-posting his ancient and profound reflections on progressive and democratic values…

How’s a Moose supposed to keep up?  This is why I never posted on KOS, though I always check the morning pundit round-up.  MyDD in its day was even a bit much for me to handle.  But at least a good percentage of the folks there were trolls who could be played with or ignored.  How am I supposed to handle this increase in thoughtfulness?

Welcome to all the newbies and those who have popped in over the years when I have been popped out.  If I haven’t gotten to your diary it’s only because of…well…that life stuff we all need to do in order to facilitate our blogging.  It’s not lack of interest.  However the KOS mess resolves, I hope you’ll keep MM in your rotation (or on your bookmark tool bar or whatever).  I’ve always enjoyed the relative intimacy of this forum (Blask, take your filthy virtual hand off my flabby virtual [I’ll let you finish that one in your heads so the visual will be partly your responsibility]) but I also have thought it a shame that more haven’t participated and benefited.  If I get a tad cantankerous, most of the time it’s me and not you (though not always).  Hope to see you all around for a good long time.

And now I need a good segue to show off my new guitar…hmmm…maybe…CONSERVATIVES HAVE TOTALLY GONE OFF THE RAILS AND WE NEED TO GET PERRY TO TAKE TEXAS AND SECEDE ALREADY AND…CHECK OUT MY AMAZING GRADUATION PRESENT!!!