Motley Moose – Archive

My problem is: The takers. The takers. Maybe they should take less. Why do we create more and more programs for the takers? Why are they the constant subject of our existence? Why are they the constant priority of our economy? The takers. They’re never asked to give back anything.

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So what we need to do, ladies and gentlemen, is generate more revenues. How do we do it? We steal it. That’s how, we just take it from the rich. And who are the rich? Millionaires and billionaires who aren’t millionaires and billionaires. Small businesses, mostly. We just take it.

http://www.realclearpolitics.c…

The poor are selfish and the government mugs innocent givers, presumably, on their behalf.  That’s right.  The American people steal from contributors to feed the selfish parasites who only care about themselves.  And we do so obsessively.  If we would just forget about the needy and ignore them…

I want a poll, with as large a sample size as possible, of American citizens who hold a PhD in economics, formatted as such:

The 2009 Stimulus was:

a. Too small

b. Too big (including if you think no stimulus was warranted)

c. Just right

The 2009 Stimulus was:

a. Distributed effectively

b. Too heavy on tax cuts

c. Too light on tax cuts

Public investment in infrastructure projects over the past 3 years has been:

a. Appropriate

b. Insufficient

c. Excessive

The past three years in economic history suggest:

a. Keynes theories are fundamentally sound

b. Friedman’s critique of Keyes was fundamentally sound

c. We need to develop a hybrid model for preventing and easing future economic crises

Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN), GOP darling and former Bush budget director who responded to President Obama’s recent SOTU is:

a. Our national hope

b. Someone fundamentally incapable or resistant to  learning from data and experience

There should be cross tabs for where respondents are currently employed: academy, private sector for profit, private sector non-profit (NGO), Government

Every now and then, Bruce takes another hack at writing his own “This Land is Your Land,” a populist, inclusive, communitarian nationalist anthem.  This one is even more blatant than most, and teeters on the edge of unintentional self-parody.  Yet it’s somehow sustained by Springsteen’s unflinching sincerity, a more welcome than expected naive exuberance.  It also should be considered the first major campaign ad for Obama’s reelection and should end with the title of this diary.

If the Euro goes into a tailspin this summer, it will undoubtedly scuttle economic recovery in the US.  Can Obama win if Europe fails?

I’ve argued several times here that we are making a weaker argument, with regard to rhetorical effectiveness, than we might be.  It’s not about moral fairness, or at least not only about that.  It’s about sustainable economic growth.  To paraphrase a conservative politician from Ireland, who was also a fair poet, without the center, our economy and our republic cannot hold.  Things will fall apart.  And I don’t mean the political center but the middle class.

Congratulations, Mr. Tomasky.  Somehow, my message has gotten through:

I have praised Barack Obama on previous occasions for finally (after nearly three years) figuring out he needs to position himself as the defender of the middle class and the Republicans as the defenders of the wealthy. It’s been a big improvement. But he’s still mostly missing something, and it’s a very important something-something Democrats miss a lot. Obama, in the standard Democratic fashion, is largely making an argument about society. Republicans, in contrast, offer a theory about economic growth. Now, the Republicans’ theory is a ridiculous lie. But even so, it is much more arresting and persuasive as an argument because it is tied to crucial end results. Obama and the Democrats will have far less trouble selling their message if they figure out how to construct their case more the way Republicans do.

Read the rest here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/a…

The facts are on our side.  Of course we want a fairer and more egalitarian society.  But no one likes the kid on the playground who is always crying about fairness in the middle of the game.  But the kid who can organize the game successfully by getting all the kids involved is on track to win class president and team captain.

Maybe I’m off base and irritable this morning, but I just received a fundraising email from the dscc that I find despicable and potentially disastrous.  I’m assuming many of you received the same.

Quoting Jason Rosenbaum, info@dscc.org:

The next 24 hours will determine our nation’s political path: We either re-elect President Obama. Or President Gingrich or President Romney destroy working families and hand everything to the top 1%.

I really need you to take a look at this spreadsheet. Our make-or-break FEC deadline is 24 hours from now, and we’re still $255,000 short. This is the first deadline since the GOP presidential contest turned from circus to serious. Whether or not we hit this goal will determine who wins: President Obama, or a radical  Republican.

Reach this goal, and we have a fighting chance to keep President Obama in office and prevent a total GOP takeover. Fall short, and President Gingrich or President Romney will be calling the shots  before a Republican Congress a year from now.

Can you chip in $5 now?

https://dscc.org/give2?

No explanation of what this FEC deadline is, or what it represents.  Just “Republican boogey man! Republican boogey man!  $5 right now or he eats the middle class!  $5 will make him go away!”

Here’s my response:

Can you perhaps explain to us why this, as opposed to any and every other fundraising goal between now and next Nov. will determine the outcome?  Shall I understand that if this goal is not met I shouldn’t bother doing anything else to re-elect the president because the race is lost?  Does this goal REALLY carry the weight of an actual election in which votes are cast and counted?

And should I expect a stream of continuous ‘gun to the head’ appeals from now until Nov.?  “Either give us money RIGHT THIS MINUTE or you are putting the country in the hands of the GOP.”  

I am as strong a supporter of this president as you will meet.  But this appeal is truly offensive and borderline unethical.  I will not contribute today ON PRINCIPLE.  If I validate this tactic, I encourage it.  And I cannot think of a more effective way to discourage and demoralize grass roots participation.  You don’t need to employ hyperbolic, emotionally manipulative, and borderline extortionist rhetoric.  If you continue to do so, YOU will be responsible for putting a Republican in the White House and placing control of both houses of congress in republican hands.

Am I off my rocker, or are they?

As I am doubtful that anyone will actually read my response, and it’s likely that it will just be bounced back to me, if you are reading, jsfox, please pass this along.  I really don’t think we get traction with this kind of crap.

The left has abdicated the discourse of freedom.  Or, at least, unsuccessfully contested it.  Recently, someone I know in another context began to argue the Beckian line (if Glenn merits an “-ian”) with me that there has been a century long degradation of freedom in the U.S.  Plenty of progressive commentators have pointed out that the right in this country no longer wants to return to some mythically blissful fantasy of 1950s America, but to the 1890s…when we were more free?  Really?

First off, when I think about freedom, I think about it’s negative and positive functions.  I value freedom from oppression.  My great-grandfather, as a Jewish orphan, was forcibly conscripted into the Czar’s cavalry.  After 15 years he got out, married, had two children and then figured out he had better get his young family out of Belarus in the Russian Empire.  On the other side of my family, a great uncle who stayed in Berlin likely went up a smokestack in Dachau.  The only thing we know definitively is that I bear an uncanny resemblance to him.  The last solid information we have on him was from when he was in his mid twenties.  Boy am I glad neither side of my family decided to stick around and see how things were going to turn out.  I’ve also been in a position to participate in the impediment of movement and of the flow of resources in an un-free population in my military service in Israel.  We can debate whether the restrictions I helped implement are justified or not, or who is at fault.  But regardless, I understand the desire for negative freedom, the freedom from less than benevolent authorities.  I get that very well.

But I also think about freedom in its positive sense.  There are public school classrooms in Detroit that don’t have reliable heating.  How free is a child to learn when he or she is freezing.  What about the freedom to receive healthcare?  How free is someone if he or she has asthma and no place to turn?  How free is someone who is hungry?  What about freedom and equality of opportunity?  Aren’t these part of the American political project?  Aren’t these freedoms part of what makes us historically significant?

Then there is the fact that I consider my freedom as directly linked to the society in which I live.  I don’t want to be free, I want US to be free.  A feudal lord might have had extensive freedom.  But he was not a member of a free society.  100 years ago in this country, white Protestant men who came from economically established families may indeed have been more free than they are today.  But everyone else, the vast majority of us, were significantly less free, in both negative and positive senses.  

WE have never been more free.  And WE are not yet sufficiently free.  The right has a program to increase our negative freedom in ways that will enhance the positive freedom only of those who already enjoy economic benefits.  The rest of us will be left to overcrowded, under-equipped classrooms and emergency rooms and told to find our own bootstraps.  

No thanks.  We want more freedom than that.  With MLK day approaching, and on this his actual birthday, we need to re-learn King’s insight that freedom isn’t just about who sits where on a bus.  

Unless we have equality of opportunity in this country, we are not free.  If we believe that progressive policies will increase freedom, as I most certainly do, then we must not cede the mantle of “the cause of liberty” and of “the love of freedom” to those whose polices will make us decidedly less free.

Well my dear Mooseses, Thanksgiving is upon us once more.  I taught Shax’s Venus and Adonis this morning, his sexiest work by far and very weird, then spent an hour or so in one of my favorite guitar stores (Elderly in Lansing MI) fed the kids and took my oldest for a shopping run as the foreplay for the feast begins tonight.  We are having my wife’s sibs and their children, all coming from Chicagoland tomorrow.  I’ll be making bbq beef ribs and a variation on my drunk and smoked turkey.

In a mixing bowl on my counter is a bit over a gallon of liquid.  Two kinds of bourbon (one good and one for volume) half a pint of stout, a quart of apple cider, 2 cups of cider vinegar, scant half a cup of kosher salt (it’s a kosher bird so salt must be used sparingly as the koshering process basically brines it already), brown sugar, maple syrup, lemon and pepper, herbes d’provence, and olive oil are all whisked in a mixing bowl on the counter.  I need to add a few smashed garlic cloves.  In an hour, my lovely and brilliant wife will help me put the turkey inside two large garbage bags, pour the liquid over the bird and tie it up around Thurs. night’s dinner.  I’ll rotate the bird every 6 hours or so until 8 AM thurs. when I’ll drain it and let it come to room temp while outside charcoal, hickory and apple woods all heat up.  Before putting the bird on the grill with the coals arranged for indirect heat, I’ll wrap the breast very tightly in foil.  After two hours or so, I’ll load the cavity with sauteed shallots, garlic cloves, and button mushrooms.  Here’s hoping it’s a good one.

So what are moose doing and cooking?  Share a memory and something to be thankful for.  I’ve got three healthy and astonishingly fabulous kids, a great marriage, a Ph.D. and work that I love, and two amazing guitars with a terrific tube amp.  Feeling pretty thankful tonight.  And thankful for my lovely moose.

It ain’t gonna happen.  But it would represent a huge opportunity.  Can you imagine if any Democratic candidate called into question the level of information and knowledge possessed by his or her opponent, and the same lack in the punditocracy?  Newt has been scoring points by sneering that the media mis-reports the economy and that no one who disagrees with him knows history.  Basically, he’s surging in the polls since Cain was revealed as a cad and he has wrapped himself in what Jon Stewart has called “dickishness.”  In doing so, Newt puts facts on the table.  

Can you imagine Obama unleashed to confront his sneers about facts with arguments?  It’s a vertiable invitation to be professorial and the context would defuse accusations of arrogance and condescension.  Newt wants to repeat the canard that regulation is impeding our economic recovery?  Obama can refute it with actual analysis.  Newt wants to spin his…well…spin about how Reaganism is responsible for all late 20th-century economic growth?  Obama can lay out a significantly more convincing counter-narrative.  In the process, Republican sacred cow ideological talking points will be laid on the altar.  We can actually argue them.  Newt opens the questions, Obama leads us in the refutations.  My money is on Obama winning those debates.  Maybe this is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for to cut through GOP obfuscations.

It won’t happen.  But if it did, Newt would be exposed as the big fat ideologically over-determined pus…oh well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words: