July 27, 2009
The First Reform
Let's say — hypothetically — that we have a new constitutional convention. A fairly complete rewrite of the original. In that case, my first suggestion would be to get rid of the Senate. It was never intended, anyway, as an engine of democracy. It was foremost a barrier, a wall, protecting slaveholder states. And its historical character, however forgotten or misunderstood, haunts us still. It simply cannot function in a manner compatible with democracy, except perhaps in extreme crisis. (Health care being today's example of systemic failure.) The U.S. Senate should be junked, replaced with a unicameral legislature. And good riddance.
July 23, 2009
Deconstructing the Polls
Notwithstanding Nate Silver's uncanny ability to guess correctly at all sorts of outcomes, I'm very skeptical of poll numbers. In the latest Washington Post - ABC News poll, for example, Mr. Obama's numbers begin to look somewhat shaky. The Washington establishment interprets that as a result of moderate and conservative Democrats, and some independents, breaking away over deficits and government spending. On the surface it might seem to be a reasonable interpretation of the data. As might the establishment's advice, therefore, that Mr. Obama veer to the center-right. But the pollsters have not really looked carefully at or thought about who answers what questions.
July 22, 2009
Riding the "Green Wave" at the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and Beyond
By Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
There are many problems with the Campaign for Peace and Democracy's "Question & Answer on the Iran Crisis," issued by the CPD on July 7, and widely circulated since then. [1]
The CPD adopted this format, it tells us, because "some on the left, and others as well, have questioned the legitimacy of and the need for solidarity with the anti-Ahmadinejad movement," and the CPD believes "those questions need to be squarely addressed."
We believe, on the contrary, that the CPD's 13 questions-and-answers do little to clarify issues related to Iran's June 12 presidential election and its tumultuous aftermath, and even less to help leftists and "American progressives" decide how they should respond to them.
Continue reading "Riding the "Green Wave" at the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and Beyond"...
July 21, 2009
A Dark Hole of Darkness: The Federal Reserve
For those who missed it, this recent article by William Greider on the Fed is a must-read. While I might have a different emphasis here or there, and I would add some comments on the role that contemporary economic theory has played, I think that Greider makes an exceptionally important contribution in framing the issues. (I've asked him for an interview a couple times, by the way, but never received a response. Believe it or not, that happens. ☺ If anybody knows of a good Greider substitute please tell me.)
Another Crummy Pick
It's pretty mind-boggling to read the court eunuch David Brooks' column this morning, where he blames Mr. Obama's falling poll numbers on the latter's "liberal" orientation. I have to believe that not even Brooks could be so cynical, but must be completely confused. What exactly has Mr. Obama done that's "liberal"? Perhaps on health care he's belated realized that anemic reform, or no reform, may become a serious political liability but until the last few days he's shown little to no interest in the issue. So let's recap: Mr. Obama is digging in deeper in Iraq, "surging" in Afghanistan/Pakistan; he's bailing out Wall Street to the tune of trillions but failing to provide substantial assistance to main street; he's leaving the Pentagon spending machine intact; he's placing business lobbyists in senior positions throughout government... And just to pick up the latter point, look at yesterday's nomination of Bob Hormats to be the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. (That is, by the way, the top economic job at State.)
July 17, 2009
A Note re In These Times
The magazine In These Times has been around for over thirty years, but the current environment is a difficult one. To survive, they've cut costs drastically (layoffs) and have taken on a lot of new, volunteer editors. When they asked me to join their Board of Editors a couple months ago, of course I agreed. It's kind of cool to be on a masthead and I'm enjoying the work. Knock on wood, the plan will keep the magazine going!! You might want to visit In These Times, to see what we're up to. I don't, by the way, expect much of an impact on EP podcast operations except perhaps a broadened scope from various synergies.
July 15, 2009
Southern Senators
What a sight these old crackers make. One almost has the impression with someone like Senator Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell, Jr., the Republican Minority Leader, that he's from another planet. And he might as well be. The white southern base of the Republican Party is poor and poorly educated: as we move into the twenty first century the differences between them and the rest of the country are becoming extremely pronounced. What plays in Alabama or Kentucky makes little sense outside the South, where people are more experienced about choosing the lesser of two evils when it comes to the influence of corporate interests. In modern America corporate solidarity hiding behind the face of white solidarity just won't cut it anymore. But the old crackers can't adapt. My guess is that their political clout will continue to shrink for a long time.
July 14, 2009
From Scrip to Constitutional Rewrite
'If you want to see the future of the U.S., look at what's happening in California,' or so the saying goes. Perhaps that's not always true but in one critically important respect it is: California's political stalemate, which presages a national political stalemate — but not by much — is structural. California's constitution requires a 2/3 vote from the state senate for approval of a budget. Republicans won't agree to raise taxes. Democrats won't agree to cut programs to the bone. Without a budget the state must issue scrip to pay its bills. The situation is so intractable that a lot of Californians, from across the political spectrum, are calling for a state constitutional convention. A lot of large businesses are lending support, as is the Los Angeles Times. According to news reports the movement is gaining serious traction. And we should all hope that it succeeds.
July 12, 2009
Server OS Upgrade
Speaking of tech glitches, Bluehost this morning upgraded the OS on the server that hosts EP — during the upgrade the site was inaccessible for a few hours longer than expected. Sorry for the interruption. Everything appears to be working normally now but if you notice any issues please let me know.
July 8, 2009
Flakey Verizon Routers
Yesterday at around 10:00 p.m. local time my internet service broke down. According to what I was told, one of the main Verizon routers for this area failed, taking out all of Verizon's DSL service in DC and some surrounding areas. Repairs weren't even partially successful until some time between eight this morning and noon. Service is still intermittent. I know that Verizon operates with an unusually aggressive profit seeking sort of behavior, but I'm nevertheless surprised that they didn't build greater redundancy into their system. After all, they provide internet service for much of the nation's capital. I wonder how common this sort of outage would be elsewhere, outside the U.S.? Well, it's either a pathetic lapse or the NSA is installing some kind of new-fangled monitoring equipment... which would be just as bad. At least — thank heavens — the problem didn't happen on a Friday morning! (If you're wondering, this was why comments yesterday took so long to clear.)
July 6, 2009
The Agony of Robert Strange McNamara (1916-2009)
For a lot of dead Americans Bob might as well have been God. Probably he understood that, but I doubt it ever brought him any satisfaction. Looking back, here's a review I wrote about ten years ago for The Nation, of McNamara's book Argument Without End: In Search Of Answers To The Vietnam Tragedy
July 1, 2009
Citizen Know-Nothings
So researchers in Arizona thought to poll Arizona High School students on questions from a U.S. citizenship test. Six out of ten is passing. But only 3.5% of the students got six or more right — how disturbing is that? To me, anybody over sixteen who couldn't get ten out of ten has something wrong with them. John Stuart Mill used to argue that people with college educations should get an extra vote, or two, or more, depending on the eminence of their education. I wouldn't go that far, but I'm inclined to agree with Robert A. Heinlein, as in Starship Troopers
