Polemic®

I do have a comment about a military attack on Iran, but first I want to comment on two ways in which Sarah Palin’s comments about this are evidence of her stupidity, and it’s not the way you think. I’m not suggesting this because I believe attacking Iran is per se a bad idea.

I’m saying it because (1) why would Palin want President Obama to launch a war that would rally the American people behind him, and (2) why do we have to “declare war on them” when what is really at question is a discrete military strike to disable their nuclear weapons production capability.

It’s been over 7 years since I first worried that invading Iraq would defang our military’s ability to deal with a more bona fide nuclear proliferation threat: Iran. I think it was pretty apparent that nuclear proliferation was not a genuine concern of the Bush administration. If it had been, we would have not invaded Iraq, which demonstrably did not have any nuclear weapons before we invaded (after the standards were lowered to a few chemical weapons left over from the 80s we invaded) and they would have been much more engaged with Pakistan once we were in Afghanistan anyway and would have dealt differently with North Korea, which developed a rocket capable of striking Hawaii all while Iraq was being run over by our military.

Since that time, America has grown weary of our interventions in the Middle East, but has also demonstrated popular support for the Iranian opposition since the stolen election there last year.

I can’t imagine that we have the capability to enact a regime change directly in Iran. It’s possible that a strike against them would trigger such a change, but it wouldn’t be like Iraq or Afghanistan.

And the other near certainty is that the Iranian regime will only be bolstered if it is the Israelis that attack, and they will. Make no mistake. They did not tolerate Syria’s program in 2007, nor Iraq’s in 1981. So that puts the United States in the position of dealing with the fallout on the ground in our empire if the Israelis strike Iran. Boy oh boy.

From what I’ve read, it isn’t even clear that the Israelis would be able to pull the mission off, at least not without risking their own homeland air defenses and requiring a probably suicide mission from some of the pilots.

So we can’t change the regime in Iran, but the Israelis probably can’t take out the nuke program… but we can.

Even if it was just a gambit to make them look bad to the world, Iran made Obama look foolish last year when it held a fraudulent election after Obama promised to engage them. Hillary is rattling sabres too.

I don’t think there’s much reason to think Obama wouldn’t go for it in 2011 or later this year.

So, for those of you that have been disappointed by this President’s lack of leftiness, be ready for a bigger disappointment, if that’s what it is to you. Personally, stopping nuclear proliferation is one area where I don’t mind the use of force at all.

I’m experiencing a phenomenon that may explain the “Reagan Democrat” or whatever you want to call it. I’m in a situation where I’ve come to rely on unemployment—basically a form of insured welfare—when my main escape is through the meager remaining social safety net of bankruptcy, and I would really love it if the government’s program to help people prevent foreclosures was somewhat effective… all of this while expecting a child.

Despite that, the situation is making me start to have my internal though process—my “gut” reaction—is not to hope for a program for me, or whatever, but wishing that others would be so harshly judged. It’s silly, really. Even my situation as terribly as I described it means only a reduction in my standard of living well within the 1-sigma range of middle class. Yet the sense of loss is palpable and it is not causing me to reflexively feel more empathy towards others. I kinda just want everyone else to have to deal with this.

I think when I was a bit younger, these feelings would have manifested themselves in a more concrete way. Now, I know better. I know my impulse is childish and stupid and no way to make decisions for others. So, I guess I’m being elitist. Or not. Because I certainly think I understand the feeling.

You kind of want to see everyone who breaks “the rules” get theirs. And, of course, just about everyone is doing something against “the rules.” Isn’t being gay immoral? etc. To me, the people breaking the rules are still your usual liberal suspects: the money power and corporate rule, but it’s sure hard not to wonder if the government is even capable of providing relief along these lines and if we won’t just have to live out our lives enjoying the schadenfreude we can get.

I’m sure this has been studied in depth by all the right people, but it’s entirely different to go through this, of course, than to read about it.

I said fuck Geithner then. They say it now. Why prevent something when you can blame after the fact, right?

As I so delicately put it about a year ago:

Anyway, Geithner must have a small dick that too many of these ass holes have seen in the sauna at the Harvard club or something and he’s too worried about what they think. Fuck that shit. If I’m Obama, you’re fired and we tried it the bankers way.

Thanks for catching up.

When was the last time either party had a 59-41 advantage in the Senate and yet the Democrats are “chastened?” This has to be the most pusillanimous reaction by the Dems in a long history of pussy behavior.

When you believe that the other people say and internalize their message that you’re wrong and then act like you got caught doing something wrong, people gather that you think that by your conduct. You should just come out and say, “fuck you.”

Not these guys. Not this party. I almost regret supporting these weak ridiculous buffoons if it weren’t that the other guys are such pure liquidated evil.

Pass the fucking Senate bill through the House and then lard everyone up with a jobs bill. How hard is this?

• Polemic is calling MA-SEN for Brown on the basis of the latest set of results and benchmark maps. Sigh. #

(Note: this was Tweeted at 5:36 p.m., almost an hour before the major nets. The model I used held up just as well as it did on election night 2008. It’s not all that complicated, really. Just some old data and a spreadsheet.)

While others appear to find it nearly impossible to have any criticisms of a politician and still fervently support him, I hope in what follows it will be considered that I do support Obama and am intolerant of the political games played by the anti-Democratic-Party left to hurt him politically. Some of these criticisms reflect what I believe will benefit the President in the short term, politically, and others I think reflect policy mistakes.

Education Policy: C

So far, the only major action by Obama in education policy has been a plan to require additional accountability for teachers in exchange for certain federal funding. This has pissed off perennial Democratic allies in the teachers’ unions. As you will see, forcing the base constituencies to take a shot in the hopes of getting independent cred and possibly less Republican resistance is one of Obama’s M.O.s, but it isn’t working and it is depressing the base voters. At first, this could have conceivably been done to show good faith to the voters, but now it just appears to be his actualy

Everyone knows that the NCLB regime requires fixing in the next few years. I think everyone also knows that the basic idea of test-based standards is here to stay. Obama has made a push on this. Also, the most urgent problem in the schools is the almost total collapse of their financing. Yet, the Diet Stimulus (see below) isn’t providing enough help to address this.

True, this issue actually isn’t on the top of voters’ minds right now, but in this environment that may actually give you more freedom of action. Not good enough.

The Environment: C-

This issue has ceased to have any meaning other than global warming. While I believe that global warming is perhaps the most important issue in the world right now, other issues still need to be addressed. There is still no significant federal law on non-point-source water pollution. Actually within the arena of global warming, Obama is pursuing the Bush I-era “cap and trade” solution to carbon, and forced the House to take a tough vote on it long before it got taken up in the Senate. Nothing may get done, because, again, Obama’s opening play is the “third-way” solution already, yet it won no independent or GOP support.

And then there’s Copenhagen. While I admire that he put himself on the line, as we will see is another one of his M.O.s, he tends to overcommit on diplomatic solutions by engaging with people who have no good faith intention of negotiating. (This is essentially the trouble in the domestic realm as well.) Getting the EPA to regulate Co2 is not a bad start, but we really need comprehensive legislation to deal with this, and all of these promises of green jobs—where are they? Wasn’t much in the stimulus bill.

Foreign Policy (Europe): A

Europe loves Obama. Good for them. There hasn’t been much to ask of them lately except for support in Afghanistan, and they didn’t exactly love that part, which is why this isn’t an A+. Otherwise, our much improved relations with Europe are an underrated issue.

Foreign Policy (Latin America): D-

Before Haiti, this would have been an F. While Latin American relations are improved simply by virtue of the absence of Bush, not much else of note has gone on. Real leadership could bring Cuba back into the fold and settle an issue that has been left to fester for too long and some concessions in American policy could deflate the massive amount of blowback generated here. To me, it seems highly probable that the next generation of terrorists (not counting the cartels, I guess) will come from Latin America, which we’ve left to rot on the vine. A case in point is the coup in Honduras. Both sides seemed to have official support. What happened? Latin Americans probably exude a desire for U.S. nonintervention, but are jaded by the fact that we only seem not to intervene when they actually need it.

Foreign Policy (Afghanistan): B+

Lefties who think we should just pull out of here are living in a dream world. This is not Iraq where there is a history of government and its institutions to hand off and a pool of wealth sitting underneath the land. Afghanistan is part of the most dangerous region on earth, and we abdicate responsibility for it at our peril. This grade is an A if there had been more buy in from our allies.

Foreign Policy (Iraq): A

Iraq is still a scary place, but it is getting better. A responsible pullout will put a close to this most farcical chapter in a long book of farcical military adventures in U.S. history. This grade could change severely if there is no substantial pullout by the beginning of the 2012 election season.

Foreign Policy (Israel/Palenstine): D

It’s not Obama’s fault that so many Israelis think he is a muslim. Obama doesn’t get an F because he has managed to get some movement from Netanyahu on settlement freezes, but, again, here Obama overcommitted to a policy and got hung out to dry, by both sides. No one on the Palestinian side can negotiate a deal—their entire power base is predicated on their not being a final deal and the Israelis are no longer willing to give power to anyone who will make a deal because they know how many times they’ve offered up sweet deals only to have the other side reject it. Not good enough.

Foreign Policy: C-

Including all other areas. I think of Iran. Obama got caught up in the Democratic idea that because Bush made a mistake about Iraq that this made it somehow desirable or possible to negotiate with Iran. In fact, Iran is a totalitarian regime that is trying to build nuclear weapons. This became clear over the summer with the election fraud. Again, the M.O. Obama overcommits to negotiation and gets pwned and can’t make the idea that he’s just making a good faith effort and it’s the other guys fault stick. Maybe because no one—not Joe Liebermann, not Achmadinezhad—has paid the price for negotiating in bad faith with him.

Health Care: C+

I think the people that want to “kill the bill” are idiots and, may get their wish in one more day. The CW seems to be that Obama over-learned the lesson of the Clinton failure by giving Congress too much control. With 20/20 hindsight, it may be the summer of trying to get GOP support that ultimately cost too much time to keep Ted Kennedy alive more than getting pwned by Ben Nelson or Joe Liebermann did in the end. Still, the bill’s passage in each house is a major achievement even if it doesn’t ultimately get enacted and it actually does a number of pretty good things.

The Economy: D

Sorry. This is just how it is. I know Bush left a mess of great magnitude. All the more reason the stimulus bill should have been larger. Either it should have been smaller so that it wasn’t a deficit hawk issue or much larger. Nobody would give a shit about the national debt if their jobs and houses would have been saved. Yes, most of the Republicans refused to negotiate on this and there weren’t 60 democrats at the time. Obama should have made a spectacle of their refusal. Ultimately, a reconciliation-based vote of 50 senators could have passed a better package.

And much, much more should have been made of a jobs bill during the worst of the health care fracas. We needed something to touch. Maybe another check in the mail? If the Dems couldn’t have done that, then perhaps something to alleviate the fiscal crises in a number of the states, or at least in neighborhood schools?

Plus, this really is always the most important issue. Obama’s failures here—really nothing more complicated than giving the middle class some token—may ultimately cost him an opportunity to do much on the rest of these issues where… there is so much room for improvement.

Domestic Terrorism: A-

There hasn’t been much here. The crotch bomber was a non-event. The Ft. Hood shootings were probably not really an issue for the President except politically. Using the Bush administration’s own standard of “keeping us safe,” Obama is several thousand American lives ahead of President Bush at this point in his presidency.

OVERALL: C

Obama needs to stick the knife to a few people so that they know he means business. When people know you need a deal and they know they don’t need a deal, negotiations don’t always work well. There is a lot more room to do this in foreign affairs where he has much wider control. Maybe there should be talk of American troops securing some token place in Gaza. Maybe we should finally do something to stick it to the imperious Chinese besides say something. I think health care reform is too important to scuttle in a cock battle. But there are other issues where it might not be a bad idea to put one potential 60th vote in one room and another in the room next to them and offer them each a deal if they say yes first. You know, the prisoner’s dilemma. Something.

I subscribed again to Harper’s magazine after letting my subscription lapse a few years back. If I hadn’t paid just $5 for it, I would be mad. It is a thoroughly depressing read. The academic left which forms the constituency of this magazine has apparently chosen to simply disengage from the political world and criticize only.

This month, we are treated to an article called “The Mendacity of Hope” by Roger D. Hodge, which is simultaneously an elegy for the mythical Constitutional republic of high school history books and a J’Accuse against Obama. This is ironic because Obama’s failure to deliver on the Naderite agenda is solely and exclusively due to the Constitutional checks and balances on his power as a president by the other branches of government and the electorate. Hodge even admits that a blunt withdrawal from Afghanistan would cost Obama his reelection. If Obama were the “secret emperor” Hodge claims, he would simply waive his hand and do what he pleased.

But it’s the pining for the past that strikes me because it sounds so… conservative. In Hodge’s world, there was never an illegal war before Korea. Civil liberties were sacrosanct. Things were nice.

This is absolute poppycock. For an author who chastises Obamabots for “knowing their history” and still praising the man, Hodge’s leading arguments are either intentionally made in bad faith or exercises in hypocrisy regarding historical knowledge.

If you were to list off famous American wars before Korea, I’m sure you would find appropriate Congressional “declarations of war” for all of them (this assumes that a Congressional vote erases all moral questions about war). But if you “know your history” you know that those wars were far from the sum total of American military activity pre-Korea. Anyone who knows anything about Latin America—Haiti comes to mind this week by way of happenstance—knows that American soldiers have adventured across this hemisphere under the guise of the Monroe doctrine since at least Monroe’s time.

Furthermore, while the de jure abrogation of civil liberties in our day is disturbing and should not be apologized for, the notion that justice was fairer in the past only requires a one word rejoinder: segregation.

The idea that we should (setting aside the question of whether it is possible) rescind the past decades is the élan vitale of the modern Conservative movement. They have sought (and have been largely successful) at rescinding the New Deal. They are also making inroads on early-20th century progressivism.

Hodge’s college-campus fantasies of setting the world back to the order of things before the President “arrogated to himself” the power of the atomic bomb is simply not possible. Simply put, the atomic genie is out of the bottle. It really isn’t not at all difficult to build a bomb if you have the materials. In 2010, an atomic bomb is not a very sophisticated device. We can never blot out the know-how of making one without some kind of Luddite Taliban world government that takes us back to the dark ages.

We can’t rescind the 20th century, neither the New Deal nor the National Security Act of 1947, the good nor the bad, without unleashing a whole new set of consequences. In any event, I can’t imagine how allowing a Palin or a Pawlenty to replace Obama will make the “restoration” of Constitutionatopia closer to reality.

This kind of revolutionary change that is demanded by the right and the left makes for unending criticism, depressed cynicism, and the risk that when you actually get what you want, you might be sorry you asked for it. I don’t disagree that the government needs more respect for the law, but I simply don’t believe that a return to the bad old days of the 1940s is how to do it.

Society requires its gadflies and critics, but it also requires those who can govern without burning the place down.

• Going to watch the results, so no more tweets for a while. But, I think it's over. #
• Virginia starting to close in. Rachel Maddow, still very annoying. #
• O wins Ohio. It's over for real now. Blow me Joe the Douchebag! #
• McSame blacking out news at "rally". Ignoring reality to the end. #
• Obama goes officially over the top when the west coast comes in at the top of the hour! It still hardly feels real. #
• CNN has produced Tron figures. Heavy. #
• Fifteen minutes to change! #
• McCain goes out classy. Crowd still terrifying. #
• Polemicmag will go out on a limb here and finally call IN. Lake county is the only populous county with results still to turn in. #
• Obama ahead in NC with 100% reporting by about 10,000. Recount? Lol. #
• Damn it. Prop R, the Bush Sewage Plant, is getting its ass kicked. #
• NBC confirms polemic's call of an hour ago: Obama carries IN. #
• What's going on in NC? Is someone demanding a recount? 100% is in. Obama wins. #
• So far my prediction of last week was only wrong in ND. #
• Tweety wanted to ask everyone if the "Bradley effect" is dead. Make no mistake: Obama won this in the Midwest and the West—not the South. #
• Obama 400 votes behind in Missouri. 400. Wow. #
• Georgia shenanigans? #
• Voter suppression seems to have captured Missouri. #
• LA County and the East Bay are going to have to get it done on Prop H8. #
• Nader, McKinney turn close NE-02 Red by 570 votes. ((Nader+McKinney)>Barr) #
• Polemic: NE-02 to Obama #

There’s a number of legal precepts that prohibit people from benefitting from their own wrongs. One example is the so-called “Son of Sam Laws” that prevent murderers from selling books and movies about their stories for profit.

But our electorate isn’t going to see it that way.

They aren’t going to see that 30 years of Reaganomics have bled the middle class dry. The three pillars of the middle class: a house, a college education, and health insurance have all increased in price faster than inflation. Since real wages have barely increased at all, it’s therefore not hard to see that most people are losing ground on those three things.

And despite 10% national unemployment and a widely recognized economic crisis, it still remains politically untenable to raise taxes on the rich or on big business. The latter have made credible their threat to simply go somewhere else and leave us unemployed if we don’t give them everything they want, so even those who might be inclined to tax them have been trained not to do so. A health insurance bill that should get most people covered and bring down costs to everyone has become the butt of this whole sociology and may ultimately fail either due to intercameral bickering or the loss of the Democratic 60 seat supermajority in Massachusetts of all places.

That Ted Kennedy’s seat could be lost to a Republican while there is 10% unemployment is exhibit A in my argument. The voters blame the incumbent for their troubles even if the opposition is blocking the fixes, or, even if they created the problem in the first place.

This is the popular logic of a two party system: get the other guy in there.

It’s not that the Democrats have staked out a powerful alternative. They have not enacted much of anything in a truly populist manner. They agreed, for the most part, to the highly unpopular (if ultimately necessary) bank bailouts, and most of Obama’s solutions are pragmatic and centrist, but he’s not getting any credit for that from the other side.

For all the lessons Obama seems to have taken from the Clinton years, at least regarding health care reform, he doesn’t seem to have learned that offering centrist compromises does no good, and, in fact may actually piss off the GOP even more.

If Obama doesn’t do something to repair the economy by 2010, the Democrats majority will be reduced, though they probably won’t lose it. But if things are the same in 2012, you can count on a further changing of the guard, just in time to permanently solidify the aging conservative majority on the Supreme Court and institute a bunch of regressive economic policies in an attempt to fix the economy. It won’t be pretty.

Usually someone else thinks of something before me, but this time, I think I got there first.

One of the reasons the filibuster is unconstitutional is because the Constitution says the VP breaks ties when they are equally divided. Here’s my argument on November 23, 2009. And here’s an article in the New York Times, today.

At the time I put the argument forward, I found it nowhere else after a Google, Nexis, and Westlaw search. Doesn’t mean I was the first person ever, but it’s nice to know I’m at least with it somewhat this time.

As a society we are not even close to owning up to the Fear Years. That horrible epoch that reached its peak in 2002-2003 but did not completely dissipate until 2007. How do we square the fact that everyone understood that the evil Iraq attack was a tragic mistake in 2007, but to even suggest that it was not wise in 2002 was to be libeled a traitor? — Even in the face of one of Generalissimo Bush’s minions explaining that they were launching Iraq Attack II to coincide with the first anniversary of 9/11 because “you don’t launch a new product in August.” Somehow, the collective fact of the matter turned from worthy to worthless over those wasted years. But the facts of the matter never changed. America did. But too slowly.

Osama bin Laden is a serial killer. A demon. Pure evil. But such hatred creates its own choice. Whatever validity one may give his grievances (and I give him little) violence against innocent people is not a legitimate recourse. As self-styled extremists Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda chose the hateful path and went down it. America did not have to. America is a free and respectful society that has a reasonable ability to chose its own destiny. But America did choose the venal chart. And whether you shouted until your throat hurt in defiance of Iraq War II (I did not), or thought it was a terrible and foolishly incorrect action at them time (I did), or were one of the lobotomized flag waving masses of nimrods that proved that “It” can happen here (I was not) you are complicit. All Americans are complicit.

So as a final decades end rejoinder to the Flat Landers and Texans, to the Rural Socialists and Junior Varsity Fascists, to the Tea Baggers and Polite Racists, to the Middling Concern Troll Masses and the FDNY Cap Wearing Confederates, to the Red States and the Red Counties in the Blue States, to Generalissmio Bush and the Conservatron Hate Machine please let me scream that NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED TO YOU ON 9/11/01! THERE WERE NO FUNERALS IN YOUR HOME TOWNS! YOU HAD NO GRAVEYARD GREY ROTTEN MILK STENCH CLOUD HOVERING OVER YOUR HOME! YOU DID NOT HAVE THE FAMILIAR ARCHITECTURE OF YOUR CHILDHOOD RENDERED INTO DUST!

NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED TO YOU! YOU ARE MEDIOCRE AMERICANS! AND YOU ARE DESTROYING AMERICA!

Spoiler alert! I’m about to spoil the whole movie; so if you care stop reading.

In the early 1960s Rod Serling observed that, in his teleplays, he could have aliens say things that Democrat and Republican characters could not. From that observation sprang “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” and “Eye of the Beholder,” two rapier sharp and thoroughly mainstream denunciations of McCarthyism as goosed by the Twilight Zone.

Similarly, once public opinion turned squarely against Generalissimo Bush’s Iraq War II in 2007, Hollywood responded with harsh, realistic films like “Stop Loss” and “In the Valley of Elah” that attempted to demonstrate the difficult sensations of that quagmire. While the films had no problem stating their political purpose they failed to resonate financially and intellectually with the polity. Like Serling, James Cameron has found surrealism to be a simpler path to an effective political polemic. Avatar is an over-the-top unapologetic left-wing hook — a parting swipe at the miserable Bush Aughts.

The plot to Avatar is simple and predictable: think “Dances with Wolves” meets the Endor battle scene in “Return of the Jedi”, with a generous pinch of “Dune” flavoring the whole stew. Time and again, the surrealism of the  venture rescues its tougher political points. The vaguely Afro-Polynesian-Native American dandruff-shampoo-blue hued Na’vi are almost too precious in their literal oneness with their planet — they embody the simplistic deification of indigenous people that a dreadlocked freshman white dude might trumpet in between bong hits in his dorm room at an obscure small liberal arts college in southern California. As glorious as the cultures of obscure tribes in the Amazon may be, would this dreadlocked Strawman give up his sedan, dorm room and zip locked narcotics to become a Tree Person? Of course not. Unlike Amazonian tribes, however, the Na’Vi are not human. Using the biological UBC cord in the Na’vi’s ponytail to mindmeld with the local fauna happens to be the logical way to get by on this imaginary world. Here the 3D aspect of the flick is also vital, as it creates an otherworldly sensation of size, scope and gravity. The texture of the 3D surrealism allows the Na’Vi’s actions to be a demonstration of how to live on their planet, rather than being a neo-luddite scold about how humans should live on Earth. This allows the truth of the films’ strongest rhetorical punches — “there is no green left there”; “they destroyed their planet” — to land without being undermined by their facile moralizing.

Far more interesting than the Na’Vi are the “villains”. I use the worry quotes because Avatar does nothing to Otherize the human inobtanium Colonizers of Pandora and the Na’Vi . The Oppressors in this case are a private mining company replete with a military wing. The fact that they are almost all white and speak with an American (not British!) accent is surely no mistake. Lets face it, there have been lots of white American colonizers in the scope of human history. At no point does the leader of this venture disobey orders from high command and go too far in his inobtanium conquest, thereby showing himself to be a rogue amongst otherwise noble people. None of the bad guys commit any sort of destruction or rape or act of private unconscionable immorality that reveals their evil souls. In the climax of the movie, when the Colonizers destroy a precious tree to get at the inobtanium underneath to the dismay of the Na’Vi, they appear distressed by what they have done. The leader is a smart corporate project manager type that does not appear far removed from a protagonist  in a contemporary TV procedural drama. The military leader is the sort of square-jawed mix of violence and cunning that is the star stuff of a million action movie heroes. When he hollers “we will fight terror with terror” and the Colonizers do just that he is simply revealing the complicity that all of us not bad Americans share in Iraq War II, whether we thought it was a good idea at the time or not. Avatar does not let the average American off the hook in the way that most entertainments do.

Some have argued that there is a racist element to the white marine avatared Na’Vi leading the Afro-Polynesian-Native American real Na’Vi in their fight against the Colonizers because this shows that “indigenous peoples” were not up to this task themselves. The other jaw of the “white savior” trope is that it allows the oppressors to redeem themselves by becoming one with the Natives; this is the soft way that “Dances With Wolves” Otherized the white Union Army but forgave the crowd that was busy sympathizing with Kevin Costner’s character. Here the surrealism of the movie distills its politics. Our hero doesn’t join the Na’Vi’s culture; he literally becomes one of them. In so doing he acts, in the final battle scene, as a missing link to a more “natural” state of being rather than an industrial one. In Avatar, humans cannot meld cultures with the Natives, or simply find the capacity to treat them right and be down with them as we all are now, of course. You either are one, or a rare select friend, or you are not.

The final scene of the movie is a Trail-of-Tears-like procession of not quite villainous white Americans being frog stomped back into their spaceship and off Pandora. Like the whole movie it is very predictable, but one only realizes how unusual such a scene is when one sees it.

Avatar is painted with a broad brush and is over the top and unapologetic in its moralizing. In it’s audacity, and beneath its pyrotechnics and holy moly 3D, it offers a mule kick in the solarplexis about the kind of violence and imperialism that most Americans know about but rarely pause to consider.

Bravo Mr. Cameron! Bravo!

So, I guess there’s going to be a split within the left between those that want to act like teabagger and those that don’t. FailDogLake–er FireDogLake–is taking the lead on that part.

I guess that makes me just a plain old liberal. Anyway, I voted for Hillary because she supported the individual mandate that was projected to cost $2,700 per person as opposed to Obama’s $4,400 per person mandate free plan. Of course, it looks like Obama will be giving us the mandate. And I never really saw much difference between the two on much else, so I’m still happy. I still support Obama.

We felt a terrible disturbance in the force that night 9 years ago this month.

After the laughing gas childishness of the 1980s ended in an uplifting end of the Cold War, we went through an increasingly solipsistic if comfortable and optimistic decade in the 1990s. Competent, if not inspiring, administration led the country and even the most intractable problems like the federal debt and Palestine seemed to be headed towards resolution. Even the GOP temper tantrum over Monica Lewinsky seemed only to be a slight bump in the road.

Indeed, the Lewinsky Affair was a symbol of that time. Something that absolutely did not matter became the most important thing. Politicians had reached some kind of consensus that enabled them to fight over soap opera problems. How could we argue with the luke warm hypnosis of the 1990s? Gore was a lock, right? And even if he wasn’t, Bush was just Gore plus a tax cut, right? The Clinton consensus would continue.

But the questionable manhood of the Brooks Brothers mafia had been called before an unfriendly ruler by Clinton. Even if his policies were center or center-right, he kicked the GOP’s ass in politics. They could not beat him. Even after winning control of Congress in 1994, they tried to destroy the man. They couldn’t do it. So when destiny called in late 2000, the rapist-like rage of the frustrated Republican id descended on Florida. These white boys had been working the refs in the media for years and took control of the narrative on election night by declaring Bush the winner before anything was certain. The public was apathetic for the most part. Really, what was the difference? Isn’t it time for the other guys to take a turn?

The stars were crossed that night and the astrology of bad fate became clear to anyone who saw the U.S. Supreme Court intervene in a presidential election for the first time ever and decide that same election on grounds that were as cynical as they were bullshitty. Strict constructionists arguing for equal protection! Decided on party lines! “Safe harbors” that had no meaning in the Constitutional process. False deadlines. The recount could have gone on until January without disturbing the process. But not this time.

The election should have been decided by the Congress. There would have been a deal. Bush would still have been president. It’s possible that little dick Lieberman could have been elected Vice President by a 50-50 senate’s tie being broken by Al Gore himself. Or other concessions. Who knows? But the legitimacy of the Constitutional process would have remained intact, and the Bush presidency would not have begun in the slime of an abortion, a mark of Cain that symbolized everything Bush would do in his 8 year reign of terror.

The refrain that “9/11 changed everything” reflects a true perception wrapped in a false rationale. 9/11 only finally sealed the change that occurred on that December night when the Supreme Court put its majority’s ally in another branch of government. It affirmed through many people’s new-found utilitarianism (no longer did we struggle with the moral propriety of killing 1 person to save 2) the irrelevancy of the Constitution that Bush’s election wrought.

It is possible that 9/11 fully enabled the Bush agenda. However, in retrospect, I doubt he would have had much trouble engineering a war against old nemesis Saddam Hussein without it. Indeed, on its face, the war in Iraq should have been harder with the pressing need to hunt and kill al Qaeda still incomplete. Before 9/11, Bush was permitted his campaign pledge of a trillion-dollar tax cut for the wealthy, despite a 50-50 senate (something the GOP has denied Obama and his 59 or 60 seat senate majority) and defection of Jim Jeffords to restore, however temporarily, the previously decades old (back to the mid-1950s) status quo of the Democrats having control of at least one of the House, Senate, or White House. Until 2002.

After that election, it was clear that the Democrats in power were battered wives declaring their husbands blameless good men. This—this was the opening for the new progressive awakening that began in December 2000 to gain power in the party. It was bound up in new institutions: Air America, the American Constitution Society, Internet sites, blogs, and the demand that liberals cease interest-group politicking and unite to wrest control of the government back.

This movement attempted to gain control in 2004, but simply couldn’t beat the establishment back. In part, it was the kneecapping tactics borrowed from the GOP that I think the Democratic establishment objected to. Those tactics were forged by conservatives who were out of power for decades and decades and held in check by a Democratic Congress. They were not tactics for a governing party. They were tactics to get into governance, and they were made possible by the unity of hatred for one man: George W. Bush.

Ultimately, they succeeded more than anyone’s wildest dreams would have predicted. It was apparent that the House would change hands in 2006, but it wasn’t until election night that we realized the senate would come with it. The new progressive base that took all the credit for this (even though the motivating figure was, in fact, Bush and his mammoth stupidity) and they were pissed when impeachment was “taken off the table.” They were pissed when FISA was renewed. They were pissed each time war funding was maintained. They simply believed that there would be no blowback from any liberal initiative despite the fact that their very power derived from blowback against conservative overreach. They began to predict better results by “letting it burn.” Let Iraq burn. Let the financial system burn. Let the government burn, and, now, let health care reform burn. Our fiddles are tuned. This is very much a belief adopted from the non-governing mindset of the GOP—remember the 1995 government shut down? It’s simply a way of abdicating responsibility whenever the proposed solution fails to meet purity standards acceptable to only 15% of the population, something even more sure to generate electoral failure than insipid compromises no one loves.

The movement grew and after a few false starts coalesced around Barack Obama, in whom they poured all their hopes and unified in favor of as much as they had against Bush. But now, on the cusp of 2010, without Bush, without minority status in the elected branches, this movement is pissed again. Obama didn’t dictatorially enact the right laws for them without Congress. Obama turned out not to be their messiah (and he never said he would be for anyone that bothered to ever read his positions on issues), and so they will crucify him for it. And the teabagger right, used to being in the outside and used to not governing, provides the other claw in a pincer movement that is grinding government to a halt.

The main ideological fibers of this movement were created in the dark days of 2000-2003. It served its purpose, but is now becoming too much like the tea bagger right in tactic if not in belief to credibly assist any party in governance.

It’s time to figure out yet another new progressive movement that can take advantage of the basic center-left views on major issues of the American public while still being able to govern, all while dealing with rumor-mills in the Internet era of the birther. I have no idea where to start with this, but killing the health care bill that will help 30m Americans just because it isn’t perfect is not how to start. Ceding power to the Republicans in 2010 and/or 2012 is not it either. Another lesson of 2000 is that purity on the left (or, in the case of 1992, on the right) that stems from the 1960s era call to “heighten the contradictions” fails to achieve its strategic goals because the public recoils, but only slowly, from the extreme, but only after deep damage has been done. Letting it burn only to put the fire out slowly leaves a hollowed out building rotting, not an empty plot ready for new construction.

So, MoveOn, DailyKos, liberal talk radio, and other institutions of the 2000s can continue to be this old movement or start figuring out the new one. If they chose the latter and dismantle the Democratic majorities in the process, not only will they harm the progressive agenda, they will become the relics they scoffed at in their genesis.

Rachel Maddow says Obama is following the Bush doctrine by escalating in Afghanistan. Specifically, because there is no threat there, fighting a war to prevent a threat means following the Bush doctrine.

Do you see how badly even smart folks are bamboozled by Bush? The “Bush Doctrine” may stink in the world of diplomacy, but it hardly requires articulation. Every country acts that way. But don’t be tricked—Bush didn’t follow the Bush Doctrine! Iraq was not a threat, was not about to be a threat, was not remotely one of the worst threats to us. Therefore, the “Bush Doctrine” was only a justification of the Iraq war if you were bamboozled into believing Iraq was even a potential threat, which it was not.

The fact that Obama is going to do what should have been done 8 years ago and saying we will withdraw in more or less 2-3 years is more than Bush, Johnson, Truman, or Nixon ever did and there is a legitimate causus belli in Afghanistan that never existed in Iraq, Vietnam or Korea. It is, essentially, the Bush I/Powell Doctrine: overwhelming force, do the job, get the fuck out.

You can agree or disagree with what Obama is doing, but to compare it with what Bush did in Iraq is intellectually dishonest and smacks of knee-jerk pacifism.

I don’t know what the deal with Sweden is. It’s a wonderful country that cares about its people. It has an open, tolerant society. But it’s history in foreign affairs has always been strange. Despite the intense rivalries, it is closest with Denmark, Norway, and Finland—the latter two of which gladly saw it go as an imperial power. To an outsider, all three countries seem the same.

Yet the latest feint by the Swedes as the head of the EU right now was so politically tone deaf as to be disastrous, which is on par with its history in foreign affairs: ham-handed Just as the Obama administration wrastled the wily Netanyahu into a building moratorium in the West Bank (only Nixon can go to China), the EU responds by declaring that “East Jerusalem” should be the capital of a Palestinian state. Nitro, meet glycerine. Meanwhile, international negotiators have not even succeeded in talking the laconic Abbas out of packing up his toys and retiring, let alone coming back to the negotiating table.

It seems that the international community thinks setting these conditions for further negotiations is what it’s going to take to get Abbas back to the table. But all this will do is undermine Netanyahu, perhaps even forcing an election in Israel which would only delay things further. It will also leave the US in the position of backing Israel against the EU further undermining our already diminished role as an honest broker.

This is just stupid diplomacy. Neither side—no matter what they say—is married to the idea of peace. They both have their bottom lines, and, at the moment, I don’t see any overlap. The only way to get them together will be lots of pressure and appeals to the egos of the respective leaders to be the ones to do something historic. But drafting a deal whose major terms are already fixed for the Palestinians and leaving the other sides issues for “negotiations” only disincentivizes negotiations.

I tend to believe that European anti-Israelism is a proxy for anti-Americanism. I think they see Israel, especially when helmed by Likud, as a fellow traveler of American neoconservatism. This isn’t incorrect. But I don’t think the way to reduce Israeli militarism is to poke at them while supporting the other guy just to spite Bill Kristol and George Bush, in the same way that doing things in Palestine to radicalize the population there only empowers Hamas.

Oy.

There’s been a lot of liberal angst over Obama’s rumored escalation, but early word is it is in fact an exit strategy. If that’s the case, then it sounds like a good decision to me. Meanwhile, the additional troops, I presume, will try and give breathing room to the central government.

I wouldn’t support staying unless there’s a checklist of things to do. If he gives us that, then this sounds great to me.

For all the angst over Obama’s (lack of) results, I must say that I think he’s doing a good job in his process of decision making. Ultimately, that will add up to tangible good results over time.

Every year we hear the O’Reillys of the world whine about the indignity of having to say “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” (Everyone who insists on saying Merry Christmas is, of course, a huge defender of Israel. lol.) They apparently take offense at the notion that not everyone is wrapped up in their “holiday spirit.”

The spirit—which somehow stems from the date of the birth of Jesus being moved from the spring to the solstice by order of the Roman government, overlaid with pagan images of trees and reindeer and a flying fatman who bears a striking resemblance to a Jew, are used in an idolatrous orgy of consumerism—is, to me, a month or more long annoyance. It seems like the “holiday season” gets longer every year. Costco started carrying Christmas shit in late August.

Of course the “war on christmas” is code language for the culture wars in general. Of course, the irony is, christmas is a terrible proxy for the culture wars since it is almost entirely unhinged from its religious moorings and is in reality a secular phenomenon. Hence the calls for putting “christ back in christmas.”

I really wish everyone would shut up and stop it.

Just to top off a day of heavy blogging so that I can get all of these thoughts off my chest.

I’m not sure I’m on board with the leave Afghanistan crowd quite yet. That said, I’m not sure I understand what the escalation is for.

I recently learned in Where Men Win Glory that the entire intent behind the 9/11 attacks was to draw the U.S. into a war in Afghanistan so that the same people (more or less) who finished the Soviet Union could do the same thing to us in the same place. While they haven’t been nearly as successful against us so far (mainly because no one is giving them stinger missiles), they’re gaining ground.

The reason for this, as I understand it, is quite simple: they just go hide out in Pakistan. Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world right now and if we destabilize it, we’re opening Pandora’s box. It may fall apart anyway, but I wouldn’t want to be the one who did it. Hundreds of millions of people could die in a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

Unless the U.S. has a plan to remove the nuclear arsenal from Pakistan and a more general plan to deal with Pakistan, we are probably never going to fix the problem in Afghanistan—unless we send however many hundred thousand troops it would take to absolutely seal the border. Both of these options, it seems, are far more consequential than just an “escalation”—they are opening up a whole new front.

On the other hand, I’m not sure abandoning the place has clear outcomes, either. It seems clear that the Taliban would gain control of much more of the place and it would become another terrorist haven. But the Taliban and other Islamist movements gain power from being an alternative to the suffering brought about indirectly from the west by puppet dictators, and directly in the case of occupations.

There was an early consensus of an Afghan Marshall plan to go along with our war in 2001 that never went anywhere in the Bush years. I think that may be the only hope now. Decrease suffering, increase stability. If that takes more troops, fine. But prove it.

James Galbraith says he thinks unemployment will stay high because of gridlock in Washington, specifically the Senate.

Since it now seems to be official policy that it takes 60 yes votes (as opposed to 40 no votes, 59-40 still loses) to pass any legislation through the Senate, this appears to be the case. The GOP was at least willing to threaten the “nuclear option” in 2005. The Dems aren’t even making serious complaints about anything filibuster related.

And why should they? They’re senators too. Look at how powerful Lieberman, Snowe, Collins, Nelson, Landrieu, and Lincoln have become! They more or less are a fourth branch of government at this point. But most senators aren’t going to vote against their own power.

Show me evidence that the Constitution meant for a supermajority vote requirement in Congress. You can’t. The Founders constructed the whole system on the mechanical philosophy of the time and sought to balance things like a watchmaker. They selected the form of government they did because it was a watch they thought you wouldn’t have to wind up so often.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t always proven to be the case, but we do have the second oldest government on earth after the UK. But now it appears that only a crisis can force half-measures to be made. 60 votes.

If you want a preview of how this works, read up on how California has gone over the last few years. It takes supermajorities to do anything here, too.

This has been written a hundred times in the past, but it was never clear that this was the case because we needed to be closer to the time that the bill was actually passed in order to know the politics of the situation.

There are not 60 votes for any kind of public option to get cloture. There may be 58 or even 59. Plus, the public option that remains is essentially garbage, and not at all what really is needed. It’s not worth giving away a bunch of junk concessions for. It would be better to instead—at the last moment—trade it away for open access to exchanges for everyone, instead of just a few people, along with better subsidies and revenues elsewhere in the bill.

If I thought the public option in the bill would easily be expanded through a 50-vote reconciliation bill in the future to make it more cost-effective, I wouldn’t support this idea, but at this point, too many senators have gone on the record opposing it and it’s water under the bridge that the strategy should have been gone about differently in the past. Neither this nor things like the Stupak amendment are worth sacrificing 98%–near universal coverage–for.

That would still be a better bill than HillaryCare was and better than the status quo.

What it would ultimately do in the future is not control costs as well as the public option would have, but there aren’t 60 votes for it and there won’t be in 2010, either. Not passing any bill also won’t get 60 votes, and may even endanger Democratic control of Congress.

The smart thing to do at this time is trade away the public option and try to get Snowe and Collins to vote for the rest of the bill and use that accomplishment to brag about in 2010 and 2012. Then, if costs continue to rise, and amendment can be tried.

Conflict resolution is surely an art as much as a science. Some people are better than others.

One axiom of conflict resolution is that unless the parties do want to resolve the problem, outside force is required. In a court case, the parties settle on their own terms most of the time. In rare exceptions, they go to trial and the judge solves the case. Except in the narrow situation where only a single cash payment is at issue, court rulings–as with outside force in general–is usually a blunt instrument by comparison.

Not all situations have outside forces that matter. In the US Senate, the outside check is, realistically, reelection, but popular will is only one factor; contributions and institutional support also matter. It requires 60 senators who are willing to solve a problem for it to be resolved. There may be 61 that even care to see the health care problem solved, and it remains to be seen if there are 60 whose solutions are compatible. There are 40 that are content not to solve the problem, who like the problem, who prefer the problem, or who don’t even see it as a problem, or, if they do, know they are better of in the regime of the problem.

Republicans have convinced themselves that successful government programs are an existential threat. There is some cognitive dissonance there, since the GOP does support military spending. In fact, I think history shows that the GOP has more of a raison d’etre the more government programs there are. They are the check on its excess. The trouble starts when the GOP stops being about fiscal conservatism and more about selfishness. Both elements have been present for a long time, one started winning since Reagan and completely took over in the new opposition of Obama.

Indeed, the real reason the GOP opposes any health care reform is political. If they didn’t like the bill, they were given every opportunity to create something more to their liking in exchange for votes. They oppose the bill because if it passes it will be a huge accomplishment for President Obama. This is also why they are cynically opposed to trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York. The US has tried other terrorists in the federal courts. To this, they respond that it will be a “show trial.” A show trial? First of all, at least it’s a trial. Second, what do they call the military tribunals? They oppose this trial because if Obama executes the 9/11 mastermind, their entire theory of 9/11 and how to respond to it will be undermined and Obama will claim yet another success. If health care reform passes and KSM is given the death penalty, Obama will be well on his way to reelection. Only the economy stands in his way.

So, after seven years of anonymous posting on how to resolve the world’s most contentious issues, I will now engage in my greatest act of chutzpah to date: I will weigh in on college football.

Some people have asked why Congress has any role in this. Well, the BCS specifically and the NCAA generally are a monopoly. The NAIA is not a competitor with any meaning. To be precise, the NCAA is a monopoly and the BCS is a combination. For once in my life, I agree with Senator Hatch. You can read his letter on the subject here which has more of the antitrust law arguments in it.

Some people want a playoff. Some people have nostalgia for the old days, like me. I suppose there are even some people that like the BCS. I imagine those people are in charge of the football program at Notre Dame for the most part.

One of the main distinctions between American sports—with the glaring exception of College Football—is that all of its major championships are based on playoffs. This is simply untrue of all sports. The biggest sport in the world, soccer, does use a playoff format for its biggest event, the World Cup. But especially in the club world, championships are based on the best performance in the season. This is true of all of the most important soccer leagues including the Premiership.

This doesn’t mean those leagues don’t have playoffs. They do. They have a playoff championship, usually called the something Cup. Even in the US, where the MLS championship is based on a playoff format, the winners of the regular season pick up the “Supporters’ Shield,” and there is the U.S. Open Cup which not only involves MLS teams, but involves amateur teams. Conceivably (and this did happen in the years between the MLS and its predecessor) an amateur team could win the US Open Cup, and on that basis be invited to play for and win the CONCACAF club championship.

So, while there is an alternative model, American sports seem to show a preference for playoffs. Americans seem to prefer the clutch player to the one who simply has high statistics. We want to see the walk off come from behind home run in the ninth inning, or the hail mary pass. These moments are even more dramatic when the season and not just the game is on the line.

Soccer is an important comparison because it’s the only sport that tries to find a champion out of more than 30 or so teams in a league, like college football. It’s not a perfect model, because the rest of the world has different sporting values than we do.

The problem isn’t that we can’t have a playoff. It’s the conferences. The BCS conferences have created a self-sustaining cycle. They have a bigger name, so they leveraged that into the BCS system which makes it easier for them to get a BCS game which makes their recruiting easier, etc.

NCAA divisions are based on the number of scholarships the school offers in that particular sport. Yet this doesn’t exactly put all of the schools on an equal footing, does it? Here’s what I suggest. It’s radical.

Every school that is currently in Division I-A gets put into one of 12 regional divisions made up of 10 teams—we’ll have to add one more team, whatever.

The divisions will be further divided into classes 1 and 2. The initial seeding will be based on some kind of formula: revenue, fan-base surveys, ticket sales, etc. But at the end of the year, the top two teams from the class 2 divisions are promoted to the class 1 division and the two worst teams in the class 1 divisions are relegated to the class 2 division. Not permanently, but they have to earn their way back the next year. Class 2 teams can even play class 1 teams if they want and vice versa, but, just as now, it would have no impact on the division standing.

These divisions can have fixed territories, or be gerrymandered somewhat to honor historical rivalries, but they won’t be the same the old conferences. The champion of each class 1 division gets a playoff berth. The system could be designed to have 3 rounds and give byes, or to have 4 rounds and wildcards; you could even include one or two teams from the class 2 divisions if you wanted.

Imagine now if, for example, Boise State wins the WAC and then gets to play in the Pac-10 next year, but Washington State because it lost so badly, has to play in the WAC next year.

This means a playoff can be completed in 3 rounds, keeping athletics from totally overriding the academics, which I know is a concern of the NCAA.

Within a few years, this would all sort itself out and the better teams would be playing better teams (something discouraged by the current BCS system) more times during the year. And there would be no more teams going 12-0 wondering if they get a BCS berth let alone a shot at the championship just because they didn’t get a chance to play teams that people think are good.

To fully understand what Rush Limbaugh’s interest in the Rams is, you have to understand the totalitarian mindset. I have no doubt that Limbaugh genuinely likes football. But from a publicity point of view, this is a totalitarian masterstroke.

Totalitarianism depends on the atomization of the population away from class and race into a mass, united by the need to “move” against some threat, usually a fictitious one. Today’s Conservatism exhibits these hallmarks. It accepts all comers as long as they are willing to ignore the interests of their race or class and accept the latest statement of its leaders without resort to facts, without resort to any consistent platform, and, in fact, in contradiction of former statements often. (They’ve certainly all disowned Bush by now.)

This movement must occur to defend the masses from some fictitious conspiracy or power. For Limbaugh, it’s the liberal elite, or the Democratic Party, or the liberal media—etc. Even when this group was utterly dispossessed of power between 2002 and 2006, it was still a creeping influence over Republican politicians. Just look at Arnold! The threat never goes away.

So, when the NFL Players—a union! a union! Jimmy Hoffa!—blocks Limbaugh’s ownership bid, or takes the “blame” for it, because I’m sure the owners would like a lot less controversy than they’ve enjoyed lately—it will simply reconfirm the prophecies of Limbaugh himself, about how the liberal elite is using its power to keep the masses (Bordeaux swilling opiate addict Limbaugh is one of them, after all) down and out, and put enemies of America like Obama in power.

Totalitarianism is a form of government, but a form of government that seeks to destroy the state. It can also be a pre-power movement. I would add that it can also be a non-state political movement. Some corporations are totalitarian institutions, to be sure.

But make no mistake, Rush is calling a trick play, and just waiting for the NFL Players to jump offside before he challenges the ruling on the field without caring what it is.

California bond sales were so strong that some institutional investors were left out, according to KQED Cap Notes on Twitter. The lower interest rates means there will be some savings, but so little of this was done to close the budget that it won’t have the impact it could have had.