tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-181369732024-03-08T18:15:32.586-05:00Progressive Strategy Blog<i>Power is the ability to achieve a purpose. Whether or not it is good or bad depends upon the purpose.</i><br />
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-78589331335960742032009-02-11T20:56:00.003-05:002009-02-11T21:17:01.961-05:00'The Worst Recession for Over 100 Years'<span style="font-style: italic;">If</span> this is the case, why aren't governments around the world responding more forcefully to this crisis?<br /><br />In any case, this is the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/this-is-the-worst-recession-for-over-100-years-1605367.html">assessment</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Balls">Ed Balls</a>, longtime top economic adviser and closest ally of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, made at a Labour conference in Yorkshire. He was talking about both, the British and the global recession:<br /><blockquote>The reality is that this is becoming the most serious global recession for, I'm sure, over 100 years, as it will turn out. [...]<br /><br />The economy is going to define our politics in this region and in Britain in the next year, the next five years, the next 10 and even the next 15 years. [...]<br /><br />These are seismic events that are going to change the political landscape. I think this is a financial crisis more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s, and we all remember how the politics of that era were shaped by the economy.</blockquote>If the Obama administration had made this kind of assessment, its strategy for dealing with this crisis surely would have been more ambitious and hence more adequate.<br /><br />If you <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/10/economist_james_galbraith_bailed_out_banks">believe</a> James Galbraith, the US stimulus will only work if the bailout succeeds at getting credit flowing again, which is pretty unlikely, given that the Obama administration, just like the Bush administration before it, still seems to be determined not to confront some of the core problems characterizing this crisis.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-64684713742939248992009-02-10T12:02:00.003-05:002009-02-10T12:15:12.938-05:00Obama's Strategic FailureThis could be the beginning of the end.<br /><br />Last Friday, Obama tried to pressure Congress by warning:<br /><blockquote>It is inexcusable and irresponsible for any of us to get bogged down in distraction, delay or politics as usual, while millions of Americans are being put out of work. Now is the time for Congress to act. It’s time to pass an Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Plan to get our economy moving.</blockquote>Yet arguably, this is precisely what Obama and his administration have done: They waited too long, failed to define the debate, and made unnecessary preemptive concessions. The result is too little, too late, and mostly wrong. In the worst case, this will not only fail to stimulate the economy, but might also lead to a weakening of the Democratic majority in 2010 and to Obama's premature exit in 2012. <br /><br />As Paul Krugman points out in his latest column, '<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/opinion/09krugman.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">The Destructive Center</a>,' it was the failure of Obama's political strategy that led to the failure of his economic strategy, which the next few years are all too likely to most painfully confirm.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-87414498099921108802009-02-05T11:32:00.005-05:002009-02-05T12:17:25.360-05:00Shock and Awe!?Is the eloquently and frequently promised 'swift and bold' action turning into 'too little, too late, and mostly wrong'? This worst-case scenario could come true. TARP was and remains fundamentally flawed, and the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Plan (ERRP) does not look much better.<br /><br />The stakes could hardly be higher. In order to have any chance of actually working, the stimulus needs to be huge (better to err on the too big rather than on the too small side under these conditions, as even Larry Summers now recognizes), very fast-acting and on target.<br /><br />On Wednesday, Obama <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gdDrWnoMueqVFI-Uo1ClxVZur22AD964S5800">warned</a>:<br /><blockquote>A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future.</blockquote>In his February 4 post, '<a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/shock-and-oy/#more-1355">Shock and oy</a>,' Paul Krugman again is pretty scathing in his critique of both the bailout and the stimulus. He quotes Martin Wolf, associate editor and chief economics commentator of the <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4a44f222-f221-11dd-9678-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1"><span style="font-style: italic;">Financial Times</span></a>:<br /><blockquote>First, <span style="font-weight: bold;">focus all attention on reversing the collapse in demand now</span>, rather than on the global architecture. <p>Second, <span style="font-weight: bold;">employ overwhelming force</span>. The time for “shock and awe” in economic policymaking is now.</p><p>…</p> Unfortunately, what is coming out of the US is desperately discouraging. Instead of an overwhelming fiscal stimulus, <span style="font-weight: bold;">what is emerging is too small, too wasteful and too ill-focused</span>. Instead of decisive action to recapitalise banks, which must mean temporary public control of insolvent banks, the US may be returning to the <span style="font-weight: bold;">immoral and ineffective policy of bailing out those who now hold the “toxic assets”. </span><br /></blockquote>Krugman elaborates:<br /><blockquote>You know, it was widely expected that Obama would have a stimulus plan ready to pass Congress even before his inauguration. That didn’t happen. We were told that this was because the economic team was working flat out on the financial rescue.<br /><br />In fact, when it comes to bank rescue it’s hard to see much evidence that anything was accomplished during all that time; the team is still — still! — running ideas up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes. <span style="font-weight: bold;">And the ideas look remarkably bad</span>.<br /></blockquote>On the 'bad bank' approach, Krugman refers to the critique of Yves Smith, who blogs at <span style="font-style: italic;">naked capitalism</span>. Here is what he had to say about this proposal in yesterday's post, '<a href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/02/bad-bank-assets-proposal-worse-than-you.html">The Bad Bank Assets Proposal: Even Worse Than You Imagined</a>:'<br /><blockquote>Dear God, let's just kiss the US economy goodbye. It may take a few years before the loyalists and permabulls throw in the towel, but the handwriting is on the wall.<br /><br />The Obama Administration, if the Washington Post's latest report is accurate, is about to embark on a hugely expensive "save the banking industry at all costs" experiment that:<br /><blockquote>1. Has nothing substantive in common with any of the "deemed as successful" financial crisis programs<br /><br />2. Has key elements that studies of financial crises have recommended against<br /><br />3. Consumes considerable resources, thus competing with other, in many cases better, uses of fiscal firepower.</blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>In a previous <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/bipartisan-bromides/">post</a>, criticizing David Broder's talk about stimulus, draws a crucial distinction between Democrat. The 'best ideas' do <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> come from both parties:<br /><blockquote>But the part that really got me was Broder saying that we need “the best ideas from both parties.” <p><span style="font-weight: bold;">You see, this isn’t a brainstorming session — it’s a collision of fundamentally incompatible world views</span>. If one thing is clear from the stimulus debate, it’s that the two parties have utterly different economic doctrines. Democrats believe in something more or less like standard textbook macroeconomics; Republicans believe in a doctrine under which tax cuts are the universal elixir,<a href="http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2009/02/budget_surplus.html"></a> and government spending is almost always bad. </p> <p>Obama may be able to get a few Republican Senators to go along with his plan; or he can get a lot of Republican votes by, in effect, becoming a Republican. <span style="font-weight: bold;">There is no middle ground.</span></p></blockquote><p style="font-weight: bold;"></p>As noted many times before, this is the whole problem with centrism, aka 'pragmatism' today. The verdict is out: Neoliberalism has failed.<br /><br />What has happened to the promise of competently executed change? What are the strategic implications of this impending disaster? TARP II continues the fundamental flaws and hence failure of TARP I and ERRP is too small, ill-focused, and might already be too late. Why does Obama still not govern as if he had won?<br /><br />This reminds of former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's slogan when he came to power in 1998 with the help of the Green Party to not do everything differently but many things better. The US and the world desperately need Obama not only to do things very differently but also much better than his predecessor (which shouldn't be too difficult). So far, however, it is very disappointing. There is much more continuity than change, both in the inadequacy of the policies and the incompetence with which they are being carried out.<br /><br />If this is not the moment to exercise audacious strategic leadership, I don't when it might be. What is the Obama administration waiting for?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-64112585977014409902009-02-03T11:51:00.003-05:002009-02-03T12:16:41.427-05:00'Make Him Do It' - But How?In '<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/29/EDDP15JM56.DTL">Moving the Political Center</a>,' David Sirota, along with many other left-liberal progressives, argues that congressional Democrats should emulate their Republican colleagues under Bush, and start every policy initiative or modification from as far to the political left as possible. He gives some examples of successful progressive measures concerning the recovery package.<br /><br />Unfortunately, he does not explore this further, for it is a central strategic question. For example, how could progressives systematically use the Overton window to shift public discourse and opinion even further to the left? More fundamentally, how best to articulate the relationship between progressives and members of Congress, so that the former can exert maximum influence on the latter? How do progressives need to build power in order to achieve that goal? <br /><br />Trying to gain 'strength in numbers' is often insufficient and can even be misleading. For instance, the <a href="http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?SectionID=1&ParentID=0&SectionTypeID=1&SectionTree=1">Congressional Progressive Caucus</a> (CPC) is the biggest caucus in the House, and with 71 members represents about a third of the House Democratic Caucus. Yet it can't point to a single accomplishment on its website. The same is the case for state Houses around the country.<br /><br />Clearly, simply electing more progressives, even if they are 'genuine,' is not enough. Progressives have to find a way to hold them consistently accountable, and to nudge them to the left.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-2425475391033614002009-02-02T14:09:00.004-05:002009-02-02T14:31:17.314-05:00Are We All Lemons Now?'Lemon socialism' - it's the oldest political game in town: You privatize benefits and socialize costs.<br /><br />In his post '<a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/bad/">Bad</a>' of January 29, Paul Krugman tells a joke about a very serious matter, which rings all too true:<br /><blockquote>As the Obama administration apparently prepares to launch Hankie Pankie II — buying troubled assets from banks at prices higher than they will fetch on the open market — it occurred to me that an updated version of an old Communist-era joke may be appropriate: under Bush, financial policy consisted of Wall Street types cutting sweet deals, at taxpayer expense, for Wall Street types. Under Obama, it’s precisely the reverse. <strong><br /><br />Update</strong>: Maybe I was too cryptic. The original joke was, “Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Socialism is the reverse.”</blockquote>His initial impression seems to be confirmed. In his latest column, '<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/opinion/02krugman.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">Bailouts for Bunglers</a>,' he now gives what might be the best short description of Obama's approach to the second half of the bailout:<br /><blockquote>Question: what happens if you lose vast amounts of other people’s money? Answer: you get a big gift from the federal government — <span style="font-weight: bold;">but the president says some very harsh things about you before forking over the cash.</span></blockquote>More than a week ago, Robert Reich made the same argument in his post, '<a href="http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-america-has-embraced-lemon.html">How America Embraced Lemon Socialism</a>.' <br /><br />So if, by many accounts, Obama has shown some smart progressive leadership on the stimulus & recovery package - though the full extent of which still remains to be seen - why this centrist caving on the second half of th bailout? Is there a larger political strategy behind this?<br /><br />In any case, since we are now in the midst of lemon socialism, might as well do the real thing, and do it right, because that might be the only adequate response: The nationalisation of quite a number of banks. But of course the question again will be an quintessentially political one: Who gets what, when and how?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-32469880026771681602009-01-24T14:25:00.008-05:002009-01-25T16:19:55.490-05:00Barack Obama, Ideologue-In-Chief? or What Centrists Fail to Understand<blockquote>What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. </blockquote>So-called 'pundits' such as <a href="http://pundits.thehill.com/john-feehery/">John Freehery</a>, founder and CEO of the Freehery Group, 'a boutique strategic advocacy firm' in Washington DC, and blogger at <a href="http://pundits.thehill.com/">The Hill's Pundits Blog</a>, <a href="http://pundits.thehill.com/2009/01/21/the-ground-shifted-beneath-them/">understands</a> this to be the most important line from Obama's inaugural address for Republicans, for it is them for whom the ground has shifted. They now face a huge challenge to reposition themselves. The background to this interpretation is what could be called the archetype of the core centrist credo:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">We are a centrist country with conservative leanings</span>. And if you don’t appeal to the vast middle, especially that part of Middle America that lives in the suburbs, your party loses seats, influence, access to money, and perspective <p><span style="font-weight: bold;">The center revolted against the partisanship of the last 20 years</span>. They threw their lot in with Obama because he talked to them, appealed to them, excited them and promised them a post-partisan world where all would work together for a more perfect union. </p> <p>Who could possibly be against that ideal?</p></blockquote><p></p>Obviously all those who don't share that 'ideal' to begin with and question the whole concept of 'centrism,' such as Thomas Frank below.<br /><br />At the other end of the political spectrum, further to the left, Victor Navasky, along with many others, '<a href="http://progressive-strategy.blogspot.com/2009/01/obama-liberal-wolf-in-centrist-sheeps.html">prefers to believe</a>' that Obama might be 'a liberal wolf in centrists sheep's clothing.' The formulation 'prefer to believe' betrays a classic case of projection that sill seems all too common among progressives today. It's wishful thinking.<br /><br />The reverse seems to make more sense: Obama appears to be 'a centrist sheep with a rather thin progressive veneer.' If this is the case, the key challenge for left-liberal progressives is to develop a strategy that allows them to nudge Obama to the left.<br /><br />The above line from Obama's speech only needs to be slightly modified to more accurately describe what really has happened in the US and the world in the past 30 years and to begin to make sense and become politically useful for left-liberal progressives. For the ground that has shifted is nothing less than 'reality,' primarily in its economic and environmental dimensions, less so in its politics:<br /><blockquote>What the <span style="font-weight: bold;">centrists</span> fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments <span style="font-weight: bold;">of centrism</span> that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. </blockquote>Progressives such as Glenn Grennwald, Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, George Lakoff, Christopher Hayes, Guy Saperstein, David Sirota, and Rick Perlstein - just to name a few - have argued for a long time that centrism is a sham. Reich explicitly did so back in 2004 in his book Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America, in chapter 5, Winning: It Will Take More Than Reason, in the section appropriately named 'The Sham of Centrism,' (pp. 196-201). 'Centrism' is a particularly pernicious form of political ideology, precisely because it passes itself off as 'the reasonable and sensible middle,' or these days as 'pragmatism.' Plus, it is shifting all the time, and the right very successfully has shifted it in its direction. For the same reason, 'leading from the center' doesn't make sense, because picking people up where they are supposedly at, is the opposite of leadership.<br /><br />According to Politico, Obama wants 80 Senate votes for his recovery plan. Given that there are 58 Democrats in the Senate now, why does he want an additional 22 Republicans? In order to get them, and all the Blue Dog Democrats, he will have to make a number of centrist/conservative concessions. In addition, this will likely delay the adoption of the bill, during a daily deepening crisis where time is of the essence. Why would he do that? Why doesn't he instead '<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123189731669479777.html">act like he won</a>'?<br /><br />Today, Obamaian 'pragmatism' and 'post-partisanships' are just new words for 'centrism,' which is now obsolete, having been surpassed by developments around the world. As Glenn Greenwald recently <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/11/centrism/">documented</a>, 'centrism' is anything but new. In fact, this is what most Democrats have been doing, ever since Dukakis in 1988, who said 'this election isn't about ideology. It's about competence.' Greenwald explains:<br /><blockquote>The central tenets of the Beltway religion -- particularly when a Democrat is in the White House -- have long been "centrism" and "bipartisanship." The only good Democrats are the ones who scorn their "left-wing" base while embracing Republicans. <span style="font-weight: bold;">In Beltway lingo, that's what "pragmatism" and good "post-partisanship" mean: a Democrat whose primary goal is to prove he's not one of those leftists. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Whatever else one might want to say about this "centrist" approach, <span style="font-style: italic;">the absolute last thing </span>one can say about it is that there's anything "new" or "remarkable" about it. </span>The notion that Democrats must spurn their left-wing base and move to the "non-ideological" center is the most conventional of conventional Beltway wisdom.<br /></blockquote>In his excellent column at the <span style="font-style: italic;">Wall Street Journal</span>, '<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123189731669479777.html">Obama Should Act Like He Won</a>,' Thomas Frank presents one of the best definitions and critiques of centrism that I have read in a long time. It is scathing and right on target:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">There is no branch of American political expression more trite, more smug, more hollow than centrism</span>. [...]<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Centrism is something of a cult here in Washington, D.C., and a more specious superstition you never saw.</span> Its adherents pretend to worship at the altar of the great American middle, but in fact they stick closely to a very particular view of events regardless of what the public says it wants.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And through it all, centrism bills itself as the most transgressive sort of exercise imaginable</span>. Its partisans are "New Democrats," "Radical Centrists," clear-eyed believers in a "Third Way." The <span style="font-weight: bold;">red-hot tepids</span>, we might call them -- the <span style="font-weight: bold;">jellybeans of steel</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The reason centrism finds an enthusiastic audience in Washington, I think, is because it appeals naturally to the Beltway journalistic mindset</span>, with its professional prohibition against coming down solidly on one side or the other of any question. Splitting the difference is a way of life in this cynical town. To hear politicians insist that it is also the way of the statesman, I suspect, gives journalists a secret thrill.<br /><br />Yet what the Beltway centrist characteristically longs for is <span style="font-weight: bold;">not so much to transcend politics but to close off debate</span> on the grounds that he -- and the vast silent middle for which he stands -- knows beyond question what is to be done<br /><br />As this should remind us, <span style="font-weight: bold;">the real-world function of Beltway centrism has not been to wage high-minded war against "both extremes" but to fight specifically against the economic and foreign policies of liberalism</span>. Centrism's institutional triumphs have been won mainly if not entirely within the Democratic Party. Its greatest exponent, President Bill Clinton, persistently used his own movement as a foil in his great game of triangulation.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And centrism's achievements?</span> Well, there's Nafta, which proved Democrats could stand up to labor. There's the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. There's the Iraq war resolution, approved by numerous Democrats in brave defiance of their party's left. Triumphs all.</blockquote>Essentially, 'centrism' is a political ideology that combines and articulates neoliberalism and 'liberal' interventionism. It is all the more powerful the more it succeeds to delude people with its pretension that it is 'post-ideological.'<br /><br />It cannot be repeated enough: 'Post-ideological' and 'post-partisan' politics is utter and dangerous nonsense. I am just waiting for the Obamaniacs to push it further and start talking about 'post-politics.' It is a myth, but a very powerful myth, that has served 'centrists' exceedingly well. It is high time to burst this pretentious bubble, especially right now that it is being vigorously reinflated.<br /><br />Likewise, there is nothing 'radical' about the 'radical middle' or 'radical centrists.' And today more than ever the 'third way' is a deadend street, a slow-motion trainwreck, given the economic and ecological crises facing us. 'Centrism' means sustaining the unsustainable. It tends to reduce democracy to technocracy, a tendency that critical theorists have critiqued for decades, foremost among them Juergen Habermas.<br /><br />Christopher Hayes, drawing pragmatist philosophy in his recent reflection on what kind of 'pragmatist' Obama might turn out to be, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081229/hayes?rel=hp_picks">put</a> it really well:<br /><blockquote>Dewey's pragmatism was reformist, not radical. He sought to ameliorate the excesses of early industrial capitalism, not to topple it. Nonetheless, pragmatism requires an openness to the possibility of radical solutions. It demands a skepticism not just toward the certainties of ideologues and dogmatism but also of elite consensus and the status quo. <span style="font-weight: bold;">This is a definition of pragmatism that is in almost every way the opposite of its invocation among those in the establishment.</span> For them, pragmatism means accepting the institutional forces that severely limit innovation and boldness; it means listening to the counsel of the Wise Men; it means not rocking the boat. </blockquote>These two kinds of pragmatism, what I would be tempted to call the 'fake,' so-called 'common sense' pragmatism of the establishment, and the 'real' philosophical and historical pragmatism, are opposed to each other. Obama has staffed his administration almost exclusively with members of the now discredited ancien regime of neoliberalism and interventionism. His early positions on a whole range of issues, from the 'bailout' to 'entitlement reform,' and from Pakistan to 'clean coal,' also reflect these obsolete approaches. Many of his other policies represent only a return to the historical norm. Some progressives may be forgiven, after these exceptional eight years, for mistaking these changes for genuine progress. Doing less harm is not the same as doing good.<br /><br />One can make the strongest case for the <a href="http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/120529/?page=entire">argument</a> that for the US to adequately address not only its current crises, but also the ones that will be the defining challenges of the 21st century, it needs to radically change many of its major policies in a quasi-revolutionary shift to a sustainable environment, economy and society. Conservatism and 'centrism' have proven to be failures to even begin to address these challenges, only making them worse. Progressivism is the only viable alternative left that at least stands a chance of beginning to respond semi-adequately to systemic challenges such as catastrophic climate change, peak oil, a hyper-militarized foreign policy and an utterly unsustainable world economy, that threaten the very foundations of human civilization. This is how much the ground has shifted.<br /><br />Even such a corporate outfit as the World Economic Forum, in its latest report, '<a href="http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/globalrisk/index.htm">Global Risks 2009</a>,' now acknowledges that global risks today are so 'interlinked,' that they necessitate much more coherent and effective global governance, which of course is a form of collective action at the highest level that, if anything, only progressivism can achieve, with its systematic emphasis on the need for more coordination, cooperation and integration.<br /><br />Thomas Frank concludes his column by quoting from former House Majority Leader 'the hammer' Tom DeLay's 2007 memoirs that Republicans under his leadership learned 'to start every policy initiative from as far to the political right as we could,' thereby moving 'the center farther to the right.'<br /><blockquote>President-elect Obama can learn something from Mr. DeLay's confession: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Centrism is a chump's game</span>. Democrats have massive majorities these days not because they waffle hither and yon but because their historic principles have been vindicated by events. This is their moment. Let the other side do the triangulating.</blockquote>Something tells me that Obama knows all this already. So why doesn't he act accordingly? The 'chump's game' of 'centrism' should insult both his intellect and his seriousness, assuming that he actually is serious about finding workable solutions to critical problems, and not primarily concerned with keeping if not expanding his majority in the 2010 midterm elections and getting re-elected in 2012.<br /><br />And here's the rub: The crises we are facing now, and will continue to face in one form or another for the rest of the 21st century, can only be adequately addressed through radically changed policies, which must be consistently applied for decades. But in a political system that is geared towards winning elections every two to four years, this is almost impossible to achieve. But saying that we are already doomed and that it is too late to change guarantees that nothing will be done, and thus this assessment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.<br /><br />Obama just got elected President in this political system, which will continue to severely constrain his actions, no matter how brilliant and well-intentioned he may be. It is for this reason that progressives must develop a strategy that allows them to change both the structure of the political system and the ideology that supports it.<br /><br />In short, politics is inescapably ideological, '<a href="http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/120529/?page=entire">centrism is for phonies</a>,' and 'post-partisanship' is bogus. At least for the next four years, Obama will be, not Pragmatist-In-Chief, as he and others would like us to believe, but unavoidably Ideologue-In-Chief. If progressives don't manage to develop and act on a strategy that allows them to at least nudge him to the left, early indications are that he will turn out to be yet another triangulating Centrist-In-Chief, and the results cannot possibly be better than some version of Clintonism 2.0. Given the enormous challenges, they are almost guaranteed to be worse. The stakes could not be higher.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-48453220706240841352009-01-23T19:33:00.004-05:002009-01-23T21:16:25.360-05:00'Approximately the Bush Position'In an <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/23/noam_chomsky_obamas_stance_on_gaza">interview</a> with Democracy Now! today, Noam Chomsky characterized <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Obama's</span> first substantive statements yesterday on the crisis in Gaza and Israeli-Palestinian relations more broadly as representing '<span style="font-weight: bold;">approximately the Bush position</span>.' Likewise, he criticized the first statements by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Obama's</span> new Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, as basically continuing US policies that have been failing for decades to resolve the conflict.<br /><br />Chomsky criticized them in particular for carefully omitting any serious criticism of Israel concerning its violation of international law, expansion of settlements in the West Bank and the fragmentation of Palestinians into what Ariel Sharon called '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">bantustans</span>,' and the brutal oppression of Palestinians. Until the US stops supporting Israel's policy and starts pressuring it to significantly change, Israel will continue doing what has been its official policy for decades:<br /><b></b><blockquote><b>JUAN GONZALEZ: </b>Noam Chomsky, I’d like to ask you about the <span style="font-weight: bold;">enormous civilian casualties</span> that have shocked the entire world in this last Israeli offensive. The Israelis claim, on the one hand, that it’s the unfortunate result of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Hamas</span> hiding among the civilian population, but you’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">ve</span> said in a recent analysis that this has been Israeli policy almost from the founding of the state, the attack on civilian populations. Could you explain?<br /><p><b>NOAM CHOMSKY: </b>They say so. I was just quoting the chief of staff—this is thirty years ago, virtually no Palestinian terrorism in Israel, virtually. He said, “Our policy has been to attack civilians.” And the reason was explained—you know, villages, towns, so on. And it was explained by Abba <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Eban</span>, the distinguished statesman, who said, “Yes, that’s what we’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">ve</span> done, and we did it for a good reason. There was a rational prospect that if we attack the civilian population and cause it enough pain, they will press for a,” what he called, “a cessation of hostilities.” That’s a euphemism meaning cessation of resistance against Israel’s takeover of the—moves which were going on at the time to take over the Occupied Territories. So, sure, if they—<span style="font-weight: bold;">“We’ll kill enough of them, so that they’ll press for quiet to permit us to continue what we’re doing.” </span><br /></p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Actually, you know, Obama today <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">didn</span>’t put it in those words, but the meaning is approximately the same. </span>That’s the meaning of his silence over the core issue of settling and takeover of the Occupied Territories and eliminating the possibility for any Palestinian meaningful independence, omission of this. But <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Eban</span> [inaudible], who I was quoting, chief of staff, would have also said, you know, <span style="font-weight: bold;">“And my heart bleeds for the civilians who are suffering. But what can we do? We have to pursue the rational prospect that if we cause them enough pain, they’ll call off any opposition to our takeover of their lands and resources.” </span>But it was—I mean, I was just quoting it. They said it very frankly. That was thirty years ago, and there’s plenty more beside that.<br /><br />[...]<br /><p>So, OK, we can have—in fact, you know, the first Israeli government to talk about a Palestinian state, to even mention the words, was the ultra right-wing <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Netanyahu</span> government that came in 1996. They were asked, <span style="font-weight: bold;">“Could Palestinians have a state?” </span>Peres, who had preceded them, said, <span style="font-weight: bold;">“No, never.” </span>And <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Netanyahu</span>’s spokesman said, <span style="font-weight: bold;">“Yeah, the fragments of territory that we leave to them, they can call it a state if they want. Or they can call it <span style="font-style: italic;">fried chicken</span>.”</span> Well, that’s basically the attitude.<br /></p>And Mitchell had nothing to say about it. <span style="font-weight: bold;">He carefully avoided what he knows for certain is the core problem: </span>the illegal, totally illegal, the criminal US-backed actions, which are systematically taking over the West Bank, just as they did under Clinton, and are undermining the possibility for a viable state.<br /></blockquote>At least so far, there is hardly any indication that any major change will occur in US policy concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<br /><br />Like any communication, political communication is highly selective. Its selectivity is largely determined by the structure of the system in which it takes place. The structures of social systems are cognitive, normative, and reflexive expectations. Cognitive expectations are anticipations of what is likely to happen and how things are likely to work. Normative expectations express what should happen. If we understand, with Harold <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Lasswell</span>, values as desired goals, we can understand both values and norms, <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> interests as normative expectations. Finally, reflexive expectations are expectations of expectations. Once you understand how systems are structured, patterns of communication and behaviour become pretty predictable.<br /><br />If we apply this to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Obama's</span> and Mitchell's most recent positioning on the the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we get something like this: Given the structure of US foreign policy, and the fact that the basic understanding of what constitutes 'US interests' in the Middle East has not changed, the result is the continuation of the traditional policy: Form follows function. To change the form (structure) of US policy, one needs to change its function. Yet this is very difficult to achieve, since structures have grown and solidified for many decades, and are full of vested interests and deeply entrenched positions.<br /><br />It is this structure that determines the selectivity of communication and action. This explains how systems reproduce themselves over time, how they not only get from one moment to the next, but more importantly how they get from <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> position to <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> position. This is why Obama sounds very similar to Bush on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Mitchell sounds basically like Dennis Ross, Director of Policy Planning in the State Department under Bush 41 and Middle East envoy Clinton, who was rumored to also take up that position under Obama as well, and now is one of his top advisers on Middle East policy.<br /><br />Here is what Chomsky has to say about Ross:<br /><blockquote>And you can understand it [the continuity from Bush to Obama] when you look at his advisers. So, say, Dennis Ross wrote an 800-page book about—in which he blamed Arafat for everything that’s happening—barely mentions the word “settlement” over—which was increasing steadily during the period when he was Clinton’s adviser, in fact peaked, a sharp increase in Clinton’s last year, not a word about it.<br /></blockquote>What is important to understand is that US policy has continued not because of the continued presence of people like Ross (that would be getting cause and effect reversed), but because the overall structure of US policy has not changed. 'Ross' and 'Mitchell,' just like 'Bush' and 'Obama' are just names, and what, after all, is in a name? What matters are not so much individuals and their differences (which can be considerable, of course), but structures and their continuity. This raises the fundamental question to what extent individuals can change social structures such as function systems, organizations, and networks.<br /><br />The implication of all this for progressive strategy is that it should concentrate its efforts on changing those organizations in which resources and decision-making power is concentrated, i.e. governments and corporations. Organizations are by far the most powerful social actors because they can mobilize and bundle resources in collective action. This requires progressives in turn to strengthen their own organizations and networks and better coordinate their activities.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-61458784148190900912009-01-22T11:20:00.005-05:002009-01-22T12:08:18.574-05:00The Political Limitations of Obama's 'Big Brain'Robert <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Scheer</span> is <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090120_robert_scheer_jan_21_column/">concerned</a> that some of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Obama's</span> actions indicate that he is more likely to continue some of the major failed Bush policies, rather than changing them significantly. He <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">singles</span> out <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Obama's</span> lobbying for the second half of the bailout, which is a <a href="http://progressive-strategy.blogspot.com/2009/01/obamanomics-wall-street-voodoo-and.html">crass example</a> of corporate welfare at taxpayers' expense, and the escalation of a failing strategy in Afghanistan.<br /><blockquote>The good news is that we have <span style="font-weight: bold;">a big-brain president</span>. The question is: Will he use it?</blockquote>That is good news indeed, especially after what we've had the last eight years. Obama may well be one of the most intelligent and intellectual presidents so far. <br /><br />But the question is not whether he will use his immense intellect. Of course he will, just like he has in the past. The question is which of his ideas he can communicate and act on effectively, given the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">constraints</span> within which he operates, and what might be called the 'logic' of US politics, which has a mind of its own, as it were.<br /><br />For instance, he might actually believe that TARP should be changed significantly in order to do what it supposedly was intended to do, but so far has utterly failed to achieve. But he might be unlikely to say so, because this would jeopardize his support from Wall Street, from which he raised more money than any other president (His chief of staff, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Rahm</span> Emanuel, was one of the House members who raised the most from the same sources).<br /><br />And probably he knows that 'clean coal' is a dangerous contradiction in terms, and yet feels constrained to support it, because that's how you win elections and get re-elected. Or that nuclear is unlikely - at tremendous costs and huge risks - to significantly reduce <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">dependence</span> on fossil fuels or emissions.<br /><br />Again, the question is not what Obama, or any other politician, 'really' thinks - we will never for sure anyway. The question is what he can communicate politically, and political communication is highly selective in the statements it accepts and rejects. If people in general, and perhaps progressives in particular, better understood the very strict limits imposed by highly structured and scripted political communication and rhetoric, they could save themselves a lot uncalled for excitement and disappointment stemming from unrealistic expectations, and could instead invest those resources in changing the limits of what is politically not only acceptable, but actually stands a reasonable chance of success. <br /><br />In other words, the political system has its own rationality, and it tends to be very different from the rationality of individuals and that of other social systems such as the economy, law, education or moral discourses. For example, the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">GHG</span> gas emissions, has failed to do so, in part because it is very difficult for the political and legal communication to lead to actual economic and environmental changes.<br /><br />More fundamentally, this focus on individual rationality overestimates the capacity of individuals - and be they the most intelligent, best intentioned, and most resourceful - to change social systems that have their own rationality and are self-organized, and therefore are very difficult to 'steer.' <br /><br />The traditional and still dominant understanding of politics is that it's the 'head' or the 'tip' of society, able to steer society in a certain direction. However, we can see more and more clearly that a globalized, functionally differentiated world society can't be effectively steered, because there is no position from which a collectively binding description of the world, its problems and its solutions could be formulated and implemented.<br /><br />The implications of the functional differentiation of world society for the potential and limitations of political strategy are important, and we have only begun to think them through. It raises the core strategic question of where best to concentrate scarce resources.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-12595673756552335342009-01-21T22:09:00.003-05:002009-01-21T22:22:21.040-05:00Obama, a 'Liberal Wolf in Centrist Sheep's Clothing'?Victor Navasky <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090202/navasky3">disagrees</a> with all those pundits calling Obama a 'centrist:'<br /><blockquote>First, as our friend and backer Paul Newman used to remind us, <i>The Nation</i> was valuable because it helps define where the center is. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The center can shift</span>. When Obama added to his ritualistic description of America as "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus" a new category--"nonbelievers"--it was almost unbelievable, as he quickly helped redefine where the center was. <p>Second, based on what we know about Obama--his books, his initial intuitive stand against the war in Iraq, his Senate voting record, his campaign, his inaugural speech--I don't believe it. <span style="font-weight: bold;">At most, he seems to me a liberal wolf in centrist sheep's clothing. </span></p> <p>And finally, faced with the ever-more-dire economic crisis, <span style="font-weight: bold;">his commitment to a Keynes-based economic stimulus and renewed regulatory rigor </span>(see his inaugural reference to not letting the market "spin out of control") suggests that, at a minimum, he flunked Centrism 101. </p> <p>Rather, I prefer to believe that his reach across the aisle, his cabinet appointments and his opening to the renegade Joe Lieberman and his erstwhile opponent John McCain himself are part of his <span style="font-weight: bold;">pragmatic plan to advance an agenda that goes beyond anything the so-called center might contain</span>. Whether or not it will work, that is the question. </p></blockquote><p></p>All this of course remains to be seen. Obama's first day was certainly encouraging. But somehow I find it difficult to think of Obama as a 'liberal wolf in centrist sheep's clothing.' Perhaps it's more the other way around? Does Navasky's formulation, 'I <span style="font-style: italic;">prefer</span> to believe,' perhaps still betray too much wishful thinking, as has been pretty common on the left lately concerning Obama's inclinations?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-33192779873243271662009-01-20T22:57:00.003-05:002009-01-20T23:58:36.887-05:00Divergent Fiscal PhilosophiesBob Kuttner is <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/19-5">concerned</a> that Obama may buy into the conservative argument for 'gutting' Social Security and Medicare. This storyline has been pushed by Robert Rubin's Hamilton Project and the Concord Coalition for a while, and has received a recent boost by the newly formed Peter G. Peterson Foundation and the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform. Kuttner convincingly counters that this is essentially an ideological and not a fiscal debate. <br /><br />Kuttner concludes:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">So, just how will President Obama define fiscal responsibility</span>, who will he choose to showcase, and to what end? It will be interesting to see whether his fiscal summit features people like Pete Peterson, David Walker, and Robert Rubin, and lends credence to their story--or whether he also gives the floor to their critics. <p><span style="font-weight: bold;">You can understand why, as matter of fiscal <span style="font-style: italic;">tactics</span>, Obama would need to signal that </span>it is possible and necessary to rely on large deficits in 2009 and 2010 to avert a recession, and then to get serious about fiscal discipline over the next decade once the economy has returned to decent growth. He needs to argue this to reassure the Blue Dogs in his own party, to win over some Republicans, and to get support of opinion leaders for his recovery strategy. </p> <p><span style="font-weight: bold;">But there is more than one road to fiscal discipline</span>. One entails gutting the few program that have survived the rightwing assault on social insurance. The other involves filling in the appalling gaps in social insurance and achieving fiscal balance by restoring the principle of taxation based on the ability to pay. </p> <p>Once again, our new leader, who has inspired so much hope and <span style="font-weight: bold;">who so wants to be a post-ideological president, needs to grasp that these are deeply ideological questions.</span> To pretend otherwise is to allow the conservative version of the story to govern by default.</p></blockquote><p></p>This is an excellent point, for these are fundamental strategic decisions about the future of this country, not just tactics. And questions of political strategy are always inescapably ideological,<br />because they are about what kind of world we are living in and about what kind of world we would like to live in. <br /><br />You cannot not have an ideology in the sense of a worldview (Weltanschauung) and preferences. You can be 'post-ideological' as little as you can be 'post-partisan.' You might as well claim that you are 'post-political,' which would be even more nonsensical. Politics is precisely about positioning yourself, in term so how you see things and whether or not you would like to change them, and if so, how, and why this way and not that way? So how will Obama position himself, given how he has positioned himself? Where you stand very much depends upon where you sit.<br /><br />The core insight of pragmatism is that since we cannot know for certain how the world 'really' is and could be, we should describe it in a way that furthers our values, interests, and preferences. Truth is what is better for us to believe in. Needless to say, it is obvious that the goals pursued by different types of progressives are irreconcilably divergent. <br /><br />Of course, ideology is the most powerful when it is not perceived as such, but instead is passed off as 'common sense pragmatism', as it were, as simply a question of what works and what doesn't, without asking the primordial political question of who benefits and who loses? Is this what Obama is up to with all his rhetoric about pragmatism?<br /><br />There is reason to be concerned, for Obama very deliberately placed all Rubinites in key economic positions: Summers, Geithner, and Orszag.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-10548985640551046522009-01-20T21:55:00.005-05:002009-01-20T22:40:19.375-05:00The Influence-Peddling InaugurationThe the total cost of the inauguration is <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/ketcham01202009.html">estimated</a> to be more than $150 million. In comparison, Bush's 2005 swearing-in 'only' cost $42 million. Of that total amount, which some estimate at $170 million, 'only' $45 million come from private donors, but about 80% of these donations come from only some 200 wealthy bundlers, many of the them from Wall Street, according to a report by Public Citizen, <a href="http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2799">The Presidential Inauguration, Brought to You by the Few, the Wealthy</a>:<br /><blockquote>"<span style="font-weight: bold;">It’s no wonder that Wall Street is pouring so much money into this inauguration</span>," said David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. "The executive branch has given bailouts worth trillions of dollars to Wall Street firms and is considering trillions more. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Wall Street has a lot at stake</span>. ...<br /><br />"No doubt many donors give simply because they want to be part of history," said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen. "But donors and bundlers who represent special interests with business pending before the government and who dole out five-figure checks to the inaugural committee usually <span style="font-weight: bold;">want a seat at the table with the new administration</span>. ...<br /><br />"<span style="font-weight: bold;">The inauguration is the last chance for big donors to throw money at the feet of the president</span>," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. "Inaugural festivities should not be a day of influence-peddling. The inauguration should be a time for peaceful transition in government, paid for with public funds.<br /></blockquote>In an interview with Democracy Now!, <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/20/public_citizen_obamas_inauguration_sponsored_by">Obama's Inauguration, Sponsored by the Few, the Wealthy</a>, Holman provides some more background:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">And what do you suppose Wall Street wants in return for all this, for paying for all these activities?</span> It’s pretty clear. I mean, Wall Street is right in the middle of the largest bailout program we’ve ever seen of the financial sector. Obama is going to be presiding over that bailout program in just a matter of a couple hours. And it’s Wall Street that wants a seat at Obama’s table, when it comes to deciding the nature of the bailout program.</blockquote>As noted <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/20/public_citizen_obamas_inauguration_sponsored_by">yesterday</a>, there is overwhelming evidence that the 'bailout' has failed to encourage lending, and that Obama is committed to continue this form of corporate welfare at the expense of taxpayers. The way the inauguration has been financed provides further evidence.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-76538684397916912182009-01-20T00:35:00.003-05:002009-01-20T01:07:14.364-05:00Is Triangulation Back?Norman Solomon, board member of Progressive Democrats of America, already detects <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/19">The Return of Triangulation</a>:<br /><blockquote>The mosaic of Barack <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Obama's</span> cabinet picks and top White House staff gives us an overview of what the new president sees as political symmetry for his administration. While it's too early to gauge specific policies of the Obama presidency, it's not too soon to understand that "triangulation" is back.</blockquote>In Solomon's view, Obama is a 'centrist' and 'pragmatic' politician who will seek and occupy the center of political gravity. He quotes his biographer David <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Mendell</span>, who describes Obama as<br /><blockquote>an exceptionally gifted politician who, throughout his life, has been able to make people of wildly divergent vantage points see in him exactly what they want to see.</blockquote>Criticizing progressives for projecting their worldviews on Obama, he is concerned that the progressive base will again be frustrated and demobilized under <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Obama's</span> triangulation, just as it had been under Clinton's in the 1990s. <br /><br />Therefore, progressive grassroots need to move the center to the left, by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">reframing</span> crucial policy choices, such as health care, Afghanistan, etc. This approach is very similar to what progressives like John Nichols recommend, and suffers from the same <a href="http://progressive-strategy.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-push-obama.html">deficiencies</a>. <br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Reframing</span> of course is reminiscent of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Lakoff's</span> approach to framing and his <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Rockridge</span> Institute, which had to close last year due to a lack of funds. The whole notion that the Left can change policies by changing public opinion through <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">reframing</span> issues has not been very successful, and needs to be fundamentally reconsidered. <br /><br />Politics in large part is about the concentration and centralization of resources and decision-making power in organizations. Political power is largely organized power, and organizations are structures of power. <br /><br />Therefore, progressives need to build and strengthen their own organizations and infrastructure more generally, in order to gain greater influence over and ultimately break into centrist and conservative power structures. <br /><br />In other words, progressives can frame and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">reframe</span> issues and policies all they want; as long as they don't have the organized power to make credible demands on those in power, all this activity is unlikely to lead to positions of strength, from which more power could be built.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-40654450498849114292009-01-19T23:47:00.003-05:002009-01-20T00:02:52.294-05:00'What Obama Should Read'Now that's progress! A president who likes to read! After all, it has been known for a long time that George W. Bush did not even read the one-page executive summary of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, only to turn around and trash it in the media.<br /><br />The Washington Monthly has asked 19 of its favorite writers and thinkers to suggest the books Obama should read. The result is an interesting <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0901.obama.html">list</a> of 25 books.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Garreau">Joel Garreau</a>, fellow at the New America Foundation, recommends <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Art-Long-View-Planning-Uncertain/dp/0385267320">The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World</a> by Peter Schwartz, published in 1996. Here is how Garreau summarizes it:<br /><blockquote>It’s still the most accessible guide to thinking rationally, systematically, and strategically about futures you can’t possibly predict. Scenario planning is the antidote to the kind of futures bravado that caused us to roll into Iraq thinking there was no other possibility but that they’d throw rose petals at our feet. As change accelerates, you’ve got a lot more strange stuff coming at you, Mr. President. This is the conceptual guide on how to prepare.</blockquote>While coming from a business and consulting perspective, it is good to be reminded of the importance of scenario planning for developing strategies for an unpredictable future.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-89825144703360323122009-01-19T21:42:00.008-05:002009-01-19T23:29:44.107-05:00Obamanomics: 'Wall Street Voodoo' and 'Kleptocracy'?The current bailout is unlikely to encourage more lending, because that's not what it's designed to do, and there does not seem to be a need for it, certainly no 'urgent' one, much less an emergency. Rather, it appears that Obama is likely to continue what Bush started, albeit in more subtle ways. At least for now, corporate welfare will <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">continue</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">unabated</span> under Obama, and it makes sense, for he has raised more from Wall Street than any other president, and the donors who benefit most from the bailout are financing his inauguration. It's payback and party time, on the back of the taxpayers! Since the bailout cannot possibly be justified on its merits, it has to be sold differently. This is where voodoo comes in.<br /><br />One day before the inauguration, Paul <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Krugman</span>, in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/opinion/19krugman.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">Wall Street Voodoo</a>, suggests that Obama may be condoning a new kind of voodoo economics, primarily designed to avoid the 'N-word' (nationalization), and increasing the likelihood of failure:<br /><blockquote>Old-fashioned voodoo economics — the belief in tax-cut magic — has been banished from civilized discourse. The supply-side cult has shrunk to the point that it contains only <span style="font-weight: bold;">cranks, charlatans, and Republicans.</span><br /><br />But recent news reports suggest that many influential people, including Federal Reserve officials, bank regulators, and, possibly, members of the incoming Obama administration, have become devotees of <span style="font-weight: bold;">a new kind of voodoo: the belief that by performing elaborate financial rituals we can keep dead banks walking.</span><br /><br />[...]<br /><p>What I suspect is that policy makers — possibly without realizing it — are gearing up to attempt <span style="font-weight: bold;">a bait-and-switch</span>: a policy that looks like the cleanup of the savings and loans, but in practice amounts to <span style="font-weight: bold;">making huge gifts to bank shareholders at taxpayer expense, disguised as “fair value” purchases of toxic assets. </span></p><p>Why go through these contortions? The answer seems to be that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Washington remains deathly afraid of the N-word — nationalization</span>. The truth is that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Gothamgroup</span> and its sister institutions are already wards of the state, utterly dependent on taxpayer support; but nobody wants to recognize that fact and implement the obvious solution: an explicit, though temporary, government takeover. Hence the popularity of the new voodoo, which claims, as I said, that elaborate financial rituals can reanimate dead banks.</p>Unfortunately, the price of this retreat into superstition may be high. I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect that taxpayers are about to get another raw deal — and that <span style="font-weight: bold;">we’re about to get another financial rescue plan that fails to do the job. </span><br /></blockquote>To learn about what Obama should be doing instead, read Krugman's <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/25456948/what_obama_must_do">What Obama must do: A letter to the new president</a>, the cover story of the current Rolling Stone.<br /><br />In <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/18/business/18bank.php">Bailout a windfall for bankers</a>, if not borrowers, in yesterday's International Herald Tribune,<br />one reads:<br /><blockquote>A review of investor presentations and conference calls by executives of some two dozen banks around the country found that <span style="font-weight: bold;">few cited lending as a priority</span>. An overwhelming majority saw the bailout program as a no-strings-attached windfall that could be used to pay down debt, acquire other businesses or invest for the future. ...<br /><p>But a congressional oversight panel reported on Jan. 9 that it <span style="font-weight: bold;">found no evidence the bailout program had been used to prevent foreclosures</span>, raising questions about whether the Treasury has complied with the law's requirement that it develop a "plan that seeks to maximize assistance for homeowners."</p> <p>The report concluded that <span style="font-weight: bold;">the Treasury's top priority seemed to be to "stabilize financial markets" by simply giving healthy banks more money and letting them decide how best to use it. </span>The report also said it was not clear how giving billions to banks "advances both the goal of financial stability and the well-being of taxpayers, including homeowners threatened by foreclosure, people losing their jobs, and families unable to pay their credit cards."</p></blockquote><p></p>David <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Sirota</span>, in <a href="http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=11009">A brief note to those who still insist the current bailout will spur more lending...</a> on Open Left, describing how 'Obama partisans' try to make themselves feel better and calling this latest approach '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">kleptocracy</span>,' which really is not that different from what the Bush regime did for eight years, but perhaps more sophisticated, described as 'new voodoo' by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Krugman</span> above:<br /><blockquote>If you read news about the bailout very carefully, you'll see that <span style="font-weight: bold;">the entire goal of the current bailout is to protect bank shareholders </span>- not the taxpayers, homeowners or the financial system as a whole. ...<br /><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">This is why progressives have been pushing for far more oversight, transparency and restrictions</span> on what the bailout money can - and cannot - be used for. If the bailout was structured differently, it might start helping the economy. If our government was a bit less corrupt, we might have a much more effective bailout with strings attached - maybe, as the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/business/worldbusiness/20ukbanks.html">New York Times</a> reports, we'd do what the British are doing by forcing bank executives to <span style="font-weight: bold;">"sign legally binding agreements requiring them to provide more loans to consumers and businesses." </span>But those are big ifs. </p><p>Sure, I know <span style="font-weight: bold;">it makes Obama partisans feel better to tell themselves</span> that the current bailout the president-elect endorsed is really designed to stop an imminent emergency, not just to raid the federal treasury on behalf of the Wall Street donor class. <span style="font-weight: bold;">But the evidence </span>- whether from the GAO, the Congressional Oversight Panel, and now from the banks themselves - <span style="font-weight: bold;">continues to prove that this bailout is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">kleptocracy</span> in its most naked form.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>In <a href="http://www.sunjournal.com/story/299624-3/Columnist/Obama_pushing_bailout_without_solid_plan_in_place/">Obama pushing bailout without solid plan in place</a>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Sirota</span> provides more background on why<br />president-elect Obama has threatened to veto any bill rejecting Bush's request to release the remaining $350 billion of the bailout fund:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">This isn't much-ballyhooed "change" - it's money politics by a different name</span>. How do we know? Because neither Obama nor anyone else is genuinely trying to justify the bailout on its merits - and understandably so. Even the most basic queries prove such merits don't exist.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">This bizarre dynamic is anything but the "pragmatism" Obama rhetorically <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">fetishizes</span> </span>- and America's anti-bailout majority knows it.<p class="StoryText12"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sure, Obama might believe he's deft enough to seem courageously populist while using his White House to perpetuate <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">kleptocracy</span>.</span> Perhaps he thinks the gravity of a veto threat will, for a second time, trick the nation into reluctantly accepting theft.<br /><br />Or maybe before attempting more sleight of hand, Obama should take a moment away from studying Lincoln's speeches and Roosevelt's fireside chats and recall the irrefutable sagacity in one of the most (in)famous <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Bushisms</span> of all.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"There's an old saying in Tennessee," the outgoing president said early in his first term. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me (twice) - you can't get fooled again."</span></p></blockquote><p class="StoryText12"></p>So exactly who is fooling whom here?<br /><br />The January 9, 2009 report of the Congressional Oversight Panel notes that the government has <span style="font-weight: bold;">'not yet explained its strategy.' </span> This, at least, is consistent, for it has none; and neither does Obama.<br /><br />Does the world <span style="font-style: italic;">want</span> to be betrayed? It sure seems like it. Never underestimate the allied powers of denial and wishful thinking.<br /><br />And since much of the country on this eve of the inauguration seems to be in an ebullient and enthusiastic, if not euphoric party mood about the potential and promise of this great country, the following <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Bacchic</span> metaphor seems justified: So far, the Obama administration shapes up to look like old wine in new <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">wine skins</span>. No 'new politics.' Instead old politics with a rather translucent 'post-partisan' veneer.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-73636088922231214692009-01-19T17:35:00.005-05:002009-01-19T20:06:34.622-05:00Towards a Realistic Left Strategy<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Last week, John Nichols, Washington correspondent of The Nation, published <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/12-9">How to Push Obama</a> in The Progressive.<br /><br />Nichols recalls how he first covered Obama in the mid-1990s when he ran for the Illinois state senate as a candidate endorsed by the labor-left New Party. Nichols affirms that Obama self-identifies as a progressive, and quotes him:<br /></span></span><blockquote style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I am somebody who is no doubt progressive. I believe in a tax code that we need to make more fair. I believe in universal health care. I believe in making college affordable. I believe in paying our teachers more money. I believe in early childhood education. I believe in a whole lot of things that make me progressive.</span></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">According to Nichols, Obama knows 'the specifics' of 'the left-labor-liberal-progressive agenda,' but is cautious, 'because knowing the ideals and values of the left is not the same as practicing them,' which Obama certainly hasn't. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">So here is Nichols' main recommendation of how 'progressives' should 'push' Obama to the left:</span><br /></span><p style="font-family: times new roman;"></p><blockquote style="font-family:times new roman;"><p><span style="font-size:100%;">The way to influence Obama and his Administration is to speak not so much to him as to America. Get out ahead of the new President, and of his spin-drive communications team. Highlight the right appointees and the right responses to deal with the challenges that matter most. Don't just critique, but rather propose. Advance big ideas and organize on their behalf; identify allies in federal agencies, especially in Congress, and work with them to dial up the pressure for progress. Don't expect Obama or his aides to do the left thing. Indeed, take a lesson from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">right wing</span> pressure groups in their dealings with Republican administrations and recognize that it is always better to build the bandwagon than to jump on board one that is crafted with the tools of compromise. </span></p> <span style="font-size:100%;">Smart groups and individuals are already at it. [...]<br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">The examples he gives are critiques of the bailout, and advocacy for civil liberties and single-payer health care.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Now, unfortunately, but rather predictably, this is really nothing new, because the Left has been criticizing policies and advocating for alternative policies for decades, with very little success. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">It reminds me of the famous definition of insanity as 'doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,' which is alternatively attributed to Albert Einstein or Benjamin Franklin. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">One day before <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Obama's</span> deeply historic and highly symbolic inauguration, it is high time for the Left to ask itself a very basic but also very important strategic question: Not only: Are we doing things right, but more importantly: Are we doing the right things? In other words, it is high time that the Left not only <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">improves</span> tactics, but changes strategy. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">A good starting point for the Left is to remind itself that, in the words of Frederick Douglass,<br /></span><blockquote><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.</span><br /></blockquote><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Effective strategy begins with a sober and realistic assessment of the current situation, including one's own position and resources. The sad truth is that the Left is simply not in a position to demand much of anything of Obama. It is simply too weak, if not to say marginal. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">It lacks the leverage, and therefore the bargaining power to make demands on the Obama administration. Its 'threats' of withholding support lack credibility, because the consequences are simply not significant enough.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">So the big strategic question the Left needs to answer is how to build power cumulatively and long-term, starting from a position of weakness, and how it can make use of the Obama administration in gaining strength, as opposed to the lost decade under Clinton. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Until the Left has adequately addressed this critical strategic question, it will simply continue doing what is has done for decades, with hardly any structural effect: It will criticize, complain, express <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">outrage</span>, suggest alternatives, etc. - but who is listening?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Obama will continue to tell leftists that he hears them loud and clear, and will, from time to time, give them the impression that he, in some ways, is really a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">leftie</span> himself. But he won't listen to them, much less act on their recommendations, because he is constrained to operate in a very centrist if not conservative political and social structure. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">To be fair, Nichols emphasizes the importance of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">changing</span> public opinion. He could have used Lincoln's famous quote, which in recent months has been used ad <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">nausea</span>:</span><br /></span><blockquote style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.</span></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">And indeed, the left-liberal every day is filled to the brim with critiques, advocacy, alternatives, outrage, etc. This is what publications such as The Nation, The American Prospect, Dissent, Harper's, Mother Jones, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">TPMCafe</span>, Campaign for America's Future, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">AlterNet</span>, Common Dreams, Daily <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Kos</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">OpenLeft</span>, etc. do, frequently recycling materials quite a bit, which leads to quite some redundancy. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">But who is reading these publications, and more importantly: Who is acting on all this information? I think it is likely that the readership for all these publications is small, is more or less the same for each one of them, and that they hardly have any influence on the mainstream, much less on political decision-making. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Further to the left, let's say with the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">CounterPunch</span> crowd, the typical take on Obama is that he is a centrist and the best you can hope for is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Clintonism</span> 2.0. Instead of dismantling the empire, he will simply manage it more efficiently. Instead of shifting from <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">neoliberalism</span> and the failed Washington Consensus to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">neo</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Keynesianism</span> (or better yet: full-fledged social democracy), he will simply sell <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">neoliberalism</span> with a social touch. Obama represents a new style rather than new substance. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">But where do all these unrealistic assumptions and expectations come from in the first place? I suspect the blinding effects of ideology and wishful thinking play an important role. It is also much easier to continue coming up with laundry lists of desiderata, of all the things that should happen, just like you have done for years if not decades, instead of asking yourself why the Left is still so marginal, and developing a strategy to become less marginal. Further to the left, the better can easily become the enemy of the good: Since Obama won't overthrow capitalism, why bother?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Nichols concludes, as is very typical these days, with FDR's famous response to labour leaders after his election in 1932:</span><br /></span><blockquote style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.<br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">In the case of the relationship between Obama and the Left, each of these three statements is questionable and problematic: What do Obama and the Left actually agree on, what does Obama really want to do that the Left wants him to do, and, most importantly: How should the Left 'make' Obama do the things it would like him to do, and why this way, and not another way?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Nichols' understanding of all three components of this statement are symptomatic of too many people on the left. Too many left-liberals actually believe the first two parts, and continue to think that essentially more of the same (more 'pressure,' more 'pushing') will nudge him to the left. Too many further to the left completely disagree with the first two parts, and therefore don't even need to try or do anything differently, because it is hopeless anyway, which of course if very convenient. They can just continue scoffing and sneering more or less cynically or become increasingly apathetic in what has been called 'sophisticated resignation.'</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">To better be able to analyze and characterize European foreign policy, Christopher Hill of the London School of Economics in the 1990s developed the concept of the 'capabilities-expectations gap,' which describes the relationship and gap between capabilities and expectations and how it has evolved historically. It might be useful to apply this concept to the relationship between the Left and Obama and to progressive strategy more generally. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">There are two basic options. Either you maintain your high expectations, and try to strengthen your capabilities to better be able to realize them, or you reduce your expectations in the hope of better being able to meet them with capabilities that are likely to remain limited for a long time. The problem with too much of the Left today is that it maintains unrealistically high expectations and/or has still not found a viable way of strengthening its capabilities in a sustainable way. And so it continues to remain in lamentation mode as described above. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Just yesterday, Obama said again what he has said many times before, that in a country called America, 'everything is possible.' What is possible for the Left in the US under <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Obama's</span> leadership? Such a realistic strategic assessment is fundamental for the Left today if it wants to stop squandering preciously scarce resources on both lamenting and dreaming, which are equally ineffective, and start concentrating its efforts on realistic goals. Above all, the Left needs to determine what not to do, and then actually stop doing it:</span><br /></span><blockquote style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The essence of strategy is choosing what <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">not</span> to do. (Michael Porter, my emphasis)</span></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-25477678557946088892009-01-19T17:03:00.004-05:002009-01-19T17:24:06.341-05:00Why Scale Back Successful 50-State Strategy?<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Howard Dean's 50-state strategy has been widely credited not only with effectively strengthening the Democratic Party across the nation, but also with helping Obama win the election. <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g0vr8a-oHbi1wAuYgxV_ditSzjrAD95OGS480">Some</a> say that Obama went so far to tell Dean on election night that he couldn't have won without him.<br /><br />Dean has just been replaced by Tim Kaine as chair of the DNC. Many believe that once Obama chose Emanuel as his chief of staff, Dean's fate was <a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-2547-Watchdog-Politics-Examiner%7Ey2009m1d17-Obama-dumps-Dean">sealed</a>, given Emanuel's criticism of the 50-state strategy in the past. Dean is clearly <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/01/dean_disappoint.html">disappointed</a> that Obama did not offer him a position in his administration:<br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">"Obviously, it would have been great," Dean said in a telephone interview from his home in Burlington, Vt. "But it's not happening and the president has the right to name his own Cabinet, so I'm not going to work in the government it looks like."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >But why has Kaine now <a href="http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/brbuchwal/2009/01/50-state-strategy-to-shrink.php">decided</a>, after first praising the 50-state strategy for its overwhelming success, that it would be scaled back? Because<br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:16;" >You never should just do what you did yesterday. </span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >This unconvincing justification has been appropriately mocked in the blogosphere. <br /><br />But what might be the real reason? Perhaps Obama wants to leverage his extensive campaign network to gain greater control over the Democratic Party, which could be similar to the approach he took after winning the primary when he asked donors not to fund 527s so that his campaign could further centralize control over organization and messaging?<br /><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-85905276190682121192009-01-18T17:52:00.003-05:002009-01-18T19:03:14.265-05:00How to Strategize in Times of Crisis?<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Sunday, January 18, 6pm<br /><br />In his Washington Memo, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/us/politics/18change.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">2 Years After Campaign Began</a>, a Different World, David E. Sanger reflects on the major changes that have happened since Obama declared his candidacy and wonders: 'So while the world has changed, Mr. Obama has changed with it. But how much?'<br /><br />He quotes <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7Egji3/">G. John Ikenberry</a>, a leading scholar of international relations, who co-authored a study of the national security agenda facing the next president:<br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">He’s facing the <span style="font-weight: bold;">classic problem</span> of having to handle a number of crises before he’s really got time to set out a long-term architecture. </span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Madeleine Albright expressed a related view, when she recently compared Obama's task to<br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">redesigning the airplane while you’re flying it.<br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Indeed, the argument is frequently made that politics basically always takes place under time pressure, all the more under crisis conditions, and there certainly is no shortage of crises facing Obama: From Iraq to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea to the global economic crisis and the twin problems of peak oil and climate change.<br /><br />Hence the crucial question: How do you develop a coherent strategy, much less a grand strategy, if the environment in which you want to implement it constantly changes and the future is fundamentally uncertain and unpredictable? In these circumstances, instead of making predictions, the best you can do is think systematically about the basic issues and trends and their strategic implications. <br /><br />Still, politics in general and crisis management in particular, tend to be rather reactive - simply because political systems are forced to respond rapidly (just take the current economic crisis as an example), and always under conditions of less than perfect information concerning the situation, preferences, likelihood of outcomes, etc. But reacting to events and developments is in many ways the exact oppposite of acting strategically, which aims precisely at shaping the environment in which actors operate. <br /><br />Given the many differences between Barack Obama and George W. Bush, it will be very interesting to see how much their strategies will differ in response to the challenges they face. Of course, the very challenges administrations choose to face are the result of their hopefully more rather than less strategic assessments. For example, while Bush ignored climate disruption, Obama has vowed to make it a priority. <br /><br />And yet, given how much politics is about having to react to developments that are oftentimes largely out of control (including the unintended and unforeseeable consequences of deliberate policies), and within tight political and material constraints, it is understandable why many practitioners and theorists question the usefulness grand strategy under these conditions.<br /><br />Analogously to Gandhi's famous response to a journalist's question of what he thought of Western civilization, some might be tempted to respond to the same question about grand strategy identically: 'I think it would be a good idea.'<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Politicians such as long-term German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who was in power for 16 years, gave 'muddling through' ('Durchwursteln,' in German) a good name, and it certainly served him well, if not necessarily his country - an assessment which of course depends on your point of view.<br /><br />Obama can only serve for eight years. If he should - and many hope he will - this will at least in part be due to his political strategy. The big question is, whom that political strategy will serve better, him or his country? After all, Bush also served for eight years ...<br /><br />Given continued functional differentiation, can these two very different, and in some ways opposed political logics still be reconciled? And can a political strategy, can <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> political strategy, bridge the gap between one political strategy that focuses on gaining, maintaining, and expanding political power, and another, while also wanting to build power, does so in order to 'do good,' or at least to reduce harm?<br /><br />On the eve of Martin Luther King Day, and two days before the inauguration of the first African American president, it seems appropriate to recall King's quote, which serves as the motto of this blog:<br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Power is the ability to achieve a purpose. Whether or not it is good or bad depends upon the purpose.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Yes, we have come a long way; and yes, we still have a long way to go. Where will, where can Obama lead us, and with what kind of strategy? What is the purpose of his power?<br /><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-75809123122755842932009-01-17T18:01:00.003-05:002009-01-18T17:16:57.250-05:00'Forgive and Forget?'<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Saturday, January 17, 2009<br /><br />This is the title of Paul Krugman's </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/opinion/16krugman.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">latest column</a></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >, in which he criticizes Obama's apparent inclination not to investigate and prosecute the Bush administration's systematic abuse of power.<br /><br />Not holding them accountable sets a fatal precedent. It sends the message that it is acceptable to violate the Constitution </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >and</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > get away with it without any consequences, thereby increasing the likelihood that it will happen again. It would confirm that they are indeed above the law. Krugman concludes: </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And to protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has the right to make.<br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >For confirmation and more details on this approach, see Glenn Greenwalds January 15 post, </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/15/ignatius/index.html">Establishment Washington Unifies Against Prosecutions</a></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Given the parallel to how Bush Sr. dealt with the Iran-Contra Affair during the Reagan era, this suggests much more continuity than change. Why is that? If this is not the time to hold members of the Bush administration accountable for what must be among the most extensive and egregious abuses of power, when could there ever be the right time?</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that years of investigations and prosecutions would prove too divisive, as Krugman suggests, and would interfere with Obama's strategy of building a new, 'post-partisan' coalition with significant Repbulican participation.<br /><br /><br />UPDATE, Sunday, January 19, 2009<br /><br />In today's post, <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/18/prosecutions/index.html">Binding US Law Requires Prosecutions for those Who Authorize Torture</a>, Glenn Greenwald, after presenting a series of undisputed premises and inescapable conclusions, himself comes to the conclusion that the evidence is so clear and overwhelming that the Obama administration has no choice but to investigate and prosecute. <br /><br />He approvingly quotes from Hilary Bok's <a href="http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/01/some-facts-for-obama-to-consider.html">Some Facts for Obama to Consider</a> of January 15, 2009:<br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It seems to me that these facts imply that if Barack Obama, or his administration, believe that there are reasonable grounds to believe that members of the Bush administration have committed torture, <strong>then they are legally obligated to investigate; and that if that investigation shows that acts of torture were committed, to submit those cases for prosecution,</strong> if the officials who committed or sanctioned those acts are found on US territory. If they are on the territory of some other party to the Convention, then it has that obligation. Under the Convention, as I read it, <strong>this is not discretionary. And under the Constitution, obeying the laws, which include treaties, is not discretionary either. (Greenwald's emphasis)<br /></strong></span></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Greenwald himself concludes:</span></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">While those who argue that the US was right to torture because it's the US that did it are expressing a repugnant form of exceptionalism, at least they're being honest -- far more so than those who argue that Bush officials shouldn't be investigated or prosecuted while paying deceitful lip service to "the rule of law" and the idea that "no one is above the law."</span></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-67027762762041761042009-01-16T14:11:00.003-05:002009-01-16T14:19:42.024-05:00The Potential of Web 2.0 for Social Movement Organizing<a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090202/smith_costello_brecher?rel=hp_currently">'Social Movements 2.0'</a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> explores the potential of the emerging Web 2.0 for social movement organizing, including a list of five reasons for its relevance and of eight questions that are still open. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">It refers to Global Labor Strategies, which looks very interesting, and Sally Kohn's alternative view, </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-kohn/real-change-happens-offli_b_110116.html">'Real Change Happens Offline</a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">.'</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-28185682080320782862009-01-16T13:46:00.003-05:002009-01-16T14:01:38.808-05:00The 43 Who Helped Make Bush One of the Worst Presidents<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The always informative Progress Report just published </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2009/01/pr20090116/index.html">this depressing list</a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> of 43 of his appointees who helped him create one of the worst US presidencies ever. It is ranked, presumably by harmfulness.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">This list makes you wonder what kind and how much change Obama's '</span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://projects.nytimes.com/44th_president/new_team">new team</a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">' will be able to bring about, given Bush's disastrous legacy and the crisis the country is in.</span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-89583570211312286052008-11-24T23:00:00.004-05:002008-11-24T23:17:41.545-05:00The Left's Wishful Thinking and a Failing Strategy<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Wishful thinking is a poor substitute for strategy.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">William Greider </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081208/greider_web">puts</a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> it really well in his comment in The Nation today, with perhaps a hint of self-criticism, that easily could apply in much larger measure to The Nation more generally:</span><br /><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">A year ago, when Barack Obama said it was time to turn the page, his campaign declaration seemed to promise a fresh start for Washington. I, for one, failed to foresee Obama would turn the page backward. The president-elect's lineup for key governing positions has opted for continuity, not change. Virtually all of his leading appointments are restoring the Clinton presidency, only without Mr. Bill. In some important ways, Obama's selections seem designed to sustain the failing policies of George W. Bush. <br /><br />This is not the last word and things are changing rapidly. But Obama's choices have begun to define him. His victory, it appears, was a triumph for the cautious center-right politics that has described the Democratic party for several decades. Those of us who expected more were duped, not so much by Obama but by our own <span style="font-weight: bold;">wishful thinking</span>. </blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">What is more, as Greider points out, the Rubinites Summers, Geithner, Orszag and Furman are more likely to merely better manage a failing strategy than to change course:</span><br /><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Wasting more public money on insolvent mastodons is the least of it. The real scandal is it doesn't work. It can't work because the black hole is too large even for Washington to fill. Government should take over the failing institutions or force them into bankruptcy, break them up and sell them off or mercifully relieve everyone, including the taxpayers. </blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The more things "change," the more they stay the same? As German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt used to say, 'if you suffer from visions, go see a doctor.'</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-22932177199709517952008-09-19T16:34:00.009-05:002008-09-19T17:36:49.063-05:00Michigan, the Ohio of 2008?Will Michigan and Motown decide the presidential election?<br /><blockquote>"If he carries Michigan, many routes to victory are open for Barack Obama. Without Michigan, he's got a big problem," said E. J. Dionne Jr in the<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/18/AR2008091803046.html"></a> Washington Post. "Michigan could be to this election what Ohio was in 2004 and Florida was in 2000."</blockquote>Pollster Stanley Greenberg, who is said to have studied the state for years, points out that its economy has suffered the most (with 9% it has the highest unemployment rate in the country), and voters are angry and blame both parties, which makes it very difficult for either to win.<br /><br />Obama hopes to win big in Detroit, but this has been made much more difficult by the scandal surrounding former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-53577338036602214142008-09-19T16:34:00.005-05:002008-09-19T17:19:38.576-05:00The "Big Bailout" - a "Historic Swindle"Friday, September 19, 2008: This is one for the history books, as they say. The response by the US government to the greatest financial crisis in US history risks being too little too late and does not adequately address the root cause. And it does it in a way that continues one of the oldest games in town: Privatize profits and socialize costs. Long live the moral hazard! To put this into historical perspective, take a look at this very useful time-line from 1929 to 2008, aptly titled <a href="http://www.grassrootspolicy.org/node/134">Deregulating Our Way to Disaster</a>.<br /><br />To be sure, it is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/washington/19cnd-cong.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">historic</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the congressional leaders were told “<span style="font-weight: bold;">that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally</span>.”</p><p> Mr. Schumer added, “History was sort of hanging over it, like this was a moment.”</p><p> When Mr. Schumer described the meeting as “somber,” Mr. Dodd cut in. “Somber doesn’t begin to justify the words,” he said. “We have never heard language like this.”</p></blockquote><p></p>More to the point, according to William Greider, it is on track to end up as a a "<a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/greider">historic swindle</a>:"<br /><blockquote>Let me be clear. The scandal is not that government is acting. The scandal is that government is not acting forcefully enough--using its ultimate emergency powers to take full control of the financial system and impose order on banks, firms and markets. Stop the music, so to speak, instead of allowing individual financiers and traders to take opportunistic moves to save themselves at the expense of the system. The step-by-step rescues that the Federal Reserve and Treasury have executed to date have failed utterly to reverse the flight of investors and banks worldwide from lending or buying in doubtful times. There is no obvious reason to assume this bailout proposal will change their minds, though it will certainly feel good to the financial houses that get to dump their bad paper on the government. </blockquote>One might think that those who contributed to the crisis and benefited the most all along, should <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/collins">bear the cost of the recovery</a>. But instead of the investors and speculators, the taxpayers will pay - business as usual.<br /><br />How Obama and McCain manage to be perceived in this crisis will likely be the most important factor deciding this election. So far, it seems to favor Obama.<br /><br />In any case, the consequences of this mega-bailout are disastrous. It will make it virtually impossible to <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/howl">finance</a> a progressive agenda:<br /><blockquote>As for costs, he [Henry Paulson] said no more than it will involve a significant investment of taxpayer dollars. A better adjective than "significant" might be "staggering." The economic tar pit is so deep and so sticky it may be necessary to sacrifice wildlife programs, preschool education and scientific research. Even without knowing the numbers, we can kiss health insurance goodbye. <span style="font-weight: bold;">If and when Obama gets in, he will discover the cupboard is bare. </span></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-91851867023134747422008-08-06T15:18:00.003-05:002008-08-06T15:48:54.727-05:00Political Marketing versus Political Persuasion<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Please note</span>: This is a comment by S. M. Miller, Senior Fellow at the </span><a style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.comw.org/">Commonwealth Institute</a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;">, on </span><a style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7130">Progressive Arguments Win Big</a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;"> by </span><a style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.progressivestrategies.net/pages/staff/">Mike Lux</a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;">, President of </span><a style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.progressivestrategies.net/introduction/partners.asp">Progressive Strategies</a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;">,</span><a style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7130"></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;"> and on public opinion research more generally. It is also posted on the blog of the </span><a style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.grassrootspolicy.org/node/126">Grassroots Policy Project</a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;">.</span><br /><br /></span><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The focus group-polling approach of Drew Westen-Stan Greenberg-Mike Lux is certainly more sophisticated and more technically developed than usual political polling techniques. Nonetheless, it still suffers from contextlessness: the responses of the opposition and events in the nation are ignored. Furthermore, it is short-term election-oriented; based on a consumer marketing approach that assumes that political behavior operates as does consumer behavior (only words and imagery count).</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Hidden in the approach is that it assumes that the progressive task is only/mainly to elect Democratic/progressive candidates rather than to persuade a majority of voters to progressive outlooks, causes, policies. For example, the Clinton Administration did not fail progressives but progressives failed to convince Clintonites that the majority of voters demanded progressive policies. Progressives did not persuade voters, a longer-term task than increasing the number of Democratic elected officials.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Certainly, short-term political marketing can persuade/change voters’ outlooks, understandings, demands. Such changes are unlikely to be substantial, widespread and persevering as the opposition responds. Needed is a long-term strategy to persuade voters (and to attract non-voters) to progressive perspectives and proposals.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Great, revolutionary changes have occurred since 1960 in regard to race, gender, sexuality, much beyond what anyone then would have predicted. These transformations did not depend on nor derive from marketing approaches or even key words or phrases. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">True, these changes were largely political (voting exclusion) and cultural (social relationships) though they did have significant economic impact, pressuring for once-excluded people to move into job niches from which they had been excluded. These great achievements did not much increase support for progressive ideas about the economy. For example, more people support a flat tax (everyone paying the same percentage of their income) rather than a progressive income tax where the tax rate increases as income rises); similarly, a strong (?) majority favor low or no taxes on estates. More than a key word will be needed to change such outlooks.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A favorite irritation of mine: Some months ago Secretary of Defense Gates told Congress that the Defense Department started its annual budget preparations by assuming that four percent of gross domestic product (no matter how rapidly GDP grows) should go to the Department, rather than deciding what its necessary or prospective needs would be. (Special needs like an invasion or a new technological development require additions to the four percent funding ) That outrageous, nonsensical formulation received very little notice (it was reported but not editorialized in the New York Times but not much elsewhere then or since).. A telling, perhaps humorous, phrase to undermine this way of thinking would be useful. More would be needed, however, to persuade the American people and Congress to act to require a more sensible DOD budget and military role, perhaps extending to American foreign policy outlooks.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">An example of a needed progressive persuasion effort is improving attitudes toward American governments’ quality and performance. While the Bush II administration has performed effectively in tarnishing the reputation of the federal government, generally negative assessments of government have long prevailed: “they waste our tax dollars.” Again, some evocative phrasing could help, but people do respond to ways in which government acts, not just to words. Actual improvement of governmental functioning has to be the basis of long-term and durable changes in attitude.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Marketing or response triggering within a persuasion campaign can be useful but it is not a substitute for persuasion. Too much emphasis on response triggering can block the long-run need to work on persuading the American people to new progressive outlooks. That effort probably requires much more long-term organizing at grass-roots levels as well as effective performance by Democratic and progressive officials (and advisors).<br /></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">S.M. Miller, Senior Fellow, Commonwealth Institute<br /></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18136973.post-11747425994275841532008-08-01T14:52:00.005-05:002008-08-01T16:41:11.782-05:00Progressives Need a More Appealing Alternative Narrative<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://spot.colorado.edu/%7Echernus/">Ira Chernus</a>, professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, expresses his concern in his latest contribution to Tom Dispatch, <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174961/ira_chernus_will_culture_war_overshadow_real_war_in_2008_">War Meets Values on Campaign Trail: Will the Big Winner of 2008 Once Again Be a Conservative Culture-Wars Narrative?</a><br /><br />He suggests that "the so-called culture wars" have shifted from social issues to national security, and that this is McCain's "only chance" to win. He argues that McCain will increasingly try to attract the so-called "values voters" by referring to his "experience," with which they can more readily identify than with Obama's. <br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Pundits and activists who oppose the war in Iraq generally assume that the issue has to work against McCain because they treat American politics as if it were a college classroom full of rational truth-seekers. The reality is much more like a theatrical spectacle. Symbolism and the emotion it evokes -- not facts and logic -- rule the day.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >This is an important consideration for progressive electoral strategy, and for progressive strategy more broadly. Perhaps progressives have to abandon their assumption that if people only knew the facts and gained enough insight, they would adopt their positions. Indeed, as psychologist <a href="http://www.psychology.emory.edu/clinical/westen/index.html">Drew Westen </a>argues in <a href="http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=1586484257"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation</span> </a>(2007), emotions and symbolism play a key role in politics, and especially in elections. But symbolism and emotions cut both ways, which is clearly evidenced by both the excitement and the lingering concerns surrounding Obama, and McCain's enduring appeal. <br /><br />In a section appropriately entitled "<span style="font-weight: bold;">Creating New Stories</span>," Chernus makes a number of important points and suggestions that progressives would to well to take into consideration and act on.<br /><br />He starts out by pointing out that there is nothing "natural" about many Americans sharing a conservative understanding of certain values. Rather, it is the result of cultural evolution, which can be influenced, at least to some degree. This is very much a question of the relative power of different groups over public discourse, making their ideology more or less hegemonic.<br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Yet there is no law of nature that says the "ordinary American," white working class or otherwise, <i>must</i> value individualism, self-reliance, patriotism, and war heroics while treating any value ever associated with the 1960s as part of the primrose path to social chaos. In reality, of course, the "ordinary American" is a creature of shifting historical-cultural currents, constantly being re-invented.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Chernus attributes that fact that a conservative interpreation of certain core values is still so widespread among the white working class at least in part to progressives having neglected to develop "alternative narratives" that could address their concerns in meaningful ways. In short, their failure is in good part their own fault.<br /></span><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> </p><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><p><span style="font-size:100%;">But the 1960s does indeed remain a pivotal era -- not least because that is when liberal, antiwar America largely did stop caring much about the concerns and values of working-class whites. Those workers were treated as an inscrutable oddity at best, an enemy at worst. Liberals didn't think about alternative narratives of America that could be meaningful across the political board. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Now, they reap the harvest of their neglect. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"> It does no good to complain about "spineless Democrats" who won't risk their political careers by casting courageous votes against war. Their job is to win elections. <span style="font-weight: bold;">And you go to political war with the voters you have.</span> If too many of the voters are still trapped in simplistic caricatures of patriotism and national security created 40 years ago -- or if you fear they are -- <span style="font-weight: bold;">that's because no one has offered them an appealing alternative narrative that meets their cultural needs. </span></span></p> <p> <span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">It does no good to complain that such working-class views are illogical or stupid or self-destructive. </span>As long as progressives continue to treat "ordinary Americans" as stupid and irrelevant, progressives will find themselves largely irrelevant in U.S. politics. And that's stupid, because it doesn't have to be that way. </span></p> </blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Indeed, there is still way too much sterile scoffing going on on the left. Not that critical analysis isn't important; indeed it is essential. But if this is the main if not the only thing you do, it is counterproductive, for there is a huge opportunity cost: If you spend all the time criticizing, you don't have any resources left to develop viable alternatives. I am afraid this is in part due to convenience, if not laziness, for it is so much easier to complain and to lament than to develop realistic alternative strategies for how to achieve significant change.<br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What can be done to change this picture? Facts and logic are rarely enough, in themselves, to persuade people to give up the values narratives that have framed their lives. They'll abandon one narrative only when another comes along that is more satisfying. </span> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"> Democrats started looking for a new narrative after the 2004 election, when the media told them that "values voters" ruled the roost and cared most about religious faith. The result? Democrats, some of them quite progressive, are creating effective faith-oriented frames for their political messages. </span></p></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >Yes, framing issues by using language and symbols that evoke positive emotions and that appeal to peoples' faith is important. Indeed, framing was Lakoff's favorite tactic, but he has fallen from grace, and his Rockridge Institute had to close due to a lack of funding. Apparently, framing is not enough, and this tactic should not be confused with strategy. And it remains to be seen how far Westen's ideas on emotions and politics will go. <br /><br />Isn't this precisely what Obama is trying to do by appealing to our "better angels" with his emphasis on "hope" and "change," and by reaching out to religious communities? But will it be enough? As Obama himself continues to point out, there are some differences between him and McCain that he can't change: Black/white, young/old, different names, etc. What difference will these differences make in the perception and behavior of voters? Nobody knows, but some forecasing models quantify "ballot-box racism" with up to ten percentage points ...<br /><br />Be that as it may, the task for progressives remains to systematically develop alternative narratives that speak to conservatives, and especially the white working class, in meaningful ways. But a change in discourse by itself is not enough. It has to be accompanied by a simultaneous change in government and policies that allow people to experience the benefits of public policies. <br /><br />The problem in articulating semantic and structural changes is that the latter take much longer to bring about than the former. Perhaps this is one reason why many progressive funders seem to prefer projects that promise to change discourses: They achieve their results so much faster. But since they typically don't lead to structural changes, while valuabe in and of themselves, their effects tend to dissipate and don't build anything lasting in a cumulative way. Perhaps this is one of the reaons why the left has remained so weak over the past 40 years. <br /><br />In sum, raising consciousness and changing discourses are necessary but by no means sufficient steps to achieve structural change. They need to be integrated into a larger strategy that manages to build power cumulatively in the long-term from a position of weakness. This starts with a realistic assessment of progressive resources, and requires a theory of change that can make a credible case for what tactics and operations will lead to which change and why - but this is the subject of a future post.<br /><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0