Feature of the Week
We have a new string originating in the Click if you like section – Sword and Sorcery. There are a number of fun things that will eventually end up there, including The Pied Piper of Hamactor. Look for it! In the meantime, there’s The Emperor’s New Security Blanket.
02.26.05 @ 09:51 PM EDT [link]

Iran and Togo Off the Wall
With foreign policy in the news with Bush’s European trip, let’s pick on two items of interest in this sphere. They have no particular relationship other than having enough irony content to give pause to those of us with heightened sensitivity to irony (or those whose sense of irony has not been dulled by the overwhelming volume of right wing self-contradiction we’ve been subject to since they grabbed the national microphone!) First, maybe we should make up our mind about how we feel about Iranian weapons. Let’s not forget that there was a time when a GOP Administration felt so good about Iran having weapons that it intentionally broke a law prohibiting the US from providing such weapons. This happened during the tenure of St. Ronnie of Illinois, precipitating the famous Iran-Contra scandal. I felt at the time that Ronnie was lucky to be able to stay in office. Had he not been more likable than Tricky Dick Nixon he may well have gotten the axe. Considering that actual lawbreaking was involved, it was certainly a more significant infraction than Clinton’s consensual adult one-sided oral gratification with only one episode of “completion” (doesn’t sound very gratifying to me!) And now Bush is flying around the world trying to get the Foreign Countries he ignored while going to war with Iraq excited about giving up their arms deals with Iran. Then here’s a second news item: US Expresses Concern for Democracy in Togo. It seems that the new leader of Togo happens to be the son of a former leader. Maybe it’s just me but I swear this has also happened in some other country, like one of the NATO countries. Not sure which one, though. Canada? Nope. The UK? Nope, still Tony Blair. Not France or Germany. Don’t say anything – I’m sure it will come to me any second…
02.25.05 @ 09:42 PM EDT [link]

OK, Swifties, I’ll Bite
A couple of days ago I came up with a parody Swift Boat attacking those that oppose the Bush Private Lottery (AKA “Social Security Plan”). Little did I know that they’d be in business so quickly, or that their actual ad would far surpass any parody I could have invented in my wildest dreams! As all of us who follow funny public policy events likely know by now, USA Next ran an internet ad attacking AARP for its stance on Social Security. The ad briefly ran on American Spectator. It showed two pictures: one with a crossed out American soldier and the other showing two men in tuxedos kissing each other. The ad carried the slogan “the real AARP agenda.” “We are going to be revealing areas where the AARP is out of touch with a large number of their members” said USA Next CEO Charlie Jarvis. I myself have received one of those ubiquitous AARP mailings upon passing the associated life milestone, the big five-o, so I was initially puzzled over what the ad could possibly be getting at. The AARP I know about has only one passion in life, stoking geezer greed, and this organization does not dissipate any energies whatsoever on any other topic. Indeed, Nancy Thompson, a spokeswoman for AARP, said it has not taken a position on same-sex marriage. Hardly a surprise – what could it possibly have to do with the “Retired People” in the title? One might indeed argue that this particular age cohort would have more staid attitudes on the subject that just about any other. It all became clear when I read the next sentence: USA Next has hired consultants who worked for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. It seems that in Ohio AARP opposed an amendment to the state’s Constitution that banned homosexual marriages, but only because the amendment’s second clause blocked legal recognition of any union, potentially including unmarried retired (the R word) heterosexuals, that approximated marriage rights. The ad’s assertion that AARP was opposed to American soldiers had to do with active duty soldiers by definition not being retired, so the American Association of Retied Persons has no particular position on any particular benefit for this group, just as they would not be expected to have a position on, say, stamp collecting. As soon as I saw this story I knew it was just too good to pass up, and started last night on this very entry. Then, this morning, I saw Maureen Dowd’s column on this same topic. One particularly interesting quote from Jarvis revealed that the purpose of the ad was to “provoke liberal bloggers.” I personally think of myself not so much as a liberal blogger as an “anti right wing extremism” blogger, but we don’t need to be lawyerly about what how we think of ourselves. In any case, my guess is that they’re trying to get free exposure to the ad. This may have been effective for the sliming of Kerry’s war record by other veterans, but my take is that it will backfire if they try to accuse an organization with a decidedly non-liberal public image with having attitudes of a sexual and anti-military image. For one thing, there are millions of military retirees in the AARP, so it’s hard to picture what an anti-soldier AARP would look like. However, the Swifties believe that their purposes are well served by provoking this humble humor engineer into mining some laughs by mocking their transparent heavy-handed idiocy, bring ‘em on! I for one am looking for a little payback for those obnoxious sore winner emails that floated around after the election. You know, the ones that thanked Michael Moore and Liberal Bloggers for Bush’s win. When Bush’s plan tanks, guess who’ll be thanking the Swifties!
02.24.05 @ 08:20 PM EDT [link]

Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Dogs of Deficit
I saw a great quote the other day on an exclusive news service I have access to. Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, poo-pooed Greenspan’s credibility as a source of financial advice for the Nation’s legislators because, when consulted several years ago on the advisability of tax cuts, the weight and enthusiasm he put behind them played a large part in “unleashing the deficit dogs.” The allusion is Shakespeare, specifically Julius Caesar. The complete quote is “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.” It was also the inspiration for the excellent novel “The Dogs of War” by Frederick Forsyth, about mercenaries in Africa. I find very compelling the imagery of the phrase “dogs of deficit,” particularly in the context of “dogs of war.” As the owner two big Labs (or, to be totally accurate, I should say “as their co-primary person”), I can just picture two hungry hounds bounding across the landscape, a veritable force of nature not to be contained by mere humans. In my mind’s eye they’ve got their snouts poked into anything of interest, just like the unleashed first term Bush Administration found money to spend all across the Nation. Forget about trying to get them back in the house! Once they’ve slipped the leash, it’s unrestrained funtime! The only way to get them back is to offer them something even more fun. This is accomplished by pulling a car out of the garage and opening the door for them. Sort of reminds me of Bush talking about the burdens Social Security will impose on future generations at the same time he’s holding open the door to his privatization scheme. In other words, he wants to take us for a ride, but once it’s over it won’t be what we’re expecting (which is how my dogs feel when I pull straight into the garage after picking them up)! The final reason the “dogs of deficit” works for me is that I’ve always thought of unrestrained deficit spending as intergenerational warfare. It can’t be disputed that it’s at least intergenerational theft. We’re personally benefiting from the financial obligations we’re imposing on future generations, and they receive no offsetting benefit from the loans we’re taking out in their name. And what is aggressive war but organized thievery? When Saddam invaded Kuwait, what motivation did he have other than the desire to benefit from their wealth by depriving them of it? So how is that different from what we’re doing to our children and grandchildren? In case you have any doubts, let me spell it out for you. In warfare your objective does not to include actually killing anyone. Roman legions were trained to minimize casualties to maximize the value of enslaved populations. A recurring objective of war, perhaps its most common objective, is to motivate a group of people to act according to your will. The extreme right wing would like to eliminate “socialism” once and for all. Deficit is a handy weapon – it buys votes in the short run while creating a debt explosion whose full effects are only felt when deficit spending can finally no longer be sustained (and we’re far from there, considering the additional trillions the Administration is talking about borrowing). When the debt bomb finally explodes, what will the victims be motivated to do? Cut benefits, of course, particularly to the retired geezers who were of voting age when the debt was run up. In other words, we can expect future wage-earners to exercise an intergenerational war tactic that is essentially a counterattack in retaliation for Bush’s intergenerational deficit missile (IGDM) attack. And that’s exactly what the right wing is counting on!
02.23.05 @ 08:12 PM EDT [link]

A Peek at the Reality of Right Wing Reality
What great timing! Just as SherWright is clarifying its focus on mining laughs from the right wing’s divorce from reality, a story pops up that’s just too wacky to be a story. The icing on the cake is its connections to right wing reality in many delicious layers. I’m speaking of course of the Jeff Gannon episode (could he have been the same Jeff that left that immoderate remark in the SherWright guestbook? Just so you know, we clean those out so that our loyal readers can be confident that their visit here will always be an enjoyable and thought-provoking experience). Anyway, Jeff Gannon is the credentialed journalist from hotmilitarystud.com, as well as GOPUSA.com, both clearly mainstream press organizations deserving of access to the Leader of the Free World. While this is a pretty funny reality, real reality is even funnier. It turns out that Jeff Gannon isn’t his real name (it’s James Guckert). At least he could have picked a funny name, like I did! (Mine’s based on what my kids used to say when I gave them a lame lecture). And hey! I’m not getting into the White House press room anytime soon. I particularly like that a columnist for the leader of the mainstream press, the NY Times’s Maureen Dowd, sought to have her longstanding credentials renewed but was denied. Now that’s Bush Administration reality! (She’s lucky her cover as a CIA operative wasn’t blown) The best reality angle of all is the best-known question to be asked by the correspondent from hotmilitarystud.com to the Commander in Chief: “Mr. President, how can you work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality.” The irony is overwhelming! I only wish I knew how Bush responded. If he was true to GOP reality, it would have been something like this: “Jeff, they just haven’t learned the political reality that voters expect you to tell them they can have big tax cuts at the same time you’re giving them new government benefits.” Or maybe “Jeff, the reality is that America is the global source of entertainment, and what’s more entertaining that the life and death spectacle of optional war?” If we’re really going after reality, how about “Jeff, how can the Christian right show off how holy they are if not by voting for the candidate most like them, the one wearing his holiness on his sleeve? Duh!”
02.22.05 @ 08:16 PM EDT [link]

IF I HEAR THIS PHRASE AGAIN I’M GOING TO SCREAM!!!
I hear that the guys behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are being enlisted to push Bush’s Social Security plan. Can’t you just picture the ads we’ll doubtless shortly be seeing? How about something like this: “Edward Kennedy called the President’s budget reckless and irresponsible. He’s lying. White House budget director: ‘I was there. It’s not true. The accusations that Edward Kennedy has made against the White House financial staff have been just devastating. He’s sullied the reputation of every government accountant.’ Secretary: ‘He said the budget numbers were physically abused. He’s lying. I know. I was here during the Reagan years and deficits as a percentage of GDP were worse.’ Tom DeLay: ‘By saying that George Bush’s budget is irresponsible Edward Kennedy is sullying the memory of a great American President scant months after his passing. It’s disgusting.’ A Senior: ‘He is dishonoring his country and politicians he served with. He’s selling us all out. He’s giving the enemies of Social Security all of the propaganda they want. It’s demoralizing us, and hurting the President’s brave effort to save this benefit for future generations.’ Voiceover: ‘Swift Boat Social Security Recipients for Truth is responsible for the content of this ad.’” These ads will doubtless contain the phrase that makes me want to scream whenever I hear it: “deficits as a percentage of gross domestic product have been higher in the past.” This phrase is grossly misleading for three reasons. First, it implies that these percentages ran “hot” year on year. The truth, readily apparent to anyone who has seen a graphic presentation of historical deficits as a percent of GDP, is that they took a huge spike in 1985 as Reagonomic supply side fantasies was revealed as bogus. Even Reagan realized this and raised taxes in a panic. The 1985 experiment thus looks like a graphic Matterhorn rather than routine practice. More importantly, there was no Social Security Trust Fund surplus in 1985. This is extremely important in deficit determinations (but conveniently overlooked) because surpluses to the Trust Fund subtract from the deficit. For example, the deficit for 2004 at just over $400 billion was just over 3.5 percent of GDP. At the same time, the Social Security Trust Fund subtraction from the deficit was $146 billion in 2002. That same year, interest on the national debt was $333 billion. Both numbers, added to current deficits, reveal the financial situation of the US much worse than that faced in 1985 before the GOP multi-trillion runup of the debt, a runup that will have to be paid back at some point. The sorrow of the current situation is that it’s not a blip like Reagan’s one year peak in deficit as a percentage of GDP, but a decades-long term trend heading in the wrong direction, a hole that we’re still digging and that could well cave in unexpectedly should our foreign lenders start asking for interest rates just a few points higher.
02.21.05 @ 07:24 PM EDT [link]

Good from the Misdeeds of Others
"It is found by experience that admirable laws and right precedents among the good have their origin in the misdeeds of others." -- Cornelius Tacitus (55 AD - 117 AD). This is perhaps a more perceptive version of Santayana’s famous (and inconsistently quoted) “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” from The Life of Reason, I, Reason in Common Sense. What I admire about the Tacitus quote is his recognition that, over time, recurring problems find recurring solutions. This happens to be the theme of my first book. Societal evolution creates new connections and possibilities, and some of these turn out to be possibilities for misdeeds. The web has created wonderful opportunity (I would not be so immodest to claim that your reading this is such) but also opens Pandora’s box. Case in point: phishing. These kinds of crime become temporary impediments as the promise of new opportunity becomes the mother of the inventions that eventually defeat opportunists. These solutions then become woven into the social fabric. Consider double entry accounting, invented four hundred years ago to defeat embezzlers. While such lowlifes continue to make the news, their apprehension should be viewed as a success of accounting standards rather than a failure. There used to be a class of people in the US who believed in the lessons of history, who believed in the wisdom of social norms developed over the course of millennia. These people were called “conservatives,” a species now extinct in the continental US. Not that there aren’t those who call themselves by that name, but the resemblance ends as soon as the fouth syllable leaves their lips. Where it was once considered conservative behavior to ensure that money going out was matched by money coming in (something that embezzlers by definition cause not to happen), those calling themselves “conservatives” delight in each new tank car of red ink. Where the term “conservative” once had a connotation of preservation, it now means accelerated consumption. Where the special brand of American conservatism meant preservation of constitutional liberties, it now means hostility to organizations whose sole focus is protecting these liberties. Modern technology has given western society enormous power. With that power comes the responsibility to heed Tacitus, to recognize that society developed a preference for balanced books because of financial disasters wrought by unbalanced books, that prejudices against preemptive war developed from the misery of innocent victims, and that concern for preserving the balance of nature sprung from many instances of societal dissolution as documented in the book I just finished, Jared Diamond’s Collapse. The extreme right has preferences for installing a set of laws and precedents they admire, but these are not the wisdom of the past but are in fact nothing more than the codification of misdeed.
02.20.05 @ 06:08 PM EDT [link]