Of Cows & Simpson

Keith Olbermann had a great segment last night on Social Security Deficit Commission co-chair Alan Simpson and his bizarre email rant attacking a Social Security and its beneficiaries as “a milk cow with 310 million tits.” Simpson has since offered a non-apology apology and the White House has said they will keep him on the panel.

I actually think that this is an OK outcome for those of us that don’t want to see Social Security cut. Simpson is a crank and clearly not a respectable character. But the more relevant side of this incident is that it reveals Simpson and the commission writ large as being incapable of thinking thoughtfully about the range of opinions on Social Security.  Eric Laursen points out some of the things beyond character that Simpson’s comments are instructive of the prejudices he brings into the commission:

So while they perhaps wouldn’t use quite the same language, it’s reasonable to suspect that many or even most of Simpson’s colleagues share the attitudes about Social Security that are reflected in his comments. The commission’s most important meetings are held in secret. It would be nice to know the substance of their discussions, but also the tone: Do they see Social Security recipients as human beings, or as leeches? Do they regard the program itself as a worthy enterprise, or as a multi-million-headed beast, sucking the taxpayer dry?

Do they have any sense of what life would be like for most Americans without old-age or survivors’ benefits?

It’s likely that were Simpson ousted, he would be replaced with someone who shared the very same opinions of Social Security, the misguided and ideologically driven assumption that it added to the deficit (it does not), and these prejudices would be masked by a demeanor less offensive than Simpson’s. That is, at least with Simpson we have a wolf in wolf’s clothing. A replacement might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

As Laursen points out, the best way to ensure that Simpson’s prejudices are not dominant ones in the commission is for the commission to hold all of their meetings open to the public and the press. This should be happening anyway, but Simpson’s repeated outbursts make a shift towards openness critical. Otherwise it’s hard to conclude that the Fix is not already In.

Daou: Why the Right Wing Dominates Debate

Peter Daou has an uncharacteristically short, yet characteristically good post  on why he thinks the rightwing dominates our national debate. The short version: because “Democrats run away from the left.” Daou writes:

Forget the thousand explanations pundits have offered for the administration’s beef with the left; this is the single biggest reason the left is furious with Obama: that one by one, he has willingly and unnecessarily bargained away the progressive positions that would move the national debate back to the center. After all, the counterweight to the right is not the mushy middle, it’s the principled left. Did progressive bloggers really think Obama was going to establish a single payer health care system, bring all Bush warmongers to justice, stop the looting of the poor by the ultra-rich, revitalize the environmental movement, undo Bush-Cheney’s executive power excesses, bring about true social justice and stop needless wars? No. They’re far more jaded and pragmatic than anyone admits. But at least make those the debate points rather than ditch them unilaterally.

As I’ve argued, it matters not one iota if Obama is a progressive at heart. What matters is that Democrats run away from the left like it’s the plague while Republican run to the right like it’s nirvana. The net effect is that the media end up reporting far right positions as though they were mainstream and reporting liberal positions as thought they were heinous aberrations. And you wonder why America is veering off the rails? [Emphasis added]

I find any sort of efforts to describe disappointment or anger progressives feel in unitary terms tend to fail. The reasons progressives are disappointed are manifold. But Daou does find a common thread that certainly is a large contributing factor to progressive discontent. Of course the key here, and Daou is right to make it, is that the problem does extend beyond the administration and is common to Democrats around the country (see all the cowardice around Park51 for a recent example). What’s most frustrating, as Daou notes, is that the result of systemic unwillingness to embrace the left by Democrats is that it sets up the Overton Window in a heavily rightward frame, so the public is not hearing liberal positions from Democrats nor from the press. It’s a dynamic that leads to long-term failure for Democrats politically and from a policy standpoint.

HAMPed

David Dayen continues to do incredible reporting on HAMP and how it isn’t working for most people who try to use it. What’s particularly important with this piece is that it is built around an individual account of the experience of a homeowner trying to use HAMP to avoid foreclosure. Talking about the success or failure of the mechanisms of a large program is abstract, but Dayen’s reporting here makes the challenges of the program very accessible. One of the biggest challenges consumers have is understanding the financial machinations that surround them – from their mortgage to their credit cards to small business loans. Indeed, our financial crisis was contributed to greatly because systemic complexity lead many Wall Street firms to fail to understand what exactly it was that they were doing.

HAMP should have given consumers an advantage in dealing with banks to keep their underwater homes by simplifying the process and giving clear pathways for a consumer to get cram down or other changes to their mortgage that allowed them make payments and stay in their home. But what we see in articles like Dayen’s is that the process was not more transparent for consumers, which created existentiell levels of uncertainty persist for people who enter the program. This is a really big problem.

Krugman vs Bond Gods

In today’s column, Paul Krugman asks:

So here’s the question I find myself asking: What will it take to break the hold of this cruel cult on the minds of the policy elite? When, if ever, will we get back to the job of rebuilding the economy?

I wish it was likely that sanity came with the flick of a switch and the government fully dedicated itself to stimulating the economy by funding projects for Main Street America and creating jobs for working class Americans. But I don’t think we’ll be able to magically turn off the determinative fear of the Invisible Bond Gods.

Instead, as I tweeted last night to Krugman, I think a more likely scenario for breaking the hold is this: The economy doesn’t get any better by November 2012 and a Republican candidate defeats President Obama. With control of the White House, the GOP pushes for more austerity measures, provides no stimulus, and the American economy is pushed into a deeper recession. Democrats then win back the White House in 2016 by openly campaigning on creating jobs through large federal government stimulus spending. At that point, political and economic necessities would make it impossible for the Invisible Bond Gods to maintain a stranglehold on economic policy makers.

I really hope this isn’t the course we go on, as it promises at minimum six years of unthinkable economic pain inflicted on 90% of America. But given the complacency in DC about 9.5+% unemployment, I find it hard to believe sudden change is likely. We could be in for a long haul here, people, and the only potential upside is that the longer we all suffer, the more likely it is that someone with power will actually wake up to the need to take bold action and help working Americans.

FPI: US must publicly pursue a clear Tibet policy

Ellen Bork, the Foreign Policy Initiative‘s Director of Democracy and Human Rights has a really great piece on how the Obama administration is failing to pursue a clear Tibet policy, to the detriment of Tibet and possibly in violation of statute. Of note from the piece, which should be read in its entirety:

The administration’s downplaying of Tibet undermines Chinese liberal intellectuals and activists who have criticized Beijing’s policies on Tibet at great risk to themselves. After the March 2008 uprising, a Chinese think tank called the Open Constitution Initiative issued a report challenging Beijing’s position that the riots were incited by the Dalai Lama and criticizing the crackdown that followed. This organization was later shut down and its staff harassed.

In addition, 29 intellectuals, lawyers and activists signed an open letter in March 2008 supporting dialogue with the Dalai Lama and urging and end to official propaganda vilifying him and Tibetans. One of them, Liu Xiaobo was later prosecuted on subversion charges for his writings and sentenced to jail for 11 years.

American officials should know by now that nothing is gained by acquiescing to China’s overbearing behavior on Tibet or any other issue. Adapting to Beijing’s “correct understanding” of Tibet undermines not only the Dalai Lama and human rights for Tibetans, but also America’s own “core interest” in seeing these respected in Tibet and China as well. To be credible, America must clearly and publicly pursue a well-established policy on Tibet.

Out of Iraq

Raven Brooks is asking why there isn’t more hoopla and celebration on progressive blogs about the announcement that all US combat troops are out of Iraq.

I’ve been writing in opposition to the Iraq War for coming on six years (I started blogging in late 2004). When I went to work for Chris Dodd on his presidential campaign, it was spring 2007. A supplemental war funding vote was coming up and Dodd was introducing a resolution to have all US combat troops out of Iraq by March 2008. Dodd was to the left of the entire caucus, save Russ Feingold, and the more consensus liberal Democratic position in the Senate was to have all troops out by the end of 2008. At that time, with the insurgency in full swing and a burgeoning civil war taking place between Sunni and Shia, nine months meant a lot. Of course Dodd’s provision was defeated and Congress was never able to put funding on the war continuing conditional on an exit plan.

That happened three years ago. And the fairly moderate position would have had US troops out of Iraq almost two years ago.  In the interim, while things in Iraq are better than 2007, there is still strife, violence and discord. Yes, President Obama kept his campaign pledge to withdraw combat troops by the end of this year. But as time as past, Afghanistan, our forgotten war during the days of fighting in Iraq, has become a total disaster. The President has escalated the war in Afghanistan and our commitment there has only grown deeper, despite it being almost nine full years old.

What’s worse, as has always been said to be the case by DFHs online, combat troops is something of a euphemism. We still have over 50,000 American troops in Iraq. There are tens of thousands of “contractors” doing the jobs that US troops ostensibly should be doing, like protecting US diplomats and civilian officials. It’s hard to imagine a world wherein the exit of combat troops from Iraq means no more American troops will die in Iraq, nor will American troops no longer be reasonable for killing Iraqi civilians.  In short, today will likely look just like yesterday for over 50,000 American troops and millions of Iraqis.

Am I glad that the administration has brought many US troops out of Iraq? Yes, absolutely. But I guess I still don’t know, after more than seven  years, why we went to Iraq and what our presence accomplished for the people of Iraq, besides toppling a tin cup dictator. I don’t know what President Obama will say to the parents of the next US soldier, airman, or marine who is killed in Baghdad. And I don’t know that how this war ending is indicative of a larger vision for foreign policy and military policy from the Obama administration, specifically vis a vis Afghanistan. Pulling troops out of Iraq now was the right thing to do and it is reassuring to see the administration do the right thing. But this is something that I really wish had happened years ago.