David Sirota

Future Shock and Unplanned Obsolescence

2010-02-08T12:06:24-05:00

As some of you know, I'm working on a book right now about the television, movies, toys, video games and pop culture that I - and every Gen Xer - grew up on. That's all I can really say about the project right now, but I wanted to pass on my new front-page piece in the Denver Post's Sunday Perspective section about the topic, because I think it touches on a phenomenon that so many of us are struggling with these days.

The piece looks at the concept of unplanned obsolescence in Hollywood - specifically, at how many recent films we've considered timeless are being quickly fossilized thanks to ever-evolving technology that outdates their storylines. It was fun to write, but also disturbing in the sense that it focuses in on just how fast our world is now changing, and how the Toffler-ian concept of Future Shock has come to define our society.

What we look at as "outdated" is no longer stuff that's, say, 10 or 20 years old. That stuff is all but ancient history. Today, anything - gadgets, software, political ideas, etc. - can be outdated in a matter of weeks, because the pace of, well, everything has accelerated to supersonic speeds. Our fast-changing views of cultural history - as represented by the quicker aging of cinematic productions - is just one example of that acceleration.

There are obviously positives and negatives to this, of course. It's terrific that our knowledge of natural sciences is growing exponentially. It's not so terrific that, say, fact-based proposals to solve major problems can lose their enduring agency with a few salvos from the half-baked crazy people who commandeer the warp-speed 24-7 news cycle.

At a personal level, this can feel jarring - it can feel like we're all the nose-bleeding characters on Lost, bewildered by blinding flashes as we unknowingly travel through time (and I'm already wondering how quickly Lost will go from being considered a cutting-edge high-concept masterpiece to a television antique). And I think we're all struggling in our own way to make sense of this revolutionary pace of change - struggling to come to terms with a world that feels totally out of control, for better and for worse.

This, in fact, might explain why Lost has such a devoted followership, and why shows like Mad Men are such hits. The former, thanks to both its plot and its semiotics, is a metaphor for both the perplexing chaos and of modern life, and the belief (or at least hope) that such chaos isn't pure randomness, but that there is actually some grand master force/plan at work. The latter, meanwhile, look back at the period in which a seemingly (and I do stress "seemingly") stable, predictable and plodding world originally began changing so quickly and overtly tearing apart at the seams - and in the process, the show appears to help us try to understand why things started going crazy in the first place.

As I said, in my Denver Post piece, I look at this through the prism of classic 80s and early 90s films, and how they have suddenly aged. I figured it would be a simple way to address a small piece of this larger phenomenon.

Oddly enough, out of any single piece I've written in a year, this piece has solicited the most intense response (it's perhaps a sad commentary that an article about movies has elicited a far stronger response than any article about public policy...but that's a subject for a whole other discussion). There are those readers who either loved the piece, or those who detested it - the latter's ire at their belief that I attacked the quality of old movies and/or am somehow not educated in the history of old movies (never underestimate the elitism/pretentiousness of the auteur film crowd). Thing is, though, I didn't mean to suggest that the old movies aren't relevant or, by the way, stellar in their own right. What I meant to suggest is that their settings are now aging faster than they ever did, thanks to the speed of technological innovation.

You could argue that those settings don't really matter. And while I agree that great films are great films regardless of setting, those settings do draw in (or repel) the casual and/or younger viewer - ie. the mass audience, as opposed to the auteur-loving one. So my point is actually one of despair - despair that it will become harder and harder to make "timeless" classics that draw in a mass audience over decades, because the fossilization of the settings is accelerating.

Anyhow, read the piece here.

The Eternal Delusions of the Right-Wing Mind

2010-02-07T18:01:28-05:00

Sean Paige has a funny - and telling - screed up defending Colorado Springs from, well, the basic facts. He accuses my recent column and the Denver Post's recent front-page story of "slurring" his city by reporting on the draconian budget cuts its anti-tax zealotry are now compelling.

I'm not quite sure how simply recounting cuts to police, firefighting, park services, road maintenance is a "slur," but then, I've learned not to try to make sense of the eternal delusions of a right-wing mind. What I can, however, do is point out some of the "tells" - the poker term for a bluffing player's giveaways:

- Paige says Colorado Springs attracts new residents and economic growth "by actually putting America's limited government ideals into practice." In this, he asks us to forget that one of the city's biggest employers is the defense industry - that is, an industry that has absolutely nothing to do with "limited government" and everything to do with the hugest of Huge Government. Whether you support this Huge Government or not - whether you think it is a good or bad thing - it's size and centrality to the Colorado Springs economy is undeniable, as is it's antithesis to the concept of "limited" or small government. You don't have to trust me, the guy who Paige calls a "statist" (do people even use that red-baiting McCarthy-esque word anymore?). You can look at the $700 billion annual defense budget, or you can look to people John McCain and Don Rumsfeld who have repeatedly noted just how bloated the government's defense budget really is (I wonder if Paige believes McCain and Rummy are "statists," too?).

- As evidence that Colorado Springs is a great place, Paige cites magazine fluff rankings, many from right-wing business publications like Forbes. Frankly, I never said Colorado Springs wasn't a good and decent place, and didn't have real potential, nor do I wish it ill will. Quit the opposite: I simply argued that its tax and spending decisions are tragically threatening some of the very social fabric that would help it fulfill its potential. Maybe he believes that a city that will now severely slash its basic security and firefighting forces and its road maintenance (to name just a few things) is a way to preserve a city's future - but my guess is many mainstream business people and voters would disagree.

- Hilariously, in puffing out his chest with fake outrage, Paige actually concedes the very fundamental point of my column and the Denver Post's article. "Voters could have helped the city out several months back, by approving a property tax increase," he writes. Yes, Paige correctly says voters could have helped their city out by doing that. And yet, he then says its a "slur" to say, um, exactly that. Odd...or, really, beyond odd. Insane.

So what to make of Paige's incoherence? I'd say it's a reflection of the incoherence of conservative ideology in general. The right will desperately paint the biggest of big government as "limited government," attempt to change the subject, and then - preposterously - argue that it's somehow a "slur" to argue something that the right quietly concedes. These are the eternal delusions of the right-wing mind - and as I said to start, it is a fool's errand to try to make sense of them.

The Case for Choosing Life

2010-02-05T16:26:06-05:00

Yes, I know you probably thought from the headline that this post is all about why you should be against a woman's right to choose - it is anything but. The phrase "choose life" may be conservatives' abortion shibboleth, but, as my new newspaper column today shows, it better sums up the economic decision communities all over America must now face when it comes to taxes, spending and budget deficits.

For the last week or so, I've been reporting on the state of the tax debate in places like Oregon, Colorado Springs and Pennsylvania (among others). Voters there - and soon, everywhere - are being asked to choose between tax hikes on the ultra-wealthy and massive spending cuts for basic social services. That is, they are being asked to choose between economic life and economic death.

It's the same choice Congress will be forced to make quite soon, thanks to President Obama's solid proposal to end George W. Bush's high-income tax cuts - but also thanks to his awful proposals to potentially ram Social Security/Medicare cuts through a commission and freeze non-defense domestic spending.

Colorado Springs and Oregon, in particular, provide the clearest examples of what the tax reform-versus-spending-cuts choice means in real-world terms. The former is - at least in terms of basic social fabric - on its way to becoming an economic dystopia straight out of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie, the latter just voted to try to avoid that same fate.

As I said, the choices those two communities have made are going to confront each of us in some way at some point soon, regardless of where we live. The budget challenges are real and they are geographically unavoidable. Here's hoping we make the right choice - the same choice we made in the early 1990s when during a recession we modestly raised income taxes to preserve some basic social services, and ended up creating a budget surplus and a solidly-growing economy. Here's hoping we make the same choice - the choice of economic life and not economic death.

Read the whole column here.

The column relies on grassroots support -- and because of that support, it is getting wider and wider circulation (a big thank you to all who have helped with that). So if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.

Hickenlooper In the AM760 Progressive Dojo

2010-02-04T14:00:14-05:00

Denver mayor/Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper spent about a half hour in studio in the AM760 progressive dojo this morning. You can listen to the interview here - it starts about half way through the podcast clip.

We covered a lot of ground - taxes, business influence on government, drug policy reform, job development, and his views on unionization in light of news that Colorado's union rate declined this year. I thought he gave some solid answers, though I think he needs to get his economic message down a bit more - as the Denver Post notes, at one point in the interview he said "a recession like this is really driven by people's mental state." As I said in the interview, that kind of rhetoric reminded me of Phil Gramm's famous gaffe during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Despite my disagreements with him on some of his political philosophies, I can't deny that he's an affable guy and might just make a pretty decent statewide candidate. He's going to need a lot of pushing on some issues (and, as he admits in the interview, he's going to need to get fully up to speed on the state issues that will confront him as governor), but he's definitely a pretty good listener (make sure to listen to his quick response - and staff work - about an outsourcing question from a listener).

Tune in regularly - we've been covering a lot of issues relevant to the gubernatorial and senate races, as well as bills in the legislature. The show airs weekdays from 7am-10am on AM760 on your radio dial, or at www.am760.net (you can podcast the show there too).

Anti-Tax Bastion Colorado Springs Shows What America Would Look Like If Conservatives Have Their Way

2010-02-02T09:18:50-05:00

Note: We'll be discussing this on AM760 this morning between 7am-10am Colorado time (9am-12pm ET). Tune in on your local radio dial or at www.am760.net.

As the recession drives state coffers into the deep red, we're seeing many tax fights erupt all over the country - fights that are bringing out the best and worst in our politics.

On the good side you have swing-state victories like the one we saw in Oregon, where voters approved two ballot measures raising taxes on their state's wealthiest residents and corporations. You also have a battle happening in the Colorado legislature, led by Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter and Democratic legislators, who are courageously pushing to suspend 13 tax subsidies and exemptions for corporate special interests (Listen to my Friday interview with Ritter about taxes starting at 28 minutes into this podcast - he threatens a veto of the regressive grocery tax corporate interests have been pushing as a replacement to Democrats' proposals).

But you also have states like Indiana, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, are looking to cap property taxes "despite cuts in fire, police and other local services the limits have caused."

These are big, transformative and much overdo skirmishes about what we as a society value - and do not value. And to know the stakes are high, just look at perhaps the single most conservative, anti-tax and anti-government bastion in America - Colorado Springs.

The hometown of Focus on the Family, The Springs (as we call it out here in Colorado) is where the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights originated. TABOR, for those who don't know, prevents the state legislature from ever raising taxes, and forces massive spending cuts during times of recession. And now, as the Denver Post reports, the city - which has legislated much of the anti-tax fervor into municipal ordinance - has become a shining example of what happens to a community when conservatives' anti-tax policies are distilled into their most pure form:

COLORADO SPRINGS -- This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops -- dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

[...]

"I guess we're going to find out what the tolerance level is for people," said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It's a new day."

The next time you hear a conservative prattle on about how much he/she hates taxes and how the solution to all problems in America is to cut taxes, remember Colorado Springs. It is the anti-tax zealot's nirvana - and it shows what America would look like if our politics continue to be dominated by the me-first, screw-everyone-else crowd and their tax-hating ways.

Our Addiction to Disaster Porn

2010-01-29T09:23:46-05:00

The black t-shirt and the safari-style button-down - what do these media symbols really mean? I take a look at that question in my new newspaper column out - a newspaper column about disaster porn. Read it here.

I don't know about you, but I simply cannot watch the coverage of the Haiti earthquake anymore, not because the disaster isn't important - but because the news about Haiti is so divorced from the larger issues of poverty and destitution that have plagued Haiti for decades. That's why I call it disaster porn - it's completely exploitative and voyeuristic, rather than contextualized to tell the larger story of the tragedy of Haiti. It's disaster porn stars running around in their disaster chic clothing - t-shirts and safari garb - refusing to tell the real and troubling story of Haiti.

While this has certainly generated a solid and laudable dose of charity contributions, it has missed an opportunity to ask the larger systemic questions the Haiti disaster should have raised.

Mind you, there have been a few news outlets that have provided some of this context. As just one example, read this terrific piece from the Nation magazine. But most of the coverage has been disaster porn - the kind that The Onion so aptly ridicules in its own pages this week.

Read my whole column here for my take on why the media refuse to tell this real story - it has a lot to do with the media's overall refusal to ask uncomfortable and taboo questions.

The column relies on grassroots support -- and because of that support, it is getting wider and wider circulation (a big thank you to all who have helped with that). So if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.

If This Becomes the Face of the Democratic Party, Say Goodbye to the Democratic Party

2010-01-28T13:07:01-05:00

Illinois' U.S. Senate Democratic primary is coming up in less than a week, and it poses a potentially enormous problem for the Democratic Party, in Illinois and therefore nationally. That "therefore" is important: Because President Obama is from Illinois, and because Republicans have invested so much time and resources trying to nationalize the concept of the corrupt "Chicago politician," whoever ends up the Democratic nominee for Obama's old seat will likely be made by the GOP into a face of the Democratic Party as a whole.

That's why the candidacy of Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is so problematic. Holding a slight lead in the polls against other Democratic challengers, he has become a poster child for everything that is wrong with the American economy -- everything that the Republican Party's right-wing populism desperately needs to find traction. Here's what I mean:

Broadway Bank, the troubled Chicago lender owned by the family of Illinois Treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias, has entered into a consent order with banking regulators requiring it to raise tens of millions in capital, stop paying dividends to the family without regulatory approval, and hire an outside party to evaluate the bank's senior management.

The Jan. 26 consent order with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Illinois Division of Banking comes less than a week before Mr. Giannoulias -- Broadway's chief lender and then vice-president from 2002 to 2006 -- must face voters in the Democratic primary for the Senate seat previously held by President Barack Obama.

He's faced criticism, principally from former city Inspector General David Hoffman, who's running against him, for his past role at the bank and the $70 million in dividends the family took out of the bank in 2007 and 2008 as the real estate crisis was becoming apparent.

Bloomberg News shows just how mortally dangerous to the Democratic Party Giannoulias would be if he wins the nomination:

Banking Past Haunts Obama Friend Who Wants His Old Senate Seat

"Bankers don't need another vote in the United States Senate -- they've got plenty," Obama said Jan. 17 in Boston, signaling a broader strategy to tie Republicans to Wall Street greed.

In the (Illinois) race to fill Obama's old Senate seat, the banker in question is a Democrat, Alexi Giannoulias, a presidential friend whose family's bank once held deposits for an Obama campaign committee...

Giannoulias, 33, a former senior loan officer and bank vice president, now serves as treasurer of Illinois...Giannoulias said he now owns 3.6 percent of the bank...

The $1.2 billion community bank, founded in 1979, has been part of Giannoulias's public profile since he won election in 2006 because it made loans to a bookmaker as well as convicted Illinois influence peddler Antoin "Tony" Rezko.

According to the latest poll by Public Policy Polling, 32 percent of likely Democratic primary voters say they will support Giannoulias as compared with 20 percent who say they plan to support former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman and 18 percent who say they plan to support former Chicago Urban League president Cheryle Jackson. So it's still a very close and fluid race, with many undecideds.

As these stories make clear, if Giannoulias is the winner, we can expect to hear for the next year about how the Democratic Party is so corrupt it is now promoting a scandal-plagued banker to fill Obama's old Senate seat. While Giannoulias leads likely Republican nominee Mark Kirk in one early poll, you better believe those polls will change in a general-election battle that focuses in on this banking theme.

Thus, if Giannoulias, it would be a clear disaster. He is literally the walking personification of all that the public clearly despises right now -- an Establishment politician closely connected to the industry that has destroyed the economy.

With him as the nominee, Democrats could lose yet another senate seat, and more broadly, they could lose any national high ground they need to reclaim. At a time when the Democratic Party desperately needs to reclaim the populist economic mantle and prevent Republicans from being able to mount their own right-wing populist campaign, Giannoulias would become the face of a Democratic Party that has already become increasingly synonymous in voters minds with the most hated aspects of the financial industry.

I'm not endorsing any of the other candidates, and I have absolutely no personal stake in the outcome of this primary election, other than hoping it doesn't destroy the Democratic Party I've worked with and for over the last decade. Maybe that party I once worked with and for is already totally destroyed -- I have a sneaking suspicion that it is. But maybe not. That's precisely why I write this: To point out that if this particular candidate becomes the new face of the Democratic Party, the "maybe not part" could easily disappear.

Sen. Sanders Says Obama Is Putting His Credibility On the Line by Criticizing Wall Street, Pushing Bernanke

2010-01-25T14:34:04-05:00

There's an increasing - if still unlikely - chance that enough rogue Senate Democrats will finally join with rank-and-file Senate Republicans to vote down Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's renomination. The fact that there is even this chance is a testament to the parts of the progressive movement and courageous progressive senators like Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley, Byron Dorgan, Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold that have been willing to call for Bernanke to be rejected.

Bernanke has the entire political and financial Establishment - ie. the corporatocracy - behind him, from the Obama administration to both parties' congressional leadership to the Wall Street banks. But the argument against him, which I summed up in a recent newspaper column, is about as powerful as it gets: Reappointing someone who fell down on the regulatory job and then doled out trillions of no-strings-attached taxpayer dollars to clean up his mess would create a political moral hazard that tells all other regulators they can do the same exact thing and expect to retain their jobs.

Unfortunately, the truism in that argument is not a trump card. The Obama administration, rather than using all of its political capital to actually fix the economy and deliver genuine "change," is now fighting tooth and nail to make sure Bernanke - a Bush appointee - is reappointed. Underscoring the sordid corporatist politics behind this nomination is a Politico dispatch noting that White House "strategy on the Bernanke confirmation was being led by former Enron lobbyist Linda Robertson, who is viewed as an effective advocate for the banking chief on Capitol Hill."

To understand what a political and policy mistake this is, consider this statement over the weekend from Sanders:

"Democrats and President Obama are putting their credibility on the line if they think they can criticize Wall Street and big banks one day and then turn around and support Bernanke, Wall Street's candidate, the next day," Sanders said. "That doesn't pass the smell test."

"The issue for Democrats is whether they will allow Republicans to pretend to be the populist, anti-Wall Street party, or whether they will have the courage to stand up to Wall Street and bring in a Fed chairman who will represent the needs of working families rather than huge financial institutions," Sanders added.

"The vote on whether to confirm Bernanke will be one of the most important decisions senators will make during the Obama administration," Sanders said.

That about sums it up. Call your senator today and tell him/her to vote against Bernanke. Then sign the petition against Bernanke's reappointment.

Democratic Corporatism Has Brought Reagan's Corpse Back to Life

2010-01-22T14:37:30-05:00

In my new syndicated column out this week, I look at how Democrats new - and perverse - view of government has resurrected the undead corpse of Ronald Reagan. Read it here.

As you'll see, I reference this absolutely hilarious and prescient satire from the Onion:

Zombie Reagan Raised From Grave To Lead GOP

I'll let you read the column to see how I believe the Massachusetts Senate race really proves that 21st Century Democratic corporatism is now fueling the revival of Reagan's most pernicious anti-tax and anti-government messages. But make no mistake about it: That revival is not due to Republican brilliance but to Democrats conflating government with the most hated corporations in the land. Indeed, if President Bush made government synonymous with Halliburton, Democrats have made government synonymous with Goldman Sachs.

Read the whole column here.

The column relies on grassroots support - and because of that support, it is getting wider and wider circulation (a big thank you to all who have helped with that). So if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.

The Village: Wash Post Reporter Covering (and Deploring) K Street Becomes Corporate Lobbyist

2010-01-20T11:40:07-05:00

What, you ask, do political writers really mean when they refer to "The Village"? What does that political term mean in practice, rather than in theory? Here's about as good an example as I have ever seen:

Jeffrey Birnbaum, one of the premier lobbying reporters, joined a leading K Street firm Tuesday.

Birnbaum has gone to BGR Group, formerly known as Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, as president of its public relations practice, BGR Public Relations.

Birnbaum has reported and written for several national publications, including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time and Fortune. He has covered the White House and Capitol Hill and his former column at the Post, "K Street Confidential," was widely read among lobbyists in Washington. Also, his 1988 book, Showdown at Gucci Gulch, co-authored with Alan Murray, is considered one of the best dissertations of K Street.

In colloquial usage, "village" implies community (think "It Takes a Village"), a place where a group of similar people - regardless of their particular jobs - take care of one another out of respect for their own homogeneity. As Birnbaum's move - and the ho-hum DC reaction to it - shows, that's exactly what our corrupt political/media/corporate class is: An insulated, well-fortified village.

In this political Village, it doesn't matter that Birnbaum formerly made his career as a Fourth Estate cop patrolling the intersection between money and politics, and is now cashing in that experience for the very life of corruption he once journalistically deplored. It doesn't matter in the same way it didn't seem to matter that Richard Wolffe was (and still is!) pretending to be an objective "journalist" while working for a corporate PR firm, just like it doesn't matter when federal regulators cash in their public experience for a high-paying lobbying gig in the industry they were regulating - just like it doesn't matter when the door spins the other way (and just to prove that point - notice that Birnbaum will remain as a supposed objective "journalist" for Fox News and the Washington Times even as he works at his corporate lobbying firm).

In the Village, there is no such thing as shame, no such thing as behavior too unethical to show one's face in public ever again, no such thing as serious laws/rules/bright lines preventing brazenly unscrupulous behavior, and certainly no such thing as genuine principles that might lead someone to personally choose to foresake Big Money for integrity.

In the Village, every public service experience - whether political or media - is a way to build one's resume for future private profit.

Why, you ask, are these odious axioms - axioms that are anathema to most regular folks outside the Beltway - the norm in the Village? Because in the Village, loyalty to sameness - same economic class, same cocktail parties, same privilege - is what society is organized around, not any trifling notions of morality, ethics or - ha! - public service.

In the Village, anything goes...as long as you are a Villager.

It's Not Mere Cynicism or Demoralization - More Likely, It's Humiliation and Alienation

2010-01-19T21:44:34-05:00

Let me interject something in the midst of all the finger-pointing about the unfortunate results of the Massachusetts senate race tonight - something that I think has been missed in all the media punditry, activist Twittering and netroots blogging.

Various polls (here and here, as examples) have shown that a good chunk of the opposition to and/or frustration with the health care bill that played such a central role in the Massachusetts race comes from a progressive perspective - namely, a perspective that says the bill doesn't go far enough. How much that precise kind of opposition/frustration played a role in the Massachusetts race is anyone's guess - but among those that it did, my guess is that the feelings of demoralization are particularly intense, because those feelings are rooted in the most powerful emotion of all: humiliation.

After a 2008 campaign that saw Democrats promise to genuinely take on the health care and financial industries, we've seen a 2009 that has asked Democratic voters to fight for extremely small, extremely modest scraps. We've been relegated to having to mount fierce campaigns to keep things like the public option in the debate and not to stop trillion-dollar bailouts - but just make sure they have one or two flimsy strings attached to them.

We've loyally mounted these campaigns. They haven't been fun, and worse, they haven't been legislatively successful (at least not yet). But beyond the substantive failure is the embarrassment that comes with even having to mount such campaigns in the first place.

There is something deeply embarrassing about Democratic voters/groups having to fight with Democratic leaders to get those leaders to even seriously try (much less pass) even the smallest, most modest shreds of their promises. Having to do that evokes feelings of genuine shame - shame in front of the other voters we told to vote for Democrats because it supposedly "mattered," and shame when we look in the mirror at a self that may have allowed itself to be unnecessarily duped.

I feel this sense of humiliation every day I am talking to regular folks here in Colorado on the radio. As a single-payer guy, I feel embarrassed that I've been relegated to fighting for the fulfillment of as modest a campaign promise as the public option. Likewise, as a person who opposed the bailouts from the get-go, I feel embarrassed to be relegated to simply asking for a bit of transparency and regulation from a party that promised tough New Deal-like measures against Wall Street. And my guess is that - whether consciously or not - many people who voted for Democrats in 2008 feel that same sense of shame as well.

Again, I don't know if this deep sense of humiliation is what drove down Democratic performance in Massachusetts tonight, or is driving down President Obama's numbers as a whole. But my bet is it has at least something to do with it, especially because the 2008 campaign had so much to do with raising people's expectations.

That wasn't a normal election - many of us who had stopped believing in the possibilities of American democracy said we'd be willing to believe one last time. And now, seeing that perhaps we shouldn't have relented in our (rightful) cynicism, we are completely mortified.

Undoubtedly, Democrats and progressive media will attempt to make us ignore these feelings of humiliation by simply vilifying the extremism of Republicans (predictably, we are already seeing this rather pathetic tactic from various Democratic voices - save the always honest Howard Dean - on television tonight). And it is all but guaranteed that in typical blame-the-victim fashion, some lockstep Democratic activists and Obama supporters will find a way to blame progressives - rather than the politicians who broke their progressive promises - for the Massachusetts loss and the Democratic Party's flagging poll numbers. Those are the tried and true formulas to stir up the base and manufacture a supposed "united front."

But I don't know if it will work this time, unless it is coupled with - finally - a serious effort by Democratic lawmakers to legislate their promises. And even then, I still don't know if it will work. I don't know because maybe it's too little, too late - maybe the humiliation has already transformed cynicism into total and complete alienation.

Though Obviously Hypocritical, GOP Has Chance to Outflank Dems on Health Care Populism

2010-01-19T09:38:51-05:00

Late last week, Firedoglake highlighted this stunning exchange between activist Mike Stark and retiring GOP Rep. John Shadegg over health care:

SHADEGG: Both the House and Senate bills contain mandates that compel, or would compel you and I as individual Americans to buy insurance from Americas private insurance industry. I think America's private insurance industry is the problem...

STARK: So are you for a public option?

SHADDEG: Well, you could better defend a public option than you could defend compelling me to buy a product from the people that have created the problem. America's health insurance industry has wanted this bill and the individual mandate from the get go. That's their idea. Their idea is "look, our product is so lousy, that lots of people don't buy it. So we need the government to force people to buy our product. And stunningly, that's what the Congress appears to be going along with. Why would they do that?...The notion of forcing Americans to buy a product they don't want to buy from companies that aren't doing it right right now is goofy...Making the IRS the bill collector for Aetna and the rest of America's insurance companies...Blue Cross/Blue Shield and United...isn't the way to do it.

Let's first get the issue of Shadegg's integrity out of the way here -- he's obviously a hypocrite. This is a lawmaker who could have voted for the public option that he suggests has value, and could have voted for much stronger overall health care reform bills in the past.

However, hypocrisy by a politician is hardly interesting in an age when President Obama has broken so many explicit promises it's hard to even count them anymore. What is far more notable is the substantive argument Shadegg is voicing -- it's both accurate and politically telling.

Shadegg is absolutely correct that "America's private insurance industry is the problem." He is also correct that this legislation is exactly what that industry wants -- not, as the Orwellian White House spokesholes insist, some great victory over that industry. And Shadegg is right that compelling people to buy an expensive (and faulty) product from a private corporation without giving people at least the choice of a public product is unprecedented and grotesque.

If the health care bill is not improved, this is exactly the kind of argument the Republicans will make in the 2010 and 2012 election. And I say that not just because one lone GOP congressman is making the argument, but because you are starting to hear a similar case being made by top Republican Party officials.

Case in point is the interview I did last week on my AM760 radio show with Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams. You can listen to it here -- and specifically, listen to him rail on the insurance industry.

Again, it's obviously disingenuous coming from Republicans as the GOP has been shilling for the insurance industry for years. However, that doesn't mean it won't be powerful. It will be -- and it will be precisely because the Democrats -- in weakening the health legislation -- have allowed Republicans to potentially outflank them (at least image-wise) as the populist party of the little guy.

Dems Inadvertently Suggest a Coakley Loss Would Strengthen Progressives on Health Care

2010-01-18T09:20:35-05:00

If Democrats lose the Massachusetts Senate race, there are two possible ways to pass a final health care bill: 1) The House will simply pass the Senate bill unamended, thus circumventing another Senate vote entirely or 2) The Senate will be forced to use reconciliation to pass an amended conference report. If progressives in the House have enough vote to reject scenario 1, they would be in a good position to make the final bill stronger via scenario 2 - stronger than they even may be able to make the bill right now with a 60 vote Democratic majority in the Senate. Here's why:

Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D) is now saying that if Democrats lose the Massachusetts Senate election tomorrow, the party will consider using reconciliation to pass the health care bill. He insists that "even before the Massachusetts" race this was the case, but that's not what Democratic leaders had previously been saying.

For the party, this sudden re-legitimization of reconciliation makes obvious arithmetic sense - Democrats' Senate majority will be 59 and not the 60 votes needed to break a standard filibuster, and so if the House rejects simply passing the original Senate bill with zero conference amendments, Democrats would be forced to use reconciliation in the Senate to pass an amended final bill.

Setting aside the obvious hypocrisy of Democrats previously saying reconciliation was "off the table" in a 60-vote Senate when in fact it didn't need to be, this potential new scenario raises a question: Would a Democratic loss in Massachusetts actually strengthen progressives on the specific issue of health care? Hear me out.

If reconciliation is only "on the table" if Democrats lose the Massachusetts race, then that loss means Democrats would only need 51 votes - rather than 60 - to pass health care (or at least some of the big parts of it). Many progressive initiatives passed in the House health care bill (like the public option) were struck from the Senate bill in the name of obtaining 60 votes - that is, in the name of working in a non-reconciliation scenario. But if after the Massachusetts election, Democrats suddenly say they only need 51 Senate votes to pass big parts of the health care bill, doesn't it stand to reason that those progressive initiatives could now be put back in the Senate bill?

Put another way, a situation that only requires 51 votes suddenly makes the Ben Nelsons and Joe Liebermans far less able to singularly stop the progressive initiatives in the House bill. All of a sudden in a 59-seat Democratic majority Senate where reconciliation is necessary to pass health care, Democrats would be able to give up 8 anti-public-option Senate Democratic votes and still pass a health care bill. In short, there would be no reason to not push forward a public option and other progressive provisions previously stripped out of the Senate bill.

Now, this doesn't mean I'm rooting for Martha Coakley (D) to lose to Scott Brown (R) - not at all. But I am saying that Democrats' hypocrisy in saying that reconciliation is off the table in a 60-vote majority but on the table in a 59-vote majority means that progressives' hand may actually be strengthened in the latter situation.

Of course, that highlights the bigger problem of the hypocrisy. As I said before, there's no actual substantive reason why reconciliation is somehow "off the table" in one situation but "on the table" in another situation. That is, unless you believe Sen. Russ Feingold's (D-WI) assertion that - despite Democratic leaders insistence to the contrary - the weakened, watered down, insurance-industry-shaped Senate bill, not the stronger House bill, is actually what the Democratic Party has secretly wanted all along.

If that's the case, I guess it made some sense - in a 60-vote situation where reconciliation could be off the table and a bill could still pass, it might have seemed like a smart (if devious) rationale for eliminating progressive priorities from the bill. But if it is a 59-vote situation in which Democrats must use reconciliation, suddenly that conservative/corporatist strategy may considerably strengthen the progressive movement's hand.

Again, I'm not rooting for Coakley to lose - but if her losing inadvertently creates the political dynamic that makes critical provisions like a public option a reality, then that's a huge silver lining to an otherwise bad situation.

Will Obama Now Fulfill His Windfall Profits Tax Promise?

2010-01-13T14:13:38-05:00

Lloyd Chapman of the American Small Business League asks a very simple question: With oil at or near $80 a barrel, will the Obama administration now deliver on its promise to enact a windfall profits tax on big oil companies?

Some history: Obama promised to enact such a tax during the campaign, and this promise was one of the very first that he made. As you can see from this piece I wrote back in early December of 2008, he announced the pledge as president-elect, before even assuming office.

To their (minimal) credit, Obama's spokespeople didn't use the Big Lie tactic they've been using of late - that is, they didn't simply deny that Obama ever made the campaign promise. Way back in those less cynical days of 2008, they at least offered up a post-facto benchmark of $80-per-barrel as a threshold:

"President-elect Obama announced the policy during the campaign because oil prices were above $80 per barrel," an aide on Obama's transition team said. "They are currently below that now and expected to stay below that."

OK, fine. So now oil is at that $80-per-barrel threshold. Will the administration act? Chapman says it must - and says such a policy will help the kinds of small businesses his organizations represent.

"Implementing a windfall profits tax on the oil and gas industry is a reasonable, efficient and effective means of keeping energy costs down and helping American businesses and families," he writes. "Now that oil has topped $80 per barrel, it will be interesting to see what President Obama's new excuse is going to be for not honoring his campaign promise."

Interesting, indeed. Stay tuned.

Harold Ford Tries Out For a Staff Writer Job at The Onion

2010-01-13T11:25:50-05:00

I'm convinced this op-ed in the New York Post by Harold Ford, Jr. is actually an Onion article. I mean, it simply cannot be a genuinely serious article by a human being, much less a supposed "smart" politician declaring any kind of serious candidacy for the U.S. Senate in New York. It absolutely has to be satire, if only because he's announcing a Democratic primary candidacy in the pages of an arch right-wing Rupert Murdoch rag.

But his comedy act goes beyond forum choice - it goes to the substance:

As evidence of his allegedly deep roots in the state he says he's going to run to represent, Ford cites the fact that "I moved to New York more than three years ago, have been a New York resident for more than a year." Yes, "a year" - as in just one year.

Ford says "I am pro-choice -- have always been since I entered politics almost 15 years ago" and "any assertions to the contrary are false." But what about nationally televised assertions to the contrary by, um, Harold Ford?

Ford says "I remain committed to promoting gun safety and handgun control," then throws out a few regionally famous names of gun control advocates, and then expects us to forget his video address to the NRA convention, bragging about his membership in that organization - you know, the organization that has fought "gun safety and handgun control" policies forever.

"Despite what critics say about me," Ford writes, "I enjoyed uninterrupted support from organized labor throughout my time in Congress." Right, I'm sure organized labor supported Ford when he voted for nearly every single job-killing trade deal that came through Congress.

For these reasons, I simply refuse to believe that this op-ed is anything other than Harold Ford's joke on all of us - his stealth tryout for a job at The Onion as that newspaper's Making Fun of Politicians As Dishonest, Opportunistic and Narcissistic beat reporter.

This must be the case, especially considering he's writing an autobiography whose title calls him a "David" facing down Goliaths. Yes, a guy who was literally handed a Memphis, Tennessee congressional seat from his daddy's political machine and then cashed in his seat for a high-paying vice-president job at Merrill Lynch has been an underdog all his life.

Again, this is Onion-caliber work, especially when coupled with this new New York Times article in which Ford attacks his opponent for opposing the Wall Street bailout, advocates massive corporate tax cuts and talks of his $1-million-a-year life of chauffered limousine service, lavish helicopter rides and pedicures as a Wall Street executive in New York City. Yes, that's right - he gets paid $1 million a year from a bailout recipient bank - that's $1 million in taxpayer-subsidized salary - and is running around attacking Democratic lawmakers for opposing the bailout, without even acknowledging how selfishly self-interested that could look.

This is why I say this is all a comedy routine. He can't be serious. He just can't be. Harold Ford is making fun of politicians like Harold Ford - it's meta humor. Ford is no senator - but he may indeed have a future as a comedy writer.