The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE

    By Flavius on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 11:00am |

    by trying to face facts.

    This started as a comment elsewhere but I decided to nail it to the church door.

    Of course I don't defend our system, who does? But I plead guilty to being defeatist about changing it. In all sincerity I'll wish good luck to those who try, but from the sidelines.

    Not that I'm always there. I spent an hour yesterday with my state representative and days in November going door to door for another candidate. Despite all the things that are wrong with our system, I believe in try to fix things that I think can be fixed.

    Turning to the ACA (the Affordable Care Act). It was drafted and passed the only way it could be: with political horse trading (what else is new?) and buying off some of the opponents. It was either that or just not try.

    Millions of Americans live in pain-sometimes die-and are bankrupted because of conditions that can be treated.  And would be by any of the health systems I've experienced in other countries. Whatever its drawbacks, the ACA will mean that in, say 2015, many of them will be spared that suffering. Which is wonderful. If one person was helped that way it would have been wonderful. Millions! It means we will actually be joining the other civilized nations and I salute Obama for rolling the dice -- risking his majorities and his re-election -- to achieve it. 

    Should ACA be augmented by some form of public option?  Sure.  Can we try and do that once it's up and running? Ditto. Could we be better off if it didn't exist and we were starting with a blank slate? If we didn't have the votes to do that in 2009 I don't see where they'd come from in 2013.

    AOBTW that would mean sacrificing the people who're going to helped by ACA in the interim. I'm not a great believer in Jam Tomorrow. 

    Assuming that implementing ACA meant Obama  had to give up on Financial Reform I agree with his choice. No one's pain would have been alleviated by locking up a few fund managers. 

    Furthermore....

    Yesterday bslev provided an analysis of the last couple of years of Obama's National Labor Relations Board. You could check it out.

    And I like what's happened with Don't Ask Don't Tell. And with the Administration's position on Gay Marriage. Don't you? And I have no enthusiasm for a Tea Party President dealing with Choice in 2013.

    So when the Bernie for President petition comes around to the door a year from now, I ain't signing.

    Comments

    I will leave aside your take on the ACA and its efficacy, or prevention of death, pain or bankruptcy. But I will say that financial reform wasn't about putting a few bankers in prison; that should have been happening already under current law, but isn't, and I'll save you my opinion on how wrong and dangerous that is.

    But financial reform could have been  should have been about trying like bloody hell to prevent banks from creating another financial meltdown that taxpayers would be  (will be) on the hook for, and the next loss of value in pensions, unemployment, houses, state bankruptcies, etc.  Many experts suggest that the lossses were in the trillions of dollars, not the bogus $700 billion that Obama claims has been paid back. 

    Anyhow, it's not about what you mentioned above.  Jobs and fin-reg should have been the priorities, IMO.  Then containing health care costs, which is different mission than ACA. 


    by we are stardust on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 1:34pm

    Sorry I was glib about financial reform but if I restated my position more soberly I would still value financial reform less highly than prevention of  "death pain and bankruptcy".. Financial reform is an open ended process, whenever it's done there'll be need for a further round as the Masters of the Universe come up with new ideas. But the 24 year old who's saved from a heart attack next week- because under the ACA  he's now insured on his parents' plan- can't be saved any time. It has to be done next week.

    FWIW  my experience includes being a corporate  CFO and  knowing someone who recently  had a (medicare funded ) EKG which led to an immediate quadruple by pass  Without insurance he wouldn't have had the EKG or  be alive today. 

    I find it easy to  understand why many people , like you, choose to put jobs and financial regulations at the top of your priorties. I don't. Priorities reflect personal values and neither of us can say what the other should put at the top of the list.In my case it's  avoidance of death ,pain and bankruptcy..

    I agree with you that containing health care costs should be high up.But many economists like Krugman and DeLong believe that it is an integral part of the ACA .  


    by Flavius on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:12pm

    I'm fine with your priorities, I just wanted to remind you about fin-reg was all.  Sleep well.  Long days, and it's so hard for the people in Japan and the ME.  Too much tragedy afoot in too many places.


    by we are stardust on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 11:21pm

    Thanks for bringing the exchange back to those tragedies..


    by Flavius on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 11:46pm

    I am not signing that petition either Flavius.

    It has taken 70 years for Democrats to pass a decent bill, not a hodgepodge band aid bill which might allow more people to qualify for medicaid, or policies like SCHIP. SCHIP is good, but really is just a band-aid to a growing problem of the uninsured, whether they are children or adults. Republicans have been actively fighting meaningful efforts for reform for 70 years.  The bill isn't perfect, but it is a beginning, and is something that Democratic congresspeople and the President should be immensely proud, they got us our beginning.

    Thanks for this blog. It's a good one.


    by tmccarthy0 on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:13am

    I think it's important that Obama receive a challenge from the left next year.

    There has to be a price for throwing all of those unemployed Americans under the bus.


    by Dan Kervick on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:39am

    The financial crisis occurred when a Republican had been president for 7 years when his appointees  ran the Treasury (a railroad executive, give me a break) and the Fed.

    They done it.

    Either the challenge to Obama will be ineffective - so why bother? Or result in  the criminals returning to the scene of the crime and putting their feet on the desk ... And we'll pay the price. 

    If you want to punish Obama make a tiny   wax statue and stick pins in it while murmuring some incantation ... Or something.

    Don't put the Tea Party into the White House.


    by Flavius on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 8:14am

    so why bother?

    Good question. A couple of half-baked thoughts:

    Everybody keeps thinking of '80 or Nader in 2000 when talk of a challenge from the left crops up. '68 is another useful case: should McCarthy and then Kennedy not have presented challenges? Granted, Johnson's approvals were down around 35% when McCarthy made his move, whereas Obama still hovers around 50%. But if those numbers fall significantly over the next 6-9 months, the Dems better have another option ready, just as a prudential consideration. This is not a matter of personal retribution imo.

    Beyond that, even if Obama maintains his approval ratings, I think one nice thing about democracy as a form of government is that voters get options, and through the way they react to those options the political classes get a sense of the Will of the People. If you deny them the possibility of expressing any leftwing discontent with the current policy direction of the Obama administration, we won't ever know if Obama has a mandate for the current center-right set of policies he prefers, or if the people would prefer he move leftwards.


    by Obey on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 8:25am

    I remember it well. For me McCarthy had the best line of the campaign "America is suffering from a surfeit of leadership".

    I'd had read his articles in Commonweal before he became a politician , attended a couple of events at which he was the brilliant guest speaker  and , like everybody, admired his powerful nominating speech for  Stevenson in 60.

    He took too long to endorse Humphrey altho he finally did , and  was disappointingly passive during the Chicago police riot.(no surfeit of leadership) Paul Gorman who'd been his press guy had an interesting program for years on BAI and once used it to give his reminiscences of that ugly event and his fury with McCarthy for not having  taken a stand.

    I wonder if there's some rule that the great speakers: Stevenson, McCarthy, Obama are always indecisive when the chips are down.?  Sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought or however Shaiespeare put it.  Conversely JFK's speeches were trite but he was masterful in handling the missile crisis.


    by Flavius on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 11:56am

    Interesting. All this stuff is before my time, so useful to get your perspective. I'm slowly working my way through Chester et al's tome An American Melodrama which gives some fascinating insights. Especially about Bobby's indecisiveness and anguish over launching his own run. So another one 'sicklied oer' ... before he ultimately grabbed the ball and ran with it. I think there is a lot of hope in some quarters that Obama also is some sort of 'existential man' who just needs a little shove to seize his own manifest destiny in the same way.

    That said, I don't think Obama has been indecisive in much of anything. He, to all appearances, was behind the last brave push on HCR, and more recently seemingly the only reasonable voice on the Egypt revolt. It's not his indecision I personally have a problem with, it's too many of his ... decisions.


    by Obey on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:13pm

    Don't put the Tea Party into the White House.

    We can't be ruled entirely by fear.  I'm not going to let Obama, Geithner, Daley and the rest hold me hostage with the "I'm the only thing standing between you and the Tea Party" line.  The Clinton-Obama neoliberal rule of the Democratic Party has to end.   There will always be some really nasty and scary Republicans standing on the other side.  If we let that fear of the worse of two evils be our excuse for failing to fight to get our party back, the time will never be right for the fight.  It's time for a progressive uprising against three decades of rot and submission.

    Obama has had two and a half years now to show that he is on the right side of the respose to the economic catastrophe wrought by the Republican train wreck.  But he has sided with the deficit terrorists and our society's main owners and creditors against struggling working people and the indebted.  He has made it clear that he sees the world more the way Pete Peterson does than the way the working people of Wisconsin, for example, do.  I think he is just one of those Democrats who believes in his heart the Republicans are right about the excessive size and regulatory aspirations of government, and that he must cleverly manipulate Democratic party faithful into accepting the neoliberal order.

    Even the World Bank is now to the left of Obama:

    http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/Beyond-Keynesianism-and-New-New-Normal-28Feb2011.pdf

    I see no distinction now between the Obama vision of the Democratic Party and Cameron's vision of the UK Tories, and yet the latter is clearly an anti-progressive, anti-worker right wing outfit.

    We've been pushed beyond the point of endurance.


    by Dan Kervick on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 2:45pm

    Hear!  Hear!


    by oleeb on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 3:09pm

    Because of the cowardice and completely failed leadership of the Obama administration the Tea Party is, essentially, calling the shots anyway.  You are correct that the Republicans caused the economic collapse, but when did you ever hear Obama say that?  He attacks the left far more than he ever attacks the Republicans.  He allies himself with them in opposition to the mainstream of the Democratic Party all of which is to the left of Obama.  Obama is no liberal and a Democrat In Name Only.  He clearly has no allegiance to the principles or the people of the Democratic Party and his entire strategy is the arrogant posture of "you hve no choice but to vote for me".  It's disgraceful how he has squandered the clear mandate and wishes of the people and the Democratic Party.


    by oleeb on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 3:14pm

    While I understand your sentiment I think it is always important to remember that by settling for less you are not only admitting that the substandard work done by the corrupt Democrats of Washington DC is acceptable or, as it's often said, "the best we could do", but you are giving these hypocritical, self-serving, lying politicians a pass and a green light to keep doing it.  That's wrong and compounds an already serious problem.  At some point that cycle must be put to an end.  Look at how far it has dragged the nation down already.  Are we not close enough to the bottom for people to demand better? 

    The essential problem is that we know this argument that they've done the best they can under the circumstances is false (particularly when they use that same excuse for everything for decades as they have been doing).  It is most certainly NOT the best they can do and those who fall for that lie really need to take a closer look.  We know this is not true regarding healthcare because they didn't even try to do better and said so up front. 

    Arguing that it is unrealistic or that we just "know" that what is right cannot be accomplished is another way of excusing advance capitulation.  When you make a habit of surrender before even one shot is fired in a battle that isn't realism: it's cowardice or betrayal or both.  It think there is ample evidence that the Democrats in Washington DC are both cowards and that they betray their constituency on a regular basis when you compare what they do once elected to the things they claim to be for when running for office. 

    The idea that they've done the best they can do rests squarely on the assumption that they are essentially honest and trustworthy on some level.  I think the record demonstrates that conclusion is wrong.  In light of the evidence of the past 30 years I don't think it is unfair to conclude that those who would actually believe the DC Democrats are being honest and that they are trustworthy when they cannot ever deliver on their central campaign promises are naive and gullible in the extreme or suffer some kind of weird memory dysfunction. 

    Taking, on bended knee, what crumbs drop from the table of the powerful and that they allow us to sweep up after they have gorged themselves is not an acceptable posture for a free people.  I will not bow and scrape for such crumbs.  Why should we? We get the crumbs anyway.  There's no need to debase ourselves in gratitude or fatalistic acceptance for this minimal acknowledgement of the needs of our nation's people. 

    When those who know that our elected representatives can and should produce better results but don't (because they are beholden to the very same corporate interests the Republicans serve) throw up their hands and take the scraps they are given but fail to demand better, then the forces of reaction and oligarchy win because no one objects to the injustice of the rotten deal offered the people time and again.  When our leaders are wrong, it is just as wrong to excuse their bad actions as "the best we can do" when we know that is simply not true.  Those  who know that this is not true must demand better from the dishonest and ethically bankrupt elected officials who promise to fight at election time but turn tail and run in the halls of Congress in every instance.  If we do not object, but instead roll over and accept the crumbs thrown in our direction like peasants who are so oppressed they don't realize they can rise up in revolt, then we are literally giving them permission to continue to screw the population and serve the interests of predatory wealth without any concern that there might be some negative consequences for doing so or that they might be replaced by officials who will actually fight for the things they say they are for when they campaign and who will at least try to bring home better results. 

    In Washington we have one party that openly serves and worships power and money and we have one other party who claims to fight for the interests of the common people but which will do nothing to stand in the way of power and money trampling the interests of the citizenry.  That, most certainly, is not the best we can do.  If we don't demand better performance now, in the midst of an economic depression brought on by the corrupt, incompetent and criminal actions of the ruling class, when will we?  It's time to demand better and to stop settling for less.

    "It is always impossible unitl it is done." --Nelson Mandela


    by oleeb on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 5:41pm

    However usually the impossible isn't done.

    In this case it'll be impossible for the democrats to win if Obama loses to a primary challenger and the Blacks sit out the general election. AOBTW that stay-at-home Black vote will doom democraic candidates up and down the ballot from senators to sheriffs. If some voters stay home elections are won by the party that didn't

    If instead Obama wins, I expect the challenger to try to convince his supporters to lick their wounds and vote for Obama.  Doesn't sound as if he'll be able to sway you and if he doesn't Obama will lose but the rest of the ticket might avoid a total wash out.

    Over the next year  anything may happen.You may change your mind; Obama may change his policies; or the horse may talk. That may be the least impossible.


    by Flavius on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 12:07am

    The point is that if you don't try you make not doing it an accomplished fact.  If you at least try, there is hope.  Sometimes you win when you try.  Funny that, eh? 

    Accepting what you know to be a lie ("we did the best we could") only encourages the liars to continue lying because they know they pay no price at all for doing so. 

    Obama won't lose to a primary challenger though I don't see how that could be any worse than another 4 years of Republican policies sponsored by a nominally Democratic President.  His adoption of Republican positions only undermines the Democratic Party's own historic positions and makes the chances of Democratic success almost impossible.


    by oleeb on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 1:44am

    The point is that if you don't try you make not doing it an accomplished fact.  If you at least try, there is hope.  Sometimes you win when you try.

    And sometimes you lose.

    The question is whether the risk is justified by the possible gain..

    Since you feel that electing a Republican in  2012  would be no worse than re electing Obama you're willing to to take that gamble. . 

    Since I  think it would be much worse, I'm not.

     


    by Flavius on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 11:38am

    Obama is, for all intents and purposes, a Republican.  His policies are only different from theirs on the margins and not very significantly.  His policies are barely distinguishable or indistinguishable from Bush's in most areas.


    by oleeb on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 1:06am

    For the record Oleeb, Democrats will not allow a primary challenge to this incumbent President. Simply put, Sanders is not a democrat, he cannot participate in Democratic primaries. If you knew anything about my party, you would know this, but you are intent on your intellectually dishonest diatribes, day in day out. So vote for the third party candidate of your choice, it really doesn't matter, but your dreams of a primary challenge, not.gonna.happen. Get over it already.

    Oh and as I recall you are the same folks who said Gore was just like Bush, and that too was a lie. So vote third party, do it. But quit screaming about a primary challenge, you don't get to make that decision, we do, the people out here who participate in the system, and I guarantee you it isn't happening.


    by tmccarthy0 on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 2:31pm

    Actually T, if you take a look, I didn't write a single word about Sanders or a primary challenge so I think your telling me to quit screaming about it is misplaced.  I merely made the point, which you must have missed, that by giving rotten office holders like Obama and most Congressional Democrats, a pass that you invite more bad policy, more bad legislation and more betrayal of the Democratic Party agenda.  For the record, I also said nothing about Gore and Bush.  I berlieve in putting pressure on people like Obama when they lie and flip flop and betray their own promises and party.  I know you don't like hearing that, but that's precisely what Obama has done and he isn't alone.  Most of the Congressional Democrats are just as two faced as he is.


    by oleeb on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 1:11am

    LOL. TMcCarthy is just confused, Oleeb. We all make bizarre mistakes sometimes.

    I'm sure she'll come in here and apologize.


    by Obey on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 9:17am

    To a certain extent it's understandable  you're so unhappy with politicians. . But then you should reflect on the system within which they work. Since the advent of TV , politics depends on  money.  If advertising can convince us that Budweiser tastes good, it can convince us that almost any candidate ought to be elected. 

    Most politicians of both parties go into politics to do good. They learn immediately that requires getting money so they do that.And then  compromise, a little,  taking an occasional position which suits a contributor even if it's not  the absolutely best policy.And they keep doing that.Today George Washington or Abraham Lincoln would be hosting fund raisers and meeting  lobbyists

    So any/every  one of them ,without exception, is  open to the charge of being a rotten office holder. Some of them of course are really  that and nothing else. But most of both parties, are just good- enough  human beings doing what they have to do. Sadly as time passes they are less influenced by that original desire to do good and more by a short term focus on winning the next election .The victor belongs to the spoils. Still somewhere in the back of their minds , the justification :, ' I have to do this in order  ultimately to do good' .

    That doesn't make them evil people. No more than the rest of us who rather than having started with a noble objectives just want to have an ok life. AOBTW as part of that like the politicians we make some compromises, then some more, etc.

    Personally I respect politicians for that initial objective . And as they make the necessary compromises I don't think that an Obama or Bush is a rotten human being. Certainly no worse than me, doing what they have to do. My vote is never based on  the personal qualities of the politicians.I vote for the person who'll pass the bills I want to have passed.. 

    If as you put it they lie and flip flop those are  just the tools of their trade. Like realtors who don't  warn you about  the termites in the foundation. Caveat emptor is a phrase in an ancient language..

    So.yeah,  with no qualms whatsoever I give the Congressional Democrats a pass when they betray the Party's agenda . I would expect my many Reublican friends to do the same with the Republicans. 


    by Flavius on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 9:34am

    So, on your theory of 'evil', anyone with a rationalization of their acts in moral terms is not evil.

    I think that's too narrow.

    Also, I don't think it's an argument about 'evil' vs 'good', it's an argument about 'blameworthy' vs 'not-blameworthy'. Decent people can be culpable of moral wrongdoing.


    by Obey on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 9:40am

    Expand that, please?  At another site, we are in heavy discussion about that; I'd value your opinion. The subject, loosely, is: If Politician X is immoral (I get tripped up in what prepoderance of immoral acts constitutes an 'immoral' actor), then is citizen X acting immorally for not seeking an alternative to Politician X?

    p.s. I know I don't buy Flavius's position.  ;o)  


    by we are stardust on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:23am

    I'd say no to the question in the abstract. There might be cases where even 'seeking an alternative' to - much less oppose him or her -  is in fact going to ruin the chances of the immoral, yet least evil, viable candidate in the general election. That is, it seems, the line of the Obama supporters around here.

    I just don't think the abstract argument applies to the concrete case of Obama.

     


    by Obey on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:51am

    My brains are made of gingerbread; if the concrete is Obama, what are you meaning then, mon ami philosophe?

    I'll leave a link at my posterous...


    by we are stardust on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 11:14am

    I just meant that it is one amongst other valid considerations, and in the case of Obama those other considerations undermine the view that there is any danger of weakening the Dem candidate for the general election.


    by Obey on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 11:31am

    Got it; thanks.  Stardust is slow....but...at least she is slow...    Innocent


    by we are stardust on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 11:39am

    I liked this poll result linked from the comments of that diary

    McClatchy-Marist Poll. Nov. 15-18, 2010. N=371 Democratic voters and Democratic-leaning independent voters nationwide. Margin of error ± 5.

    “Do you want another Democrat to challenge Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president in the 2012 primaries?”

    11/15-18/10
    Challenge Obama 45%
    Do Not Challenge Obama 46%
    Unsure 9%

    The party is split on whether they want a primary challenge.


    by Obey on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 12:12pm

    Ta-da!  ;o) 


    by we are stardust on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 12:19pm

    Evil's a tough word.  As to moral wrongdoing.....joke

    Jesus comes upon the crowd ready to stone the woman taken in adultry. Jesus:

          Let ye who is without sin throw the first stone.

     

    Stone whizzes past his head. Jesus:

        Mom!

     


    by Flavius on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 4:22pm

    "Most politicians of both parties go into politics to do good."

    I emphatically disagree with this and find it naive in the extreme.  I see nothing to indicate that even a significant minority of politicians in both parties go into politics to do good for anything but themselves.  The real difference between the two parties on this score is that the Republicans don't even attempt to lie about it and act as though "doing good" is a priority for them.  As I've oft indicated, most of the officeholders today are simply professional elected officials who are careerist office holders and little more.  They have no moral or ethical basis for their candidacies they simply want to be the guy in the middle of all the action who helps cut the deals and so on.

    There are necessary compromises and then there are total sellouts. I think Democratic office holders have cornered the corruption market for selling out hands down!  It isn't even remotely related to compromising for the public good.  Democrats keep lying to their base that they are compromising when they never even fake fighting for the things they say they are for when running for office.  That oughta be a pretty good clue for most of you who are determined to find ways to excuse the lying, corrupt Democrats of Washington, DC but you insist upon acting like that isn't completely out in the open at this point in history.

    I don't say they are evil people I say they are corrupt and that is because they are.

    Corrupt politicians only react to those that can bring them harm.  They are contemptuous of those who support them unless they are people with lots and lots of money.  Just look at how they operate!  It simply could not be more clear!  giving them a pass only serves to encourage more bad policy, bad goernment, bad legislation.


    by oleeb on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 1:33am