Tag Archives: democrats

Political Rants

Getting warmer.

I’m hip-deep in audio editing right now, so again… forgive me for shooting from the hip.

I didn’t want to let too many weeks go by without commenting on the Durban Conference on climate change. I have to say, the Obama administration has gotten really good at acting as though they’re doing something progressive when, in fact, they are doing next to nothing at all. What Durban demonstrated was that, more than any other nation, the United States is an obstruction to any action to alleviate the effects of climate change. Others are following our example, emboldened by our refusal to take this crisis seriously. Canada – currently headed by George W. Bush/David Cameron hybrid Stephen Harper – is pulling out of Kyoto while pulling strings to avoid (unsuccessfully, it appears) having its tar-sands oil appropriately labeled as dirty by the EU. Russia is balking at emissions reductions as well. The fact that we lead the denialist camp gives them lots of cover.

There was a time, about four years ago, when it seemed possible that we might address this problem in a semi-serious fashion. That time is long past, its sentiments plowed under by the financial crisis and the “drill, baby, drill” mentality of mainstream and tea party Republicans. Because of the Democratic party’s failure to find its spine on this issue, the Republicans have managed to position it in a similar way as they have with the gun control issue. It seems like the very mention of global warming or climate change brings a chill to Democrats on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Only Republicans ever seem to use the terms, and only then as a means of attacking their cowardly opponents. They have been given the upper hand, once again, by default, just as Democrats have deserted the barricades on the gun issue, on the death penalty, on “missile defense”, etc.

I’m afraid, with respect to global warming, this is more about us as a people than our politicians. The fact that we cannot avoid some of the impacts of this crisis has somehow led people to believe that it’s just as well to do nothing. (I am referring here to people who actually believe global warming is real, not those who buy the crackpot hoax argument that fossil fuel shills like Sen. James Inhofe peddles.) We have this unfortunate tendency focus on the present to the exclusion of the future. It just cuts against the grain to act as though we should treat the world as something that should last beyond our own lifetimes – something that can support life for countless generations to come. This will have to change and change quickly. We had a start back in 2007. We need to get back to that moment again.

Last chance, humanity. Get smart. Merry Christmas.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Weeks away.

Just a few hurried comments on the events of the day. (The events of the day are keeping me from the events of the day. Shall I say that a second time?)

Cain Mutiny. Presidential candidate Herman Cain has some more difficulties maintaining his myth of marital bliss, and this may be a game stopper for him. Naturally the death knell may come about over something that doesn’t matter a damn. Aside from his family, who the hell cares who he sleeps with, so long as it’s consensual and doesn’t involve minors, animals, etc.? Somehow this seems to bother people (and the mass media) more than the fact that the man has given zero thought to anything having to do with public affairs. He must be the first presidential candidate I’ve ever seen fail to give an opinion when someone asks him about something like the Libya intervention. He had to ask the interviewer what side Obama (i.e. the United States) was on. What the … ? Has the man been living in a pizza box? He is running for the G.O.P. nomination and apparently has no concept of what the pro-life and pro-choice positions actually mean.

Why the hell does this man want to be president? He smells to me like a cut-out for the Koch brothers, but what he says is that God encouraged him to run. Personally, I think God may have just been trying to order a pizza.

Deficit of Imagination. They’re sparring over the payroll tax cut – otherwise known as The Only Tax Cut That Needs To Be Paid For. With the Occupy movement receiving eviction notices from coast to coast, Congress is managing to turn the conversation back to debt with a good bit of help from the major news organizations. I heard Joe Scarborough sparring with Sherrod Brown about Medicare costs and showing “courage” by acknowledging that those costs were tantamount to a cancer on the body politic. His solution? Cut, cut, cut. Which is basically shift the burden onto the elderly, the ill, etc.

I didn’t hear Brown say this (he may have), but the courageous position to my mind would be to advocate expanding Medicare to cover everybody. The reason we have deficit Medicare spending projected for the next few decades is simple – we are subsidizing the profitability of private health insurers, who get to cover the least costly consumers while the government covers the most costly ones (i.e. the ones private insurers don’t want). The courageous thing to do would be to say, we can’t afford this model any longer.

I’m waiting to hear that from someone. Anyone?

luv u,

jp

Uncategorized

Thinking small.

President Obama is on vacation this week, sort of. Him and about a thousand other people, bringing him information, taking his orders, blah, blah. I don’t know why he bothers, but… he does. With that job, you may as well assume that you’re going to be working straight for four to eight years. Even so, every American president since Carter has been determined not to seem like he’s barricaded in to the White House, manning his vigil in vain. So Obama, like his predecessors, takes a ceremonial vacation, and his detractors take aim. Of course, they would anyway. He has locked himself into Washington! He’s out of touch with (white) America! they would cry if he were to cancel his outing. May as well go, Barry.

Frankly, if he were to come back from the Vineyard with a Jobs / Recovery Act proposal that involves bold efforts to fund infrastructure projects, incentivize hiring, raise taxes on the rich, and so on, I would be the first to say that the man has earned his rest. But that is an extremely unlikely scenario. Obama, smart as he is, does not want to have to walk back every statement he has made about the debt since last year. That’s my best take on that. My worst is that he really believes that cutting spending, basic social safety net programs, and government investment in the short term will, as his Republican opponents believe, create jobs. If he doesn’t know they’re smoking crack on that one, we could be in for Japan in the 1990s.

Speaking of smoking crack, Texas Governor Rick Perry has launched himself headlong into the race to defeat Obama, entering amid a flurry of wild claims and random threats against the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Here’s a guy who has publicly referred to Social Security and Medicare as “ponzi schemes.” Seriously? This should not be hard to beat. Honestly, if Obama had just done what he needed to do, none of these freaks would stand a chance of winning. That it’s a race at all speaks to the weakness of his policies, not the strength of theirs…. because clearly, they’ve got nothing except tax cuts, tax cuts, and more tax cuts. And that’s nothing.

Will the president suggest a solution that is on the same grand scale as the problem, or is it small-bore policy all the way from here on out? We shall see.

luv u,

jp