"President Bush II is not on the ballot"

Actually President Bush is on the ballot, since the Romney/Ryan ticket advocates exactly the fundamental(ist) policies: tax cuts for the richest of the rich, federal government expansion (via the military), cutting jobs--the jobs of the government regulators who keep America's fiscal warlords from romping and stomping over the rest of us, and the enactment of the religious views of Christian fundamentalists in the criminal code.

Bush II is also on the ballot because the fiscal catastrophe wrought by the Republicans during his reign were so severe we're still digging out from under them. Who says any problem created by any American regime can be solved by the next administration in a year or two? That's what the GOP says--at least when they're talking about a Democratic administration...

Bush II who?

Fascinating how Republicans rhapsodize about Reagan (despite the fact that he'd be considered a RINO today) while the last GOP president--for two terms no less--is an official Nonperson.

And yet Romney, Gingrich and Santorum all endorse Bush II's overall tax and economic policies, along with his Ready! Fire! Aim! foreign policy, firm belief in big government intrusion into our bedrooms with no respect for states' rights (contrary to GOP mantras about same), and contempt for science and economics when their findings don't support GOP Billionairian theology. They should give credit where its due--and so should their followers. 

Especially since the overall policy similarities give us a horror movie-quality foreshadowing of what a Republican-dominated Congress, Presidency, and Judiciary would have in store for America. 

Of course my non-Republican conclusion is that Republicans don't want to talk about Bush II precisely because a Romney presidency would be Bush II Redux. Right down to both of them claiming to be "outsiders." Now there's unintentional humor for ya.

Romney would kill medical care reform, just like Bush II would; he'd hang onto the tax cuts for the rich that Bush II got--and which, instead of trickling down, has cost America at least 3/4 of a trillion dollars so far and counting; he'd endorse the government rape of women trying to get abortions (or should there be a different word for inserting a foreign object into a woman's privates against her will at the behest of male-dominated legislatures and male governors?). And he'd enrich himself personally and substantially through implementing his policies--just like Bush II did. And Bush II and Romney both worked hard to mimic what regular people who weren't born rich were like--Bush II with his fake ranch, Romney through his, um, family anecdotes (they're regular Motor City folks because his wife has two Cadillacs--and she doesn't "feel" rich!).

Bush II is one of your own. He's not just your past--he is, if the GOP has its way with us, our future. And he still actually rules one of the three branches of government, through his radical corporatist appointees, who are likely to rule that roost for decades to come, regardless of who wins in November.

So come on, guys, give credit where it's due. You aren't the party of Reagan--who raised taxes repeatedly and avoided foreign entanglements. You're the party of Bush II. Own it.

Letters, we get letters

I got a lengthy comment on several of my posts. Here's the comment, followed by my answers to his numbered points:

1. Obama is a snob. No kidding. Don't believe me? Check out "Obama Visits Billionaires Row" (http://zombietime.com/obama_visits_billionaires_row/). His visit to Billionaires row is notable not just for his (very) well received fund raising, but what he said (privately, it leaked anyway) while he was there. I quote "And it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations" Elitist? I think so. Obama was challenged about his statement some number of times. His response was "it's true isn't it?".

2. On Bank Regulation. You critique of the GOP and bank regulation is only partially correct. Remember that the House Republicans voted against TARP and killed it for a while. Why? Because a great many of them believe that free markets including the right to fail, not get bailouts. I know a few Republican Congressmen and they were (are) just as opposed to Wall Street handouts as Matt Taibbi. By contrast, Obama appointed Timothy Geithner as the Secratary of the Treasury after he did such a great job as the chairman of the New York Fed and paying his own taxes...

3. Accusations that Lou Dobbs is a racist are laughable. His wife is Mexican-American and they have two daughers together.

4. You have the politics of Eminent Domain wrong. Ordinary Republicans and Republican politicians were outraged by Kelo vs. City of New London. Of course, Republican property developers were presumably thrilled. However, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London#Congressional_reaction. Note that the New York Times and the Washington Post endoursed Kelo. For the record, I supported Kelo as well. I strong oppose using eminent domain for private purposes. However, I don't think it is unconstitutional, merely dismal public policy.

5. You have the details of Bush and Rangers stadium wrong. No land was "stolen for pennies on the dollar". Eminent domain was used to obtain 13 acres of land (not 200 acres). The owners of the land (the Mathes family) sued claiming that the land was worth more than they were paid. A jury agreed with them and awarded a $5 million judgement. With interest this came to $7.5 million. The legal case was against the development authority which paid the judgement. The development authority claimed that the team was liable for the cost of the judgement under the terms of the original development agreement. Initially the team refused to pay, but eventually did. Note that the team was later sold at a very large profit to Thomas Hicks. The gain to the original investors (roughly $160 million) dwarfed the difference over the value of the Mathes land. See http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:519405 , http://www.answers.com/topic/texas-rangers-baseball , and http://www.houstonpress.com/1998-01-29/news/bush-s-big-score/ There are any number of things that I find objectionable about Bush's dealings with the Rangers and the City of Arlington. However, the "theft" of private property isn't one of them.

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My responses:

1. Obama snob?

If you think humility is the key trait of a great president, you get Gerald Ford and probably no one else in the last century. I'm sure Obama thinks he's hotter stuff than some high school dropout who bags groceries for a living. Well, he is. Did you see him at the healthcare summit? No notes, yet he showed an immense grasp of the subject. I'm not saying this means you should agree with him about healthcare.

But it doesn't mean you should disagree.

The right wing blogosphere obsesses over this. But it didn't over Bush II, who acted like he was better than everyone else all the way back to his college days. The difference is that he was defeated once early in his political career by someone who out-Bubba'd him, and he swore he'd never let that happen again.

Look at their biographies. Bush was born rich, grew up rich, and has lived rich his entire life. Obama was born in an educated home but one with little money, and he bootstrapped himself.

If he were a jerk personally it would show in his relationship with his wife and daughters. Yet obviously he's a better family man than any previous president in memory, back to and very much including Ronald Reagan.

It also shows in his hires. He hires really smart people, and he hires ones who don't necessarily agree with him. He carried over Bush's secretary of defense, and obviously listens to him and backs him. He hired Jim Jones. Bush never did anything of the sort.

And this openness to different ideas goes back to when he was editor of the Harvard Law Review, and the black ideologues and white liberals there were furious with him because he included a number of real conservatives on his team.

If he were a snob he'd only have yes-men around him.

I suspect that what the Right calls snobbery is actually self-respect.

He thinks he's smart and knows a lot because he is and he does. If he thought there was no difference between his intelligence and education and that of Joe Lunchbox I'd think he was insane. {None of this means Obama is always right. He isn't. And he agrees with that, by the way.)

So let's look at it from the other end: why do so many right wingers talk about his supposed snobbery?

a. Anti-intellectualism: Americans--myself included--are descended from peasants. Mine were sharecroppers in Scotland. And not so long ago, either. My grandpa said he raised hawgs "'cause they didn't take no plowin'." The country rejected the Europeans respect for authority, and it shows in our anti-intellectualism. I grew up in white blue-collar neighborhoods, and kids repeatedly accused me of cheating on tests because they couldn't imagine any other reason why my grades were so good.

I'd guess--without recourse to any research--that at least half of Americans are pretty strongly anti-intellectual.

b. Racism: I know, lefties cry "Racist" if a Republican blinks...but the Right also cries "Socialist" if a Democrat advocates any kind of government regulation.

So granting that both sides call each other names constantly, and often without foundation...we all know that a substantial minority of Americans are racist. My father was a racist from Georgia. My mother was not. So my sample of two comes out 50-50. And in fact the most racist people I've met in my life here in California were ghetto Blacks in Richmond and Oakland.

So we should all agree that every race has its racists.

So...what percentage of American voters are racist enough to let race color (so to speak) their vote? Can we all agree that it's at least 30% (remember, the South is nominally part of America)?

Now if you were a Republican strategist, you'd want to keep those people voting against Obama by riling them up. Yet you wouldn't dare say "Don't vote for a Nigrah." So you use code words that are defensible. Hence "snob," which a racist hears as "uppity Nigrah" (which Southern racists like my dad regard as possibly the worst human being this side of a serial killer). Yet if you use "snob" you have what lawyers call "plausible deniability." That is, you can claim it's not racism.

It's the perfect attack, because racists can read the subtitles, and the larger group of anti-intellectuals can also have their buttons pushed--all without having to admit to any feelings that you can't defend in public.

That's why the right talks about Obama's snobbery. It's a tactic and the wrapping paper that hides something darker.

And yes, Black pols routinely use racist appeals in their districts. A few years ago two blacks were vying to be elected mayor of Newark. But the young guy was educated, centrist, and supported by a coalition. The old black crook who opposed him ran a blatantly racist campaign, centered on the them of saying of the new guy "He ain't black."

And yes, Obama shifts into Black-ish dialect when he talks to Black audiences. Exactly the same as Bush abandoning his Harvard MBA-talk and gettin' all Bubba when he spoke to redneck audiences.

The race card gets played by some folks on both sides.

2. Bank regulation.

"Free market" is an ideological term. There's no such thing in reality. I've spent time in countries--like Indonesia--with profoundly "free" markets. The result is always the same: monopoly, enforced by bully boys with guns and government bureaucrats whose job is purely to protect the rich and powerful.

The problem the right wing has is that Ayn Rand saw the Commies confiscate her parents' property, so she concluded that all government control is evil. And the billionaires who bankroll the Republican Party agree with her, since they have no need for any kind of government social services or, for the most part, for infrastructure building/repair either, except for porkbarrel projects like Alaska's bridge to nowhere.

But there's a whole lot of territory between Communism and no government at all (as in Somalia). A modicum of regulation keeps the playing field level, even as those with money and power never stop striving to tilt the playing field and turn what started as a competitive advantage (better products, better service) into monopoly.

Obama's hiring Geithner proves how conservative he is. That hire and others shows he's trying to rescue our American free enterprise system, not destroy it.

TARP was a Hobsian bargain. He felt he had to save financial institutions whose failure would have brought about a collapse rivalling the Great Depression. And that situation came about precisely due to the lax regulation of the Republican years. Yes, subprime mortgages went to those they shouldn't. But that problem would have been isolated from the rest of the economy if the Republicans hadn't let banks turn into gambling casinos on their watch.

Personally I think he should have used managed bankruptcy instead of the bailout Bush engineered and that he kind of got stuck with when he took office (as Paul Krugman advocated), and I think any business too big to fail is too big and needs to be broken up in exchange for government help--as is happening with GM, I notice, and AIG too.

The things Republicans now advocate (as opposed to what they did under Bush) are common sense solutions--let the chips fall where they may, let good businesses survive, bad ones fail--but it's more complicated than that, unfortunately, and I don't want to cut off my nose to spite my face.

I've said that America's economy has gotten too complex for the average guy to understand--and that this fact is extremely dangerous for democracy. It's emotionally gratifying to hear politicians claim it's not that complicated, your common sense is enough, and here's the simple solution.

But whenever a politician says something I find flattering and emotionally gratifying I start to worry--and I feel my hip pocket to make sure my wallet's still there.

And when it's the part not in power that's advocating these simply, gratifying solutions I get doubly suspicious.

The left made the same kinds of errors when they tried to solve centuries of segregation and slavery with affirmative action and the welfare state.

That, too, was a solution too simple for the situation.

3. I've never accused Lou Dobbs of being racist--especially since I'm even more opposed to illegal immigration than he is. And I knew about his Latina wife. You must have me confused with someone else. Look in my archives to see what I've said about him and illegal immigration.

4. I think we agree about eminent domain.

It's needed for freeways and reservoirs and railroad right of ways and national parks--not luxury developments by private developers. And I think the wording of the Constitution can be interpreted to support this interpretation.

The problem is that rank and file Republicans feel as I do about eminent domain--but Republican fat cats and their billionaire backers want to use it for private gain, leading to a disconnect between rank and file Republicans and the Republican leadership.

Similarly, many rank and file Democrats oppose special favors for everyone but whites, and actually support colorblind social policy with special support for the poor and disadvantaged of all races, equally. But the Democratic leadership is so beholden to racialist special interest groups it's hard for them to pry loose from that.

5. The Bush-Rangers deal:

I was speaking from a bottom line viewpoint about the complex series of steps Bush used. It wasn't simple theft. It was complex theft. Like Woodie Guthrie said, "Some men rob you with a six-gun--some with a fountain pen."

I agree with the thorough analysis made by Pulitzer-prize-winner economic journalist David Cay Johnston, described in his book "Free Lunch: How the wealthiest Americans enrich themselves at government expense (and stick you with the bill)".

I have to believe that if rank and file Republicans realized how much their leadership preys on them, using socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest of us, that they'd rise up in revolt.

The bottom line for Bush is that he got rich at taxpayer expense, not through building a business that sold goods and/or services whose honest profits made him rich. And his chicanery was only possible through dynastic use of his wealthy family's connections.

I hope these answers help to show that I'm neither a leftist nor a rightist, but rather a reformer who wants there to be leftists and rightists in government--I just want them to be true to their own principles.

Shoe Throwing: Wrong Question

Newspapers are printing many letters defending throwing shoes at Bush—or being offended by such defenders. Well, they're all wrong. The actual question is whether a journalist should use a press conference as the time and place to make a partisan statement.

If lefties had their wits about them they'd denounce this breach. Civilization depends on us all acting, well, civilized. Its exact essence is people who disagree profoundly agreeing to coexist in a common framework. And the exact test of that civilization is how you treat people you despise.

I despise Bush. (Though I do admire his agility. He dodged both shoes neatly.) But all the shoe-thrower showed was his disregard for his profession and his incomprehension of what we all must do to keep civilization going. Same goes for those who defend his actions.

There's a place to show what you think about Bush: the ballot box. And that worked out pretty well, didn't it? Besides, if you defend the shoe-thrower, then you're defending Cheney cursing out a Senator on the Senate floor.

Think about it.

McCain: "I'm not George Bush"

McCain is right--he's not George Bush. His voting record makes him only 90% identical to George Bush. By Republican standards that certainly qualifies calling him a maverick.

But Obama has pointed out that this 10% divergence isn't in economic areas. Where pocketbook issues are concerned McCain is virtually identical to our current president.

I've no doubt that McCain would execute his duties better than Bush. I think he'd make more effort to actually enforce laws Congress enacts, instead of doing whatever he pleases, as Bush has done.

So McCain would be a better Bush.

Woo hoo.

HUD secretary resigns under fire for alleged corruption/incompetence

One thing you actually can say for Bush--he isn't racially prejudiced. Seriously. He'll appoint self-aggrandizing, sycophantic mediocrities of every race and ethnicity to do the bidding of the GOP's patrons. From Condi Rice to Professor Woo (or whatever's the name of the White House lawyer whose briefs justified torture and the doctrine of President-as-King), Bush has certainly been an equal opportunity employer.

Now class prejudice is another matter entirely. That's why Kanye West had it all wrong. It's not that Bush doesn't care about black people. He doesn't care about ANYONE but rich people. If your income's under $1M/yr. he doesn't even despise you, because he'd have to notice you to despise you.

The irony is all those working stiffs who staunchly defend him to this day because they think he's conservative like them.

Guess what? He isn't a conservative at all. He's a high roller. Always has been.
He never betrayed us Democrats. He betrayed the Republican rank and file. They're the ones he lied to, pretending he was one of them.

Q. How many Harvard MBAs does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Just one. He holds the bulb and waits for the world to revolve around him.

Let's start thinking about tomorrow sez the GOP

Main GOP talking points include denying that the past matters. Whenever critics point to the massive failures in judgment that led to the Iraq war and occupation, they say that's all water under the bridge and a diversion from facing what we have to do now.

That's the same as telling a trucking company manager not to look at prospective employees' driving records. He should just ask them how they propose to drive a big rig, and whether they believe truckers should avoid making stupid decisions.

And journalists fall for this time after time. Of course with all the major news outlets firmly in the control of major corporations, it's no wonder. Not that the journalists are being told to pander to the pols. Not necessary. You just create a work environment based on the principle that "If it bleeds it leads. If it thinks it stinks." That's enough.