A comment on the debt crisis that the NY Times censored

Curious about what sorts of comments on the debt crisis the NY Times censors out?


Here's mine, a response to an op-ed piece by Paul Krugman ("The President Surrenders"), excoriating the Republicans for extortion and President Obama for giving in to it:

I generally agree with Dr. Krugman's analysis of the Republicans, but he rarely acknowleges all the ways the Democratic Party has shoved so many Americans into the eager arms of the GOP. That aspect just seems invisible to him.

Illegal immigration is high on that list--pundits in the Northeast seem to have no idea what the impact has been here in the Southwest. In California, illegal immigrants, their children & grandchildren now comprise a majority of all students in our public school system. They're a majority of Los Angeles residents. This isn't multiculturalism--it's the supplanting of one society with another. For people like Dr. Krugman it's unthinkable to even complain about this--since only \"those sorts\" of people would object to their society being replaced by that of another country.

Especially when American blue collar wages have sunk below the poverty line due to competition from illegals. But Dr. Krugman probably doesn't have any blue collar acquaintances...

Nor does it help that in amongst the flagrant lying of the Republicans, nonpartisan factchecking sources like the CBO and factcheck.org also find Democratic politicians shading the truth.

I hate propaganda apparatchiks like Sean Hannity getting to have even the slightest element of truth in their vicious tirades.

And yet they do have a kernel of truth in some of their accusations.

Plus, I wonder whether Dr. Krugman's central thesis here is correct--that President Obama should have stuck to his guns on the debt ceiling. Viscerally I wanted him to do so, but we had 8 years of a visceral prez and that didn't turn out so well.

It may be best for him not to have let the US default on its debts, even though the Republicans' credible threat to do so was treasonous. It may yet be that the voting public will see through the Democrats' many missteps to the fact that the Republican alternative actually endangers the Republic.

Aaron Burr's starting to get real competition.

It's actually not all about the economy, stupid--even now

My response to Paul Krugman's current editorial in the NYTimes, blaming the coming Democratic Party bloodbath on inadequate economic policy:

To an economist, everything is economics. But it ain't. I agree with Krugman's economic analysis, but he's missing the sociology of this election. The Democratic Party has morphed from the party of the working stiff to the party of the minority and public employee unions, which themselves employ disproportionate numbers of minorities.

What follows from that is support for a social agenda a majority of Americans oppose: support for illegal immigration--despite an actually good record of enforcement--support for the Mexicaniztion of the American Southwest--support for polylingual ballots--opposition to the English language (I'm describing the emotional reality of these things, mind you)--support for secular people like me who have no use for religion--support for homosexuals, including in the military.

I'm not saying all these supports are bad or good. I'm saying they add up to a zeitgeist that Joe Lunchbook sees as being against HIM.

And the Democratic leadership hasn't done much to counter this impression.

And the many millions being spent by secretive agents of the Billionaire's Club pushes putatively economic message, but if you look at the atmospherics of their ad blitz it's about tribe: if you're a white American who isn't a liberal, they want you to think the Republican tribe--it ceased being a political party in the 1970s--is your tribe, and the Democratic Party is the enemy tribe, to be opposed across the board.

That's what's really going on. I believe Professor Krugman is suffering from a corollary of confirmation bias--in this case, the belief that your academic speciality is at the heart of the politics that's going on.

It's not. People talk about it because they can't or wont' speak the tribality they're feeling. But that's like asking a guy why he bought a ticket me yellow Beemer convertible and he talks about resale value and reliability, not that he got it because he thinks it's a chick magnet.

As Gregory House said, "People always lie." Including to themselves.

So if the Democratic Party wants America back, it's going to have to make some terrifically hard decisions about what it wants to accomplish, and whether adopting a race/ethnic/culturally blind platform isn't the best choice today, even if its political correctness was correct back in the 1960s when blacks were murdered for voting across the South. It's not sunshine and flowers today...but the Democratic Party won't be able to do squat for minorities if it's out of office, will it?

Who's qualified to talk about business?

Here's a typical right wing comment on liberal economist Paul Krugman's latest New York Times column:

77.

Jeff k

NH

July 9th, 2010

10:48 am

Mr. Krugman - Since you know so much about how business leaders think why don't you tell us in your next column all about your own experience running a business?

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I see. So only successful businessmen are qualified to critique businesses.

And by that logic, only successful big business executives are qualified to critique big businesses.

And only successful big business telcom executives are qualified to critique big telcoms.

Isn't this the logic doctrinaire leftists use to claim only women can criticize women, blacks blacks, yada yada?

I can't critique a movie unless I'm a movie director myself? I can't criticize the guy who robs me unless I'm a successful robber myself?

Beyond the ridiculousness of this line of thinking, there's an underlying anti-intellectualism you can find in many such comments. They as much as say that some double-dome book-taught egghead don't know 'bout the reel wurld. Nossir.

I guess that's a comfort for people who are uneducated themselves and not over-endowed between the ears.

But don't be too smug in thinking it's only Tea Party types who are guilty of logic lapses and anti-intellectualism. Left wingnuts are just as guilty when their doctrinaire thinking is challenged. Visit any Women's Studies class at any university and you'll see what I mean. Or how about the assertion that only whites are racists--blacks are categorically excluded from this sin?

Of course there's nothing wrong with personal experience. One of my favorite novelists, Joseph Conrad writes brilliantly about life at sea, in Oriental waters, in the merchant marine. Well no wonder. He was a merchant marine officer plying those waters for many years, and only quit and started writing because some tropical disease invalided him and he had to make a living.

On the other hand, another of my favorite writers is Patrick O'Brien (that was his nom de plume actually), whose Aubrey-Maturin marine novels reveal a profound knowledge of the sea and sailing---that he lacked completely. It was all meticulous research coupled with a brilliant mind.

Personal experience of something doesn't guarantee wisdom, and lack of personal experience of something doesn't guarantee ignorance. Experience helps when combined with a good mind, but it isn't mandatory.

And in general, when you're debating with someone and they raise points like this, it usually isn't a cynical ploy (as I think it is when a Karl Rove does it). Rather, it's usually a sign of tunnel logic--not considering the broader implications of the principle someone has implicitly invoked.

So instead of pouncing, you might consider helping them see why they can't say such things--especially if they're someone you're going to have to deal with in future, such as a workmate or your sister's Tea Party husband.

Remember, the goal isn't to win the debate--it's to win the mind.

So you might start by agreeing that is can certainly help to have successful personal experience in some field of endeavor before you start criticizing people in that field.

But a doctor doesn't have to have contracted HIV in order to diagnose it in someone else, does he?
A director doesn't have to be an Oscar-winning actor before he can direct actors, does he?

The fact is that human nature is human nature. That's why Epictetus said "being human, nothing human is alien to me." Someone with clarity of mind can perceive others.

For example, I'm not an engineer, but I certainly can understand why Japanese motorcycle manufacturers went from vertically split engine crankcases to horizontally split ones, even though that complicated manufacturing, because it eliminated gasket leaks. And I can criticize British motorcycle manufacturers for failing to follow the Japanese makers' lead, thus preserving their rep for making beautiful, high-performance, unreliable, hard-to-repair motorcycles. And as Toyota proved, vehicles that are average in every respect but reliability will sell very well indeed.

Because in many cases you just need common sense, an understanding of common human motivations, training in understanding logic and verifying facts, and a measure of humility that leads you to seeking corroboration for your ideas--and then you can certainly critique some area other than your primary area of expertise.

Economists like Paul Krugman often know more about the forest than a successful businessman does, who's necessarily focused on his particular tree. Moreover, successful businessmen almost invariably ascribe their success to their own business genius--never to dumb luck, rarely to their subordinates' efforts, rarely to a corporate culture they may have inherited rather than created, rarely to macroeconomic circumstances that pushed them forward--and never to innovations by subordinates against their express orders, but for which they took credit after they succeeded.

And the human mind is a sucker for a good narrative. Successful businessmen construct a narrative of their success, with themselves as the sole hero, after which they could pass a lie detector test, because inside their mind that self-serving narrative overwrote the parts of the brain where the truth had been stored.

Possessing the truth can be Cassandra's curse unless you can convince others of that truth. And political opinions are really, really hard to change. You'll win a debate with some relative, then listen to them talking the next day and find that their opinions not haven't changed, they've congealed even more.

The hardest thing is to get them to discover the truth themselves. If they do--then they'll remember it. Hence the superiority of Socratic instruction, even though it can try your patience to try it.

Tell your House representative to endorse the Senate bill

Paul Krugman's latest NYT op-ed piece ("Do the right thing") proves that the right wing caricatures of him are just that: stupid caricatures. Now if only the House Democrats will man up and follow his sound, pragmatic advice.

To quote the Spanish saying, "Algo es mejor que nada" -- "Something is better than nothing." Because our only alternative to the Senate version is no healthcare reform for another generation. So don't let your congressman ride the Horse of Pride right off the cliff.

Anything but the Senate bill means the healthcare denial industry wins, along with their sock puppets in Congress, otherwise known as the Republican leadership. The Republican rank and file will think they're winning but they'll actually be losing. A small consolation if it turns out that way.

If you're trying to decide what to tell your Congressman, just read the right wing diatribes that will throng Krugman's comment thread. Look at their gloating contempt for you and everything Democrats stand for (or at least should stand for). They want the House Democrats either to blink and pass nothing or stiffen up and demand changes to the Senate bill--but either alternative will produce exactly the same result.

The healthcare denial industry is spending over a million dollars a day, every day, seven days a week, to flood the airwaves with lying propaganda that is working. This propaganda is backed up by a legion of self-aggrandizing, self-styled pundits and rightwing talk show hosts, all in lockstep with the healtcare denial industry's message du jour.

That message is that Obama is a European Socialist, every Democratic congressman is a European Socialist, and the mild healthcare reform of the Senate bill is actually a Soviet-style nationalization of the healthcare industry that will institute death panels to kill Grandma. You laugh. But half the electorate--that half that doesn't live where you do--believe all of this.

If you think we have a snowball's chance in Hell of getting anything better--just because you and your educated friends in your college town want something better--you're dreaming.

I want something better. I want France's healthcare system, OK? I want single payer. I want to see the CEOs of the health insurance companies on the streetcorner, in rags, selling apples. Or pulling oars in slave galleys.

But the universe repeatedly fails to reconfigure itself according to my desires. How about you?

Call your congressman and say "Pass the Senate Bill. Now. Do the people's work."

Healthcare reform isn't perfect!

New York Times liberal columnist Bob Herbert published an op-ed piece today saying "There is a middle-class tax time bomb ticking in the Senate’s version of President Obama’s effort to reform health care." I said:

...And yet equally liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman endorsed passing whatever highly flawed healthcare reform legislation emerges from Congress.

What's the difference between Herbert and Krugman? They're both equally liberal. Perhaps it's that Krugman is a distinguished economist and understands the big picture a little better than Herbert.

If this doesn't pass it's a good bet we'll get a Republican president in 2012, and given the age and health of the Supreme Court's less conservative minority, that ensures that an even farther right Supreme Court majority will be available to overturn progressive legislation and decide close elections in the GOP's favor for generations to come.

Moreover, healthcare reform, once passed, will be modifiable. Without passage of something, however flawed, the GOP sock puppets and their paymasters in Medicine-for-profit-Inc. will ensure that we won't get a second chance for another generation. They're already spending over a million dollars a day spreading breathtaking lies (according to www.factcheck.org and www.politifact.com), turning public opinion against reform.

So while Mr. Herbert's complaints may well be valid, considered by themselves, from a larger perspective, we absolutely need to pass healthcare reform, however flawed.

I've read scores of comments on these threads by liberal Democrats declaring that this shouldn't pass because it falls short of their dream (and mine), and that furthermore they won't support Obama next time around because he failed to..what? We didn't elect him king. An American president has very constrained powers compared to many other kinds of heads of state.

When President Palin is busy undoing EVERYTHING Obama accomplished and is putting us in an even deeper hole than Bush put us in...remember this moment and what your whirly-eyed idealism did to us.

www.blogzu.blogspot.com

PS: I've been tallying up comment threads like this on the NYT and WaPo, and either both newspapers' readers are overwhelmingly far right Republican--or non-readers (probably in both senses of the term) are showing up in these forums the same way they showed up at congressional townhall meetings--to shout down anyone they disagreed with and to make it seem like there were more people like them than there really are.

So as you peruse this thread, look for semiliterate broad-spectrum denunciations of Democrats in general and Obama/Pelosi/Reid in particular, frequent mentions of "socialism" and other red-faced hyperbole, and generally venemous tone. And look at yourself reading them--see how they try to suck you into off-topic sparring with them instead of actually talking about Herbert's column.

You must ignore them. It's hard, I know. But you should know that you can't change their minds--that would require minds to change. We must combat them, but not by talking to them. Independents with genuine concerns, yes. Republicans like David Brooks and David Gergen and Colin Powell, absolutely. Not the nutjobs, though. That's what they want.

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The NYTimes published 279 comments on Herbert's editorial. They deleted this one, though. Apparently it violated their terms, though for the life of me I can't figure out why. The vast, vast majority of the comments said Herbert was right and that healthcare reform resembling ther Senate or House bills should not pass. Most were liberals, but many righty-tighties also wrote in, saying they agreed with Herbert for the first time, then went on to make venemous disparaging comments about the president, all liberals and the congressional Democrats in particular.

I'm sorry "compromise" is so very difficult for people to understand.

I fear we'll get what these NYT readers are asking for: no healthcare reform at all, since it's currently impossible to get the kind they demand. And then we'll get President Palin.