The Middle Ground

In today’s column, Paul Krugman discusses the fact that while it is a good idea for us all to listen to each other, what we are likely to find is that we really do disagree with each other. He points out that on the one side, we have people that really do think that taxation is theft and regulation is tyranny. On the other, we have people who believe in a market system, but who think that those who do well should be taxed to provide a social safety net. Given this, there really isn’t any room to compromise. He is fundamentally right that is the political dialog in America, but I’m not sure he is right on the compromise front.

The truth is, the possible political dialog is far greater, as seen in many other countries. The American liberalism consisting of a free market with a social safety net is already a compromise with early, more strident forms of egalitarian systems. The real choice is between socialism and classical liberalism; the compromise is the mixed economy of the New Deal and the Great Society. The compromise is modern liberalism.

What is so frustrating about political debate in the United States is that virtually all who wish for a libertarian ideal, not only don’t really want it—they don’t even know what it is. They don’t see all of the government infrastructure that allows the free market to flourish. One step back from that are all the people who hate socialism except as it affects their lives. For these people, all of American socialism can be found in that 20% of the federal budget that is not Social Security, Medicare, and the military. And one more step further, we find all the rich who suck off the tit of taxpayer money, as so brilliantly exposed by David Cay Johnston in his book Free Lunch.

Marx’s idea of socialism was that a country (or the world) would be so wealthy that it would not have to use humans as glorified pack animals and thus each person would be freed to find fulfillment in life as he saw fit. Yes, this is an overly optimistic view of the future. As I have complained elsewhere, the main problem here is not that we don’t have the economic ability to do such a thing—it is that the vast majority of people want to do exactly the same thing: sit around watching TV. But this itself may be an indication of just how disillusioned everyone is with our political/economic system. Regardless, I don’t think that Marx’s utopia is any more far fetched than the libertarian utopia.

As long as we say that mixed-economy liberals need to compromise with libertarian or socialist utopians—we are lost. The mixed-economy is the compromise. And, of course, we are lost when people equate The Communist Manifesto with Mein Kampf (as many did over the last week). I’m not suggesting that either book be a blueprint for political action—only that the books have little in common other than being revolutionary in nature; that Mein Kampf alone is a racist, militaristic screed (in fact, I believe but for the racism and WWII, it would be acceptable reading today—that Glenn Beck would recommend it); and that I’m sure no one I heard equating them had read either. When we can take seriously utopian libertarianism, but not utopian socialism (as found in The Communist Manifesto, not Mein Kampf), we have a real problem. When our debate is between center and right, where do we move? Center-right? And then where? Hard-right?

Are we really going to abandon a system that worked pretty well up to 1980—and lesser so thereafter? All for a mythical ideal that most of its proponents don’t even understand? I hope not. But then, we have already abandoned so much. I can see things getting much, much worse. I’m not one of these idiots who believe, “We live in the greatest country in the world!” But we still live in a pretty damned good country. The problem is: the trend is bad.

Jon Stewart Does Have Balls—Today, Anyway

The last two nights of The Daily Show were very funny. The 11 January 2011 show was very funny—the best I’ve seen in a long while. And then, last night’s show was also very funny, but even more important, Jon Stewart showed that he actually did—contrary to all the evidence over the past year—has a properly functioning set of testicles. He really took Tim “I look as ridiculous watching hockey fights as John Kerry did hunting birds” Pawlenty to task. He pointed out that Pawlenty supported Bush’s bad legislation (not that that narrows it down much), “No Child Left Behind.” Then he asked the question (not an exact quote as shown by the lack of quotation marks): don’t you think that if Obama had introduced the same bill, most Republicans would have been absolutely against it and Glenn Beck would have railed against it with big posters of Stalin? Pawlenty, of course, obfuscated. But good for Stewart.

Conservatives’ Brains

Colin Firth (yes, the actor) was doing a show for BBC-Radio 4 and ended up helping an academic study of the differences in the brains of conservatives and liberals. Firth, a liberal, said, “I just decided to find out what was biologically wrong with people who don’t agree with me, and see what scientists had to say about it and they actually came up with something!”

Conservatives, it seems, have large Amygdalae, which are responsible for processing and remembering emotional reactions. As such, they are what stimulates fear in us. Liberals, on the other hand, have large Anterior Cingulates, which are responsible for assessing the importance of emotion and motivational information. The study (sorry, no link) is small and thus open to question. What’s more, the size of brain parts does not necessarily mean that they are more powerful. For a questionable example: smart people don’t have bigger brains than dumb people (although from species to species there is a very strong correlation).

It should come as no surprise, however, that conservatives are motivated by fear and other lower, just above reptilian brain functions.

[Note: this is a deeply personal reflection about my life. I think that it is of general interest, but it doesn’t deal with the nuts and bolts of the world that is the mainstay of this site. It is a story that I fear many people share to one extent or another—either from my perspective or that of my mother. If it is from the latter, I am truly sorry; hell is not supposed to be for children.]

I just realized why I hate holidays. Will was telling me about how even if he became a member of the Jehovah’s Witness church (whose members do not celebrate religious holidays), he would still feel as though he had to do Christmas for his kids, because his parents did it for him. That really got me thinking. As a child, I tended to dread holidays—especially Christmases—because my mother would almost always ruin them.

I don’t mean to vilify my mother; she was in most ways a great woman. She was very loving and (before the ravages of alcoholism) very smart and knowledgeable (amazing when you consider that she had only a grammar school education). When my mother was young, she was also very beautiful—a hottie, in the modern vernacular. But she was also deeply scarred in an emotional sense. As a child, she was sent from relative to relative and was sexually molested repeatedly by at least one uncle and probably also by her step-father. As a result of the molestation and (perhaps equally important) the shuffling, which would certainly have given her the belief that she was unwanted and unloved, she turned inside and found comfort in literature and drink. Even in her final days, she was always reading a novel—usually with drink in hand. Her taste was not mine—she especially liked historical romances, but she read widely—non-fiction included.

I think that holidays brought out the worst in her for two reasons. First, she had the feeling that they should be wonderful days but they always disappointed—they couldn’t make up for the emotional pain she felt throughout her life. And second, she couldn’t handle the stress of the holidays. And so she would get drunk and lash out at others—usually my father and usually without good reason.

As a result of this, I don’t really like holidays. I do like personal holidays. I love it when out of the blue I get a package from Andrea, who I originally bonded with over our shared addiction to thrift shops. And I love it when I find something that I think my father, for example, would love that I can give as a present for no reason in particular. But these are no-pressure, no-expectation events. If you will, “Practicing random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.”

So I am two days away from life returning to normal. I can hardly wait!

Update

In the mean time, follow the wisdom of Bill and Ted: “Be excellent to each other!”

Deja Vu

Nothing needs to be said; just watch.

Media Matters gives Sarah Palin Award

Media Matters for America gave Sarah Palin The 2010 Glenn Beck Misinformer Of The Year Award:

A Message from Mark Fucking Zuckerberg

Will was kind enough to send this excellent SNL clip to me. Let’s have a look, shall we:

It is absolutely brilliant, apart from being very funny. When Time gave “Person of the Year” to Mark Zuckerberg, I was not surprised. In 2001, they did not give it to Osama bin Laden—the clear choice. Instead they gave it to Rudy Giuliani—a lesser villain, but one with more power, I think. At that time, I decided that Time (never much more than a reasonable-sounding conservative mouthpiece—still the Faux News of its day), had lost all its credibility. Why does the mainstream media give a shit who Time thinks is person of the year? There is no doubt Julian Assange had a much greater impact on the world this past year than fucking Zuckerberg. In fact, I can’t think of anything particularly important that Zuckerberg did this year other than be the subject of a popular film.

The Mendacity of Hope

Roger Hodge has a new book out called The Mendacity of Hope. I haven’t read it. I don’t even have it, but I will after the holidays and I’m sure I’ll write about it. Until then, I bring you a couple of videos of the former editor of Harper’s Magazine making a lot of sense about President Obama. Here’s the first clip; I will have something to say after it.

The one place where I disagree with him is in saying that the angry left (progressives?) and the angry right (tea-baggers) have much in common. I agree that when I talk to tea-baggers, they do pretty much agree with me on what the problems are. However, they have this great super-power that allows them to deflect any facts that come near them. The angry left is mad about what is actually happening in this country. The angry right is just mad (in both common senses of the word). I think it is possible to get the AL and the AR together on some issues, but not one on one. Perhaps in a group, we might find one tea-bagger who, for whatever reason has a weakened “fact deflector.” If you could convince this person that he or she should support something sensible, it might work its way through the group. Think of it as finding a back-door into a super-secure Unix system.

Just in case you think that Hodge (or I) think that all these relatively minor accomplishments this month make up for Obama’s betrayal of us progressives over the past two years, he’s a clip from The Last Word with Laurence O’Donnell. Not that Hodge doesn’t have much to say, but it is well worth hearing.

Freedom’s Just Another Word for Not Having a Party

Today, The Alaskan Supreme Court threw out Joe “I Desperately Need a Shave or a Time Machine” Miller’s challenge to Lisa Murkowski’s write-in win of the Alaska Senate race, according to The Washington Post. In their POLITICS Digest, they report:

That’s good news, of course; but the really good news is that Murkowski is “going rogue” according to Meredith Shiner at Politio—contrasting her sardonically with Palin by noting that Murkowski does not gun down, “caribou on national TV.” She’s gone rogue in a meaningful sense:

The election it would seem, has freed Murkowski from the need to vote in lockstep with the Republican leadership and vote the way politicians in the minority used to vote. You know: before Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, and Karl Rove gave us the modern Republican Party.

Take the Millions, Skip the Thousands

One of the Deficit Commission’s ideas for saving Social Security was to means test it. But by this, they didn’t mean depriving rich people from getting it. Instead, people making over a million dollars per years (not made: currently making) would not get Social Security benefits until they were 70 and then they might not get as much as they normally would. Gasp! Say it ain’t so! The people who have made the most money already pay the least as a percentage of their income. Then, when they retire, they get the maximum benefit amount. In other words: from each according to the inverse of his ability, to each according to the inverse of his needs.

How about this as a Social Security reform (I make no claims to this being original to me, not that I didn’t come up with it on my own): no cap on the Social Security tax (there is currently no tax on income above $106,800—making it a highly regressive tax); means test the hell out of the program: if you are making a bunch of money (amount to be determined), you don’t get any benefits; and means test the hell out of it again: if you have a bunch of money, you don’t get any benefits. Similar changes could be made to Medicare, but since I believe in a single-payer—Medicare for all—system, I’m not going to get into it.