Juxtaposition

Banner headline at NYTimes.com right now.

• Day of Reckoning as India Toll Passes 170

Further down the page, under the "more news" heading

• Hundreds Feared Dead in Riots in Nigeria
  

I've been a bit perplexed by the American media's wall-to-wall coverage of the ongoing tragedy in Mumbai.  There surely hasn't been this much coverage of dead non-Americans since the Boxing Day Tsunami, and that was certainly a tragedy of a much more immense level.  While I'd like to think otherwise, I don't expect this signals the sudden start of new concern in the American press for the plight of people in the non-Anglophone world.  There are specifically two things at work here. 

1.  The Mumbai attacks were "terrorism" and that word, of course, piques special interest in its paradoxical role of giving Americans new things to be terrified about. 

2.  The attacks occured at two upscale luxury hotels, and several international business leaders were either victims or were at the scene.  This certainly attracts more ruling-class interest than hundreds of worthless Nigerian peasants being trampled to death, but even the London tube or Madrid train attacks didn't hold the media attention over several days the way this past week's events have.  

Shorter New(speak) York Times

Obama Tilts to Center, Inviting a Clash of Ideas

• Orthodoxy is diversity

The prophets and practitioners of Broderist Magical Centrism have wasted little time in applauding the incoming president's hassle-free embrace of center-right Beltway conventional wisdom. Obama is following the blueprint perfectly, eschewing "ideology" (i.e., dirty hippies) for "pragmatism" (i.e, the same shuffling of ruling elites that's been going on for decades). It is, of course, absurd to suggest that Obama is surrounding himself with a Lincolnesque "team of rivals;" every selection so far has come from the same centrist mold. Somehow, even though the actual proposals of Magical Centrists can be reliably guessed, it is not an ideology itself. Glennzilla, in his usual perceptive way, explains.

If one discards the need for ideology in favor of "pragmatism" and "competence" -- as so many people seem so eager to do -- then it's difficult to see how one could form any opinions about questions of this sort beyond a crude risk-benefit analysis (i.e., "pragmatism"). Are there military and economic benefits to be derived for the U.S. from invading Pakistan? Bombing Iran? Lending unquestioning support to Israel? Escalating our occupation of Afghanistan? Remaining indefinitely in Iraq and exploiting their resources? Propping up dictators of all types? Deposing Hugo Chavez? Torturing suspected terrorists for information, or detaining them without process? If so, then those who are heralding "pragmatism" as the supreme value -- or at least something that should trump "ideology" -- would have no real basis to oppose those actions. It is only ideological beliefs that permit opposition to those polices even if they are "beneficial" to our "national self-interest."

This gets to it. The ruling class can't be constrained by "ideology," whether its right or left, because that would place limits on how much it could act out of its own self-interest, which is truly the only ideology it's concerned with. It may seem odd to hear such denigration of anyone with political principles, until you realize that this is the only way the Beltway class can reliably get what it wants.

The search for pragmatism, naturally, is also a bottomless rabbit hole. Magical Centrism always has the pragmatic solution to every problem. There's no reason for Obama to have any lefties on his team, because The Left by definition never has a solution that works. He is only doing us a favor; making government work more efficiently by cutting out the middleman and listening only to the MC's.

Armistice Day

There's probably little hope in reclaiming the original intent of the November 11 memorial from the jingofied, American Legion war party that it and every other patriotic holiday has become. The American ruling class doesn't want anyone to think too long about the first world war, for we may take the wrong lesson about the pitfalls of imperial glory. Plus, we might discover how our freedom'n'liberty loving government enthusiastically jailed anyone speaking against the war on trumped-up sedition charges. So most Americans, to the extent they know anything about that war at all, have a very simplified view of it; as something very different from the war immortalized in Willfred Owen's famous poem.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
pro patria mori.

No more excuses

lenin puts it succinctly, as usual.

But this myth, that America is a uniquely conservative country, has just been heartily dispatched. The alibi won't stand: the Democrats control all three branches of government, with expanded majorities in the Congress and Senate. They have moved deep into Republican territory, including Indiana, which looks like it will fall to Obama by a narrow margin after having been Republican since the 1968 election.... When Obama 'reaches out' to Republicans and starts blustering about bipartisanship, and when he appoints someone like Robert Gates as his secretary of defense, there will be no excuse. If he fails to carry out even his most limited reforms, he has no scope for blaming the Right. If he doesn't close Guantanamo and restore habeus corpus, he has no one else to blame.

All I'm saying is, to those hundreds of thousands of people marching and dancing in the streets, be prepared to be back on the streets soon. The system is designed to lock you out as quickly and quietly as possible.

Indeed. One of the positive outcomes of this election is that we'll no longer have to hear how many bunnies per capita we would have if Saint Gore hadn't been robbed of his rightful place on the throne by Teh Ebbil Ralph Nader and his privileged white male supporters (well, forget it, we'll never be rid of that). Nor should we have to hear how Obama must play rhetorical homage to the Sensible Middle to win elections. The Democrats won a crushing victory because most of the country has recognized the bankruptcy of conservative ideology.

But Obama has already started to fill out his roster with recycled Clintonites. Rahm Emanuel, a congressman from Illinois and former member of the Clinton White House, has been tapped for Obama's chief of staff. A typical hawkish, neoliberal DLCer, Emanuel was loathed by many online activists for favoring centrist candidates over progressives while he was head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Some of this should be expected. After all, the Clinton era is the only other Democratic presidency since 1980, meaning that Obama will have to choose some Clinton veterans if he wants anyone with experience inside the White House. The question, then, is which of three possible options will Obama take?

1. Re-assemble the entire Clinton team person-for-person
2. Balance Clinton veterans either with Republicans and holdovers from the Bush years or
3. With a mix of newer, more progressive voices.

The voters, by taking Obama's promises of "change" seriously, have declared the first two options unacceptable. But this may be the key conflict of Obama's presidency. Will he be able to manage the swelling social movement that so enthusiastically supported him and celebrated in the streets Wednesday morning, believing that he would bring progressive policy changes to the country, into supporting his pro-business and pro-empire presidency? I have only modest doubts.

Good morning, Communist America!

No need to wait for the morning news papes, getcher election news right here!

...

It appears Obama is going to win a major haul of electoral votes while slightly under-performing expectations in the overall popular vote. He's done this by eeking out some razor-thin margins, especially in Indiana and North Carolina, where he's currently leading by a combined 35,000 votes. Neither state has been confirmed final yet; same with Missouri where McCain leads by less than 6,000 votes. Thank whatever celestial authority you like that this was not a close election overall.

...

To repeat, Indiana's gone for Obama. I expect the sun to rise this morning, but if it doesn't I'd understand. The kids did it; under-30s were the only age group Obama won outright here.

...

As expected, no drama in the Eighth. Ellsworth did carry Daviess County; we weren't even his lowest supporters (that'd be Fountain County). I'll have to check decimal places to see if we were the heaviest McCain county. Dropped to 67%, slackers.

....

If there's a grey lining for the Democrats' night, it's that they haven't done as well in Congress as they might have expected. Yesterday I said it would be a major surprise if the D's fall short of 57 Senate seats, but, with three seats still outstanding and a current total of 56, there's a decent chance they may just get one. The Minnesota race between Franken and Coleman has been bitterly fought and may not be over yet. The current tally has Coleman leading by approximately 2,500 votes with precincts reporting stuck at 99%.

This has not been a good two months for the reputation of Alasks in the lower 48, and it's not been improved by their eagerness to defy expectations and common decency to send a convicted felon back to the Senate. There may be some strategic voting at play here; Stevens could win and retire, forcing a special election the Republicans would certainly win, maybe with Bible Spice herself.

The Senate race in Oregon is also a dead heat at this point (538.com scored it a 92% Merkeley likelyhood), but there's still a decent number of precincts yet to report.

...

It also appears the Democrats will fall a bit short of the optimistic pre-election projections. The Times currently scores 18 Dem pickups, a nice gain but less than the 25+ hoped for. I wonder if there was late movement in some GOP districts toward keeping the overall Democratic gains in check. Luckily, Michelle Bachmann will be returning to Washington to snuff out all the traitorous un-Americans among the new representatives.

...

Ballot initiatives were a mixed bag. Most distressingly, it looks like Prop Hate is going to pass in California. This will give the social conservatives a boost coming out of the election. They never liked McCain anyway, and now have some ammunition to claim he lost because of not being conservative enough. Anti-gay measures also passed in Florida, Arkansas and Arizona (didn't we just beat one there two years ago?).

Speaking of reruns from 2006, South Dakota swatted away a slightly-modified version of its abortion ban by an almost-identical margin. Voters also defeated a parental notification clause in California, and wholly scorned an attempt in Colorado to declare personhood for fertilized eggs in the state constitution. I suspect the years are numbered for abortion as a major political football in this country.

Michigan had a good day, voting to legalize medical marijuana as well as stem cell research.

Center-Right Nation

Election returns haven't yet started to come in, but the eminently predictable defining narrative surrounding the election is already starting to play out amongst the establishment. David Sirota calls it "Center-Right Nation," the idea that, regardless of how large the Democratic victory is tonight, they should in no way interpret it as a mandate for liberal government from the American people. Glenzilla, blogging with Sirota at Salon's election day blog, writes;

Obama hasn't even won yet, and already the standard cast of Beltway status-quo-perpetuators are demanding that he scorn his base, stay as far away from "liberals" as possible, and fill his cabinet with old Clinton establishment retreads and even Bush administration appointees. In other words, the only way that Democrats can be successful is if they look as much like Republicans as possible -- the same sorry advice Democrats have been following (and failing with) for decades.

Greenwald and Sirota cite many of the usual suspects, the DLC, New Republic, and MO Sen. Claire McCaskill on Fox News. Also, on last night's Charlie Rose, Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report was making a similar argument; Obama must reach out to those paranoid McCain supporters and reassure them he isn't a black Islamocommie. Everyone gets one vote, but, if you're really really afraid of Obama, apparently your vote counts for more.

I suspect, however, that this meme is being laid down precisely because it will give Obama the cover he needs to do what he wants to do anyway; govern from the right. I watched the quadrennial Frontline special on the candidates' lives on Monday night, and its clear that compromise of this sort has been a defining characteristic in Obama's past. If he were working at an animal shelter and had the choice of giving a dog to someone who wanted to adopt it and someone who wanted to eat it, Obama is the kind of guy who would cut out a few organs for the latter and give the dead carcass to the former. That's a good analogy for the kind of political "compromises" Obama will be asked to accept by the Beltway establishment, and Id guess he's more than amenable to them.

Votin' man

I'm really quite an awful all-around citizen. I abstain from almost all county and city level races on the presumption that one shouldn't vote in races without some knowledge of the candidates (not that having any familiarity with local races here would change my mind about abstaining). But I feel guilty about leaving a great portion of my ballot blank, so I usually vote for Democrats in statewide races, figuring they'd be the ones I'm likely to hate least if I knew anything about them.

Anyway, there's still time to make some predictions, so here goes.

Electoral College: Obama gets 326 EVs, loses IN, FL (I have a hunch the geezers will break for their man, plus, shenanigans), and GA, gets NC.

Popular vote: I think it will be toward the high end of the final polls. 53.1% to 45.2%

Senate: I'll take the over on the Donkeyman's 57; that should be the absolute minimum barring a major upset. Franken wins to make it 58 w/Holy Joe, and I'll take a flier on one of the three Southern seats falling.

House: No idea, 260 sounds about right, but I'll go a little lower than that.

CA hate amendment loses narrowly; the No folks finally got their act together in time to push back the Mormon money.

McCain gets 75 percent in the DC, and we'll be the only county in the Eighth District to go for the Bircherite.

Battle of the techno-babble

My family has decided that we are all going to the Creation Museum as a Christmas vacation.  This surprised me somewhat because, while I knew my siblings were going off into Dobson-land, I wasn't aware of the extent to which they've purchased citizenship.  (The Creation Museum, it should be noted, is backed by a group promoting young-earth creationism, an idea so ludicrous many conservative evangelicals find it incredulous.) The old-school Mennonites used to be pretty unimpressed by big-money celebrity Christianity, but the whole story of how my community and apparently most of my family got sucked into the vacuum of fundamentalist chic will have to wait for another day.  Anyway, I suppose I'm going, because I tend to put off confrontation as long as I possibly can.  I don't talk to my family about politics or religion, so they're not really sure of what kind of strange beast I am, just that I'm an apostate of some sort. 

Kenneth Miller, a Catholic evolutionary biologist who has authored several high school biology textbooks, wondered in his book critical of creationism from a Christian perspective why so many in the church have staked the totality of the Christian faith on whether evolution is real.  He notes that they are practically daring scientists to produce irrefutable proof and, should that happen, they'll shut down the whole Christian project.  That seems like a lot of weight to put on something that doesn't seem theologically critical.  Why can't Gensesis 1 and 2 be taken metaphorically?  The idea that humanity is descended from a common ancestor, and thus one long, extended family, seems perfectly agreeable to me as a socialist.  

In fact, Genesis 1 and evolution are essentially telling us the same thing.  We're all descended from a common source, and we should act with that in mind.  But our fundamentalist friends aren't much interested in the well-being of their human or environmental family these days, which is odd given the implications for their "pro-family" platform by what they claim is literally true.  

The truth is, they aren't much interested in those implications.  These fundamentalists are less concerned about doing right and more concerned about being right.  They don't want people to be convinced by the persuasiveness of their moral philosophy; they want to reassure themselves that what they've believed unquestioningly since they were old enough to walk is the literal and objective truth.  You had better become like them because, even if you think their God is evil and vindictive, He has the power to burn you on a spit forever for rejecting them.  Nyah nyah nyah, etc.  It's power-worship; their god is real, so they have it and you don't. 

According to its Wikipedia article, the Creation Museum makes all employees sign a statement affirming, among other things, 

"no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record."

So Miller's concern that they could ever be convinced to surrender the faith looks impossible.  So why does the museum exist if they admit no contrary evidence could ever sway them?  Remember that fundamentalism is not anti-modern at all; in fact, it wouldn't exist without modernism.  They demand empirical verification of their belief system, otherwise they may as well chuck it aside.  But most of them don't understand the scientific concepts they would need for this.  Heck, most people, regardless of their beliefs, probably don't understand science that well.  If you don't have much of a background in biology or have otherwise studied the topic, I'd be willing to bet you would struggle in an argument with a well-oiled creationist.  

That's why the Creation Museum is here.  It presents a veneer of credibility to fundamentalists who are worried that they are being swamped the great majority of the scientific community and a picture of dueling techno-babble to the general public which doesn't have the tools to pick apart the mounds of pseudoscience horseshit.  Both groups are then left to rely on authority.  The former you'd expect.  The latter is left to trust that the whole of the science world is being straight with them.  Which works well-enough, I suppose, though I'm a believer in people having the knowledge for themselves.  

I still haven't answered the questions of why the fundamentalists choose this particular battle to get so worked up about.  Frankly, I don't know.  Ask one; you can't expect me to explain everything (anything?) can you?  I also don't know what I'm going to do as pennance for supporting this bollocks.  I'm thinking of sending a $25 donation to Planned Parenthood; that should piss them off appropriately.  

Fun election fact

In 2004, Daviess County went for Bush more heavily than any other county in Indiana (there are 92, if you're unaware) with 74.9% of the vote. Whad'ya got kids? Do you think we can break 75 percent for McCain this year and hold onto our title? The Donut Counties surrounding Indianapolis were our major competition in 2004, and, if this report from Salon is any indication, the yuppies may be turning slightly purple. I think we've got it in the bag.

The Graber Theorem

The percentage of all ads used in any political race that are attack ads is inversely proportional to the power and national stature of the office being contested.   (i.e., the proverbial race for town dog-catcher would consist of nearly 100% attack ads.)  

Discuss.  

Some cordial dissent

To paraphrase Tina Fey, I hope to be finished writing about Sarah Palin no later than November 5th. But until then, I'll take this last opportunity to squeeze in a couple of writers questioning the popular liberal consensus about Palin's candidacy.

First, here's Richard Estes at American Leftist.

Palin is a woman of local accomplishment with no national credentials; Biden is a man of national credentials with no accomplishments. It's an old story. But there is more to it than just old fashioned sexism. Palin's social experience is too far removed from the political establishment to be acceptable. No Ivy League education, not even a respected Catholic or state school one, like Berkeley or Michigan. She didn't go to law school, as the vast majority of successful politicians have done. She certainly didn't teach constitutional law at one.

No, Palin is the worst nightmare of the political establishment: someone who was actually personally motivated to enter politics at the local level and through a combination of drive and ruthlessness, became governor of her state. Her politics are therefore heavily influenced, dangerously so from an establishment perspective, by her local, as opposed to elite, experiences. With someone like her, there is always this fear, who knows what she might do? In other words, she might not do what we say. And, even worse, she might even encourage the lower middle class to believe that they actually have power and exhort them to use it. In this respect, comparisons to the career trajectory of Ronald Reagan are apt, and she, like Reagan, will eventually find elite acceptability when it becomes obvious that she is no threat.

While I do think there's a certain amount of truth to this, I think Richard is over-estimating the extent to which Pailn is any kind of threat to established power. The very fact she was selected by the Republican Party to a non-elected position should call this into question. But let's take another look at the veep selection process. Many people, including myself, wondered why the GOP would take such a risk on an unknown politician to appease the social conservative base when Mike Huckabee, who's far more personable, talented, and has unassailable social-con credentials, was available. Huckabee is, however, many of the things Richard ascribes to Palin, as we found out during the primaries. His occasional nods to economic populism, however cursory, sent the party elites into spasms.

Here's Joe Bageant:

Sarah Palin's real coup is that she brings out the snobbery of the left in their dismissal of her as an ignorant hick typical of small town red state America. They vastly underestimate her. Just like they have underestimated George Bush for the past eight years. While they laughed, George Bush managed to get everything he wanted and assist the looting of America in his spare time. No matter that he is vastly unpopular now even among Republicans. He has fulfilled his purpose to the powerful corporations and financial institutions that animate American politics. You do not have to be smart to be president, just malleable to the greater forces at work.

I have to give Republicans credit for actually promoting someone with an almost-honest claim to representing working-class Americans. No more passing off a third-generation scion of a Connecticut political dynasty as a country-fried Texan. If Republicans felt shame, I would hope that would make them feel a little dirty inside. And they hoped the inevitable liberal response of derisive scorn would infuriate and motivate the rural conservative Christians to turn out in 2004 numbers.

It hasn't worked. In fact, many of the tried-and-true Republican distraction tactics have fallen flat in this election. Why? Because this is an economy election; more specifically, an economy election that's effecting more than the working poor. The middle class is always willing to go along with sleazy, reality-show politics when the main issues at stake are bombing brown foreigners and pretending to be a-feared of dark-skinned terrorists and gay marriage. When the dark side of the economy starts trickling up to their level, however, they'll snap to attention faster than you can say "Bear Stearns."

Finally, after expressing a dying ember of sympathy for Sarah Palin, let's stamp it out for good. The popular concession in the mainstream press that Palin is a talented politician with a national future--despite the disaster she has been in this campaign--is unnecessarily kind. Palin has shown little ability, or even intent, to appeal to anyone beyond the niche she was harvested to placate. Indeed, she's apparently trying to alienate as many non-wingnuts as possible with a steady stream of snark and sarcasm. Take away her telemprompter, and she turns from a "pitbull with lipstick" to a nervous sheepdog. If Obama looks unstoppable in 2012, she may be selected to run on the hope that she will continue to satsify the social cons while the party holds out for more favorable waters. Otherwise, there is still Bobby Jindal and, possibly, Petraeus; much more likely options for the Republican Party, provided it stays roughly in its current configuration. Which is another post..for another day.

Make 'em sweat

The Economist, the newsmagazine of record for the Anglo-American ruling class, has issued a "wholehearted" endorsement of Barack Obama for president, with the natural caveat that he not succumb to apostate tendencies.

Our main doubts about Mr. Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy. Despite the protectionist rhetoric that still sometimes seeps into his speeches, Mr. Obama would not sponsor a China-bashing bill. But what happens if one appears out of Congress? Worryingly, he has a poor record of defying his party's baronies, especially the unions. His advisers insist that Mr. Obama is too clever to usher in a new age of over-regulation, that he will stop such nonsense getting out of Congress, that he is a political chameleon who would move to the centre in Washington. But the risk remains that on economic matters the centre that Mr. Obama moves to would be that of his party, not that of the country as a whole.

Referring to a post I made yesterday, this is why a sane, level-headed Republican Party is an absolute necessity. With the GOP marginalized and Obama in their back pocket, the Economist editors and the rest of the monied elite knows that any serious opposition to neoliberalism can be contained. Thus the unusual level of enthusiasm for Obama by a magazine which has always struggled to find an American party to consistently support (the Libertarians being inefficient for anything beyond providing the magazine's American subscriber base). There is, of course, the ever-present risk that uppity hippies will seize control of the Democratic Party, but the purchasing power of free-market democracy can probably be trusted to prevent that unwelcome development.

This is a good time to point out that one of the genuinely positive outcomes of a Democratic government would be passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which Obama has promised to sign. It may need significant majorities in both houses to pass, but it's a good first step.

America's most wanted

When Brian Moore won the Socialist Party USA's nomination for president last October, I doubt he saw himself working the national media circuit one week before the election. But, with the persistent accusations of the 's' word coming from the McCain/Palin campaign, the press seems curious to learn about about the actual socialist candidate. Moore has been interviewed by Fox News' Neil Cavuto, the New Republic, and by Stephen Colbert on last night's Colbert Report.



Well, he's no Norman Thomas. I'll be interested to see if the increased exposure helps the SPUSA increase its 2004 vote total of 10,837 (itself nearly double the party's total vote from the 2000 election.).

Chilean humour

Michele Bachelet, president of Chile, is among the Latin American leaders finding some levity in the current financial crisis.

“Why has there never been a coup in the United States?” she asked a group of investors.

“Because there is no U.S. embassy in the United States.”

That's Chavez-tastic, Madame President, well played. Gosh, the colonials are sure feeling rebellious these days.

He can't get no satisfaction

Jeff Passan fires up the Complain-o-Matic 5000 for his latest column at Yahoo! Sports. I can only assume Passan had mechanical help on this one, because no human with a functioning cerebral cortex could've written this paragraph.

It’s awful, embarrassing even, that the country became so indifferent to what once was the most popular championship series in sports. Even worse, Major League Baseball, fat and happy with its coffers growing and ticket sales booming, watched idly as the number of people viewing its championship series dwindled to a record low in Game 3

"It's so crowded, no one goes there anymore." Thanks, Yogi.

Passan does get around to a couple of worthwhile arguments in there. Baseball does need to consider the climate effects of pushing the season so late into October, either by trimming needless off days from the playoffs or starting the season earlier, trading some bad weather days in late March for a cleaner forecast at your marquee event.

But most of it is sheer dribble. Passan wants to gripe about Selig changing the rules on the fly to prevent a situation where the World Series was awarded to the Phillies even after Tampa Bay had scored to tie the game in the top of the sixth, but can't find anyone who'll say it wasn't the right move. He also drags out the annual hobbyhorse of sportsriters; World Series games start too late and the childrens can't watch them, therefore baseball will be extinct by the next generation. World Series games have started at 8:30 Eastern since at least the early '90s, and we're still here, perhaps because the East Coast isn't the only part of the country. The reality is that games are not going to start before 8 PM Eastern as long as baseball wants to remain on network television, and, if they don't, Passan and the like will complain baseball didn't make the compromises necessary to stay on free TV.

Passan then closes on his most reprehensible note, claiming the Rays don't deserve to win the Series because they have a small fan base. Passan seems amazed that a team which has never won more than 70 games has very few fans and declares this unsatisfactory, hoping, apparently, that condemning the Rays to more losing will magically increase their support . (This would be more ironic if Passan were one of those sportswriters who regularly complains about the lack of parity in baseball.) I am again amazed that this is all the logic it takes to become a national sportswriter, and wonder how on earth I haven't yet managed to ascend those heights.

"There is not a Red America or a Blue America, there is a scared shitless America"

Oliver actually makes an important point here (and if you're not listening to Oliver and Zaltzman on The Bugle podcast every week, you must go and subscribe now). Democrats may have lamented the politics of fear for the past six years, but they've never been afraid to use appeals to fear for their own ends. Corporate-centrist Dems point to the increasingly unhinged extremism of the GOP as the reason why left-of-center voters must support them at all costs. The Democrats may be weak, but etting the current Republicans back in power would present catastrophic risks.

This is why, if you want better Democrats, you'll have to get better Republicans first. The Democrats are the reactionary party in American poiltics; they'll only ever go as far left as they need to go to distinguish themselves from the GOP. So, while it may be gratifying to see moderate Republicans and paleoconservatives lining up behind Obama, we ultimately are going to need those people back in charge of their old party to drum out the wingnuts. They should be compelled to return because, as a strictly practical matter, we are still a two-party system, and the public will return to the Republican Party when they are dissastisfied with donkey rule. If the nuts are still leading the party, this won't benefit anyone.

From a progressive point of view, we need sane Republicans who, while we may have important political disagreements, won't actually endanger the future of the planet if they come to power. If the GOP becomes the party of people like Andrew Bacevich, they may even represent a persuasive alternative. Then, if the Democrats want to keep progressives under the tent, they'll have to make a real pitch on policy grounds instead of the familiar lesser-evilism of the past few elections.

Big 'Mo

I was going to remark on this post after Game 5 of the ALCS, but now may actually be a more pertinent time for it. The key weakness of a purely saberist approach to baseball is mistaking unmeasurable psychological factors for non-existent factors. Yes, it is fairly useless to listen to sportswriters maw about things like chemistry and momentum, because they're naturally going to cherry-pick whatever suits their purpose. But let's take the example of the Red Sox having "momentum" after the big comeback in Game 5. What are the Red Sox chances of winning any two isolated games in St. Petersburg? Now, how much does their "momentum" increase those chances? No one can say, of course, but just because it is still less than 100 percent doens't mean it hasn't increased at all.

I say this is more relevant now because it's apparent that the Rays haven't been the same team since The Meltdown, with only Matt Garza's Game 7 pitching performance standing out as a reminder of the team that won six of its first eight postseason games. The offense has gone bust, and the bullpen has never recovored. If not for the Phillies incredible futility with runners on base in the first three games of the World Series, they would be looking at a lopsided four-game sweep.

Oppressing the rich

Something struck me while I was watching the full conversation between Obama and "Joe the Plumber, who, despite not having the money to buy this business he claims or even being a licensed plumber, has become the official McCain campaign mascot for the last week or two.



Here's Joe, explaining his position succinctly. (via)

On Good Morning America Thursday, Mr. Wurzelbacher admitted that he does not make $250,000.

“No, not even close,” he said.

But when asked why he does not support increased taxes for the wealthy, he stood by his critique of Mr. Obama.

“Why should they be penalized for being successful?” he asked. “That's a very socialist view.”

Perhaps I'm missing something fundamental, but I've always felt the reward for becoming more wealthy was...becoming more wealthy. This longstanding conservative/trickle-down saw which claims taxing the rich more heavily discourages entrepreneurship seems to imagine that people are not only obscenely selfish but also downright spiteful. How many people would give up on inventing a new widget or starting a business because, even though it would improve their lot dramatically, they would somehow still feel as though they aren't making as much as they should. Apparently everyone has a inherent calculation of the value of labor embedded into their head, and it's conveniently stuck on "Reagonomics." So Joe's just going to pass up the chance to make more money because those calculations don't work out. Okay then.

World Serious

A lot of observers have been comparing this Series to the 1991 matchup between Minnesota and Atlanta, who were both, like Tampa Bay this season, last-place teams the year before. Like the Braves of the early '90's, the Rays have erased a decade of futility with a nucleus of great young pitchers, and, like the Twins, they play in a quirky domed stadium that gives them a pointed home field advantage. If that's any indication, we should be in for a hell of a series.

For that to happen, though, the Phillies will have to rise to the occasion. The Rays are a superior team, winning 97 games in the best division in baseball, and Philadelphia must overcome the pratfall of a long layoff like the one that has felled the past two World Series losers. They'll need several things to go right to make this a long series.

• Philadelphia's starting pitching will be at a disadvantage in every game Cole Hamels doesn't start, therefore it's almost a necessity for Hamels to win both of his starts for the Phillies to have any chance in this series. This will be especially apparent on the back end of the Phillies rotation, where the ageless Jamie Moyer has been hammered in both outings so far, and what the Rays lack in a top-end ace, they make up for with terrifying depth.
• The middle three games are always crucial for the home team, but especially so for Philadelphia, which can't count on getting much out of its visit to the Trop. Additionally, the first two of those games will be started by the aforementioned soft end of the Phillies rotation. Luckily for them, thanks to MLB's ridiculous postseason schedule dragging the Series into late October, the city of Philadelphia may be uninhabitable by the time the series hits town. If Citizens Bank Park is an icy bog this weekend, the Phillies should have a significant advantage over the inexperienced team from a domed stadium.
• The Rays bullpen--which had been the team's most improved element over 2007--seemed to revert to its old form in the last three games of the ALCS. In Game 7, manager Joe Maddon went to Dan Wheeler--who had taken over as the closer when Troy Percival went down late in the season--to start the eighth inning, a spot normally reserved for Grant Balfour, who was roughed up in the Game 5 meltdown. He then turned to David Price, a projected ace with exactly 14 big-league innings under his belt, to get the final four outs. The Phillies should be decidedly more comfortable on the back end of games with Brad Lidge, perfect on the season in save chances.
• Say it with me now; it's a short series, and crazy things happen.

The Phillies do have more quality than recent National League champions, so I can see them extending this series to a second visit to Florida. However, they just can't match Tampa Bay's incredible depth, which is the best antidote against the Rays' hot hitters regressing to the mean somewhat. Double A's--gotta get that in one more time--in six.

Shuffling the deck chairs of inequality

I've been thinking a lot about this essay by Walter Benn Michaels that Richard Estes linked a couple of weeks ago (and Estes' post is worth a full look). Michaels writes:

The us [sic] today is certainly a less discriminatory society than it was before the Civil Rights movement and the rise of feminism; but it is not a more just, open and equal society. On the contrary: it is no more just, it is less open and it is much less equal.

Why? Because it is exploitation, not discrimination, that is the primary producer of inequality today. It is neoliberalism, not racism or sexism (or homophobia or ageism) that creates the inequalities that matter most in American society; racism and sexism are just sorting devices. In fact, one of the great discoveries of neoliberalism is that they are not very efficient sorting devices, economically speaking. If, for example, you are looking to promote someone as Head of Sales in your company and you are choosing between a straight white male and a black lesbian, and the latter is in fact a better salesperson than the former, racism, sexism and homophobia may tell you to choose the straight white male but capitalism tells you to go with the black lesbian. Which is to say that, even though some capitalists may be racist, sexist and homophobic, capitalism itself is not

This is also why the real (albeit very partial) victories over racism and sexism represented by the Clinton and Obama campaigns are not victories over neoliberalism but victories for neoliberalism: victories for a commitment to justice that has no argument with inequality as long as its beneficiaries are as racially and sexually diverse as its victims.

I imagine this is going to drive American liberals stark raving mad if they ever get wind of it, and Michaels ought to be prepared to learn all the ways in which he hates women and minorities. Modern liberals see themselves as the only acceptable vanguard of these social struggles, even though their ancestors were mostly tagging after folks of a more radical ilk got the ball rolling. If your prescription for fighting inequality doesn't end ultimately in voting a straight-ticket Democratic ballot, there's obviously some prejudiced skeleton in your closet you must be hiding, and the liberals are going to find out what it is.

But this is a worthwhile point. Much argument goes in in identity-liberal circles over the status of "allies" who are white, straight, or male (pick any or all), among them perfidous lefties--probably spoiled WASP's, the buggers--who don't toe the liberal/Democratic line. However, as long as you're backing non-discrimination-under-neoliberalism as Michaels describes, it's a mistake to believe we have any truck with you that's more than temprorary and limited in scope.

On a similar point, If There is Hope... writes about the fate of the Liberal Party in Canada in the middle of a (great) post on last week's elections. DJN here is talking about the attempt to push a consolidated left-of-center "Anybody But Coservative" vote.

The Liberals have reversed the now famous “culture war” strategy for the American Republicans. They have maintained a progressive position on social issues – women’s rights, immigrant rights – but have been hardcore neoliberals in the process. This has, as Thomas Frank famously said of working-class Americans, led to millions of Canadians voting against their economic interests by voting Liberal. The Liberals maintain this and the ABCers fell for it once again who ignore the fact that the Liberal attacks on social spending disproportionately affects women, immigrants, the poor, etc, or that the Liberals propped up the Tories the ABCers oppose so much for nearly three years. The ABCers collapse into the worst kind of lesser-evilism, content that the Liberals don’t attack abortion rights while their cuts to social spending leave millions of women without family doctors, without the healthcare they need for themselves and children, without wage parity with men, without adequate and affordable housing, and so on. Why is this considered "a choice" when there is the NDP?

Sadly, the same kind of desperate compromise (i.e. succumbing to pasty centrism) that has watered down the American left has seeped its way into Canada as well. Of course, he could just as easily be talking about the Democrats (who are not even that socially progressive, really), but, of course, there is no alternative here, a fact the Democrats get a lot of mileage from. But more on that a bit later.