Reagan, Trump (and Other Republicans and Conservatives), and COVID-19

Ronald Reagan, as a candidate for president in 1980, kept telling us that government--at least big government--is a bad thing. Government is sprawling, bureaucratic, inefficient, corrupt. And anything that government does can be done better and cheaper by private industry.

And, as president, Reagan put this policy into practice, and cut, defunded, or eliminated many government agencies and programs. (For example, the day of his inauguration he stopped all Department of Energy funding for alternative-energy research, thereby setting back our work on sustainable energy sources by 30 years or more.  This ultimately cost me my job so--disclosure!--okay, maybe here I have an axe to grind.)

Reagan's continued railing against government convinced a lot of people--someone said, "Reagan won that battle"--and has perhaps become the prevailing philosophy in America. Certainly we see it in Trump, who also has been cutting and defunding a lot of government offices and programs. Just as an example, he cut funding to the Centers for Disease Control.

I want to quote a little publication called Catalyst, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists:

In 2014, the Obama administration established an office within the National Security Council to coordinate the federal government's future response to pandemics and provide accountable and organized leadership.

In 2017, the Trump administration abolished this office--and perhaps as a direct result, its response to the coronavirus pandemic was initially haphazard, inept, and lacking in overall accountability. We didn't have a clear sense of who is coordinating federal agencies to address public health and safety. We do have bungled efforts, like the failure to arrange for an adequate supply of testing kits. . . .

Conventional wisdom holds that private markets are the best way to satisfy society's needs, and the role of government should be primarily focused on ensuring that markets work properly. COVID-19 puts the lie to this proposition. When a crisis hits, there is no substitute for effective action directed and mandated by government.  Market signals alone will not ensure that the right people get tested, that emergency hospitals are set up, that ventilator manufacturing is ramped up, and so on.

 Catalyst, Volume 20, Spring 2020, pp. 2, 20

As of a few days ago, the death toll from this virus had surpassed 100,000. I believe that Trump and the philosophy I have cited here are at least partly to blame for these deaths. However much Reagan and other conservatives influenced public thinking and subsequent politics, I strongly believe that, as this article suggests, it's time to say that here we have a real-life situation that shows that this philosophy is flawed.

Trump Starts Out with More of the Same--Lies

Donald Trump started off his presidency, on Inauguration Day, with yet another one of his lies. He claimed that his inauguration had drawn the biggest crowd in U.S. history. That was refuted in short order by a news outlet issuing side-by-side photos of the Trump inauguration crowd and the one that Barack Obama drew for his inauguration; the Obama crowd was clearly a lot bigger.

 

Trump and his people promptly claimed all this was a lie and a fraud. I guess we are to believe that the photo of the Obama inauguration audience had been photoshopped.

 

A policeman once told me of a doctrine that they use to help decide if an assertion should be believed. It's known as cui bono, meaning (translated a bit loosely), Who would benefit (if that were true)? In this case, who has more to gain my lying, the Trumpets or the media? (It also reminds me of the attempts of the Nixon administration to discredit the media as a way of deflection criticism or perhaps even scrutiny.)

 

Evidently, in trying to weigh in on whose side should be believed, or the Trumpets' practice of lying, Mr. Spicer, the new White House Press Secretary, used the phrase "alternative facts." This conjures up a very scary, dystopian image such as was depicted in George Orwell's novel 1984, where the government demanded that people believe (in some fashion) things that they knew to be false, or help in their own brainwashing to believe in these incorrect things.

 

Trump, according to a documentary program about him on the PBS series "Frontline," evidently has always believed that he could get away with telling lies. I think in his campaign he exercised the belief that, if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. This is not only cynical, it evokes the tactics of Hitler's propaganda minister Hermann Goering.

 

As I said in a previous blog posting, if only people (when they've heard Trump's lies and before they decide to vote for him) would avail themselves of means (e.g., web sites like FactCheck.org) of ascertaining whether something is true or not.

See a related article:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/alternative-facts-the-needless-lies-of-the-trump-administration/ar-AAm7jly?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=DELLDHP

 

Copyright © 2017.

The Imperial President

Yesterday I was in the vicinity of Barack Obama's house in Chicago—where he lived before becoming President and where he and Michelle still stay when coming "home" to Chicago.

My route was going to take me within two blocks of Obama's house (which I had seen before he became President), so I asked the friend who was with me if he wanted to see Obama's house, and he said Yes.

Well, when Obama became President—and even before, when he was merely a candidate—the Chicago police blocked off the street near his house. The house faces a side street, but it's the second house or second lot up, so it is only a few hundred feet from a more major street, and you could see it from that major street as you drove by.

Well, you can't see it anymore, because it's screened from view by tall trees (I'd say they're arborvitae, maybe 8 or 10 feet tall (2.5 – 3 m)) that are planted thickly.

Earlier, when Obama was at home, there would be many Chicago police cars parked along this major street to provide security, but you could still get a glimpse of the house as you were traveling along the major street: you just had to look off to the side (left or right, depending of course on which direction you were traveling in), up the side street, and it was fairly plainly visible.

Of course the security, when Obama is in residence there, is understandable. After all, the United States has had several presidents assassinated.

But why is it necessary to screen his house from public view at all times?

When the President or Vice President (or even a lesser official like the Secretary of State) is coming to town, their motorcade from the airport gets exclusive use of the road. That is, all other traffic is barred from the road, and damn the inconvenience to the public.

A few months ago when Vice President Joe Biden was arriving in town and, again, all other traffic was barred from the highway—and this was during the rush hour—a radio DJ said, "Why can't Biden get stuck in rush hour traffic like everybody else?"

It looks as though we have gotten an Imperial President (and Vice President and maybe more, such as cabinet secretaries). This is not what the founders of our country and framers of our Constitution envisioned. The wanted the President to be a normal, everyday guy, accessible and approachable. In fact, up until some point (and I don't know exactly when), any ordinary US citizen could visit the White House and get to speak to the President.

Copyright © 2013.

The Party's Over

I heard a man named Mike Lofgren being interviewed on Bill Moyers' PBS TV program, Moyers & Company.

Lofgren held a position in government. He had been a Republican but has switched parties to become a Democrat.

He has recently published a book entitled The Party Is Over: How the Republicans Went Crazy, The Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted. As you might guess from the book's title, both the Republican and the Democratic parties come in for criticism from him.

He talks about how very wealthy individuals (as well as corporations) have been contributing very heavily to the Republican party. I have written about this. Both individuals and corporations are currently able to contribute unlimited amounts and remain anonymous at the same time. When PACs and foundations and other groups have complex and interlocking structures, it is frequently difficult to trace the ultimate source of much of this money.

I can add—this is not a number from Mr. Lofgren—that 89% of corporate contributions go to the Republican Party and only 11% to the Democratic Party.

Wealthy individuals hope to "buy" lower taxes on themselves. Corporations and Wall Street hope to influence government regulations such that regulations will fail to be enacted, or will be weak or otherwise favorable to these business entities.

As I have theorized in previous blog postings, Republicans and other right-wing interests have managed to gain support from many people who are not among the "one percent" by taking conservative stances on social issues; for example, they know they can win the support of the Religious Right, evangelicals, and other social conservatives by having right (in both senses) stances on issues such as same-sex marriage. Lofgren called these issues or the appeal to these voters "rube bait." But this is how a definite non-majority—the very wealthy--has been gaining wider support.

Lofgren explains how people, when they define issues as being a matter of good or evil (for example, according to or against their religious notions), will see any compromise as giving in to evil. This is why our government has been deadlocked on many of the vital issues before Congress. This can have effects such as when, in the stalemate over debt-limit-extension legislation a year ago, the delay necessitated a lot of shuffling of the books which in turn cost our country $1.3 billion.

Lofgren says that much of what has been going on on our political scene has been the result of one over-riding goal on the part of Mitch McConnell (the Senate Minority Leader): to make Obama a one-term president; but that most likely has been apparent to many people.

Mr. Lofgren also blames Democrats who, he says, have also become "corporatized." Bill Clinton greatly contributed to the economic crisis of 2008 by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, which had been enacted during the Depression to separate investment banking from consumer banking; and deregulating derivatives. Obama, by giving in to the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, has made the Health Care Reform Act ("Obamacare") considerably more expensive than it needed to be.

Copyright © 2012

American Manufacturing: The Picture Is Really Not So Bleak

Republicans and others who wish to impugn President Barack Obama and blame him for everything claim that he is responsible for loss of American jobs, especially manufacturing jobs. We see pictures of shuttered factories and impoverished areas in "Rust Belt" cities, and hear much about the rate of unemployment.

The peak year for employment in American manufacturing was 1979. Jobs declined continually since then—up until 2009, when they actually began to increase--and this turnaround point was, of course, during Obama's presidency.

Not that Obama gets all the credit for any increase, any more than he deserves the blame for 30 years of decline.

But let's look at some facts. The current number manufacturing jobs is quite a bit below its all-time peak; but, on the other hand, the value of American manufacturing has increased.

It's not simply a story of outsourcing of American jobs to China, Mexico, and other countries where labor is cheaper (although I have tended to feel that the American worker has priced himself out of the world labor market). Greater efficiency—automation, use of industrial robots, and so forth—has meant that the production of American factories can be achieved with fewer workers. So, if you want to, blame the robots for declining unemployment in American manufacturing.

But this means that American ingenuity has permitted goods to be produced with less labor—and thus lower labor cost, which of course is important in world competitiveness.

So, the situation of American manufacturing is much more salubrious than some people would have us believe.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Is It Really All Obama's Fault?

I just heard a woman on the radio (frankly I don't know who she was but she must have been a political candidate or someone in a party committee or something such). She claimed that (1) we have never had such a protracted period with the unemployment rate over 8%; and (2) that the price of gasoline is 110% higher now than when Obama took office.

All this led to a pitch for Mitt Romney as better qualified to be President.

Let's look at these claims and examine whether they are to be blamed on Obama. First, the price of gas. It's been stated many times that one reason that gas prices have risen is that world demand for oil, led by increasing living standards in China and India, has been rising. Everybody has heard of the law of supply and demand: with greater demand, the price is going to rise.

Second, Obama has been guiding the US back to economic health after a worldwide near-meltdown of the economy and the banking system in 2008—before he took office. The economy is still not robust and thus employment has been improving only gradually. It probably would take New Deal–style programs to make a big difference in that—programs which the Republicans definitely would fight tooth-and-nail and almost certainly would successfully block.

I heard someone talking about the power of the President. The bottom line was that the president does not have as much power as people tend to think. Our government is divided into three branches—the so-called Separation of Powers, which has shown itself to be a wise provision of those who established our form of government. So the Executive Branch (the President and his cabinet departments) can't do everything on their own.

Where government departments and agencies can influence the economy, we have (again) Conservatives and Republicans crying out that the government has too much power and advocating for little or no regulation—the "free market" philosophy which, as they'd like us to forget, is what caused the economic mess in the first place.

So it looks like they (the Conservatives and Republicans) want to blame Obama for any and all problems the country is experiencing, but at the same time they want to negate or thwart any power he or his cabinet departments might actually have to affect those same problems.

Looks to me like they just want to blame.

Updated May 13, 2012

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Two More Wars in the Offing?

It's no secret—or should not be any secret—the Republicans and conservatives like war. Well, maybe that's not a way of phrasing it that they'd agree with. How about, they are more prone to favor the use of military force?

That is why we've been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, with a loss of over 4000 American lives—arguably in both cases for at best a very unclear purpose. Supposedly America is always trying to export "freedom"—meaning, presumably, its brand of democracy—to other countries, whether they want it or not. Iraq is not and is not going to be a democracy after the American model, and heaven only knows what can be accomplished in Afghanistan, where we cannot even free the country from the influence of war lords.

Anyway, those are wars that commenced, and that fact cannot be changed. I must acknowledge that the US has supposedly largely exited from Iraq, thanks to a Democratic president—whether or not we have left the country any better off. (For one thing, I'd like an update on whether the Iraqi people yet have reliable, 24-hour electrical service, or whether they feel secure outside of their homes.)

So really, there is only a point in talking about the future. Currently Republicans and other "hawks" (we don't hear that word much, anymore) want the US to attack Syria and Iran. President Obama evidently is not very keen on doing either one; but if a Republican gets elected president in November, we may indeed find ourselves in the midst of yet another war.

The US has an all-volunteer military services. I don't understand why young American men want to join the military and go and fight. Evidently they feel they are being patriotic and "serving their country"; but when America has not been clearly attacked by these countries; and when the connection between these wars and America's welfare is similarly not clear; I have to think they may be misguided. (Remember, George W. Bush sold us on the Iraq war by falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein was developing "weapons of mass destruction." Many other wars, such as the Vietnam War, were also based on lies.) Those in Iraq who were attacking American troops did not view Americans as their saviors but as foreign invaders.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Hank Williams, Jr., Gets in Trouble

It seems this guy called Hank Williams, Jr., has gotten himself in trouble for something he said and in fact lost his gig singing before football games or something like that.

Let me say at the outset that I have no bias in this man's favor. I hate country music--so naturally I never listen to it, and at the most I might sometimes know that Such-and-such is a country singer. In this case I didn't even know who this guy was and had to go look him up in Wikipedia. (Turns out I am familiar with some of the songs that his father, Hank Williams, Sr., wrote and which might get sung by Junior.)

Anyway, I have to say that I think that he has been misunderstood. He said that for John Boehner (Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives) and Barack Obama to get together to talk—which in fact they did—would be like Hitler and Netanyahu (Israeli Prime Minister) getting together.

This is not, as was claimed, comparing Obama to Hitler. What was meant was that the relationship between Obama and Boehner is like the relationship between Hitler and Netanyahu (if they ever were anywhere near one another) in that they constitute a pair of adversaries. That is, both pairs similarly are adversaries. (People who have taken the SAT tests are familiar with this sort of "analogy," with this one being able to be paraphrased as "Obama is to Boehner as Hitler is to Netanyahu.)

I've seen in the past this kind of misunderstanding of something someone has said, and I think it's deliberate. I suspect it's someone on TV, maybe someone on Fox News who goes around gleefully saying "So-and-so said such-and such": "Hank Williams, Jr. compared Obama to Hitler!" This is not reporting, it's school-child tattling, and just as malicious. (I know, Williams said this on Fox, but who is responsible for quoting him and/or commenting on what he said and (mis)representing his intention?)

Again, what he said is not saying Obama is like Hitler, it's a comment only on the unlikeliness of a pair such as Obama and Boehner getting together to talk. Now, is the general American public smart enough to grasp this, or is it going to fall victim to the sensationalism of our media?

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Help Prevent an Extreme Right-Winger from Being the Next US President

First, I don't really aspire to being a political pundit—but I do have this one thought to share. It occurred to me that the presidential election is next year, and candidates are already preparing.

Now, it's conventional wisdom in politics that an incumbent has every advantage, not the least of which is that he (or she) has the necessary fund-raising machinery in place.

However, as to recent presidents of the US: we are used to the idea of presidents serving two terms, but in the last few decades there have been several that failed to get elected to a second term. There was Jimmy Carter, who lost to Richard Nixon in 1968. There was George H.W. Bush, who lost to Bill Clinton. And, if you want to count him, there was Lyndon Johnson, who, before the 1968 election made the famous speech, "I will not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my party for President of the United States."

I think that Barack Obama is by no means a shoe-in for a second term. Again political wisdom is that the economy is always the primary issue—at least if it is not doing well. And the US economy, and the jobs situation—rightly or wrongly—is perceived as unsatisfactory, and Mr. Obama (again rightly or wrongly) gets the blame.

Not to mention all the sentiment against him stirred up by the Tea Partiers and other far–Right Wing types. Even many of those who supported him at one point have become disillusioned.

I'd say Obama has less than an even chance. Given that, I suggest to liberals that they consider voting in the Republican primary election, next year, to help advance the candidacy of whichever Republican presidential candidate is the most moderate or centrist. If many people did this, it might help prevent a very far-Right candidate from being the next president.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

For Once, U.S. Is on the Right Side

The United States finds itself in a difficult position regarding the current popular unrest in Egypt. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has been a friend and ally of the United States. If he goes, the way may be open to a radical Islamic, anti-American regime that might even support terrorists. Also, Egypt under a new regime could abrogate its current peace treaties with Israel. Plus, Egypt, while not an oil producer, is an important transit point for oil supplies, partly because it controls the Suez Canal.

Nevertheless—surprisingly, and to his credit--President Obama has clearly expressed his sympathy for the Egyptian demonstrators who are calling for an end to Mubarak's regime and the establishment of greater democracy in Egypt.

This is surprising both because Obama is placing human rights above what might be America's interests in the Middle East and also because, so many times in the past, America has backed, supported, and even installed right-wing dictators.

Just one example would be Iran. The U.S. can pretty much blame itself for the current anti-American regime in Iran because the U.S. staunchly supported the Shah, who was hated because of his repressive regime: by means of his secret police he used torture and so forth to suppress opposition.

In fact, going back a bit further still, the U.S., in the 1950s, helped overthrow a democratic government in Iran and engineer the Shah's assumption of power.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Reagan (and Bush) on Energy and Consumer Protection

News has it that President Obama is installing solar energy-producing panels on the roof of the White House.

This item, and earlier ones, reminded us that President Jimmy Carter had also installed solar panels on the White House roof—and then Ronald Reagan removed them. Why would he do this, when it must have cost taxpayers money to remove them? My guess is, simply to thumb his nose at environmentalists.

Also, as is not very well known, on the day of his inauguration, Reagan froze all funding of alternative energy research by the Department of Energy. I can tell you that a lot of alternative energy research that is being called for today or has recently been started up, was going on in 1981 when Reagan halted it. On the smaller scale, Reagan's move cost many jobs (including, ultimately, mine—so yes, I have a personal axe to grind here) but it also set back the efforts to find new energy sources by 30 years.

Many of the bad things that Reagan did (okay, bad at least from my perspective, or any liberal perspective) were not publicized at the time. Reagan was very popular—remember, he was called "the Teflon President," and the Press was afraid to criticize him because of that popularity.

For example, he gutted federal regulatory agencies such as the EPA and FDA that were intended by Congress to safeguard our food, water, air, and so forth. He appointed as heads of these agencies industry-sympathetic people or even industry insiders who had no intention of allowing these agencies to function effectively.

Similarly, Congress passed laws to beef up (no pun) government inspections of food-processing plants. Had these measures taken effect, they might have prevented some of the recent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses such as Salmonella and E. coli from eggs, peanut butter, and so forth (there have been many in the last few years). But the stiffer inspection schedules were never implemented, because of eight years of foot-dragging by the Bush administration.

Update, August 26, 2011
I recently learned that Rodger Mudd, of CBS TV news, did at the time report on Reagan removing the solar panels from the White House. It was a very brief news item and didn't mention any possible explanation.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

Blame Obama?

The news today shows that President Obama and the Democrats have very low approval ratings. Also, people do not think Obama has improved the economy, and they also (by 90%, according to the polls) feel the economy is in bad shape.

It's a year and a half since Obama took office. When he took office, the U.S. and in fact the world economy was on the verge of total and disastrous collapse, as many economists and other scholars have said. Obama acted very quickly to enact measures (mainly the now infamous "bail-outs") that staved off that collapse that would have ruined us, as individuals and as a country.

It's true that not everything is rosey. There are mixed indicators of the state of the economy. Many economists say the economy is improving; it's growing, albeit slowly and not quickly enough to appease Obama's critics.

Obama is not to blame for the economic problems of our country. A year and a half should not be too difficult a period to remember back. Many problems were caused by (1) the banking industry, which had made loans ("subprime loans") to many, many people who could not afford them; and (2) by Wall Street, with innovative and overly complicated new investment vehicles (generally those called "derivatives"). (3) Lack of government regulation and oversight permitted (1) and (2) to occur. This deregulation of the financial sector was not Obama's doing nor even George W. Bush's, but went back through several presidential administrations.

No one should expect any miraculous turnaround in the time that Obama has been president. When the U.S. was in the grips of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt instituted many programs to stimulate the economy, but full recovery from the Depression did not occur until there was the stimulus to industry provided by arming for World War II.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

More on Oil Spill from Gulf of Mexico Drilling Rig

Today the news said that Mr. Obama is halting any new offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Of course I regard that as good news.

Unfortunately, that won't do anything to solve the current very serious oil-spill problem, which is beginning to look very tragic. If you follow the news, you already know that the spilled oil is going to ruin the industries for fishing for shrimp, oysters, crabs, and so forth, and seriously impact the livelihood of the fishermen, not to mention Americans' dinner tables--plus it is going to be deadly for shore birds in the Louisiana wetlands.

What is maybe even more tragic is that the oil spill probably could have been prevented. Oil-drilling platforms can be equipped with a type of shut-off valve called an acoustic valve. Had the oil rig in question been equipped with this device, the flow of oil probably could have been stemmed before very much oil spilled into the water.

Some countries, such as Norway, require this device on all offshore oil-drilling rigs. The U.S. does not. Yet another instance where government non-interference with corporations has had disastrous consequences.

Note added: The oil rig did include an explosive device that was supposed to enable shutting down the flow of oil in an emergency. However, it did not function as intended. As of the last I heard, no one knew why, other than simply that it was faulty.

Here is a link to an interesting article. http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/bp-oil-crisis-and-massey-coal-disaster-bring-blame-home/19461901/

She blames our energy-hungriness as the ultimate cause of not only the oil rig accident and subsequent oil spill; but also the mining disaster that occurred a short while before. I agree with her but, in the main. But she says we should drive less and I say, stop driving those big SUVs. Of course some drivers--probably less than 10%--who want to cause less energy consumption and less creation of greenhouse gasses from their driving have purchased hybrid cars or very small cars. The rest don't give a damn. (True confession time: I don't have a hybrid, nor a very tiny vehicle, but my car still is probably more economical than most, and I drive very little.)

Copyright (c) 2010 by Richard Stein

Politics, Energy Policy, and Financial-System Reform

Anyone who pays attention to current news has heard about the environmental disaster in the making, due to an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. An offshore oil-drilling platform caught fire and then sank. This has resulted in loss of lives (I think 11 at latest estimate), plus some 40,000 gallons of oil per day are being spilled into the gulf waters.

Such accidents are a constant risk of offshore oil drilling. Yet President Obama recently issued an order to expand offshore oil drilling off the U.S. coast.

Yes, we need energy. For now, unfortunately, we need oil. But it still is surprising, disappointing, and saddening to Obama's liberal constituency and anyone concerned with the environment that he has done this. It seems to be a philosophy of "more oil at any cost." Well, I say, let people driving 3-ton SUVs pay more for their gas than they are currently. They don't care about the environment, and I'd like to see them bear more of a burden for their actions. (The U.S. still has gasoline for half of what it costs in Europe.)

Lest I seem to be attacking Democrats and a (supposedly) liberal president, let me hasten to lay some blame at the door of Republicans. The energy problem goes back at least 30 years. Or rather, 30 years ago, when things could have been done, they were not. The day of his inauguration, Ronald Reagan halted all U.S. Department of Energy funding for research on alternative energy. (I know this because I was working for a nonprofit engineering research group that did a lot of research into fuel from biomass, ocean thermal energy, fuel cells, and so forth. This institution depended very heavily on DOE contracts and was extremely impacted by Reagan's actions, and had to cut, eventually, two-thirds of their staff.) Other commentators have said that we have lost 30 years out of the alternative-energy program.

Ronald Reagan even stamped out or undid what was viewed as Jimmy Carter's last legacy: a solar water-heating system Carter had installed on the White House roof. I don't know what reason, if any, Reagan gave for this action. It was not publicized at the time, if I recall. I have to think it was just thumbing his nose at Carter, liberal policies, and environmentalism.

Also on the subject of Republicans: Right now they are opposing legislation in the Senate that would reform the financial system. During the years of laissez-faire, some of the reforms of the post-Depression era—such as the Glass-Stiegel Act, which separated banking from investment business--were repealed. That was a cause of the recent economic mess. (I think some of this occurred, in fact, under Clinton. Any reader, please correct me if I am wrong here.)

The Republican approach clearly is, "If the Democrats want it, we're going to oppose it." That's called obstructionism. In fact they are filibustering, which is nothing more nor less than an obstructing tactic.

But there is lots of evidence that the people want these reforms. The Republicans in Congress surely are professional politicians; we will see if they are astute politicians as well. To oppose the will of the people should result in their being voted out of office. That message probably is just now starting to penetrate their osseous skulls.

Note added April 29: The news on the oil spill continues to get worse. Yesterday they said it is much worse than originally estimated. Today they said that 210,000 gallons of oil are leaking into the Gulf every day. This promises to be one of the worst environmental disasters ever.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

Is America Headed for Fascism?

Newsweek magazine had a cover headline, when Obama got elected, "Now we are all socialists." I think that, quite the opposite, America may be headed toward Fascism.

I was recently watching a TV interview (I think it was Bill Moyers on PBS) with a historian named Howard Zinn. This guy Zinn is the author of A People's History of the United States and A People's History of American Empire. He was talking about populist movements, and made the point that populist movements on the right lead to Fascism. This happens whenever people feel they have no control over the situation they find themselves in. This of course reminds one of the circumstances of Hitler's rise to power. It is very scary to think that this might be what lies around the corner for America.

Remember what I wrote about the "teabaggers." (Okay, they don't like that label because the word has a slang sexual meaning. So what do they want to be called, Tea Partiers?) There is a lot of opposition to Obama, some maybe originating in people's own, genuinely home-grown ideas (such as racism) and some, as I believe, stirred up, manipulated, and exploited by power interests (political, corporate, etc.) for their own ends.

Also, here is a quote from a news item.

Militia groups have seen a resurgence in popularity since Barack Obama was elected president, says Heidi Beirich, director of research for the Southern Poverty Law Center. "It's like they came out of nowhere with the election of Obama." she says.

Her group has found 50 new militias in 18 months. "We added a group yesterday with 60 new chapters."

This is scary, too; very, very scary.

It suggests that the election of Obama has energized these groups. At a minimum, I think that the next presidential election is going to move the country to the Right—way Right. But maybe worse, consider that these militias stockpile weapons and train in military tactics. (Some of their members have had the benefit of training by the US military services.) They want to get enough power to control the US and impose their ideas on the rest of us. Of course that is the opposite of democracy. If these groups—many of which are neo-Nazi and thus racist, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and God knows what all else—ever gain enough power, they are simply going to shoot any and all of those whom they don't like.

As I said, scary. Very, very scary.

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein

Mr. Obama and Afghanistan

I am very disappointed in President Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. He has promised to get us out of Afghanistan. I hate to have to tell him, but sending in more troops is the opposite of pulling out.

As I have pointed out before, it greatly saddens me to see the parallels with the Vietnam War. Then the generals, and the Commander-in-Chief, kept saying, "If we just send in x thousands more troops, we will win this war." And this happened I-don't-know-how-many times, until over 56,000 American soldiers had been killed.

In Afghanistan as in Vietnam, we are propping up a corrupt government that does not have the backing of its citizenry.

Just as in Vietnam, the game plan was supposed to be that we would help to train that country's own soldiers so that they would be able to defend their own country—and then we could pull out.

In case anybody has forgotten—and can you remember, Mr. Obama?—it didn't work in Vietnam.

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein

Who Is Behind the Conservative Backlash?

According to the news, there are a lot of organized gatherings and demonstrations of conservatives who are angry. A few weeks ago we heard of the shouting at health care reform meetings held by congressmen; and there were the "tea parties."

I said then and I say again that these groups are largely staged. Last night (11/2), on ABC News NightLine, Terry Moran interviewed Dick Armey, who used to be a (very conservative) congressman from Texas and is now organizing these protests. He refused to answer Terry's questions about corporate funding of his organization.

If he doesn't want to discuss something, that certainly looks like he does not want the answer revealed. U.S. corporations, almost without exception, take a conservative position: for example less government regulation, lower corporate (and personal) taxes. And wealthy Americans also want to hold on to their money, rather than allow the government to take some of it and spread it around; so these people naturally support—and very handsomely fund—right-wing causes. I have to think that many Americans—those in these groups and demonstrations that we are seeing—if they are truly the "little" or "average" Americans that they claim to be, are being made dupes by these corporate interests. They are saying they want to hold onto their money—though I don't see Obama raising taxes—and their guns and their freedom. I don't see that the threats that they are afraid of are real ones; they have been manufactured by cynical conservative and corporate interests.

Large U. S. corporations are caught in a dilemma and are playing a dangerous game. On the one hand they are supporting and probably in fact organizing (if indirectly) these gatherings and protests. But the protests are protesting "Obama-nomics" measures such as bailouts of banks and corporations. Corporations are aiding, abetting, and even organizing protests against "big government" when government policies have in fact benefitted them. Their game must be subtle, devious, and cynical. I think it's, "Anything for the larger conservative cause, and against a liberal president, even if some of those policies have benefitted us."

I have to think that, although the business-corporate and banking-investment communities have benefitted from bailouts under the Obama administration, in spite of this fact they still would not want to in any way be supportive of a Democratic administration because they believe they would pay a price of being more closely regulated under a Democratic administration, whereas Republicans are traditionally—some say notoriously—in favor of laissez-faire.

The little guy or average American who we see in these protesting crowds somehow fails to see, or forgets, that the Republican party is the party of those who have wealth and power—the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant heterosexual male—and want to hold on to it.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein

Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize

Apparently many conservatives are unhappy that President Obama is to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I don't want to be ranked with conservatives, not for a moment! But I have to agree it seems a problematic choice.

I have no doubt that Mr. Obama is a very admirable man. I think that, in time and with a retrospective view, he might even be viewed as a great man. But note that I said retrospective, not prospective.

This is not a case of looking back over a man's long career. Mr. Obama is still a rather young man, not to mention that he has been President for less than nine months.

It might seem less startling if, at least, the award had come after he had been in office for five or six years. Most Nobel prizes--for example, those in Physics--come only several decades after the work or discovery that they are being given for.

Mr. Obama, to his credit, might even be a bit embarrassed by receiving the award, and in his speech he himself pronounced himself unworthy, saying it was really for the nation's efforts to establish a new path for international relations.

Give that man very high marks--no, a prize!--for modesty.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein

Interesting Comments from Laura Bush

The conservatives, as the media acknowledge, have been vocally stating their opposition to Obama's speech to school children. They claim it's "indoctrination." When Ronald Reagan did the same thing, or George H.W. Bush, were they crying out about "indoctrination"? I don't remember hearing any such thing, and I'd wager I'm not just forgetting.

And the Republicans marshalled people to turn out at the town meetings on health care reform and be very vocal and literally yell and scream and shout down the speakers.

And now we have the "tea parties," more of the same thing. I'd like to know who is organizing and funding these things. I doubt that they are really grass-roots or spontaneous upwellings of popular sentiment.

Evidently in a recent interview with CNN, former First Lady Laura Bush has acknowledged how partisan and polarized the country is getting. She said her husband did not succeed in "reaching across the aisle" in Congress as he had been able to do as governor of Texas; he did not expect national politics to be different from Texas politics. Maybe back in Texas he didn't have the same cronies doing the same kind of dirty work as in Washington (I won't mention any names but I've already blogged about a former Vice President--and then there was Rove).

Mrs. Bush says that the reason for all this shrillness, stridency, partisanship, and polarization is because we now have more congressmen from energetically liberal or energetically conservative (my word, not hers) districts. I don't know if that's true, but it's interesting. My own idea would have been that the Republicans are just trying to stir things up with battle cries of "socialism" and "socialized medicine" because they are already preparing for the 2012 elections.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein

The Gates Affair: Like Obama, I don't know enough to keep quiet

President Barack Obama got into hot water for his comments on the affair involving the arrest, as his home, of African-American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Gates, as you recall, was trying to "break into" his own home because the door got stuck. A neighbor saw "two African Americans" trying to break in, and called the police. (First, I gotta wonder—and no one has mentioned this—why the neighbor didn't recognize Gates. Dr. Gates, it's time to get acquainted with your neighbors, so that they will recognize you!)

I wasn't there, and neither was Obama. That isn't deterring either of us from sticking in our two cents. Obama has learned he should have kept quiet, but hey, I'm not the President, I don't have to worry about making the news and getting embroiled in controversy like he does.

What should have happened is this: Policeman: "Oh, this is your house, Okay, I'm sorry."

And that should have been the end of it. Apparently Gates did show his ID, but presumably the policeman was (1) not as impressed as Gates expected him to be to learn who he was (Gates is pretty well known but maybe not quite a household name); (2) not quick enough to apologize; and (3) not deferential enough. All this in Gates' view.

I know a fair amount about Gates and I can imagine that he sort of has a chip on his shoulder, and is too quick to see racial bias where there is none. It's come to light that the policeman in question has actually taught a police class in racial profiling and had the endorsement for doing so from an African American colleague on the police force. Also, this is Cambridge, Mass., a relatively liberal city, certainly not Mississippi.

Cambridge has a lot of professors living there, both from Harvard and MIT. So maybe the police are not that likely to be overawed by finding out that someone is a Harvard professor.

The two men who were "breaking in" were Gates and his driver. His driver?? How many professors have drivers? I have never known of any. I used to see Saul Bellow, who was an award-winning writer (National Book Award) and college teacher, driving between his University of Chicago and Northwestern University gigs. He had a Mercedes, but he drove himself.

So what kind of Imperial professor is this Gates? I think he simply was angered, not merely at the injustice of being accused of breaking into his own house—which is fairly understandable, and many would wish their neighbors to be as vigilant as Gates' neighbor was being—but also annoyed that the cop was not sufficiently impressed when he learned who Gates was.

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein