brainiac conspiracy

The Battle of the Big Tent

Y'know, for what it's worth, I think that this public airing of differences between Obama and the Democratic Congress is a good thing overall, despite the usual media snarksters trying to re-cast it as weakness. First, as Krugman and others have pointed out, the Obama team's initial recovery package, while nominally massive, seems somewhat tepid: A measured half-step of jobs programs and tax cuts which seemingly aimed at drawing bipartisan support from both sides of the aisle. While Obamas's no doubt done the calculus and has figured out what proposals he needs to float to get his 60 theoretical Senate votes, it's healthy for Democratic Senators---and particularly folks like Kent Conrad, who's as skilled a number-cruncher as there is in the upper house---to push for Obama to aim higher: the truly skilled operator, after all, is the one who asks for two loaves when he only really wants one, and eventually "settles" for half in a spirit of bipartisanship. Obama has seemingly taken the other tack, and while his political skills so far have been uncannily good, it's probably going to take a little while to learn that the politics of governing are significantly different than the politics of campaigning.

Second, the tax cuts. I never honestly believed Obama gave a rat's ass about this issue during the campaign, that he was only mouthing the usual I'll-do-it-cheaper homilies that every candidate for President since Reagan has been required to utter as a means of gaining voter approval. If he genuinely believes it will make much difference to the health of the economy . . . well, we already know he's not that stupid. So if he's floating the tax cuts to get Republican votes, the pushback he's getting from his former Senate colleagues can be a valuable learning experience for him. At this point in the game, with his 80-percent approval ratings, he doesn't need to be offering up concessions to the GOP; they need to be offering concessions to him. Again, the exercise of power is an entirely thing than the will to power, so it's good to see the old-timers like Conrad and Tom Harkin reminding Obama about this, in their own indirect fashion.

It is also time to remind Obama that he enters the White House with the biggest electoral mandate of any President since Reagan, and for that reason, he needs to start flexing some major muscle the way the Gipper's team did right out of the gate. Now is the time for him to lay out his agenda, take his case to the voters and crank up the heat on the Republicans---not spending anguished hours burning midnight oil crafting thoughtful, filibuster-proof legislation that will almost certainly be filibustered by GOP senators who smell blood in the water.

(And, in a tangentially related note to the Reagan mandate, I can think of one sweet symbolic gesture Obama could make: invite some folks from this group to join him at the White House the first time he sits down for a policy meeting with his new Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis.

Finally, if there's anything we've learned over the last 30 years, absent a surplus economy, tax cuts are simply a lousy idea. They create no new jobs or economic growth by themselves, and that's never been their intent. All they do, and have ever done, is to transfer wealth from the public sector to the private. The only question has ever been, which class of workers gets the biggest bag of cash. I'm not the most devout Nancy Pelosi fan, but count me in with her on this one---the Bush tax cuts need to expire, and the sooner, the better. There are other ways to expand the safety net of the unemployed besides a check for $500 each April.

---Vitelius

A Life Fully Lived

"I don't believe in proselytizing, I really don't. Everyone I feel should support what they believe in. I have a daughter who believes only in animal rights, and she supports anti-vivisection, and that's fine. I have friends who only support AIDS research because they have AIDS. I think that's right, they support what they're involved in, what they believe in. I have other friends who support cancer groups because their children have cancer. Everyone should be free to support what they believe in. I just happen to believe that contemporary music is a very vital part of my life. And without it, life would not be so wonderful, and so rich, and thrilling in every new piece and adventure."

Somehow, I missed her obituary over the weekend, so now's the time to spend a few minutes paying proper tribute to one of modern music's---and Southern California's---greatest cultural champions of the last half-century.

Just take a look at her commissions---and this list is likely out of date: Nixon in China, Music for 18 Musicians, Antiphonies, Delusion of the Fury, L'Amour de Loin, Different Trains, Studies for Player Piano, Salome Dances for Peace, Rouse's Cello Concerto, Lutoslawski's 4th. The list reads like a "greatest hits" catalog of the Postmodern Musical Canon. If you have had even a passing acquaintance with so-called contemporary music, you have almost certainly watched, or listened to, some magnificent act of creation that she helped, however slyly, bring into being. What is truly astonishing about it is not only her dedication to music that would likely never be embraced by the masses, or her unbending devotion to constantly pushing musical boundaries, even to the present day, but to her critical judgment: This woman just flat-out knew great music when she heard it, and didn't hesitate to nurture and champion it (even if some other composers didn't!).

Others who knew or met her are far more qualified to sing her praises:

"Her commissions were seldom large.  She wanted to spread the wealth as best she could and always flew coach and stayed in modest hotels so that more money might go to help others. But she managed to come up with just the seed money necessary to make something happen that wouldn't otherwise happen."

"One composer I particularly wanted to introduce was Robert Erickson, whose music I had admired from our days together at KPFA. Betty hadn't heard of Bob, but I brought him up from UC San Diego, with a few musicians. After the program she agreed to underwrite an entire disc of his music."

"Despite her financial benevolence, she did not wear it. Indeed, in this city of cars and car status, I was always amused to see her driving around in a Toyota Carolla."

"Through all the exasperation, Betty was easy to love. I loved the unpredictability; you couldn't sell her on the late Beethoven Quartets, but when the L.A. Opera came to town with Handel's Julius Caesar she demanded to attend to all five performances. She let be known her hatred of Esa-Pekka's new Piano Concerto, yet welcomed Yefim Bronfman to practice the work on her piano, day after day. I doubt if she knew, or cared about, the difference."

The world is a poorer place for her passing---and right now, with the madness of war and depression at our doorsteps, it hits doubly hard. We need another Modern Medici, or seven, or seven thousand, just like her more than ever now.

---Vitelius

Panetta

Yeah, like many folks I was a bit surprised at Obama's pick for CIA Director, but it didn't take me long to fully appreciate the boldness of his choice. I was going to blog up a list of pros and cons on Leon Panetta today before coming down in the man's favor, but Andy Sullivan beat me to the punch in one easy paragaph.

Bush and Cheney took Saddam's Abu Ghraib and made it a torture zone under American control. They took Soviet sites in Eastern Europe and revived their record of torture, under the American flag. Bagram was part of a pattern. And people wonder why a person untainted by the past should be CIA director.

---Vitelius

Gaza: From Worse to Worser . . .

I ruminated on this subject last week, but along comes Abu Aardvark to remind us today that the political implications of the war in Gaza are even scarier than you might think.

---Vitelius

Gotta-Read of The Day

Another parting gift from the Free Marketers in Washington to go along with all the other manmade disasters of the last seven years: Our very own Chernobyl, right in the heart of Tripp Nation, and subsidized by you, the taxpayers of America. Is January 20 ever going to arrive?

Memo to Obama: Now that the election's over, can we stop paying lip service to the mining industry with all this "clean coal" claptrap? The phrase is an oxymoron on its face.

Fortunately, it looks like the MSM is slowly rousing from the state of somnambulism it normally exhibits on environmental subjects. Except when opinions differ over the shape of the earth, of course.

---Vitelius

Fightin' Joe

Covering the war in Gaza from the front lines, so you don't have to. Some things really do have to be seen to be believed.

---Vitelius

Watch What We Say, Not Who We Do

Proof yet again that the cesspool bastions of Godless Liberalism™ are bringing the Republic to its knees with their condoms and porn and promiscuity and sex education in public schools and illicit sex and illegitimacy, and all that other naughty stuff. Unless, of course, they aren't.

Can we start substituting the phrase "Tripp Nation" for "Red States" in our political lexicon yet?

---Vitelius

Birthday Greetings

Of sorts. With a timelessly beautiful soundtrack by Tristero.

---Vitelius

Snark of the Year: Any Edition

Five minutes later, I am still laughing out loud.

---Vitelius 

Gotta-Read of the Day: Outrage Edition

Sometimes, words fail me when I reflect upon what our Republic has become in only seven short years.

---Vitelius

Gotta-Read of the Day: Snark Edition

Milbank at the Post today has a tongue-in-cheek analysis of the Men Who Would be King at the RNC. Over at the Monthly, Steve Benen calls out the absurdity of these aspiring kingmakers resting their Internet cred on the number of Facebook friends they've managed to stockpile, but what really struck me was this passage in Dana's account over a different kind of stockpile:

The candidates were significantly more comfortable when asked how many guns they own. Duncan claimed four handguns and two rifles, Anuzis boasted of two, and Blackwell replied: "Seven---and I'm good."

"In my closet at home," replied Saltsman, "I've got two 12-gauges, a 20-gauge, three handguns and a .30-06. And I'll take you on anytime, Ken."

Let that sink in for a moment. Here you have six grown men, affluent and college-educated, with career backgrounds in white collar professions; Ken Blackwell is the former Ohio secretary of state! It is likely safe to assume that these fellas all have homes in fairly cushy, reasonably safe neighborhoods deep in suburbia or even in the countryside. Yet here they were in a party forum, boasting of the kinds of personal munitions caches you'd expect from a resident of some lawless frontier town in Waziristan. Or, closer to home, an inner-city drug dealer protecting his stash.

My question is, who the hell are these people? They're political careerists with advanced degrees living in some of safest places on earth, yet they're collecting weapons like some Idaho survivalists who cut their teeth on the Turner Diaries. I have a hard time believing these dweebs really are avid hunters or trap shooters---and even so, Saltsman's handguns would get him laughed out of most serious hunt clubs I've heard of.

Of course, they could all be patently full of shit, too. But either way, it's a damning indicator of how militantly extreme the Republican party's national leadership has become that its leading lights feel the need to expound on who has the biggest guns as a means of impressing the rank-and-file, as if they were keynoters at an NRA confab.

Of course, there's another interpretation that could explain this, but I'll leave it to the psychoanalysts in our midst to provide the proper context.

---Vitelius

Sunday Night Devotional

Because . . . it's Sunday.

---Vitelius

Do-Over at Commerce

Can't really say I'm too broken up over this. I've never fully understood the amount of cachet that Richardson has seemingly carried among the Democratic Party's leadership over the last 20 years. He's been a loyal solider, true, but he's always struck me as something of a lightweight on policy matters, he's a potential disaster in a public forum, and he's perhaps not the most trustworthy character in Democratic circles, either. And then there's the matter of the man's philosophy of government's role in commerce:

Richardson is one of the nation's most aggressive proponents of public-private economic partnership. After he became New Mexico's governor in 2003, he launched one of the most rule-bending development programs in the U.S., toppling old barriers between the private and public sectors.

Tapping billions amassed over the years through royalties and taxes on natural resources extracted from publicly owned land, Richardson's administration put up hundreds of millions of dollars in state money to provide venture capital to technology start-ups in everything from solar-power equipment to medical devices. New Mexico took a 5% equity stake in Eclipse Aviation, an Albuquerque-based maker of light aircraft. Richardson offered generous subsidies and interest-free loans to Hollywood studios to lure film production work. And he invested $250 million to build a "space port" to host commercial space travel by Richard Branson's futuristic venture, Virgin Galactic.

Naturally, this rising tide of private-sector investment has lifted all boats down New Mexico way, right?

Poverty is on the rise in the United States. Unfortunately, New Mexico has one of the highest rates of poverty in the Nation. While poverty is an issue across the state, some areas are hit harder than others. For example, McKinley County ranks as the 20th poorest county in the nation based on per capita income. Some demographic groups also experience poverty at a higher rate than others. These include Native Americans and Hispanics. A high percentage of single family households headed by women live in poverty. New Mexico has the 11th highest rate of poverty among its elderly population. Almost a quarter of New Mexicans who have disabilities live in poverty. An even higher percent of New Mexico's children find themselves growing up poor, making New Mexico the 4th highest state in the country for children living in poverty. Altogether, approximately 437,000 persons who live at or below 125 percent of the poverty line in New Mexico are eligible for legal services. These people live in about 128,000 households.

Okay. Given the benefit of the doubt, maybe Richardson's a superior dealmaker behind closed doors, but now that he's gone, Obama has a chance to upgrade the position. I don't have any nominations to make (though I am available to serve my country at a moment's notice), but I'd suggest a fresh face for the position, not some B-list Clinton retread like Bill Richardson. Just a thought.

---Vitelius

Calling All Rich Bibliophiles

In a wasteland of pop culture, this place has been an oasis since the Seventies---which, given the shelf life of small businesses in a transient motorist culture like LA is roughly equivalent to having been around since the Upper Cretaceous. Matter of fact, it's the only retail shop of any kind that I patronized this year for Christmas since I have formally declared jihad on all Big Boxes. If you know anyone who'd like to own the most kick-ass indy bookstore in LA---and keep it as a bookstore, not tear it down to build another high-rise on the property---please give 'em the lowdown. God speed, Glenn---you're deeply missed already.

---Vitelius

Saturday Night Archetypes

Because we all need a little ritual sacrifice.

---Vitelius

Snark of The Day

Juan Cole: Better than CNN.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports of Israel's heavy artillery bombardment of densely populated Gaza on Saturday that "The American School north of Gaza was directly hit and almost completely destroyed, with one school guard killed. In addition, at least three to five schools were damaged by Israeli shelling of nearby targets." I presume that this is the school working to promote U.S. good relations with Palestinians that now no longer exists.

---Vitelius

Substance-Free Analysis of The Year

It's early, I know, but Ben Feller has already raised the bar very, very high.

Read and study carefully this "analysis" of Bush's presidency. Many vignettes and anecdotes are employed to describe our leader of the last eight years, but strangely, none of the following words find their way into the text:

Iraq • Afghanistan • Bin Laden • Cheney • PDB • Torture • "Mushroom cloud" • Taliban • "Stupidest fucking guy on the planet" • Guantanamo • Yellowcake • Curveball • "Stuff happens" • Halliburton • KBR • WMD • "Fuck Saddam, we're taking him out" • FISA • Wiretapping • Immunity • Waterboarding • Lawbreaking • Patriot Act • Plame • Libby • Gonzales • Geneva Conventions • Rove • US Attorneys • Yglesias • Siegelman • Ohio • Blackwell • Unitary • Alito • Iran • Hamas • Rendition • Abu Ghraib • Bremer • Walter Reed • Economy • "Ownership society" • Bailout • Privatization • "Personal accounts" • Recession • SEC • FEMA • Kyoto • Katrina • Blackwater • "Heckuva job" • Brownie • Bush v Gore

I could go on. Like I said, Feller has set the bar for substance-free reportage extremely high. In a way, it is a fitting valedictory for a wire service that has functioned for large swathes of time as an extension of the White House stenographers' pool. Heckuva job, Benny.

---Vitelius

But Do They Get an In-Flight Movie?

If the prospect of sitting at home watching football games over the weekend fills you with ennui, consider some alternatives.

---Vitelius

The Gaza Mess

Boy oh boy, this is going from bad to worse today.

Now, I'm no expert on Middle East policy, so I'm not going to wade too deeply into this morass, but I have studied a bit of history in my day, and if there's any thing that we---and the Israelis---should have learned by now, it's that Shock & Awe Warfare® just doesn't work. The Soviets tried it in Afghanistan, we tried it in Vietnam, and we tried it again in Iraq. Heck, the Israelis tried it only two years ago, against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and what happened? Each time, the reaction from the nebulous enemy camp was the exact opposite of what was intended---namely, the citizens under attack, besieged and panicked, tended not to cave to external pressures but were more inclined instead to rally 'round the flag of whatever governing authority seemed to be their most likely protector, whether it was the flag of the Vietcong or of the mujaheddin, and the militants were only strengthened in the long run; if not on the battlefield, then in the P.R. war that followed. Already today, we're seeing Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Taliban in Afghanistan using the Israeli incursion as a propaganda tool to inflame public sentiment, and there are already indications that support for Hamas has mushroomed in Gaza over the past three months as a result of the Israeli blockade, followed by bombings and now, invasion. Spencer Ackerman puts it forthrightly:

Israel may not want to hear this now, but it's playing on Hamas' strategic terms. Stepping back is the truer "success" at this point.

So why do it again? Certainly Israel is perfectly justified in the use of some kind of military force to secure its borders against rocket attacks from Gaza, but why do it in such a heavy-handed fashion that's only bound to enable the militants in the long run? Of course, there are elections coming up soon, so perhaps the Kadima coalition wants to preemptively defuse an election issue from Netanyahu's Likudniks, who look to be the likely winners: An attempt by Livni to "outhawk the hawks," in other words. But I also wonder if there aren't other factors at play. An Israeli re-occupation of Gaza would be a valuable position to leverage in any future peace negotiations should the incoming Obama administration prove to be somewhat less accommodating of Israel's regional policy initiatives than its predecessor. I realize it's more than a bit cynical to impugn such crass motives to policies that put the lives of thousands of people, including your own, in danger. But on the other hand, I think it's a bit naive to assume that political considerations---not to mention other external influences such as class resentments, religious or ethnic prejudice, and even plain old personal grudges---would play no role whatsoever in the making of decisions like this by any government. If you've read Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke, you'll get what I mean, at least conceptually.

Put another way: to exist in a state of war is not to exist rationally. So it should come as no surprise to discover that the people who decide to take their nations to war do so for the most irrational of reasons, even if they have managed to convince themselves---and, in our case, their media courtesans---that they have arrived at their conclusion using the most logical and rational lines of thought available to them.

Personally, I couldn't say for sure, but my guess is, if Obama was planning on launching a full-on Israel-Palestine peace offensive anytime soon, he can likely forget about it---at least for his first term. The sad truth is, there are still too many people on both sides of the Israel-Palestine issue who haven't grown weary of fighting each other, at least not yet. Both sides need to make major unilateral concessions in order for any genuine peace process to proceed---the Israelis over the settlements and free passage from the West Bank, the Palestinians over the right of return, and both camps over the status of Jerusalem---and until both sides are willing to get genuinely serious about resolving these issues, its hard to think of a reason for any American administration to wade into this mess right now. There are simply no deals to be brokered when both parties won't listen, much less talk, to each other.

One thing that an Obama administration can do, at least for the short term, is to try to restore America's image abroad as a more impartial arbiter of international events, unlike the Unitary Knucklehead---who's still playing to the neocons to the bitter end---by being somewhat more even-handed in its criticism of the combatants, their tactics and their motives. In this ugly swirling cauldron of ancient regional, political and religious antagonisms, there's frankly plenty of blame to go around.

---Vitelius

Vacations Budget Crises We Can Believe In

This just in: We're running out of money and we're all going to die. Fortunately, our own Unitary Deciderer is on the case 24/7:

"We are facing a major crisis, probably the most challenging budget situation the state has ever faced," said Mike Genest, Schwarzenegger's finance director. "The governor believes in acting immediately."

Schwarzenegger is out of state and vacationing at the family residence in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Or, put another way:

(Thanks to DDay for the link.)

---Vitelius