Current Affairs « The Ramblings of An Eternal Student of Life

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Current Affairs ... Economics/Business ...

My mother is still in the hospital following a respiratory arrest back in early December. So I haven’t had much time to write. However, I have kept up with world events in dribs and drabs. It seems that the Israelis and Palestinians are going at it again. I can’t help but wonder if Hamas was put up to their rocket attacks by Iran. There was lots of speculation that Israel was going to bomb Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities sometime after the November US Presidential election and before the inauguration, when the Bush Administration would have nothing to lose by letting it happen or even helping out (e.g., by allowing Israeli war planes to use Iraqi airspace). So the increased rocket harassment by Hamas came at a suspicious time; were the Iranians trying to distract the Israelis? If so, they sure did a good job!

As to the economic picture here in the US, perhaps it has been a blessing that I haven’t had much time to dwell on it. It will hit home for me; my office is going to furlough me and my fellow workers for a handful of days in 2009. I.e., I’m taking a salary cut, maybe around 3 to 5%. That’s gonna hurt. But it’s better than being laid off. I’ve heard Obama making a lot of doomsday speeches about the economy, in conjunction with his plans for a quick and massive federal spending (and borrowing) program (including infrastructure projects and tax cuts). Well, I can’t help but wonder if all that gloom and doom by the guy in charge is a good thing. The “economy” is a strange phenomenon, something like walking on air. Things go OK when there’s confidence, and fall apart when there’s not. If we could get some confidence going amidst investors and lenders, things might get better faster; sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Gloom and doom might have just the opposite effect. I can’t help but wonder if Obama is going for a political home-run here, setting himself up to look like an economic savior. His stimulus plan will help the economy by year’s end, and if things start looking brighter at that point, Obama’s popularity will certainly be quite high. But all the borrowing that it will require will, in the long run, be an economic drag. Hopefully, his plan will invest in projects that have a countervailing efficiency effect on the macroeconomy, e.g. better highways and other transport facilities, or more scientific research and engineering development (say on fuel efficiency and green energy projects). But he seems to be giving in to the temptation to give out “political candy”, e.g. middle-class tax cuts. As with the Bush tax rebate program last year, it probably won’t do much, given that most people use the money to pay off debt. Even if they did spend it on something, it would only serve to give the consumer sector of the economy one last hurrah; America has got to bite the bullet sooner or later that we were spending (and borrowing) too much on goodies and need to get used to “living plain” again.

I’d like to think that Barack Obama is making a good start to his Presidency, but from what I’ve seen so far on the economic side, I don’t see too much farsightedness and political courage. But I’m staying tuned.

NEXT TIME ON THIS BLOG: All about “Do Not Resuscitate” orders and how my brother and I were almost “sleepwalked” by the doctor and hospital staff into approving something in writing that we did not want (so as to cover the hospital’s butt, financially). Yeah, welcome to modern healthcare; let’s hope that President Obama can fix it!

◊ posted by Jim G @ 12:51 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, November 15, 2008

◊ GM: Bankruptcy AND Better World?

Current Affairs ... Economics/Business ... Public Policy ...

I thought that I’d weigh in on the question of what to do about General Motors. GM would like some federal help in getting it through the big economic downturn that we’re in. They claim that if the taxpayers don’t cough up $50 billion in loan guarantees shortly, GM will go bankrupt, and that all kinds of dire consequences will ensue. Personally, I think that our government should just say no; but it should also get ready to say yes to the damage control that will be absolutely necessary once GM goes into the bankruptcy ringer. The potential long term benefits to our world from a GM bankruptcy are worth it all.

As to a federal bailout: I think it would be the worst of all evils. GM management would like some fast federal cash and nothing else, other than an obligation to pay the money back someday. There’s no way they’re going to get that. The Democratic Party now runs the federal government, and big labor and environmentalists now largely run the Democrats. These parties are not going to give GM a pass to do what it wants with public money. GM would be partly nationalized much as the big financial institutions have been, through public purchase of a significant equity stake. A Democratic Congress will almost certainly require this as part of a bailout package, putting the federal government on GM’s Board of Directors.

From there, the Democrats will require that GM management pursue a contradictory and ultimately self-defeating mandate: to build high-efficiency “green cars” and at the same time be very good to the labor unions. Sorry, folk, but Honda and Toyota didn’t get as far as they did with affordable high-tech cars by giving the UAW cushy terms like GM’s lazy management did. By the end of the second Obama Administration, it would be quite clear that a “GM – Federal Partnership” would be a boondoggle. GM would continue building second-rate cars, but now second-rate GREEN cars like the Chevy Volt. The Volt sounds great, but I remember how great the Chevy Vega sounded in 1975, and what a dog it turned out to be (along with its successor, the Chevette). GM would continue losing market share, and thus continue losing money. It would anticipate and require continuing injections of taxpayer money to keep it alive. It would probably also inspire Congress to enact new trade barriers for foreign auto manufacturers and parts suppliers. Trade restrictions would certainly make the unions happy and might keep a zombie GM going. But trade protectionism was a big factor in sustaining the 1930s Depression. I truly hope that history doesn’t repeat itself in the 2010’s.

There’s a lot about the creative destruction of capitalism that I don’t like, but if any capitalist enterprise seems destined to experience it, it is GM. GM got where it is today by locking itself in the past. Way back in the first half of the 20th Century, GM was the new kid on the block, who had to innovate or die. But eventually it got fat, happy and complacent, and remained so despite decades of warning signs that America was changing and that innovative foreign car companies were overtaking it. So, I believe that a bankruptcy court is the best place for GM right now. Bankruptcy does NOT mean shutting the showrooms and assembly lines down. Many big companies have gone through “reorganization” bankruptcies whereby they continue operating while a long-term plan is made to either sell-off the company’s operations, reformulate the company so as to re-emerge as an independent enterprise, or some combination of both.

I could see GM going through the “both” scenario, although it might take four or five years. During that time, the federal government would have to provide GM with short-term loans to keep afloat. However, the bankruptcy judge – most likely a Republican appointee, thankfully – would have the Constitutional power to keep the Democrats from controlling the destiny of this once-great industrial empire. There would be other federal involvement, and it would be expensive – no doubt about it. GM would dump its expensive worker pension obligations on the federal government pension guarantee fund, requiring a big injection of federal funding to meet the promises made to GM retirees. And the City of Detroit would go from near-collapse to collapse; the Obama Administration would obviously have to get Congress to direct funding there to avoid some really ugly stuff.

So, for the taxpayer, the GM situation is a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t proposition. However, if we don’t bail them out, the damnation will end sooner, and the possibility of eventual salvation will be thrown in as a bonus. GM holds a lot of assets that would be attractive to foreign-based auto companies. The Toyota “wanna-be’s” like Subaru and Nissan might shell out for one or two of GM’s marketing names (e.g., “Pontiac” or “Buick”) and part of its dealership and distribution network. If Congress could resist temptation to fiddle with the bankruptcy laws so as to require that union agreements be protected in all GM manufacturing plants and warehouses, perhaps Nissan and BMW and Volkswagen would buy up some of the newer and better GM facilities; even Toyota and Honda will need to get ready for their increased market shares.

But the billion-dollar question is whether a “knight on white horse” will show up to buy a “vertical core” GM complete with manufacturing, marketing, product development, distribution and dealership networks, perhaps based around two or three of GM’s better brands (say Chevy, Cadillac and Saturn). Without that deep-pocketed, risk-taking capitalist knight, a lot of GM operations will eventually close for good. There is an apparent candidate that I can think of: China. This would be China’s chance to get into the automobile big-leagues. They have the money and the know-how. They could wait out the US recession until things get better, and then establish a firm foothold in the US and Euro auto markets. They could use GM’s engineering and design assets to better serve their own growing domestic market. If done right, China could have the next Toyota, based upon the firm foundations that GM built.

I’m sure that a lot of Americans would oppose this. And I’m not one of them. Japan has Toyota and Honda, Europe has BMW, Daimler-Benz and Volkswagen, and the USA would probably still have Ford (which might get a boost if GM went into bankruptcy and “controlled-contraction”, just enough to survive). And then China would have “General Motors”; or maybe they’re re-name it “World Motors”. GM to WM, why not. So you and most everyone else in the industrialized world would have a lot of choice as to buying a car. A different choice from 20 or 30 years ago, but still a choice. That’s how capitalism works (when it works).

And if not the Chinese – then perhaps a Latin American consortium led by Brazil might step up. I could see Lula in Brazil making a bold pitch for GM. Brazil is the rising economic star of Latin America (thank goodness that they finally have one!). This might be South and Central America’s chance to finally get onto the world economic map; it could create all kinds of opportunities for economic betterment throughout this long-stagnant region. Or, another bold thought – Saudi Arabia and the Arab oil states might finally realize that their day is coming to an end. The handwriting is on the wall that the oil-economy is not going to last forever. What better way to use their amassed fortunes than to buy into the industry
that now supports them but is eventually going to abandon them as the Middle East’s underground reserves peter out? What better way to guarantee an economic future for their children and help them avoid the siren calls of an other-worldly medieval fate under the auspices of al Qaeda?

Yes, a GM bankruptcy would be rather unsettling, especially given all the other economic chaos now happening. But the long-term prospects for a more prosperous world arising from GM’s ashes are just so incredible, so mind boggling. President Obama will have the chance to become a truly great President if he can grab an opportunity like this and fight off all of the political forces that will try to stop it. If Obama can JUST SAY NO to the UAW, to Nancy Pelosi, to the greenies who think they can run a car company, and to the GM big shots in Detroit who ran GM into the ground and now want to become industrial bureaucrats – if he can withstand the hellish criticism that his former admirers in the press and academia would unleash against him – well, then he has a big chapter awaiting him in the history books of the future (versus the dismissive footnotes that will be afforded to Bush and Clinton).

◊ posted by Jim G @ 4:07 pm Read Comments (5) / Leave a Comment

Monday, November 10, 2008

◊ King of the World?

Current Affairs ... Politics ...

There’s a very good article on the London Times web site about Barack Obama and his recent ascension to the throne as President of the United States and King of the World. This article is by a fellow named Matthew Parris, who makes the point that Obama actually did NOT become King of the World on Nov. 4; even though many people throughout the world seem to believe this. Obama is a man that the world loves, and Parris has some ideas on why this is. Here are some of his thoughts:

Each of us in our private chapel half believes that Barack Obama knows our hopes and has heard our prayers.

He, we sense, understands. He cares. He is like us, understands us, surely agrees with us, even though he has not yet said so. He would be our friend if ever we were to meet him. In some strange way he knows us already, though we have never been introduced.

He is the pop star whose poster adorns the adolescent’s bedroom wall; the Blessed Mary who understands her supplicant’s every woe; the gentle Jesus, a personal friend who will not forget us; the Queen Mother who, if she ever had come to tea, would have got on with us like a house on fire.

Ah, so Obama gives many people the impression that he is their secret friend. Why? Because Obama and his message seem so understanding and so “in synch” with their lives. But Parris then goes on to explain that we commoners who labor under such delusions, be they about Obama or any other celebrity, are best shielded from reality.

It is desperately important that we never meet these people, for reality would be cruel. We thought they knew our joys and woes, heard our prayers, and when it dawns on us that the demigod at whose feet we laid them hasn’t listened, can’t help, or doesn’t care, our sense of rebuff will be personal. In our minds we were friends. Believe me, the disillusion when Elton John looks bored to meet you and turns away can be bitter.

Actually, I once experienced something like the “Elton John send-off” that Parris describes. Back in the early 1980s, there was a DJ on WNEW-FM named Dan Neer.

Back then, 102.7 WNEW-FM was THE rock station of the New York area; my brother and I were devoted listeners. And Dan Neer, or “Dan-O on the Radio” as he called himself, was the funniest, wittiest, and coolest DJ on the top radio station in New York. He joked around just like we did when our group was out bar-hopping on a Friday night (ah, sweet days of youth). He played the music we’d be listening to in those bars. He seemed to be one of us, part of our gang; someone we could hook-up with at the next place we’d be stopping at.

Then we actually got to meet Dan Neer. WNEW sponsored occasional early-morning live broadcasts from a rock club somewhere in downtown Manhattan, and they would invite listeners to line up early for admission. They called these events “Finally Friday”. If you got in, you’d get some complementary goodies (I still have my yellow “Finally Friday” coffee mug somewhere), free coffee and danish, and you would get to watch a WNEW DJ doing a live show. Well, on the day we attended, Dan Neer was the featured DJ. Great! We would get to see our hero, live in person!

After an hour or so, Dan-O was mingling with the crowd between songs; mostly favoring the young, pretty women. My brother eventually went up to him and gave him a friendly greeting, like he was one of the boys. Dan-O wasn’t all that impressed; he responded to my brother like a stranger being asked for directions, not sure he could help. My brother finally requested that he play a favorite song; and Dan-O blurted out an uninterested “don’t know” as he walked off, probably spying some young female more worthy of his attention. We got some beer (despite the early hour, the bar was open) and commiserated about Dan-O being a jerk. Who knew.

Interestingly, Dan-O had a brother who was also a DJ on NEW, named Richard Neer. I recall that morning actually sitting down at a table where brother Richard was sitting and having a fairly nice conversation with him. Richard wasn’t quite as dynamic on the radio as Dan, but in real-life he was much more personable. (So I’ll give Richard’s book “Rise and Fall of Rock Radio” a plug, even though I haven’t read it yet).

Here is one more interesting quote from Parris regarding Obama-mania:

And this whole thing could go very sour. A politician who has subtly insinuated himself into the imaginations of millions as a secret friend and the personal champion of all their hopes for the world may find their disappointment the more bitter in the end.

All I can say is that after the Finally Friday live broadcast, my brother and I didn’t talk much about Dan Neer. We’d still listen to his show at times for the music, but would no longer make special effort to tune in whenever he hit the airwaves. I guess that he eventually wore thin with other listeners, as his show was rescheduled and he then disappeared from 102-seven. (He did come back in 1985, but I never listened to him again, or heard anyone rave about him; he’s currently a satellite radio DJ).

I’m sure that Barack Obama will have a much better fate than “Dan-O” Neer did. But it probably helps that only a minute fraction of the 65 million people who voted for Obama will ever get to meet him.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:33 pm Read Comments (3) / Leave a Comment

Friday, October 10, 2008

◊ Obama’s Big Government May Fall

Current Affairs ... Politics ... Public Policy ...

Like millions of other Americans, I lost a lot of money in the stock market this past week (actually we’ve been losing $$$ over the past 12 months). Luckily, I don’t need the money right now; all of my stock investments are for retirement, and I don’t plan on drawing any of it for at least 10 years. But it still gives me the creeps seeing so many of my nesteggs getting scrambled.

Oh well, let’s try to see the bright side of it all. The American economy was dancing on thin ice for too long. Too many people were getting rich by believing in too many stupid things (e.g., that cheap and plentiful credit and rising real estate prices were here to stay). Finally it all gave way. America will come back from this crash, and will hopefully learn some lessons from it. Hopefully by the time I start my retirement — assuming that I actually get to have a retirement (gotta think positively) — the American economy will be on firm ground, operating with proper capitalization ratios, making reasonable assumptions, being aware of risk in all its implications. Hopefully our economy will become more of a Warren Buffet economy, a “back to fundamentals” economy.

And another good thing — even though I’m worth many, many thousand dollars less right now than I was last week at this time — at least the week closed on a good note. I usually do my food shopping on Friday nights (yea, that’s how exciting my life is these days), and I received a $3 coupon last week for buying some vitamins. Well, even though I don’t have a store discount card (because I don’t like the idea of letting a corporation track my food purchasing habits; I consider that a very private matter), the lady at the register tonight punched in the “store courtesy card” for me, and my coupon was doubled. So I got $6 off my supermarket bill. Jackpot!!!

But seriously, the world certainly is changing; America will soon have a president with some African blood in him. Furthermore both the President and both houses of Congress will be strongly aligned with the Democratic Party; it’s been awhile since we’ve had that. Also, we will soon be in a significant economic recession, and a lot of Americans will be hurting. All but the rich are going to feel it in some way; actually, if Obama keeps his word, they’re going to soon be pinched with more taxes. Government regulation will make a comeback, and labor unions will probably have it a bit easier (although with raging international competition, they will never get back to their glory days of the mid-1960s). In a nutshell, the “Reagan Revolution” is finally coming to an end. The days of fast economic growth with benefits going disproportionately to the rich, and the poor slipping further and further behind, are numbered.

Maybe. The Reagan Revolution went on for over two decades (covering most of my adult life) because a lot of people, including the middle class and the better-off portions of the working class, actually liked it. People enjoy buying things, and that’s what the past generation was all about. Our choices of products and stores and ways to buy things grew and grew (who could have even imagined blackberries and Amazon.com on the night in 1980 when Reagan was elected). Marx was obviously wrong; shopping is the opiate of the masses.

And in the future, if some handsome, well-spoken Republican comes along promising a return to the days of home equity loans and big cars, a whole lot of people will get misty eyed remembering the 90’s and 00’s. The Obama Revolution might well have less time than most of the other “new eras”. Let’s hope that soon-to-be-President Obama uses his time to full advantage, administering as much healing to America as possible before the political circle takes its inevitable turn. A lot of historical responsibility will fall on the shoulders of a young man with such limited political experience (bright though Obama is). I wish him much success in repairing America’s broken economic foundations, in revitalizing America’s education system, in revamping America’s physical infrastructure, in correcting the glaring defects in the medical insurance and Social Security systems, in putting American science back on the cutting edge, in repairing America’s traditional international alliances and building new ones . . . and on and on. So much to do, and most likely, so little time.

And let me offer a brief elegy for Senator John McCain. McCain has much to answer for because of his role in dragging the 2008 Presidential campaign into the muddiest of political mud. And Sarah Palin, oh my. But at bottom, I still think that McCain is a good and honorable man. And before he passes from the headlines and disappears into the deep recesses of university library shelves where men like Wendel Willkie and Adali Stevenson and William Jennings Bryan and Horace Greeley reside, let me remind you that McCain did make an important point, however clumsily. (Had he only found a way to make this point more effectively, I can’t help but wonder if he might have had a chance, despite the terrible legacy his party is now burdened with).

The better political writings of ancient Greece and Rome assert that a government can only work if it has the “buy in” of the people that it governs. And that “buy in” involves elements of sacrifice and self-denial. You can’t have a virtuous government without a virtuous populace. Take one small area of government, one that I have some professional familiarity with — i.e., the criminal justice system. Even the best of police and prosecutors and judges and jails cannot maintain law and order if the populace does not respect and “internalize” the criminal codes in its day-to-day behavior. Law enforcement relies upon 95% voluntary compliance by the public in order to be effective (admittedly, 95 percent is not an exact figure determined by rigorous scientific study; but you get my drift). So does most every other aspect of government, including — and especially — the determination and collection of taxes.

McCain seemed to be saying, however clumsily, that America’s big problem right now is that public virtue isn’t doing very well, and that it somehow needs to be restored. To his credit, he hardly claims this to be a Republican versus Democrat issue. Certainly, years of Republican exhortation that personal greed is good and that all bureaucracy and taxes are bad has chipped away at the sense of “civitas” in our society, just as much as Democratic cynicism about the military did during the Vietnam war days (and also the Democratic willingness to look the other way from badly performing government institutions like welfare).

McCain seemed to be saying that being an American comes with just as many obligations as it does rights and opportunities and pleasures. Everyone needs to give up something, be it money, time, talent, comfort, and even some personal liberty, in order to support the “body public”. And maybe that collective “something” has to be a lot more than it currently is (perhaps one reason why so many foreigners struggle to get into America from Mexico and everywhere else is because the relative COST of being an American is currently very small relative to the ECONOMIC BENEFIT).

But McCain would also say that the government ultimately cannot FORCE virtue by trying to enforce virtuous behavior (and thus his rationale for cutting or at least not raising taxes; and by the same token, Democratic resistance against a military draft, or even a universal national service requirement for young adults). Although some taxes and some force are needed (e.g., in the criminal justice system), ultimately it’s a matter of people’s hearts. It’s a matter of truly buying-into your nation and being willing to give up some things for it.

Barack Obama is going to expand the realm of government over the next four years, and I agree that such action is necessary. But for this to really work, Senator McCain’s point about voluntary citizen virtue and unforced patriotism is also essential. I hope that Obama is willing to pick up the torch that has fallen with McCain (partly because McCain did such a poor job of carrying it — although carry it he did). Obama has become a public sensation; his day in the sun will be short, but I hope that he will use it to remind the public of the need for civic responsibility (and yes, that does include future leaders of investment firms not taking obscene salaries and perks for running their companies and the overall financial system into the ground). Without it, the big government that Obama will help to restore will eventually succumb to some future “revolutionaries”.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 11:16 pm Read Comments (3) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, September 7, 2008

◊ Obama — Dreams of My Mother

Current Affairs ... Politics ... Psychology ...

It’s pretty easy to see why John McCain wants to be President. He comes from a military family of great achievement. His father and grandfather were Navy Admirals, and had prominent places in history (e.g., his grandfather was there on the USS Iowa in 1945 when the Japanese surrender took place). McCain’s life has been an admixture of rebellion against family tradition and trying to go it one better. So it’s not surprising that he’s a maverick who wants to be commander-in-chief. He wants to earn his place in the family history book, but do it his own way. At bottom he’s a loyalist; in terms of basic values, he’s a conformist. And yet, McCain needs to mix it with rebellion so as to put his own signature on things. He’s a fighter (recall that he was once an amateur boxer) who wants to win; he not only wants to match his father and grandfather, he wants to beat them. And this election is his last shot at it.

As to what goes on inside John McCain’s head, that’s about all there is to it.

Now as to Barack Obama — oh boy, that’s a whole different thing and a whole ‘nuther level of complexity. The title of Obama’s first autobiography, “Dreams From My Father”, suggests that he too has been strongly influenced by the paternal side of his family. But in reality, Obama is a “mother’s boy”. You have to understand Barack’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, in order to understand Barack.

Ms. Dunham is a very interesting specimen. She grew up in the handful of years between the “beatniks” of the mid-to-late 1950s and the hippie generation of the late 1960s. Being non-conformist and anti-establishment wasn’t fashionable when she was in high school and college. But, thanks to two teachers at a well-regarded high school on Mercer Island (near Seattle), she was exposed to atheism, Sarte, Communism, Kierkegaard, existentialism, feminism, and other high-octane intellectual stuff. After that, she could never become just another suburban middle-class housewife, charged with watching afternoon soap operas and maintaining the social fabric as America defended its freedom against the Soviet menace. Ann Dunham was destined to become a citizen of the world.

With Wikipedia and some good Chicago Tribune articles available at your fingertips, you don’t need me to retell Ms. Dunham’s story. But let me summarize what her key values appear to be, so that we may understand what she passed on to Barack. She believed in education and intelligence, eventually obtaining a doctorate in anthropology. She believed in helping the poor, not on the basis of charity (think Cindy McCain’s adoption of a baby from Bangladesh via Mother Teresa), but on the basis of empowerment and social change. She believed in transcending national barriers and embracing people in very different social circumstances; likewise, she believed in questioning social norms such as religion and nationalism and capitalism. But although she questioned authority, she clearly did not believe in using violence to tear down existing power structures; she was willing to work with forces such as the Ford Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and with a big bank in Indonesia (as to set up microloan programs to support village-based enterprises in Java, e.g. basket making).

Dunham was not bound by basic American family values. Between Barack’s 5th grade year and high school graduation, she drifted in and out of his life, pursuing anthropology studies and field work while her mother (a bank vice-president) took care of Barack and paid his tuition at a private academy. In a sense, Barack “returned the favor” when Dunham was dying of cancer in 1995, not taking the time from his busy schedule as a lawyer and politician in Chicago to be with her as she was dying in Hawaii. Obama does say in one of his books that he now regrets this very much. (Let me admit that a whole lot of families in America don’t live up to the standards of “being there for you” that I am implying here; but the ideal remains, nonetheless.)

In a recent article in The New Republic, John Judis discusses Obama’s experience as a community-based outreach director in Chicago’s South Side in his years between college and law school. Judis quotes Jerry Kellman, the guy who hired Obama to work for a coalition of justice-minded Roman Catholic parishes, to the effect that Obama eventually lost heart in community work. Obama thus decided to go to law school so that he could do more to challenge discrimination and combat poverty. Obama told Kellerman that he believed that being an elected official, or being influential with elected officials, was the better way to bring forth “a better world”, i.e. to realize the dream that Ann Dunham had given to him. Working directly with and amidst “the anawim” (the poor), as his mother had, was not enough.

So, the new Obama formula was to apply his super-fine mind and good looks to study law and enter politics, as a means to an end; that end having a lot to do with the dreams of his mother. I suspect that Obama’s life and his political career is an on-going inner discussion with the ghost of his mother, and goes something like this: Mom, you left me to pursue your dream of saving the world. But now I’m gonna show you that your method, however well intentioned, was wrong. You should have given your time to me, as I truly know how to save the world. I’m the one with the brains, the good looks and the golden tongue. I’m now going to prove that to you by becoming President and leading our nation and our world into a better, more just way of being.

OK, so I’m not a professional shrink. What I’ve said above is straight out of the Pop Psychology 101 textbook. But goodness — what if there is some truth to it? What if Obama is elected (the betting odds are still in his favor right now, by about 60-40), and finds out that he’s just another cog in the wheels of history, that there’s not really all that much he can do to fulfill his mother’s visions? What happens when he discovers that “the system” has turned him into a different man? When he realizes that he really isn’t going to change things very much?

Sure, it’s a big ego rush to be President, to engrave your name in history, to realize that you will be remembered hundreds and maybe thousands of years from now. It’s got to be an incredible feeling knowing that your decisions and actions will effect the lives of billions of people. But in the end, being President does not offer much chance to change the basic values and presumptions of American and western society (ask Jimmy Carter about that!). A President should try to make the best decisions possible on foreign policy, budgets, military strategy, the enforcement of existing laws and the enactment by Congress of new laws, in response to changing and challenging conditions. But if the majority of Americans decide that it’s better to protect their opportunity to acquire SUV’s and live in McMansions than to decrease the poverty rate and increase educational achievement in minority populations, then the President is going to have to go along with it.

(Yea, I realize that McCain is also preaching to us, in his sermons on “national service”. But I think he’s more likely to get respect for that, given his 5+ years in a Vietnam POW camp.)

And thus my biggest fear regarding Barack Obama as President: what happens if he becomes disillusioned with the Presidency as a means for social change, just as he did with community organizing? What happens to America when the guy at the top no longer puts his heart
into the job?

Or even worse, what happens if Obama buys into the apostasy that other macro-reformers in history have fallen for: i.e., “if I can gain even more power and force change on the people, they will come to see that I am right, despite their initial resistance to my far-sighted dreams”? I realize that this seems extremely unlikely from mild-mannered Barack Obama. But history does give various examples of seemingly well-intentioned “revolutions” that turned into cynical power-grabs (e.g., the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia). Thankfully, Ann Dunham did not believe in power mongering and did not teach Barack Obama to think like that. But Obama’s reported fascination with gaining power to bring about change, and his possible need to reconcile the lack of maternal attention during the second decade of his life, does make me wonder.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 4:51 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Thursday, September 4, 2008

◊ WELCOME TO CIVIL WAR II

Current Affairs ... Politics ... Society ...

I was watching the GOP Convention last night, waiting for the grand oration from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (the “hand grenade in the cultural war”). A little after 9 PM, I noticed a mousy-looking woman in her mid-fifties take the stand and present a mediocre speech. She wasn’t too bad or too good at it; definitely partisan, but hardly inflammatory. This woman turned out to be the Republican Governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle. The commentator noted that Lingle was in her second term as governor, and had previously served as the mayor of a small town in Hawaii.

So, I wondered – how come Lingle wasn’t picked by McCain for the VP job? (Or even considered!) She’s had more time on the job than Palin, and has maintained a good track record out there in Barack Obama’s home state (i.e., low unemployment rate, budget surplus, high popularity rate). She’s also more cosmopolitan: Lingle grew up in St. Louis, went to high school and college in California, then moved to Hawaii. Her views on abortion are moderate – generally pro-choice, but against partial birth abortion and favoring notification restrictions. She’s also currently unmarried, twice divorced, without children, Jewish, and consults with a rabbi once a week. In effect, she is “Liberman light”. But she’s also a bona fide Republican. McCain would have had to twist a lot of arms had he selected Lingle; he would have made the Christian Right unhappy. And Lingle isn’t all that glitzy or telegenic. But McCain would have attracted a lot of moderates and independents, would have had a better shot with former Hilary supporters. He also may have avoided this damn red state vs. blue state firestorm that Sarah Palin has set off.

Instead, unfortunately, McCain decided to both play it safe (with the GOP conservatives) and at the same time play it cocky (picking someone with lots of political and personal baggage and limited leadership experience). And now, any hope or pretense that this election would “bring us together” and “heal the wounds” of an increasingly bi-cultured America has gone by the wayside. Welcome to Civil War II, thanks to a political bomb dropped by a gutsy attack-plane pilot.

I will note one interesting thing about Sarah Palin – she always wears glasses. In an era when most of the beautiful people wear contacts, this seems rather quaint. Perhaps it is isn’t such an issue amidst the glitteratzi up in Alaska. And some speculate that she’s trying to emulate Tina Fey. Certain of Palin’s “fashion eyewear” selections are a bit gauche. But as someone who has worn glasses since age 11 and who has never owned a pair of contacts, I do appreciate the fact that a major political party is finally running a presidential ticket that includes a fellow “four-eyes-er”. (However, Lingle also wears glasses!)

Here’s another interesting sidenote to the Palin saga, specifically regarding the “Troopergate” investigation into her firing of Alaska’s public safety director Walt Monegan. Recall that the question here is whether Palin abused her discretion by pressuring and then canning Monegan in retaliation for his not firing a state trooper involved in an unhappy marriage and messy divorce with Palin’s sister. One of the allegations of misconduct brought against the trooper was that he illegally shot and killed a moose (no permit, out of season, whatever). To we East Coast people, that doesn’t sound like anything worse than putting a glass bottle into the plastics recycling bin. I mean, Alaska is mostly wilderness, not like our over-crowded cities and suburbs. So what’s the big deal about shooting a moose out in the boondocks? There must be plenty of them.

Well, I’m sure that a wildlife expert could tell me exactly why moose hunting regulations ARE important. But an interesting sidenote to the Troopergate incident was raised by a Native Alaskan (Eskimo) in a comment found on the Anchorage Daily News web site. The comment was submitted in July, before Palin hit the national scene. The writer, “nagayukabraham”, said that if a fellow Native been caught shooting a moose illegally, he or she would be dragged into court, fined, and have their guns confiscated and hunting privileges taken away. He concluded that there are “different sets of laws, one for those that know better and do it anyway, and one for those that are just trying to feed their families.” I doubt that Sarah Palin was taking Native sentiment into account in her efforts against the wayward trooper, but this still shows just how complicated the web of human (and moose) social relationships is. Life isn’t simple anywhere; not even out there in Northern Exposure-land.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:37 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Friday, August 29, 2008

◊ CONVENTION AFTER-THOUGHTS

Current Affairs ... Politics ...

I agree with the liberal pundits that the Democrats had a good convention this week. Obama’s acceptance speech yesterday at Mile High Stadium was a bit stern and preachy, but overall the public was impressed. This can be seen by Obama’s bump-up in the daily tracking polls.

Obviously the blogging world has said a whole lot about the political festivities in Denver over the past four days, and there isn’t too much that I can add. But I will offer a quick review of Al Gore’s speech early yesterday evening. First off, Al was introduced by an old tune from the Fifth Dimension, recorded way back around 1969; i.e., the second half of “Age of Aquarius”, a.k.a. “Let the Sun Shine In”. Yes, the song was appropriate; Gore is both an oldie and a solar powered child (at least at heart; his large carbon footprint is repeatedly noted by the conservative bloggers and talk show cranks). After a quick round of applause, he gave a speech that was surprisingly animated. Some pundits claim that he was rushing through it, but I think he was actually putting on some enthusiasm, as compared with his usual plodding speaking style. Also, he now speaks with a slight southern twang in his voice, something entirely lacking during his vice-presidential term and his run for the Presidency in 2000. Who knows, had he used that verve and twang back in 2000, perhaps he would have gotten the extra 530 votes that he needed to win Florida. Ahhh, what might have been.

One more odd thought: Al Gore now looks a lot like the late, great comedian Rodney Dangerfield. I would have loved it had Gore fingered his collar while complaining about the heat from climate change, followed by a few one-liners about how he gets no respect from the Bush administration. Unfortunately, the Democrats traditionally haven’t had much of a sense of humor (and Obama continues this grim legacy). McCain recently made a comment about how his campaign is trying to inject some levity into his messaging. He may be on to a Democratic vulnerability.

As to McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for GOP vice president: I perused the NY Times and Washington Post web sites, and the reviews of McCain’s choice were unrelievedly negative. Ah, but this is the liberal media, after all. It must mean that they are quite worried about Palin! (And ticked off at McCain for stealing the afterglow of the Dem convention with a bold VP pick; as to Palin’s particulars for the job, I won’t get into that at present. But whether or not she would be right for the job, it certainly was a gutsy move on McCain’s part).

P.S. — The Democratic criticisms about Palin are that she is inexperienced and that she’s not ready for national politics let alone being one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the Presidency. Hmmmmm, sounds much like what people were saying twelve months ago about a young tyro from Illinois (and Kansas, and Hawaii, and the world at large perhaps) who had national ambitions. Hilary Clinton banked her national ambitions on the experience rationale — and lost. Time will tell if Sarah Palin turns out to be as masterful (and lucky) a politician as Barack Obama is.

In sum — the Democrats would seemingly describe the Palin pick with the following word: audacity.

P.P.S. — I’ve already seen liberal pundits accusing McCain of tokenism. If I were part of the liberal cheerleader team for Obama, I would NOT go there. And ditto for the conservatives who hope that Palin will make Biden look like an old fossil. Now that these surface issues have reached deadlock, perhaps the candidates and the national audience will get on to the policy issues? Oh, sorry, this is America. What was I thinking?

◊ posted by Jim G @ 10:29 pm Read Comments (3) / Leave a Comment

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

◊ Womens’ Issues

Current Affairs ... Society ...

I’ve read that a lot of Hilary Clinton supporters are unhappy that Barack Obama won the Democratic Presidential nomination. IIUC, they feel that Hilary is a victim of a macro-game and a set of macro- and micro-rules defined by men, and biased against women.

There’s a very interesting and detailed article on politico.com by Roger Simon (Relentless: How Barack Obama Outsmarted Hilary Clinton), which analyzes the rise and fall of Senator Clinton’s nomination campaign over the past eighteen months. Mr. Simon’s analysis indicates that Hilary’s campaign was star-crossed from the start. The key people who needed to make the day-to-day things happen in a presidential campaign just didn’t mesh, either with each other or with Hilary. It was just one of those things.

By contrast, Obama’s team members were meant for each other and for Senator Obama. It looks to me like fate; at some point, any great idea needs real people to make it happen, and if those people just don’t happen to work together well, the great idea is forgotten. You can’t say up front that a team comprised of A, B, C, D and E are going to make magic happen, and a team of V, W, X, Y and Z are never going to get it together. Many dream-teams on paper turn out to be losers, and some groups of losers come from behind to pull off miracles. You never know why. You only know it post-facto. As Hilary Clinton now knows, her team was the wrong one; whereas Obama’s team was the right one. It’s not a sexist issue.

But Simon identifies a crucial moment in the Clinton campaign, one that may well have sexist implications. After her third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses in January, Hilary pulled an unexpected come-back in the New Hampshire primary; most political analysts feel that the ’emotional tear incident’ at the Cafe Espresso in Portsmouth turned it around for her. According to Simon, her staff urged her to keep up the tears, jack up the emotions! The polls indicated that John Edwards and Barack Obama were seen to be “empathetic, sympathetic, caring about me”, whereas Hilary came out more “tough, ready, strong”.

Now that does indeed hint of underlying sexist assumptions and expectations regarding women. Hilary helped pass much more legislation than Edwards and Obama combined to help families and children. Her passion to help needy individuals was clear in her many years of dedicated action. And yet, her unwillingness to satisfy social expectations regarding female emotional vulnerability; and her reward for her one exception to this in New Hampshire, seems to be rather clear evidence of an unspoken double standard in American politics. According to Simon, Hillary refused to play up emotions; she knew that in doing so, reporters would require her to spill her guts about the Monica Lewinsky incident. Senator Clinton wanted to protect her emotional life, and was punished for it.

But — who are the feminists to be mad at? Barack Obama? Howard Dean? Evan Bayh? Bill Clinton? (well, yea, Bill can be a dog). These guys didn’t set the social rules and expectations. The problem resides in all of us, in tiny doses. The situation should be publicly discussed, and may represent a “teachable moment” for our country. But as to taking out anger on Senator Obama because he is a man — well, that seems quite counterproductive.

Next Issue: Above My Paygrade Afterall? In her comment on my last blog regarding the abortion question and my ideas regarding the social determination as to the “start of life” for purposes of human rights under law and social custom, Mary S. says that because I am a man and will never carry a baby, I do not have the standing to discuss abortion policy and the “start of life” question. Mary goes out of her way to express her respect for me, but then says that “if they [men, including myself assumedly] ever had even one period in their life [they] would spend the entirety of the time lying in bed.”

Most interesting. Mary’s views regarding discussion standing are shared by Dr. Leslie Cannold, an Australian bioethicist who has written extensively on abortion and gender issues. Dr. Cannold has a short, readable article about men’s standing in the abortion debate. She concludes:

Men lack moral standing in the abortion debate — indeed are guilty of moral arrogance — when they push for control over a procedure they’ll never have to have because they can’t get pregnant.

Obviously, you can find a variety of views on the blogosphere regarding Cannold’s comments. I believe that there are a lot of good arguments supporting the right, need and duty of men to be part of the social discussion regarding human reproduction. However, I do acknowledge that until the past 50 years or so, the world and its laws and ways were determined almost exclusively by men. And in many places on this earth today, that situation remains. Laws and customs regarding pregnancy that are defined entirely by men obviously aren’t going to consider all of the relevant evidence; they aren’t going to be optimal. As with most things, the extremes are bad, the middle is good. The extreme of men running women’s lives was admittedly injust.

Dr. Cannold’s logic obviously does have an interesting implication, however. Many women have never been pregnant and will never become pregnant, for a variety of medical or social reasons. This would apply to most Roman Catholic nuns. According to Cannold’s reasoning, a Roman Catholic nun should also be barred from the abortion discussion, as much as a Roman Catholic priest and bishop. I myself would think that the voices of both priests and religious women should be considered; sometimes those on the outside, those observing the flow, can point out things that those caught within the flow cannot see.

I do know of one woman who would consider at least one man’s view regarding the point in a pregnancy when full humanity endows itself. That would be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In a recent interview with Tom Brokaw, Congresswoman Pelosi made the argument that “life” does not begin at conception, and cites the opinion of St. Augustine that “ensoulment” begins three months into the pregnancy. Well, I myself am neither a saint nor a doctor of the Church; however, Augustine and I came to similar conclusions, interestingly enough (ditto for St. Thomas Aquinas; but yes, I know, Aquinas never got pregnant either).

Back to Mary’s comment for a moment. Mary approaches the abortion question using an analogy to the growth of morning glory vines. Touche; absurdity reveals absurdity. Both morning glory vines and my analogy, jet planes being built in the sky, are shown to be very inadequate. The human situation is indeed more complex and difficult, by many magnitudes.

Congresswoman Pelosi does point out the complexity and difficulty of the abortion issue. However, she does not conclude that because of these complexities, the issue is legally and ethically indeterminable. Speaker Pelosi does not argue that the courts and the legislatures (like her own US House of Representatives) have no right to make determinations and rules that affect all fertile woman AND men. She seems to imply that it’s more a question of getting the decisions right, or as right as possible in a complex world. And to get it close-to-right, it will take an open discussion from all quarters, young and old, fertile and infertile, female and male. For women to imply that men should be excluded from a critical social discussion because of their grandfathers’ sins, is to repeat the mistake of exclusion and censorship that tho
se grandfathers made.

Mary, will all due respect to you and your interesting and well-considered thoughts. Comments, please.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:33 pm Read Comments (3) / Leave a Comment

Friday, August 22, 2008

◊ BOO to McCain/BOO to Obama/Abortion

Brain / Mind ... Current Affairs ... Politics ...

For the Ayers ad. I don’t mind an ad reminding the public about Obama’s former association with a guy who did some nasty, violent stuff. Obama has disassociated himself from Ayers, but so what? He’s been dissing a lot of people since the presidential campaign began. One more bit of luggage overboard isn’t all that surprising. But back to the Ayers ad, which was produced by the American Issues Project (headed by a former fundraiser for McCain). In its dramatic build-up to Ayer’s sins, the ad says that on 9-11, flight 93 never made it to the Capitol (but Ayers did, setting off some explosives there with the Weather Underground, back in the late 60’s when Obama was still a child). Now that’s hitting way below the belt — politicizing 9-11. McCain doesn’t seem to be making any effort to disassociate himself from this. And for that failing, I must give Senator McCain many demerit points.

BOO TO OBAMA: For not announcing his VP today, and leaving all of us political junkies in limbo tonight. It’s the Obama tease once more; the guy really is quite haughty, quite impressed with himself. So, demerits for Senator Obama also.

ABORTION AND THE START OF HUMAN LIFE: NOT ABOVE MY PAY GRADE. At the Saddleback Church interview last Sunday, Barack Obama refused to set a definition as to when human life begins. He said that such a responsibility was “above my pay grade”. As to McCain, he basically said the same thing when asked to set a definition as to when being rich begins. But he had a pat answer about the start of life: at the moment of conception.

When I was young, I was a rather devout Roman Catholic, and I honestly agreed with the moment of conception argument. Being a techie and an Asperger’s candidate, I devised a techie way of looking at the issue. I set up the following thought experiment: imagine that instead of building jet airplanes in a factory on the ground, they built them under the wings of other flying aircraft. Yep, they put together new jet planes way up there in the blue sky. Imagine the process as follows: on one plane, the “mother ship”, workers would somehow assemble a frame for the new plane, with wings and metal skin. But another plane would have to meet up with the mother plane, way above the earth, and bring the jet engine that was to power the new contraption.

Well, up until that point, the hollow frame being built under the wings couldn’t really be said to be an airplane. But once the engine was inserted, then the thing had a lot more substance. Even if more work was yet to be done before it could fly off on its own, it was now essentially an airplane. To me, that seemed pretty close in nature to the meeting of the sperm and egg in a woman’s uterus. So: problem solved. Human life beings at conception.

But now I see it differently. Back to that klutzy thought experiment: the new airframe and jet engine riding under the wing of that big mother ship (maybe an old B-52) would be worthless until they install the cockpit and all the controls. Until then, no one could fly it, even if it did have everything else hooked up. So, what is the comparison here?

Well, over the first four months of fetal development, a rudimentary brain forms and at some point starts doing something; somewhere around the 6th week, a faint brain wave can be detected (somewhat akin to a sea slug’s brainwave). Even then, much more brain development is yet to come. However, by the end of the 90th day– i.e., the end of the first trimester — the brain in the new fetus has some connectivity and some initial capacity to process data. The corpus callosum linking the two halves of the brain has just been formed; the brain at that point starts acting as a whole. It may not yet be capable of supporting conscious self-awareness; the thinking part of the brain, the neo-cortex, still has a lot of work left to be done. But it certainly is pretty far down the road by that point. The thing now has its basic controls installed.

SO — I would say that for legal and moral purposes, the best we can say is that life begins at the end of the first trimester. Before that, abortion is more a question of manipulating the mother’s body. After that, you’re messing with something with a very high potential for consciousness and self-awareness. Sure, there is no bright line; it’s all pretty fuzzy. But we have to draw a line somewhere, and for me, the first trimester is the best place to do it. Yes, it would be difficult for a doctor to determine just when a fetus is over the time line. But the same dilemma exists today, given that the end of the second trimester is the usual limit for legal abortion under Row v. Wade.

So that’s my final answer. I.e., split the difference between the pro-choice forces (at the end of the second trimester) and the pro-life forces (at conception). This would reduce the number of abortions, but would not eliminate their availability. (I believe that over 50% of abortions occur within the first trimester at present.) Under such a compromise, I would also rule out the “slow downs” that the pro-life people have written into the law over the past 10 years or so, including waiting periods, pre-counciling on adoption options, and parental consent. Choice should be true choice, so long as it is justifiable.

Well, it’s a good thing that I’m not running for office. Neither the pro-lifers and the pro-choice people seem interested in compromise, even if it is based upon reason and science. Obviously, the Democrats and Republicans would both be mad at me for such a position!

◊ posted by Jim G @ 11:26 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, August 14, 2008

◊ On Russian Invasions

Current Affairs ... Foreign Relations/World Affairs ...

The Russian invasion of Georgia is giving me the creeps. I can’t help but wonder if we are back in 1936, when Nazi Germany invaded the Rhineland. The big powers decided to mostly look the other way. Don’t worry, Hitler won’t go any further, he has a legitimate gripe. Yea, right.

This Georgia thing is really bad news. And given that oil and gas prices probably aren’t going drop significantly, Russia will only get stronger in the coming years. Stronger and bolder. I hope that whoever is elected President this fall is ready for some nasty weather. Only good thing about it: it will put us back into a triangulation with China. I’m sure that they’re going to be doing some militarizing on their northern boarder in the near future. Hopefully that will take the pressure off Taiwan.

PS, I’ve read the articles saying that the USA has no right to criticize Russia after what it did in Iraq and Kosovo. OK, the USA is not without its sins, especially in Iraq. But two wrongs don’t make a right, and the Russian wrong of trying to crush a legitimate democracy so as to reestablish a vassal state is in a different league.

PPS, I also don’t buy the argument that the USA has ‘taunted the bear’ by allowing former Soviet block nations to join the European Union and NATO. Hey, if Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, and now the Ukraine and Georgia want to be part of the west, what right do we have to say ‘oh no, you have to go back to your former slavemaster, we don’t want to get him angry’. Also, I understand that until recently, we have shown restraint by not stationing US and British battalions and warplanes along the Russian border. Now we are going to put US military personnel and equipment in Poland, as part of Bush’s anti-missile system. I don’t completely agree with the anti-missile system, but I don’t feel sorry for the Russians after their recent conduct in Georgia.

PPPS, the thing to watch now is Cuba. Will the Russians re-kindle the old friendship with the new Castro regime, through promises of cheap oil and gas (like back in the Cold War days)? And also re-establish a Russian military presence there, e.g. Russian warships using Cuban ports, or Russian radar and electronic listening posts on the island? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!

◊ posted by Jim G @ 10:15 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

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