Splitting the sane vote

When Lisa Murkowski (R, for now, AK) announced that she would run for her Senate seat as a write-in candidate, I thought that was good news for Scott McAdams, the Democrat in the race. Apparently, I was naive. According to a new poll, Murkowski is splitting the vote of the sane people in Alaska with McAdams, providing Tea Partier and right-wing crank/crazy Joe Miller (now that has to be a made-up name, right?) with a big lead.

Sigh.

Education

Standardized tests are at the center of discussions about education. Standardized tests teach children how to answer. A good education teaches them the questions to ask.

The debate over our declining schools has become a circular firing squad, with everyone pointing fingers at the others involved. Parents blame teachers and administrators. Administrators blame politicians for denying them resources. Teachers blame parents for not preparing their children and giving them an environment conducive to learning. Students get lost in the shuffle. Perhaps, given the poisonous atmosphere pervading our politics, these attitudes should not be surprising. But it is no help.

We know that good teachers can inspire children whose parents are indifferent to education. We know that parents can get a good education for their children despite uninspiring teachers. We know that learning can take place in humble surroundings. We know that some children can succeed without support from parents or teachers (although such children are rare).

Time to stop pointing fingers and accept that we are all in this together--even those of us who do not have children in school. Time to stop placing blame, discuss how to increase the value we place on education, and then do it.

Yellow dogs, blue dogs and beaten dogs

I'm almost a yellow-dog Democrat. That's a term that has almost disappeared from the political lexicon; it referred to someone who would vote for a yellow dog if he ran on the Democratic ticket. Now we have blue-dog Democrats, on the party's right, who all too often undercut the leadership and act like a GOP fifth column. A reader of Talkingpointsmemo suggested that Democrats exhibit a beaten-dog syndrome, "to describe a generation's worth of Democratic electeds and operatives who have so internalized GOP attacks that the mere suggestion that they are coming cause these people to involuntarily cower."

Apart from the split infinitive, that's right on the mark. Sad as it is to say, since at least 1980 the Republicans have so dominated debate in this country that Democrats have largely lost the ability to define themselves, their party or--most important--their values. True, the Obama campaign reversed that in 2008, but the effort was centered on electing a President, not raising the position of the party. And once in office, Obama seemed unable or unwilling to espouse a strong, consistent, principled line of policy and program that would build up the party.

In 2008, with a substantial majority in the House and--for a short time--a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, it seemed as if a vital change in our politics had come. Six weeks before the mid-terms, things look very different. I'll have something to say about why that is so in another post.

Democratic weakness has not only meant losses for the party, it has been a tragedy for the nation. Even if you do not support the Democratic platform, a healthy democracy needs differing views. Although the Democratic Party itself all too often displays such a divergence, the dominance of Republican theory has held back the nation's development. (Think action on global warming and green jobs.) Democratic fecklessness has led to what may fairly be called American decline. Democratic weakness, their failure to offer a contest to Republican ideas, has left the Right dominant by default. And Democrats must share some of the blame.

Disturbing headline

From the Times:

Obama Aides Weigh Bid to Tie the G.O.P. to the Tea Party

If Democrats need to think twice about this, the party is in worse shape than I thought.

Strange attitude

Am I the only one who's getting tired of hearing the Tea Partiers--those self-proclaimed champions of a strong America--play the victim whenever they get criticized? The latest is Christine O'Donnell, speaking to the "Values Voters" conference in Washington yesterday.

"Will they attack us? Yes. Will they smear our backgrounds and distort our records? Undoubtedly. Will they lie about us, harass our families, namecall to try to intimidate us? They will. There's nothing safe about it," she said.

Now, there's no reason for Democrats to lie about O'Donnell--the woman once said she was a witch, for Heaven's sake--but what strikes me is that way that she and others of the Right (Sarah Palin being a prime example) quickly turn themselves into victims when the going gets tough. They have a perfect right to take that tack, but you would think that voters will begin to notice the contrast between the ostensible toughness of the Tea Party campaigners and the whining that rises when they are challenged.

Still not ready for prime time (not even close)

Christine O'Donnell, darling of both the lunatic Right and the Democrats (though not for the same reasons), says that the rigid moral views she has espoused in the past would not guide her in the Senate. According to the LA Times, she said, "When I go to Washington, D.C., the litmus test by which I cast my vote for every piece of legislation that comes across my desk will be whether or not it's constitutional."

Memo to Christine: If, by some horrible mischance, you do get to the Senate, 99.9% of the legislation you see will have no constitutional implications. The legislative process is a whole lot more complicated than you seem to believe.

No surprise

Certainly not to Red Sox fans. The New York Times reports that "A curious phenomenon has emerged at the intersection of fashion, sports and crime:" many miscreants commit their crimes wearing Yankees caps.

No doubt anymore

Rand Paul

Jan Brewer

Sharron Angle

Christine O'Donnell

Carl Paladino

Sarah Palin

Jim DeMint

Ben Quayle

John Boehner

Eric Cantor

Paul Ryan

James Inhofe

Mitch McConnell

Can there be any doubt that the Republican Party is dominated by radical right-wingers out of step with the American mainstream?

Just a thought

We have the worst economy since the 1930's, and the world is more violent than it has been since then. Why should we be surprised that we have the worst politics since the 1930's?

Warms the cockles of your heart.

Seven states that are among those suing to overturn Healthcare Reform are claiming federal subsidies under that very act.

A New Force for Afghanistan

Even as the U.S. buildup in Afghanistan continues, commentators are looking forward to next July 1st, when the withdrawal of American combat troops is scheduled to begin. Given the continuing and even increasing threat posed by the Taliban, there have been a number of stories on the way that women's rights have advanced in the country since 2001, and how they are threatened by the Taliban. Katie Couric did, I think, two stories when she was in Afghanistan recently. Time magazine ran a cover story that showed--on that cover--a beautiful young woman whose nose had been cut off by her husband in a fit of anger--a typical punishment in the traditional society.

Should we keep troops in Afghanistan longer than we would otherwise, because we believe in women's rights? Will we do women an injustice by withdrawing? These are complicated issues, and people of good will may be on all sides.

But I have an idea on how we can help women in Afghanistan to help themselves: Arm them! Let women form militias. Let them fight the Taliban. Women have fought in resistance movements for many years. More and more armies let women fight in combat; the United States does, even though our laws still formally forbid it. Let Afghan women fight for their rights.

And nothing will advance women's rights in Afghanistan faster than letting them face their abusers and would-be abusers with guns in their hands.

The wrong speech

President Obama is scheduled to give a national address on Iraq next week. That's not the speech he should give. Iraq is yesterday's news. Americans are worried about the state of the economy--more worried than we were six months ago. That's the issue that the President should address. Here's what I'd like him to say:

My fellow Americans, you don't need me to tell you that our economy remains in tough shape. Although we are recovering from the recession, the pace of recovery is much too slow. Millions of Americans have been out of work for months, with little prospect of getting new jobs in the near future. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners are still facing the threat of foreclosure. Tens of thousands of business owners worry about whether their shops and factories and farms can survive. Cities and towns across the nation are laying off teachers, police and firefighters--people who provide essential public services.

At the same time, there is much that needs to be done in this nation. We have half a million bridges that need to be rebuilt or repaired. We have thousands of dams that are in states of disrepair. Our roads need to be maintained and upgraded. Our electrical grid is not well constructed for the diverse sources of clean power that we need to bring on line in the next few years. We are buying millions and millions of barrels of oil from other countries, and some of them have supported forces that have tried to do harm to the United States; we need to learn to use less oil. We lack the broadband Internet capacity of many nations with which we compete. While we have started on high-speed rail lines, we need thousands of miles more track that can take the trans that have been commonplace in Europe and China for years.

In 2009, Congress passed the American Reconstruction and Recovery Act, the stimulus package. That program has been a great help. It has saved or created more than two million jobs. It has supported programs to rebuild America. But it is not enough. The stimulus was designed to spur the economy for two years; that time is expiring. The truth is, government needs to do much more to help our economy get rolling again.

Government needs to take on that role, because private enterprise is not. Businesses are not creating enough jobs. They are not investing enough in out future prosperity. There are banks--many of them the very ones that were baled out with billions or our taxpayer dollars--that are holding on to huge profits, but not lending to businesses or homeowners. There are large corporations sitting on large profits that they could be using to modernize plants, develop new lines of products and hire new workers. There are small businesses that simply cannot afford to expand or to hire. Whatever the reasons for this behavior, the evidence is clear: private business is not moving our economy forward fast enough.

Government can help. As the Reinvestment and Recovery Act has shown, public investment can create and preserve jobs. It can meet important public needs. It can inspire new investment. That is why I am calling on Congress to enact a stimulus package of $750 billion before April 15, 2011, and another of equal size by April 15, 2012. As part of those packages, I call on Congress to dedicate at least one third of the amount appropriated to rebuilding and extending our infrastructure.

This money must be directed to America's needs, not to the well-being of individual politicians. It must be used to improve our public works and public ways, to inspiring private investment, to retain jobs in pubic services and to inspire private enterprises to hire more Americans.

Some of you will be concerned that this program will increase the deficit. Even though our economy has not been progressing as strongly as it could, many voices have been raised to call for reducing the deficit now. It' is true that the federal deficit is a serious problem. I do not mean to suggest otherwise. Simply put, we need to reduce the deficit substantially.

But the deficit is a chronic problem, while the current economic situation creates an immediate need that demands work now. It's like this: suppose a patient who has cancer also develops pneumonia. The cancer needs to be treated, but if the doctors do not work at once to cure the pneumonia, the patient will die before the cancer can harm him. The deficit is like that cancer: it demands to be treated, but first we have to deal with the economic need that we face now.

Accordingly, following two years in which we use government resources to move our economy forward, it will be time to begin to reduce the federal deficit, not just by a small amount, and not just for one or two years, but for as long as it takes to bring it under control. That will require hard work and hard choices. It may seem an impossible task, but remember that that is what we did in the 1990's, when for several years the government ran surpluses that permitted us to pay down the federal debt. We can do that again, and we can do it without placing the burden of deficit reduction on those who can least afford it. But we cannot do that with an economy that is weak.

As you know, voters will go to the polls on November 2nd. I suspect some will say that the election this year should be a referendum on the plan I have outlined tonight. That is fine with me. Let those who argue against using government to move us forward explain how they would create jobs. Let them tell people who are out of work how they will get them back to earning paychecks. Let them tell us all how they will keep our bridges from falling down and our dams from breaking. Let them tell homeowners how they can avoid losing their homes to foreclosure. Let them tell teachers and firefighters and policemen how they will be able to keep on serving our communities. Let them tell the American people how long we can afford to let our nation's economy stagnate. Let the debate begin.

Re-thinking W

Who's the leader of the responsible, moderate faction in the GOP when it comes to the controversy over the Cordoba Center in lower Manhattan?

George W. Bush, would you believe? As a number of commentators--most recently NPR on today's' Morning Edition--have noted, Mr. Bush consistently linked his opposition to al Qaeda with respect for Muslims and their institutions, and statements assuring Americans that Islam is a religion of peace.

So, in less than two years we've come to the point where George W. Bush is on the left of the Republican Party.

(I should note that Mr. Bush has refused to take a position on the question gripping the nation: whether the Center can be built in a neighborhood of porn shops, strip clubs and OTB parlors.)

Retail politics

News Corporation, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, has given $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. Yep, $1,000,000 bucks.

This raises a number of questions, aside from the obvious--what is Murdoch getting for his money?

When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Citizens United, declaring that corporations have an untrammeled right to buy political influence, many people asked whether that meant that foreign corporations had the same rights as American companies. (At this writing, the Court's majority has not yet declared that foreign individuals may buy American politicians the way wealthy Americans can.) News Corp. may be an American enterprise (I haven't checked on the locale of its incorporation, but I'd put my money on Delaware), but it is controlled by Mr. Murdoch, an Australian. So, is this kosher, or are there still some limits to the extent of our corruption?

Another question: is the White House going to continue to treat Murdoch's Fox News as if it were a news organization, rather than a mouthpiece of the Republican Party? It made headlines when Helen Thomas' seat in the front row of the White House press room was given to Fox (I suggested that the administration might be following Sun Tzu's dictum, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"), but the formal entrance of the Murdoch empire into partisan politics should perhaps move the Obama Administration to throw Fox out of the room entirely.

Democrats have shown a regrettable tendency to act as if Republicans operate on the same assumptions of civic discourse and respect for institutions as they do. The Republicans do not. By their actions they have forfeited any assumption of good faith about their policies, principles or programs. So, when a "news" organization enters the lists on behalf of Republicans, it is perfectly appropriate to declare it persona non grata in the halls of government.

Bigotry stalks the land

The uproar over the planned Cordoba (Islamic) Center in lower Manhattan may be dying back, although Republicans will undoubtedly try to keep the flames hot until the November election. Still, it is a story that needs more light shed on it.

President Obama has faced a storm of criticism for having pointed out that the proponents of the Center have every right to build it--although he gave the unfortunate appearance of dithering when he said the next day that he was not commenting on the wisdom of the location.

Apparently realizing that they could not win an argument over the First Amendment, opponents of what they mis-characterize as the "Mosque at Ground Zero" have receded to making a case that the Center should not be built, "there."

To begin with, where is "there?" If the proposed location--in a derelict Burlington Coat Factory--is too close to sacred ground (let's not forget that Muslims died in the attack on the World Trade Center, too), is 14th Street OK? How about 23rd Street, where I lived for a couple of years? Or 34th Street? No, that last won't work: it's too close to the site of Miracle on 34th Street.

Let's be honest: what is behind opposition to the siting of the Cordoba Center is bigotry. Anti-Islamic bias is the currently acceptable form of open or slightly-camouflaged prejudice in the United States. As Josh Marshall points out, George W. Bush held the outright bigots in his party in check by making inclusive remarks about Islam. Now that his is out of the picture, there seems to be no one on that side of the aisle ready to call out the extremists. That's right, the Republican Party has moved to the point where W looks like a moderate.

Time for all of us to stand up and make it clear that the First Amendment contains no clause excluding Muslims, or anyone else. We need to do that for our own freedom.

Mad as hell

Those who might have consulted this page in the past 3 months will have noticed that there's been nothing new. Truth is, I had pretty well convinced myself that I lacked the energy to keep coming up with new fusillades. But the assaults on truth, sense and honesty multiply and, to quote a famous speech from a two-star movie, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more.

So be warned: Expect to see more fulminations in the coming days.

(Oh, and I hope that future quotations will be less trite.)

Safety doesn't pay

While the rest of the world is waiting to see if the BP well in the Gulf can be capped, NPR has been looking at our last industrial disaster, the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine that killed 29 miners. The network discovered that mine owner Massey Energy routinely pulled the wool over the eyes of Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors.

Fortunately, under the Obama administration, the MSHA seems to be taking its role of protecting mine workers more seriously than it did in former years. The agency has made a number of surprise inspections of Massey mines. Inspectors were following up on tips that the company was not hanging safety curtains that are supposed to direct air to the face of the shaft, dilute methane and keep down coal dust, which can not only explode but is the cause of black lung. The result:

MSHA coal administrator Kevin Stricklin said inspectors blitzed the Massey mines and stopped people from tipping off workers inside. "We captured the phone and we went underground and unfortunately in all three of these cases, we found the anonymous tips were true," Stricklin said.

Massey is worse than other employers--and its errors are more likely to cause loss of life--but its behavior is perfectly understandable when we remember what corporations exist for: to make money. Not to be nice to workers. Not to provide safe workplaces. To make money.

Now, some people (like your editor) would argue that better working conditions mean more productive workers, a greater likelihood of being able to hire high-quality employees and less turnover. All of which contributes to profitability, or should. But it's hard to measure such things, whereas dollars saved on safety equipment, and more hours spent cutting coal, because the time supposed to be spent on safety is cut, all go directly to the bottom line.

The tendency to cut back on safety--and analogous measures like environmental protection--is exacerbated in a climate in which the stock market values the last quarter more than the last quarter-century. In today's economy, the company that cares about worker safety or protecting the environment starts out behind those who don't.

So industry cannot be left to its own devices when it comes to the health and safety of its workers or the protection of the public. Capitalism is fine when it comes to separating companies that can make money in a dog-eat-dog world from those that can't. But pure capitalism does not care whit about other matters. So Massey Energy and BP will go on their merry way, killing people and harming the world we live in, as long as they can.

Which is why we need strong, effective government. Which ought to be obvious, and was for many years, but is today threatened by a rising tide of ignorance.

Grayson strikes again

The irrepressible Alan Grayson asks why you'd want to put Republicans in charge of government, when they "don't want to do it. " And more. Watch.

Political Self-Destruction 101

You've probably heard that newly-anointed Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul had a very long 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday evening. First, he went on Rachel Maddow's show and suggested that the public-accommodations section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was so problematic that he might have voted against the entire act had had he been in Congress then. (For some of us, he actually made it worse by suggesting that the law should not ban people from carrying weapons into restaurants. If the Long Branch could do it, why not us?)

The Paul tried to walk it back, saying that, yes, the federal government may ban racial discrimination in private business. That may have been less of a change in his position than it may sound like; I don't hear his original comment as saying that the Constitution prevents legislation to outlaw discrimination, just that it's a bad idea. Not exactly a full-throated endorsement of the Civil Rights Act.

Then, at about 2:00 p.m. yesterday, Paul said that he does not support repealing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Which puts him on the same page as every member of the US Congress and everyone this side of the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nation. And, by saying that he does not favor repeal of an act that's sacrosanct, he raises the question of whether he actually does.

Finally, at about 5:00 p.m., the would-be senator told CNN that, yes, he would have voted for the law had he been in Congress when it came up.

Quite a first day as his party's candidate. Welcome to the big leagues, Dr. Paul.

This incident tells us several things about Rand Paul, and the forces he is said to represent. First, he is an ideologue, and one who has not thought through the implications of his philosophy. The problem with libertarianism is that, carried to its logical conclusion, it leads to results that are anything but liberty. May a group of people, exercising their individual rights, form a lynch mob?

Then, too, Dr. Paul (he's an ophthalmologist) seems proud that he is not a "professional politician;" rather than serving an apprenticeship in local or statewide offices, he makes his first attempt at what is often called the second-highest office in the land. But legislating is a skill. It needs the ability to master detail, to deal with multiple issues at the same time, to understand the implications of positions on bills--even those that might not be immediately apparent--and to negotiate. Senators vote on trillions (that's "trillions" with a "T") of dollars in appropriations and borrowings each year. The Senate is no place for amateurs.

Update: The hits just keep on coming. Today on Good Morning America, Rand Paul accused President Obama of putting his "boot heel on the throat of BP," and called criticism of the company "un-American." That's going to endear him to the 98 percent of Americans who think the government isn't grinding that boot heel in hard enough. And doesn't he realize that the company is BRITISH Petroleum?

Where are you going to spend eternity?

That was the title on a pamphlet handed to me today. Distributed by the Fellowship Tract League of Lebanon, OH, it is "free as the Lord provides." Pardon my cynicism, but I see the hand of man involved in the process, although I think that is good. If God can't get man involved, maybe he's doing something wrong.

I'm not going to comment on the content of the brochure I got. Some will, undoubtedly, find its message attractive and perhaps comforting. Fine for them.

As for me, as I've noted before, I'm going to Hell. No disrespect to the folks at the Fellowship Tract League, whom I don't know--their pamphlet was given to me as I walked by--but after seeing the folks who are sure they're on their way to Heaven, the idea of spending eternity with them is, well, hell. So I'm on my way to the other place.