Ya know, there are some civil rights issues I just can't get fired up about

and this is one.

Action, or futility?

Leftist activists--including Chris Hedges--are going to chain themselves to the fence at the White House on December 16 to protest the ongoing wars and occupations of the US. Effective? Meaningless? An act simply to vent the frustrating hopelessness of protest? A bit of each of the above?

At what point does one's blood boil?

Perhaps upon reading this article in the NYT?

Here are two related hypotheses about Obama's maltreatment of progressives

Related: We're in denial about Obama's true position because we can't face that he's not now and never has been progressive; and/or what he says is subject to the McGurk Effect, so that during his campaign his transformative image caused us to receive from his lips the message we wanted to hear rather than the meaning he spoke.

Economic analysis

Look, I nearly flunked Econ I at Stanford but I nevertheless feel I have good instincts about the subject. However, that's all I claim: instinct. And although I've long thought of myself as a "liberal," I've recently felt misgivings about a central tenet of Paul Krugman's solution to the present stagnated American economy, chief among them is his strong reliance on increased "consumption" as our path to recovery. While I agree that it's an important component of America's economy, it's also true that our reliance on it so strongly is what led us to the present mess.

I'm more in accord with this analysis, which views a sound economy as one which balances consumption with a sound presence on the planet. I mean, what's the matter with sustainability, with merely existence and not, always and forever, growth?

A choice, not an Obama

Here's a letter to the editor of the SB NewsPress that I sent today. I'll update this post when/if it's published.

Update: The letter was published in the NewsPress on Saturday, November 13, 2010.

Obama will be a one-term president. Oh, he’ll survive incessant nagging from the Right for the next two years, but in 2012 he’ll be “one and done,” no question. And as a progressive who worked mightily for his election in 2008, I say, Good riddance. Obama’s the worst thing that’s happened to American politics since…forever: He’s trodden on the hopes and dreams that he exploited to gain the presidency, making cynics of young voters, turning them against politics as a vehicle for positive change—as recently evidenced by their abandonment of polling places in the mid-term elections.

There arises, therefore, this question about the Democrats’ prospects in 2012: Will some (yet unnamed) progressive run against Obama in the primaries, a la Ted Kennedy against Jimmy Carter in 1980? The argument against this development will likely be that a schism among Democrats will hand the presidency to the Republican nominee, as happened in 1980 in Reagan’s favor. But the obvious rejoinder is that Obama won’t be re-elected in any event. He’s lost both his base and the center by his obsequious cow-towing to Wall Street, the insurance industry and the military; and he’s already indicated he’ll drift further Rightward hereafter.

So, what’s it to be progressives? Shall we remain inert and hold our collective nose in 2012 while voting for Obama, a sure loser? Or shall we act decisively to support a candidate who will truly—not just in rhetoric, but in deed—bring to America change we can believe in?

Too good to be true

Doesn't this news item from the Guardian appear to be from the Onion instead?

The Real News

A worthwhile site, source of this incisive video in which the Democrats and Obama squandered the mandate they carried into 2009.

I'm not sure why, but for some reason

(and I think it's perverse) this bit of news made me LOL. Maybe I was imagining how some folks would react if it happened in the US.

Well, whaddaya know...

The law of the land even applies in Arizona. (Note who--an Arizonan, former US Supreme Court Justice--voted with the majority.)

Out of Afghanistan in my lifetime?

Fuggedaboudit. Check out the construction of military installations throughout that country, presently underway and proposed. Incompatible with our withdrawal from Afghanistan anytime soon? Ubetcha. Obama, aren't you commander in chief of the armed forces?

I take it all back.

This video alone justifies the existence of the personal computer, the Internet, YouTube and all such devices.

P.S. You don't have to be a Gilbert and Sullivan fan to enjoy this.

So much for moving to Sweden

What a revoltin' development this is.

An exquisite example of the adage, What you don't know won't hurt you.

Lisinopril, the generic name of a drug of which I am prescribed--and which I for years have taken--a daily dose of 20 mg. to lower my blood pressure, is, I learned during this early, early morning spurt of web-surfing, derived from the venom of the jararaca, a Brazillian pit viper.

I'm curious about your reaction

to this New Yorker article. It's about procrastination, specifically a review of a book--a collection of essays--about procrastination. My reaction: I have no inclination to read the book because, to me, the critique of it was so singularly uninsightful and uninformative that the book could not help but be even more so. The lesson I took away: Even the New Yorker can publish pap.

Do you ever get the impression that

some folks just can't catch a break?

A ditty about responsibility

Why has America fallen so low?
What’s the cause—We need to know!
Surely there’s someone handy to blame,
Someone called Bush, or an African name.

It can’t be our own insatiable greed
Consuming more goodies than ever we need,
It can’t be our wars, can’t be our cars,
Can’t be our refusal to tax what’s “ours.”

It must be those others—the government pols,
Who’ve run us amok, who’ve twisted our goals,
Who’ve made us a nation with no more to spend,
Borrowing madly, as if there’s no end.

And yet, on occasion, it does give one pause
To see, at its root, what—and who—is the cause.
It’s we, the people, who’ve given them rein,
And who now, if ever, must reign once again.

As usual, Justin Raimondo, Libertarian though he may be, nails it. The teabaggers--if they be true to their principles of diminished federal government--could well be a signal to the Republican Party to question this nation's imperial push, and could well attract those on the Left for whom that issue is critical. A realignment of interests along the lines of military downsizing, with the "progressives" on this issue combining with the Far Right? Not just interesting, but tantalizing.

Letter to editor

Below is a letter I've written to the SB NewsPress editor. I'll update this blog if/when it's published.

Update: It was published on October 12, 2010, and a second time (don't know why) the next day.

I’ve lately been hearing from Obama, Biden and, before that, from Press Secretary Gibbs, that we progressives should “stop whining” about shortcomings in this administration’s achievements and get out and work for the “change you can believe in” by supporting Democratic candidates in the upcoming elections.

My answer to these pleas: I would work now—as hard as I did for Obama’s election—if over the last two years I’d witnessed a strong, principled effort toward fundamental change. Instead, here’s what I’ve seen. (1) A backroom deal with Big Pharma and capitulation by the White House on the “public option” for healthcare, an option Obama repeatedly asserted, while campaigning, was essential to meaningful reform. (2) Abandonment of his pledge to close Gitmo; of his pledge to restore habeas corpus and to reverse the Bush administration’s intrusions on our privacy; of his pledge of transparency in government; of his pledge to “stand firm” against “entrenched monied interests” in Washington. And (3) a heartbreaking reversal of his commitment to seek a path toward peace through making peace, supplanted by expanded wars—hopeless, pointless wars—in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

If Obama had stood up to demand the promised changes from his presidential pulpit, his present calls to work would ring true. But Obama didn’t even try to “change the way Washington does business”; instead, through backroom deal-making and compliant Congressional politicking, he has delivered to us only half-measures or no measures at all. And I, for one, intend to return the favor.

The Generals are taking over the executive branch

Bob Woodward's latest book--Obama's Wars, on the shelves today--tells of the president's wrestling with his generals and military advisers to get some sense of a withdrawal schedule from the mess in Afghanistan. The generals, apparently, don't think much of Obama or his schedules. On top of that, here is, to me, an equal outrage: Petraeus laying out what has got to be a nonstarter for the Afghanis' negotiations with the Taleban, namely the latter's acceptance of the US-authored Afghan constitution and their disarmament. There's no way either of these is acceptable to the Taleban, no way toward a negotiated settlement of that ugly war.

Which is, of course, is precisely what Petraeus and the generals want: endless war.