Happy New Year

Here's hoping 2010 (aka "The Year We Make Contact") is a better year than 2009.

Here's hoping I'll actually be posting some things, too.

Scamonomics

Paul Krugman writes:

That’s why anyone who is truly concerned about fiscal policy should be anxious to see health reform succeed. If it fails, the demagogues will have won, and we probably won’t deal with our biggest fiscal problem until we’re forced into action by a nasty debt crisis.

Some years back, I wrote a piece called "Waiting For The River To Catch Fire" where I argued that, like with the Cuyahoga River, Americans won't do anything about a serious problem until it gets out of control. I honestly don't believe that we'll achieve any kind of reform without a major economic collapse as we had during the Great Depression. And I think the reason things aren't as bad as they could be is because the GOP wasn't able to destroy the social safety net despite all their efforts. I heard Bernanke say we have to go after Social Security because "that's where the money is". Imagine that, a free-market ideologue (maybe not as bad as Greenspan but close) looking to save capitalism by raiding a socialist government project.

It seems to me that there are, essentially, three kinds of people who oppose health care reform: those who are in on the scam, those who want to be in on the scam, and those who don't know they're being scammed. I say the same thing about people who support the GOP, but the theory still fits. Whatever it may have been before, American capitalism is now nothing more than a scam, and we don't have the political courage to put an end to it.

There ain't no such thing as a free market. Give some people the opportunity to rob you blind and they'll rob you blind. Period.

Thankfullness

Well, I'm off to NYC for Thanksgiving to be with relatives, I'll be back here in Chicago on Monday.

I complain about things a lot, and of course there are lots of reasons to complain, which I'm sure you all know. But as bad as things have for me personally for the last few years, the truth is that I, and most of you reading this, are still much better off than many people on this planet. I have a roof over my head, I don't go hungry, and the hope of regular employment is pretty good. That doesn't mean to say we shouldn't continue to fight for the things we think are important: progress is, as Teddy Roosevelt put it, the constant struggle between those who possess more than they have earned and those who have earned more than they possess. But we should all keep a sense of perspective and not let all the bad things that happen depress you into inaction, or be too impatient with those who want to make changes.

So enjoy the holiday, try to keep a positive outlook on life, and in the words of the late, great, Doug Adams, Don't Panic!

Meanwhile, watch the Muppets!

My Own Two Feet

Atrios points out:

One day perhaps people who run cities will remember that they're places that people can actually live, instead of potential sites for tourist attractions.

They could've made the waterfront a very attractive place to live with nice view. Instead it's a series of parking lots. It has good transit to Philadelphia, Trenton, and Atlantic City.

I hear Broadway is becoming more and more like that, too: a place more for tourists than New Yorkers. I keep remembering how Jimmy Breslin responded when asked about the change in Times Square, with the Disney store and other corporate chains as opposed to XXX-rated theaters and hookers: "I'd rather have the hookers!" he said.

To be honest, I haven't noticed Chicago becoming like that: Wrigley Field seems to attract a lot of Chicago suburbanites and of course there's lots of touristy places to go (Navy Pier) but other than that I don't see where they're intentionally doing things like at Camden.

One of the things I love about Chicago is that people actually do live downtown and there's places where they can shop for food and live relatively like anyone else, except that you have the advantage of not needing a vehicle. I don't live downtown of course but I still live in the city (Humboldt Park) and I can walk to the grocery store, take one of two buses that pass practically in front of my house, or even walk to the Blue Line train if I wanted to go downtown or to the airport.

When I was living in Atlanta, as much as I loved being there (and it's a great city, really), none of that was even possible. No one lived downtown, you really needed a car to get anywhere, and the suburbanites (and Atlanta is primarily a suburban town) hate the very idea of public transportation (MARTA, to suburbanites, means "Moving Africans Rapidly Across Atlanta").

I can appreciate the dead-enders in the suburbs not wanting to live in dense, urban population centers. If that's the way they want to live, well, that's their business. But that doesn't mean I want them to screw up my world. I don't want to live anywhere where I can't use my own two feet to get around if need be. I don't have anything against cars but I don't want to be forced to own one if I don't want one. I'm not sure where these people get the idea that "freedom" means being at the mercy of corporations, but somehow it's been pounded into their heads that owning a car (and a house!), with all the expenses that come with it, is what everyone should aspire to. But by wrecking the federal government the end result is that you give power to people who see you only as a means for them to make more money. Giving people options like public transportation, or building neighborhoods where you can walk where you need to go is bad for profits (because mass public transport is and likely never will be a profitable venture) and profits are what the people who are really behind our government are all about.

Update

Avedon has apparently come to the conclusion that President Obama is a "conservative", which I guess now means anyone who can't deliver a liberal paradise in nine months in the face of a well-organized, well-funded opposition. I challenge anyone, including Avedon, to name a contemporary liberal politician in America who could a) Win a national election (assuming they even want to run) and b) accomplish, in nine months, the combination of national health care, restoring the economy, and job creations programs that would qualify them as being "liberal enough" in their eyes.

I'm pretty sure that person simply doesn't exist.

Drink More

Avedon links us to an interview with reformed evangelical Frank Schaeffer on Rachel Maddow discussing the latest "prayer" by the religious right for President Obama (praying that he be killed in office mainly). This doesn't surprise me, having met a few of these loons (though not the violent ones), they really do believe they are God's Chosen and it's impossible to argue with them. Like alcoholism, it's something that only they can deal with, there's nothing we can do to help them. And imagine, if you were an alcoholic. that instead of programs like AA, you had programs that encouraged you to drink more. That's what fundamentalist religion is, pretty much. Muslim fundamentalism or Christian fundamentalism, makes no difference to me.

But I also wanted to address something else Mr. Schaeffer was pointing out: how we have to start supporting this President instead of constantly sniping at him that he's not going far enough or fast enough. Unlike the "American Taliban", Avedon (and as I continue to see, many of her commenters) are neither ignorant nor deluded in the same sense the religious right is, and should understand the political need for people to get President Obama's back. Why should he do anything for you if all you do is criticize him? You all turned me off months ago and I'm one of those guys who's waiting for people to take to the streets and start bashing heads so I can join in the party.

As I have said numerous times before, the American right didn't simply vanish the day President Obama got elected (and don't think I didn't catch people talking about how it's been "a year" since he was elected, which is of course a ridiculous analogy since he took office in January, not in November). The corporatists and the deluded followers of the American Taliban leadership have, as I expected them to do, ramped up their rhetoric and used every bit of their too-considerable influence in government to prevent a true progressive agenda from happening. And let's not forget the Blue Dogs, so enamored of their petty little careers that they can't see or just don't care about what their own constituents are going through. This situation existed long before President Obama took office and he doesn't have the power to just call in the cops and have them all arrested (and nor should he). They are going to be focused like a laser beam on destroying his legacy at the very least, or putting a bullet through his head at the very worst.

And of course it's not just religious fanatics: I know plenty of people who simply believe that higher taxes for people who make more money is "punishment for success" and that if you can't afford health care you deserve what you get. That's a different kind of delusion.

These are powerful forces and no single President can deal with them. And they already have one kill under their belt (Kennedy) either directly or through the ramping up of the hatred.

This is not 1932. President Roosevelt faced far greater problems, but because he did, and because things were so bad that many Congressmen and Senators at the time were frightened that the very fabric of the country was falling apart, he had a much broader hand to act than any President before or since. There were no Liebermans trying to obstruct a liberal agenda. And I should point out that the reason things aren't so bad now is because of all the work that they did over the years to build a social infrastructure. The GOP has done a good job in weakening that safety net but they were unable to get rid of it altogether. And they were far more willing to push the limits (if nor break a few laws) to get what they wanted than the current lot of Democrats are. I can't imagine how I would have survived the last few years if it weren't for unemployment and food stamps. I probably wouldn't have.

I'm not saying we can't criticize President Obama. I'm saying that we need to temper that with an understanding of the difficulties he's facing with an already-rabid opposition who believe that they speak for God.

Well, Now

I hadn't realized it'd been so long since I made a blog post. It's not that I haven't had any opinions about what's been going on, it's just that I haven't really been able to clarify them apart from yer basic "this sucks" or "this is great". And of course I have been concentrating on more things in real life lately.

It also doesn't stop me from thinking about the larger picture, and about life in general in this country at this time. There was an article, for example, about a week or so back, by Bob Herbert of the NY Times talkign about how people are being priced out of baseball tickets in NY (apparently at the beginning of the year the Yankees were charging about $200,000 for a season ticket), but it made me think about how a lot of us are just being priced out of life.

If you look at the structure we have here in America, it's really very simple and very basic: you are born, it costs a certain amount to raise you, and once you reach a certain age you are expected to be productive and earn enough money to support yourself and/or a family, and earn enough during those years in order to retire comfortably. My parent's generation were able to accomplish that because back in the day there was not only an understanding that you get paid so much and that things cost so much, but anyone who seriously disagreed with that premise was shot down by tough regulations and tough enforcement of those regulations. In other words, the banks and insurance people didn't go around ripping you off, and the ones that wanted to rip you off were held in check.

It's not that way any more, and it's quite possible that it will never be that way again. Sure, there are people who can still live that dream but they are generally people who fall into a particular professional class, back in the day even a common laborer with no high school diploma could raise a family on a single salary and still afford to buy a home later in life. That's exactly what my dad did. And this also goes into part of the health care debate as well, where apparently they were debating on TV whether or not a person should live or die based upon whether they have enough money to pay for their care.

Because when you build a society where money is the only standard by which we can measure a person's value, the ultimate question becomes whether or not the poor deserve to die because they're incapable of earning enough money to keep up. Social Darwinism, some people call that. And any attempt to rectify the unfairness of this is viewed as somehow disrupting the natural order of things.

But these issues are too big for a little mind such as mine. All I can really do at this point is try to make a better life for myself so that I can keep a roof over my head. Retiring isn't even an issue, just day-to-day, week-to-week survival. And that's pretty much all I got.

RIO???

WTF?

Twelve Minutes

According to a new study by David Cecere of the Cambridge Health Alliance for Harvard University, nearly 45,000 people die annually in the US because of a lack of health care coverage. That means someone dies about once every twelve minutes. That's five people every hour and a hundred and twenty people a day.

Just another fun fact from life in these United States.

Never Forget

I see a few people are getting into the 9/11 spirit right away, saying we should never forget. For them of course, it means not forgetting that there are brown people on the other side of the world who wear funny clothes and don't talk like us who always want to kill us blah blah blah. Here's a list of things I wish we would never forget:

• Never forget that, and this is the nicest thing I can say about them, we had an Administration who didn't take the threat of terrorism seriously enough, which allowed the attacks to happen in the first place


• Even if the attacks would have happened regardless, never forget that they were used as an excuse to invade a country that was no threat to us, a crime for which those responsible have yet to be punished for


• Never forget the 4,000+ American soldiers or the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis who lost their lives because of this illegal war


• Never forget that anyone who bothered to speak out against the war was labeled a traitor, and that many of those in the press who were so wrong in the content and context of what they wrote are still gainfully employed and taken seriously, while those who were correct are still being marginalized


• Never forget that this country, while in the process of capturing a few actual terrorists, kidnapped hundreds of people whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and brutally tortured them in violation not only of the law but of any sense of common decency


• And finally, never forget that this is what happens when we praise stupidity, celebrate greed, and elect people into government who hate the very idea of government. Citizens can hold their elected officials accountable when they break the law, peasants ignorantly follow leaders on the assumption that the leaders are "their betters"

That's just a short list. I used to think we were better than all that, but I was wrong.