Action Movie Presidents

Props to Dan O'Brien for not going to the obvious ones (save for Kennedy) as I would have done. (But come on: JFK, fine, but why no T.R., A-Jax, Washington or Lincoln?) (And maybe Grant.)

4 U.S. Presidents Whose Lives Put Action Movies to Shame -- powered by Cracked.com

I’m furious!

Seriously: I’m furious!


As we’ve learned with the all of the hope that accompanied the election of Barack Obama and the massive betrayal and letdown that followed, nothing is worse that the disappointment ones feel immediately after allowing oneself a moment of misguided optimism. Here’s how my [political] week went…

On Monday, I hear an NPR story about the Debt Ceiling “Deal.” Craig Fahle had a pretty interesting take on the new debt commission. With the huge budget triggers looming over both Defense and Medicare if something else isn’t done, neither party is going to want THOSE negotiations to deadlock. And since (1) It’s a 6-Democrat, 6-Republican Committee and (2) Congress will not be able to amend, or filibuster, their proposal – merely give it and up or down vote – you have taken away two of the key advantages the Republicans have had lately: Their ability to organize a filibuster in the Senate and their Majority in the House. And while I’m still furious that the Republicans pulled this shit (and Obama and the Democrats LET THEM, and LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT) I had to admit: It’s was an interesting point. Of course, it would depend greatly on who was APPOINTED to the panel, but still: If there was one way to get the Right to budge on taxes? This seemed to be it.

It wasn’t much, but given what unmitigated failure as a Progressive Obama has proven to be so far, I’ll take what I can get.

Then on Wednesday, I hear NPR talking about the 2012 election and I hear something that, by itself, could have ruined my whole week/month/administration term:

“In doing what he has, President Obama has positioned himself in the CENTER of American Politics.”

OK first of all…

THE CENTER HAS BEEN GETTING PULLED TO THE RIGTH FOR THRITY YEARS NOW AND AMERICA HAS SUFFERED AND WITHERED AND DWINDELD AS A DIRECT RESULT OF IT!!! WE ELECETD A QUOTE-UNOTE “LIBERAL” SPECIFICALLY TO STOP THAT!!!  TO CHANGE IT!!! REMEBER?! Not to give the Right everything they want so that he can run as a CENTRIST!!!

Second of all…

As Harry Truman said: Given a choice between a Republican and a Democrat who acts like a Republican, they’ll pick the Republican every time. And we now live in a world where Barry Fucking Goldwater would be called a RINO! (That’s how you say “centrist” in conserva-speak.) There is no virtue in being a “centrist” when the “right” is represented by the Sociopathic, Religious Funny-Mentalist, Absolute Money-Grubbing Corporate WHORES that the Modern American Right is. When the National Discourse is between Paul Krugman and Rush Limbaugh, between Robert Reich and Glenn Beck, between Robert Kuttner and Sean Hannity, between John Stewart and Bill O’Reilly, between Eric Boehlert and Ann Coulter, no remotely sane, minimally educated person can conclude that there is merely a difference of opinion going on here! Or that both sides represent position of remotely equal merit, validity and dignity! Watching the political discourse for the last 20 years in this country is like watching physicists debate quantum string theory with rodeo clowns!

Being a Centrist? Being able to broker a compromise? Is only a valid, admirable position when BOTH SIDES' positions has some merit! ANY merit! When the other side represents something reprehensible that, on a purely objective level, devoid of any emotion or hyperbole, can be described as evil? Then it is not to your credit to do anything but put a boot to their necks and choke the last bit of life out of them!

In the previous comments section, JLarue referred to Obama as an American Neville Chamberlain. I like that. I think it’s very apt. BUt their IS a problem with it... Chamberlain catches a lot of shit that he doesn’t really deserve. Seriously. You have to remember: Adolph Hilter wasn’t really “Hilter” until after the war started. And he wasn’t really “HITLER” until after the War was over and the mass graves of 6 Million Jews started turning up. Hindsight is always 20/20 and Chamberlain can hardly be blamed for his failure to realize that the man he was talking to was a Psycopthatic Villain of previously unimaginable, historic, demonic and near-comic book proportions. I mean… Who really could have reasonably imagined that, before it actualy happened?

Obama does not have the luxury of that defesne. In the 1930’s, Hitler made a great effort to try and sell his position, and to NOT look like a madman. The Republicans (who, of course, are not Hitler!) have made no effort to hide their profoundly un-American agenda; Their agenda of Bigorty, of Religious Fundamentalism, of Xenophobia, and of orchestrated Economic Collapse so that they can take power and set about systematically dismantling the Government’s ability to protect any of our rights against the Corporations who would usurp them. And if you don’t believe me, if you think I’m just blowing smoke, Mitch McConnell himself said that his party’s TOP PRIORITY was making Barack Obama a one-term president! With all the problems we faced, DEFEATING OBAMA –not jobs, not the deficit, not the economy, not the environment, not health care, not terrorism, not immigration, not national security, not anything else - was his STATED “top priority.”

And THESE are the UTTER BASTARDS this GOD-DAMNED FOOL we elected is NEGOTIONG WITH! Shit, “NEGOTIATING?!” That’s WAY too generous. More like CAVING, CAPITULATING and PANDERING TO!

Now, I’m not saying that Republicans are Nazi’s. That’s just moronic. And only an idiot would conclude that this is the point I'm trying to make. My point is just that if Adolph Hilter had looked Neville Chamberlain in the eye and said “My top priority is the domination of the whole of Europe and eventually the World,” there’s no way Chamberlain would have compromised or negotiated with him. If Hitler had been as transparent about his intentions with Chamblerain as the Republicans have been with Obama, there’s simply no way that Chamberlain would have given him the time of day.

So Obama is worse than Chamberlain.

Obama? Is HENRY CLAY.

History is pretty kind to Clay, actually. But Henry Clay is my [Glenn Beck’s Woodrow Wilson.] Because Clay was known as the great compromiser. That's his legacy: His great, historically important skill was his ability to broker a compromise. And his compromises are credited with avoiding Civil War for decades. And seeing as how the Civil War was the bloodiest in our history, any efforts to avoid it should seem worthwhile, no? Well, back in high school, I certainly thought so. I actually ADMIRED Clay for this skill! But, just as Neville Chamberlain’s detractors will tell you, NO, his ability to broker a compromise in this case were NOT to his great credit. Because who was Clay compromising with? What great cause was being maintained while he helped us avoid what was basically an inevitable conflict?

SLAVERY.

Slavery! I don’t know whether Clay was more pro-Slavery or Anti-War, but he was compromising with the Slave-States of the South! The very States that would eventually secede and start the Civil Way ANYWAY! And it’s not like MAINTING THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY was some kind of secret agenda for Southern States! It was their ENTIRE AGENDA! Very little else separated North from South (or Republican from Democrat) in those days! Neither really opposed to genocide of the Native Americas. Neither really differed in any great way on foreign policy. Neither the Progressive Republicans, nor the Conservative Democrats (what a world, huh?) had enough party unity on tariffs or national banking or civil service to draw any other great distinctions. I’m not saying they didn’t differ, only that any differences on any other issues were orders of magnitude less in importance, and priority than SLAVERY.

The Conservative (and Democratic) South saw Slavery as a necessity to their economic and social survival.

The Progressive (and Republican) North saw slavery as EVIL. (And fine, yes, I realize that it was far from ALL of the North, but work with me here!)

And, as usual, The Conservatives were wrong in their judgment and the Progressives were right. (You can look at any chapter in History and see this BTW. After all – Chamberlain himself was a Conservative! They Right always seems to forget that fact!) And thus of Henry Clay’s great powers of compromise were put to work to MAINTAINING an EVIL INSTITUTION just to avoid an INEVITABLE UNPLEASANTRY.

Sound familiar?

So, IMHO, Obama is HENRY CLAY.

Finally, back to the original point of there being no merit, no credit to Obama for “positioning himself in the center,” does ANYONE (other than Obama) really think that story will be told? Does anyone (other than Obama) think that any part of the Conservative Electorate (let alone the Conservative media) is going to stop thinking about him as anything but a Marxist, Socialist, Communist, Fascist (WTF?!), Secret Islamist, Outsider who’s here to destroy everything that makes their country great? (And I say “their country” because they one they perceive in there puny little minds and “our country” – the one we all share, in this place called REALITY – are two different things.) Puh-lease. Nothing he’s done has forced any part of Fox or Talk Radio or the Right Wing Fringe or Conservative Blogs to even change their LIES! They’re STILL harping about “Government takeovers of health care,” (never happened, never even on the table,) “taxes going up,” (never happened, never even on the table, the OPPOSITE in fact) “Socialist-this” and “Communist-that” and “birth certificates” and “secret Muslim,” etc… It seems completely lost on Obama, and yes, I guess on some of the staff at NPR as well, that what Obama has done IN REALITY isn’t important because his relentless opposition DOESN’T LIVE THERE! He has stabbed PROGRESSIVES in the back in an effort to court people who will only, ever, STAB HIM IN THE BACK!!!

Which brings me to Thursday and Friday:

And NPR’s and the Detroit Free Press’s new headlines:

WORST DAY ON WALL STREEY SINCE 2008!


ALL 2011 MARKET GAINS WIPED OUT!

ARE WE HEADING FOR A SECOND RECESSION?

And the story on MSN managed to capture the entire couse of this in one simple line:

“The market rout was prompted in part by concerns that the Federal Reserve won't try to boost the economy again and the prospects of little -- if any -- help on the way from the federal government.”

Well done, Republicans. You finally managed to sink the economy. Again. You finally managed to bring about the orcastrated financial ruin of this country, just to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Because this isn’t about austerity folks, and this isn’t about deficits. I don’t want to sidetrack this post again, but I have written several pieces already showing just how absurd the idea that Republican give a tadpole’s turd about fiscal Responsibility.

No. There’s a reason that they never talk about Austerity when there’s a Republican in the White House. Because Austerity at a Federal level can only, possibly, bring about disaster. They know this. There is no historical precedent that shows otherwise. Nor is there any historical precedent for blaming anyone but the PRESIDENT for a bad economy. Indeed, even as NPR and the Free Press and MSN point out the POLICIES that contributed to this, not one of them points out the it is the REPUBLICANS who are championing these or that they are, in fact, CONSERVATIVE policies by their very nature and philosophy. Those two words are conspicuously absent from there stories! Behold: Your LIBERAL MEDIA!

And when he is inevitably blamed for what now looks like an inevitable recession, does anyone here believe, for even a minute that it will noted that the polices he followed were ones of fiscal austerity? Were, in fact, grounded in CONSERVTIASM?! Yeah, right. No, he’ll be blamed and the story that will be told will be one that blames his failure on all the “liberal policies” that he supposedly championed. Solely by the virtue of his being a Democrat, LIBERALISM will be blamed for the economic failure brought about by REPUBLICAN OBSTRUCTION and CONSERVATIVE FISCAL AUSTERITY.

Well done, Obama. You’ve now fucked over this country for generations to come. It would have been easier to undo the damage done by Republicans if McCain had won. If we’re lucky, President Bachman will over-reach early in her term and spend for years being stymied by a Democratic Congress lead by the NEXT President, who might FINALLY get us back on the path of reason again.

So, for letting them do this – for HELPING them do it – congratulations Barack Obama: In addition to Neville Chamberlain and Henry Clay you now have a third epithet:

HERBET HOOVER

I hope you’re happy, you fat, pussy, toad!

(see my next post, for an explanation of that last epithet.)

Friday Fun (a day early): Does the Right have no shame, or just no self-awareness?

Note: This is a day early, but I couldn’t wait. It’s a bit high-brow, so the conservatives probably won't ‘get it,’ but if any of you liberals miss any of the jokes I recommend Wikipedia. Please let me know what you think, because I had a lot of fun with this, and if you like it, it might become a semi-regular item.

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Lately, the more I listen to people like Limbaugh and Beck these days, the more I come to realize that the Right is not only lacking any good ideas or real leadership, but they seem to lack any sense of shame as well. Well... It may not be SHAME they lack, so much as SELF-AWARENESS. It seems every time one of the idiots criticize the Democrats, to me it sound like they're describing themselves.

To speak a little further on the matter, I gathered together a panel of ex-Presidents to see what they might have to say about Obama’s first year or so in office, assuming they had about the same level of self awareness as our present-day conservatives do.

Like Smallpox, George. Like Smallpox.  Just go away, will you?  At least Franklin Pierce had the decency to drink himself to death after his failed Presidency.  What have you done?

Macro versus Micro, Personal vs. Public

There's something I've noticed lately, both in media stories and online threads. It seems to me that there's a lot of confusion about the difference between what makes good public policy versus what makes good private practice. And when speaking about economics I do think that the conservatives make this mistake more ofter, but I don't think it's entirely a conservative problem. To start, I'll use an example that (I THINK) will be non-partisan, and use it to illustrate my concern. Then I'll move onto economics. ;) LOL

CIRCUMCISION and AIDS in AFRICA

I recently read an article about two clinical studies being done in Africa, one with 5000 men and one with around 2800. Roughly half of each group volunteered to undergo medical circumcision as part of the study. After two years, the circumcised group was found to be 48% less likely to be infected with HIV. It was such an effective reduction in transmission that the doctors felt it would be unethical to continue the study, opting instead to allow the reminder to get circumcised right away instead. (Just as an aside, the study went on to say that this reduction was only effective in heterosexual intercourse, and was not effective in homosexual sex. But that's peripheral to what I'm addressing here.)

Now, I'll say it right up front: I've always been against circumcision. IMHO, it's just an unnecessary procedure (mutilation, really) driven by societal pressure and motivated by religious nonsense. There is simply no reason to do it. Period. Do I still feel this way? Well, I have to admit that with something on the order of 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 Africans infected with HIV in certain areas, as a matter of PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY, it makes a hell of a lot of sense. And in that context I can't say that I'm justified in opposing it. Clearly, in that circumstance, there is a overding benefit.

But here is where public policy ends and good private practice begins. It accounted for a 48% reduction. Well, sure, if I'm setting public health policy, a 48% reduction in new cases would be a godsend. But what about ME, the individual? Well, we KNOW there's only ONE WAY to not get HIV via sex: Don't have sex. We also know as a matter of PUBLIC POLICY that this just doesn't work. Condom use is also basically 100% effective. (Or what? 99.9%?) I don't know, but it's a helluva lot higher than 48%. So for ME, I can choose to abstain, or to consistently use condoms, and then there's just no reason for me, the individual, to get circumcised. What's more, if I DID... but did nothing else, does that really help me?

Let's say I sleep around, with a different girl every week. In Africa. And of those ~51 different girls 17 are HIV positive. Now... lets say that there's a 30% chance of me getting HIV from one of them. My chances are about 10% that I'll have HIV within any given year. Now... if you cut my chance in HALF (the ~48% reduction that circumcision gives), then I'm ~5% likely in any given year. Big deal. In the first scenario, I'll be at about a 50% chance after about 7 years. (Buy the time I'm 25, if I become sexually active when I 18.) In the second scenario I'll last about 13-14 years, or until I'm about 31-32. Well, if the average life expectancy (without HIV) is ~72, I'm still losing 40 years or more - over half my life! On the other hand, with a 99% reduction (condoms), I'd have only a 0.3% within any given year, and I would only be about 15% likely to contract it by the time I turned 72! (ANd that assumes I'm still having sex once a week, with a different girl, every week! Not bad for such an old fart, huh?) So clearly condoms are the better PRIVATE PRACTICE, and abstinence the BEST, but we know from experience that neither of these work on a large scale, because none are consistently PRACTICE on a large scale, hence we have a PUBLIC POLICY that, while it would be disastrous as a personal practice, makes far more effective prevention strategy.

See the distinction? (OK, I'll admit that I really have no idea what the transmission rate of HIV is, nor how effective Condoms are. I'm guessing. But the actual numbers aren't really that important. The POINT is that something that can be a very good idea for individual people to do, can be a disaster as a matter of public policy. And YES, I think abstinence-only sex education is the single stupidest idea that our previous president and his merry band of funny-mentalist puppeteers ever came up with. But I wanted to first demonstrate the point with something a little less partisan before I got into...

ECONOMICS

Right off the bat I want to tell you what caused the GREAT DEPRESSION. And believe it or not, it was NOT all (Republican) Herbert Hoover's fault! (How's about that? That surprise anyone?) It WAS the fault of his policies though. After Black Tuesday and the resulting recession he did two things which are TERRIBLE things to do in a recession. He RAISED taxes, AND (and the AND is important here!) he CUT spending. Either one by itself is bad to do in hard times, but the double whammy took us (and the world) over a decade to recover from. You see... GOVERNMENT SPENDING supports people's incomes. Whether you think it SHOULD or not is irrelevant, it DOES. SO CUTTING it cuts people's income, which cuts their consumption, which cuts OTHER people's incomes, etc, etc... Vicious cycle. The same thing goes for raising taxes. In much the same way.

Now, without turning this into a treatise on Keynes (which I promised you awhile back, but still haven't delivered!) You can raise taxes, and raise spending by the same amount and everyone's collective income will go UP by that same amount. (Keynes' models demonstrate this.) Likewise if you cut taxes and cut spending by the same amount everyone's collective income will go DOWN by that same amount. This is because the effect, both positive and negative, of spending is slightly greater than the effect of taxes, AND: the BALANCED BUDGET multiplier is "1." That's an economic fact in every school, even Friedman's. But, as you can imagine, raising taxes and cutting spending would have a DOUBLY NEGATIVE effect. And Hoover did this at the worst possible time! So why is it not his fault? And why did he do this in the first place?

First things last...

He did this because he was committing the very error that I've described above. He assumed that good private practice would make good pubic policy. After all... When a FAMILY hits hard times, they try to do odd jobs to take in more money when the can, and they tighten their budget, so they don't go broke and lose everything. That's common sense. And what's surprising - and a little bit depressing, because it shows how good a job Fox News has done mis-educating people about economics - is that so many Conservatives still think this way! If you listen to them talk about Obama's huge deficits (only about 30% bigger than Bush's really, because Bush never budgeted for the two WARS, so his deficit figures were consistently understated... damned liberal media... Obama IS putting the Wars into his regular budget, and that makes his deficit look so much bigger.) ANYWAY, when you hear them complain about Obama's budget, they all say something to the effect of, "What do YOU do when you get laid off? SPEND MORE?!" No. Of course not. But that's just it: Good private practice does not necessarily make make for good public policy! If the gov't did what individual families do in hard times, tens of millions more would be out of work, consumption (which means, INCOME for the rest of us!) would be even less, etc, etc... Vicious cycle.... Great Depression II. Even the most hard-core supply siders understand this... Why do you think Reagan and Bush never cut overall spending even ONE SINGLE TIME in the sixteen years of their presidencies?!

Now... Contrary to what the Conservative may believe I, and many liberals, ARE concerned about the NATIONAL DEBT. But Deficit reduction is something that's better left when the economy is on better footing. For now? President Obama is doing EVERYTHING RIGHT economically. And the markets have borne that out.

I'll give you another example. Personal Savings. Now, I save. I hope you save. We ALL need to save as much as we can. Max out the 401-K's and IRA's; have six months worth of expenses stashed away in relatively liquid form... We all should do this... And THANK GOD we DON'T! Because if everyone starts pinching every pennies, WE'LL NEVER GET OUT OF THIS ECONOMIC MESS! The fact is, that for ANY of us to get PAID, someone else needs to consume! If everyone cuts consumption, because their worried about their jobs, then companies will loose money, and get what happens next? YOU LOSE YOUR JOB!!! This is why I HATE HATE HATE it when the media report on "consumer confidence."

Most people don't even know what tha term really means. But they hear it's LOW, and suddenly they worry about their job.. so they cut back... and so does everyone else... and POW! Now we have a recession. So companies shed workers. Less income, less 'confidence' about the remaining jobs, less consumption... BOOM! Another bad quarter! It's a wonder we ever get out of these things!

And THAT's where stimulus comes in. People say, "yeah but stimulus money's just temporary." It doesn't matter. Get some income out there, stop the bleeding... companies meet some of their numbers and targets, and stop cutting jobs... people feel a little better about their own job, so THEY spend a little more money... more companies start having higher revenues coming in again... they hire a few more people to help meet the new damand... POW... more income, more consumption, more revenue, more jobs, repeat, repeat, repeat...

Good private practice can often make disastrous public policy and good public policy can be disastrous private practice. We need to get beyond the idea that what's good for US is necessarily good for EVERYONE.

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Oh yeah... and WHY wasn't it all Hoover's fault? Well much as I'd like to lay it all on him, the fact is that he got some bad advice... from FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT! That's right! You see, after Black Tuesday, Hoover was kicking around some of the ideas that Keynes had proposed. He basically had a 'new deal' proposal of his own. ROOSEVELT actually talked him out of it! And later, when Roosevelt became president himself, he saw how badly the conventional wisdom had failed (IOW - he learned the very lesson I'm talking about here!) and he reversed his position and put into place many of the very programs he talked Hoover out of! (The New Deal.) (Yeah - it was HOOVER'S idea!)

Now Roosevelt came around, and the New Deal made life better for millions, put many to work, and there were really only two things he did wrong: 1) He tried to balance the budget too soon. We weren't out of it yet, and I've already explained why raising taxes and/or cutting spending is BAD when doen in bad times. 2) He didn't go nearly far enough. That's obvious when you consider that it really took WWII to end the great depression. Why? REALLY MASSIVE GOVERNMENT SPENDING! Totally dwarfed the New Deal. And yet it was still paid for within a decade and a half of the war ending, recostruction and all. (Because when times are going good, you can have a 95% top marginal tax bracket and still grow! But we'll save taxation, spending and Keynes for another time. I'm still trying to make a decent, accurate, simple explanation of Keynes. It's not THAT hard, but I've been lazy about it. I'll work on it! I promise!) ;)