Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
from The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
Barack Obama is now enduring a veritable blitzkrieg of criticism from all directions. The public is sore as hell whether or not they identify with any ‘left’ or ‘right’. And everyone is predicting the Democrats are going to eat it in November. By being politically a ‘centrist’ Obama has gotten himself in one king’s hell of a bind. To the average American he is a certified ‘liberal.’ But Obama is liberal only in a relative sense. He is only liberal in this crazed post-Reagan era in which the entire political spectrum has shifted mightily rightward. It’s a world in which a Ralph Nader, once known as a respected and effective moderate reformer and consumer advocate, now sounds seems like a Bolshevik. And the health care reform plan once proposed by Richard Nixon, so hated by the anyone left of Ginghas Khan, was far better than the one Obama so exhaustively achieved. Also remember it was the Republican Nixon administration that established the now reviled by the right Environmental Protection Agency. It is a time when reasonable social policies once supported by bipartisan majorities are now considered anathema. Even unemployment insurance extension, with national unemployment hovering over 9% and way over that in some states, is now being held hostage by Repubs. It is a time when many want to revoke the entirety of FDR’s legacy.
The Obama administration by being centrist has no friends. The left wing of the Democratic party or “progressives” (and which seems to includes most Demos I encounter) have either lost faith entirely or are profoundly disappointed in Obama. Many believe that Obama, with a Democratic Party majority in both houses of Congress and a resounding mandate from the people for change, has blown his opportunity. Time after time when he should have come on strong and rallied his supporters behind a definitive game-changing program, he has backed off and equivocated so as to avoid being accused of not being sufficiently ‘bi-partisan.’ Instead he kissed up to said Repubs (who righteously ignored all such untoward overtures.) The net result is that every initiative has been a watered-down disappointment - from rescueing a totally broken banking system, to stabilizing an economy in absolute freefall, to engineering reform of our greed-bound health care system. Each and ever effort has been weaker and less effective than it could have been. Is it Obama's reluctance or was it the complex, institutional nature of each crisis? We will have to let history judge. And of course what Obama has done that has worked (the economy is no longer in freefall and the health care system isn’t quite heartless) is quickly ignored in a blizzard of “what have you done for me lately’s”
The Republicans party, knowing in their hearts that Obama’s modest and tepid initiatives were necessary if the Great Recession was not to become the Second Great Depression (which may still happen), nevertheless, are attacking him full force. And refusing to participate in the legislation process pretending he is some left-wing ogre from hell. Their plan is no plan. They openly admit they only want only one thing: his political demise. And it is to be achieved through perpetual obstuctionism. Their intention is to undermine the administration’s credibility with the beleaguered and demoralized public at every turn. And they have been very effective. Their simple objective is to regain power at any cost. But as criminally irresponsible and corrupt as the Republicans are even more so than the Democrats, they are fully owned paid reps of their corporate overlords. Yet they seem sane and reasonable compared to the raging ill-informed tea-bagger stooges, ditto-heads, and useful fools of the new ‘far right.’
In any case Obama can’t catch a break. To make matters worse the centrists in the electorate, the so-called ‘independents’, don’t align politically with Obama’s actual centrist position. These so-called independents, who swing elections and whose vote the Democrats periodically pander to each election for are really not politically center at all, they are mostly proto-right wingers. And as such they are fleeing Obama like rats off the proverbial sinking ship. Many or most of these so-called independent voters are fickle, apolitical shallow thinkers who are often swayed more by personality and style than actual proposed policies. By not committing to being ‘left’ or ‘right, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, they are political AC/DC’s and totally unreliable. Often they are easily bamboozled by well-crafted propaganda (‘Swiftboated’) and Internet blogger bullshit. In fact it’s these so-called “independent voters" that requires ever more grotesquely expensive advertising media campaigns (read political propaganda) by candidates.
The real centrists appear mainly as the chattering classes - the windbag pundits (such as NY Times’ David Brooks) and the professional journalists and media talking heads. They are often accused of being part of some shadowing Liberal Media Establishment conspiracy but basically they are simply well paid media personalities, celebrities basically. They simply are out to further their own careers - ideally by provocation and sensation. But paradoxically the net effect is to actually anchor things at or near the center even as they often disdain from defending Centrist Obama. And this is fine with their corporate overlords as a strong center or center-right maintains the status quo. Essentially Barack Obama has few friends in the media.
In most democracies it’s always two against one. When the left is in (not in the US so much since we have no left or even center-left political parties), the center and the right gang up on the left. They do this by carping at and discrediting the left's policies and by exaggerating and missteps or mistakes and downplaying or ignoring any successes, always waiting for the next election. And when the right is in, the center and left must work to oppose the right’s usually upper class-biased, often reactionary and demagogic programs.
And so it follows when the center is in, like the for instance the Obama administration, the right and left, attack from both flanks. Being outflanked Obama has nowhere to turn. I watched key Obama adviser, David Axelrod, field hostile questions from CNN’s Candy Kurlick (she looks like she eats too much candy.) She alternately attacked him from both directions – pro ‘progressive’ and pro ‘teabagger’. Of course Obama, as most Democrats do at election time, pretended to be more of a left/progressive than he would (or could be) in office. And the right, always ‘working the refs’ exaggerate their disdain and alarm at his so-called ‘socialist policies.’ Barack Obama might be a lot of things but he is certainly no way a socialist. If anything he is the polar opposite. He did his undergraduate work at University of Chicago, the citadel of neo lazzie faire capitalist theory, the home of Milton Friedman, the godfather of neoliberalism. In fact his economic brain trust and key appointments are either Bush holdovers – Republican Ben Bernake as head of the Federal Reserve or Wall Street friendly, such as Tim Geithner as Sec. of Treasury who is a protégé of Goldman Sachs alumni and arch neoliberal Robert Rubin, and Laurence Summers as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, who performed the same service for the Reagan administration, where this all started.
The underlying problem is that with this current global economic crash we are in uncharted territory. Which is the true boogieman? Is it Weimar Republic/Zimbabwe level of hyper- inflation? Or is it a full-on 1930’s type Second Great Depression with paralyzing levels of deflation. Even Obama’s conservative economic advisers are worried more about a deflationary double dip in a possibly economic recovery than runaway inflation. A faction no doubt is arguing for a second stimulus package as politically difficult as that may be. But conventional wisdom and intuitive inclination especially outside of the administration and economic academia is more concerned about the ever-growing monstrous US budget deficit - $13.2 trillion and counting. How can we borrow so much without triggering runaway inflation? Where is that money coming from? Who will pay it back? When will the cost of borrowing suddenly go through the roof? Already the interest alone is billions a day. And any stimulus package will kick it up even more. Yet without another stimulus to jolt the faltering recovery we may sink into a dreaded double dip. People that are still working are worried about a sudden loss in value of their money; people that are out of work are worried having suddenly having no money as their unemployment insurance runs out. And yet projections show even a greater rate of growth in the deficit as more people retire and go on Social Security and Medicare. All of this is being milked by the suddenly ‘fiscally responsible’ right. They want more than anything for Obama to fail even if many suffer in the process.
Keynesians, economists who adhere to John Maynard Keynes’ theories, which were credited with saving capitalism from the last great depression, argue that only by getting the economy growing again will the upturn be created. As economic activity increases there will be less payout of entitlements and more tax revenues. Furthermore, Keynesians worry about serious deflation setting in, something has not happened since the Great Depression. Deflation on the face of it sounds good - a lowering of prices, things get cheaper. But it is actually devastating in an aggregate sense since it re-enforces the downturn turn in business activity, since as prices falls consumption is postponed and weakened.. Some economists (see Paul Krugman in NY Times 7/12/10) believe we are already on the cusp of such a phenomenon.) But spending more when you are broke or deep in debt is counter intuitive to the public. So Republicans (and some Democrats), who were quite understanding when Ronald Reagan and GW Bush were pumping the red ink, are now suddenly ‘very concerned’ and are rallying the public against the ‘exploding deficit.’
If all goes as predicted, there will be a wholesale flushing out of Democrats come November and Obama’s program(s) such that it is(are) will come to a screeching halt. All the non-ideas and failed ideas of the Republicans will the get another chance for consideration – such as further deregulation (more oil spills, salmonella outbreaks and mine cave-ins,) lower taxes for the rich (more irresponsible speculation) wholesale cuts in entitlements (retirement at 70?), further denial of climate change (unequivocally passing the point of no return), revocation of the New Deal (privatization of of Social Security) and so on.
Maybe things have to get really bad before they can get better. Or maybe we will just have to endure and console ourselves that we had a nice a run while it lasted….
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
from The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
Barack Obama is now enduring a veritable blitzkrieg of criticism from all directions. The public is sore as hell whether or not they identify with any ‘left’ or ‘right’. And everyone is predicting the Democrats are going to eat it in November. By being politically a ‘centrist’ Obama has gotten himself in one king’s hell of a bind. To the average American he is a certified ‘liberal.’ But Obama is liberal only in a relative sense. He is only liberal in this crazed post-Reagan era in which the entire political spectrum has shifted mightily rightward. It’s a world in which a Ralph Nader, once known as a respected and effective moderate reformer and consumer advocate, now sounds seems like a Bolshevik. And the health care reform plan once proposed by Richard Nixon, so hated by the anyone left of Ginghas Khan, was far better than the one Obama so exhaustively achieved. Also remember it was the Republican Nixon administration that established the now reviled by the right Environmental Protection Agency. It is a time when reasonable social policies once supported by bipartisan majorities are now considered anathema. Even unemployment insurance extension, with national unemployment hovering over 9% and way over that in some states, is now being held hostage by Repubs. It is a time when many want to revoke the entirety of FDR’s legacy.
The Obama administration by being centrist has no friends. The left wing of the Democratic party or “progressives” (and which seems to includes most Demos I encounter) have either lost faith entirely or are profoundly disappointed in Obama. Many believe that Obama, with a Democratic Party majority in both houses of Congress and a resounding mandate from the people for change, has blown his opportunity. Time after time when he should have come on strong and rallied his supporters behind a definitive game-changing program, he has backed off and equivocated so as to avoid being accused of not being sufficiently ‘bi-partisan.’ Instead he kissed up to said Repubs (who righteously ignored all such untoward overtures.) The net result is that every initiative has been a watered-down disappointment - from rescueing a totally broken banking system, to stabilizing an economy in absolute freefall, to engineering reform of our greed-bound health care system. Each and ever effort has been weaker and less effective than it could have been. Is it Obama's reluctance or was it the complex, institutional nature of each crisis? We will have to let history judge. And of course what Obama has done that has worked (the economy is no longer in freefall and the health care system isn’t quite heartless) is quickly ignored in a blizzard of “what have you done for me lately’s”
The Republicans party, knowing in their hearts that Obama’s modest and tepid initiatives were necessary if the Great Recession was not to become the Second Great Depression (which may still happen), nevertheless, are attacking him full force. And refusing to participate in the legislation process pretending he is some left-wing ogre from hell. Their plan is no plan. They openly admit they only want only one thing: his political demise. And it is to be achieved through perpetual obstuctionism. Their intention is to undermine the administration’s credibility with the beleaguered and demoralized public at every turn. And they have been very effective. Their simple objective is to regain power at any cost. But as criminally irresponsible and corrupt as the Republicans are even more so than the Democrats, they are fully owned paid reps of their corporate overlords. Yet they seem sane and reasonable compared to the raging ill-informed tea-bagger stooges, ditto-heads, and useful fools of the new ‘far right.’
In any case Obama can’t catch a break. To make matters worse the centrists in the electorate, the so-called ‘independents’, don’t align politically with Obama’s actual centrist position. These so-called independents, who swing elections and whose vote the Democrats periodically pander to each election for are really not politically center at all, they are mostly proto-right wingers. And as such they are fleeing Obama like rats off the proverbial sinking ship. Many or most of these so-called independent voters are fickle, apolitical shallow thinkers who are often swayed more by personality and style than actual proposed policies. By not committing to being ‘left’ or ‘right, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, they are political AC/DC’s and totally unreliable. Often they are easily bamboozled by well-crafted propaganda (‘Swiftboated’) and Internet blogger bullshit. In fact it’s these so-called “independent voters" that requires ever more grotesquely expensive advertising media campaigns (read political propaganda) by candidates.
The real centrists appear mainly as the chattering classes - the windbag pundits (such as NY Times’ David Brooks) and the professional journalists and media talking heads. They are often accused of being part of some shadowing Liberal Media Establishment conspiracy but basically they are simply well paid media personalities, celebrities basically. They simply are out to further their own careers - ideally by provocation and sensation. But paradoxically the net effect is to actually anchor things at or near the center even as they often disdain from defending Centrist Obama. And this is fine with their corporate overlords as a strong center or center-right maintains the status quo. Essentially Barack Obama has few friends in the media.
In most democracies it’s always two against one. When the left is in (not in the US so much since we have no left or even center-left political parties), the center and the right gang up on the left. They do this by carping at and discrediting the left's policies and by exaggerating and missteps or mistakes and downplaying or ignoring any successes, always waiting for the next election. And when the right is in, the center and left must work to oppose the right’s usually upper class-biased, often reactionary and demagogic programs.
And so it follows when the center is in, like the for instance the Obama administration, the right and left, attack from both flanks. Being outflanked Obama has nowhere to turn. I watched key Obama adviser, David Axelrod, field hostile questions from CNN’s Candy Kurlick (she looks like she eats too much candy.) She alternately attacked him from both directions – pro ‘progressive’ and pro ‘teabagger’. Of course Obama, as most Democrats do at election time, pretended to be more of a left/progressive than he would (or could be) in office. And the right, always ‘working the refs’ exaggerate their disdain and alarm at his so-called ‘socialist policies.’ Barack Obama might be a lot of things but he is certainly no way a socialist. If anything he is the polar opposite. He did his undergraduate work at University of Chicago, the citadel of neo lazzie faire capitalist theory, the home of Milton Friedman, the godfather of neoliberalism. In fact his economic brain trust and key appointments are either Bush holdovers – Republican Ben Bernake as head of the Federal Reserve or Wall Street friendly, such as Tim Geithner as Sec. of Treasury who is a protégé of Goldman Sachs alumni and arch neoliberal Robert Rubin, and Laurence Summers as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, who performed the same service for the Reagan administration, where this all started.
The underlying problem is that with this current global economic crash we are in uncharted territory. Which is the true boogieman? Is it Weimar Republic/Zimbabwe level of hyper- inflation? Or is it a full-on 1930’s type Second Great Depression with paralyzing levels of deflation. Even Obama’s conservative economic advisers are worried more about a deflationary double dip in a possibly economic recovery than runaway inflation. A faction no doubt is arguing for a second stimulus package as politically difficult as that may be. But conventional wisdom and intuitive inclination especially outside of the administration and economic academia is more concerned about the ever-growing monstrous US budget deficit - $13.2 trillion and counting. How can we borrow so much without triggering runaway inflation? Where is that money coming from? Who will pay it back? When will the cost of borrowing suddenly go through the roof? Already the interest alone is billions a day. And any stimulus package will kick it up even more. Yet without another stimulus to jolt the faltering recovery we may sink into a dreaded double dip. People that are still working are worried about a sudden loss in value of their money; people that are out of work are worried having suddenly having no money as their unemployment insurance runs out. And yet projections show even a greater rate of growth in the deficit as more people retire and go on Social Security and Medicare. All of this is being milked by the suddenly ‘fiscally responsible’ right. They want more than anything for Obama to fail even if many suffer in the process.
Keynesians, economists who adhere to John Maynard Keynes’ theories, which were credited with saving capitalism from the last great depression, argue that only by getting the economy growing again will the upturn be created. As economic activity increases there will be less payout of entitlements and more tax revenues. Furthermore, Keynesians worry about serious deflation setting in, something has not happened since the Great Depression. Deflation on the face of it sounds good - a lowering of prices, things get cheaper. But it is actually devastating in an aggregate sense since it re-enforces the downturn turn in business activity, since as prices falls consumption is postponed and weakened.. Some economists (see Paul Krugman in NY Times 7/12/10) believe we are already on the cusp of such a phenomenon.) But spending more when you are broke or deep in debt is counter intuitive to the public. So Republicans (and some Democrats), who were quite understanding when Ronald Reagan and GW Bush were pumping the red ink, are now suddenly ‘very concerned’ and are rallying the public against the ‘exploding deficit.’
If all goes as predicted, there will be a wholesale flushing out of Democrats come November and Obama’s program(s) such that it is(are) will come to a screeching halt. All the non-ideas and failed ideas of the Republicans will the get another chance for consideration – such as further deregulation (more oil spills, salmonella outbreaks and mine cave-ins,) lower taxes for the rich (more irresponsible speculation) wholesale cuts in entitlements (retirement at 70?), further denial of climate change (unequivocally passing the point of no return), revocation of the New Deal (privatization of of Social Security) and so on.
Maybe things have to get really bad before they can get better. Or maybe we will just have to endure and console ourselves that we had a nice a run while it lasted….
