State of the Union (Part Six)

And now we get to even more bad news for the left.

All told, finance, insurance, real estate, automobiles, energy, and health care account for about one-third of the U.S. economy. Reconfiguring these industries to conform to political calculations, and not market-driven decisions, is likely to transform American economic life. And the fiscal consequences of the spending involved will be enormous. The federal budget deficit for 2009 was about 11% of gross domestic product, which is far higher than any the United States has experienced since World War II.

Transform it, indeed. Obama's stimulus package has had an enormous impact on all of the sectors mentioned above. In fact, only about 5 percent of the federal stimulus funds went to things like roads and bridges. The rest went into the banking industry, the automotive industry, schools, food stamps and health care. One could argue that much of this funding was needed in anticipation of possible economic collapse. But this sort of spending carries with it great risks.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that existing laws will now lock in a structural budget deficit of more than 3% of GDP every year for the foreseeable future. And this assumes we will escape the current global economic situation without further financial catastrophe (and that America won't be forced into a war or other unanticipated major contingency over the next several decades). The CBO states flatly that this long-term budget path is "unsustainable."

The basic character of America's financial position is changing before our eyes. One year ago, federal government debt held by the public was 41% of GDP. Today, it is about 54% of GDP. The CBO projects that it will approach 70% of GDP by 2020, which is a level not seen since the immediate aftermath of World War II.

Clearly, not good. So what are our options?

According to Manzi, there are three: raise taxes, default on debt, or devalue our currency. I highly doubt the last two are going to happen so, more than likely, it's going to be raise taxes. Manzi talks of a value added tax but an easy fix would be to raise the top tax rate. Of course, this will never happen because raising taxes in this country is akin to going on a shooting spree at an elementary school.

An option that Manzi doesn't mention is cut spending. Does anyone out there think that is going to happen considering our government? But let's suppose it did. Where would we cut spending?

We begin to see a fairly apparent direction.

The end result would be an America much closer to the European model of a social-welfare state, which prioritizes cohesion over innovation. Of course, the European model is not an inherently terrible way to organize human society. It is, however, a model very poorly suited to America's current strategic situation, and would leave us in a far worse position to deal with the challenge of balancing innovation and ­cohesion. We do not have the luxury of drowning our sorrows in borrowed money while watching our power and influence wane.

He's right. We can't move towards a European model of socio and political economics. It won't work here and it will leave us vulnerable to our enemies in a plethora of ways.

Before I get to Manzi's solution, does anyone have any idea at all how to achieve the balance between innovation and social cohesion? Obviously, I have a few ideas of my own but would like to hear from you first.

State of the Union (20 Second Time Out)

Before we continue with the Manzi article, I just had to put this up. This is courtesy of TH from a discussion on another site.

In a political arena business power is used to influence politicians, primarily with the goal of to creating barriers to competition or even eliminating competition in markets. This has the effect of retarding many of the benefits of having a free market system. For a competitive free market to flourish what is needed is a government that is powerful enough to resist the pressure of business power so that it can be the voice of the people.

What has really been hurting the US economy for a long time is that businesses have found it more profitable to use their influence over politicians to create regulation and conditions favorable to their interests than to innovate and to compete. The lack of competitive forces at work in health care (really, health care insurance) is one of the more egregious examples of this.

With the recent reversal of Federal campaign finance laws we can only expect to see more of this sort of thing.

A perfect summation of what I have been saying for quite awhile.

State of the Union-Time Out

I would be remiss in my political commentary if I did not address the election last night in Massachusetts. First of all, the Dems have only themselves to blame for two reasons. One, they ran a lack luster campaign there thinking it would be an easy win. And two, they dicked around with election law so much that it came back to bite them in the ass.

I find it tremendously sad that Ted Kennedy, a champion of health care reform, lost his seat to someone who vows to torpedo it. It's crushing, no doubt.

The GOP have confirmed exactly what they are all about...destruction. They want Obama to fail and they really don't give a shit what harm it does to our country. Without significant reform, we are going to be in big financial trouble. It amazes me that even if conservatives are adversely affected by this, they will never admit how wrong they are.

Compare how the Dems conceded to Bush on so many issues (Iraq War, education) to what the GOP is doing with Obama. They'll never give an inch. They are, after all, The Wrecking Crew...bent on the destruction of the other side. They don't care...even it means our country going down the fucking tubes. The Dems don't get this and are still running campaigns in a very warm milk and damp toast sort of way.

People ask me all the time...how does the minority party have any say in anything? Well, three quarters of the people in this country voted for change. Two thirds wanted universal health care. Cue the hate, anger and fear machine and now we are down to 50 percent on both.

Mission Accomplished.

State of the Union (Part Five)

Well, we have had full illustrations of how wrong I have been about many things regarding our country. Now we get to the part the confirms what I have been saying on here for awhile.

As Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke noted in a 2007 speech, "the share of income received by households in the top fifth of the income distribution, after taxes have been paid and government transfers have been received, rose from 42% in 1979 to 50% in 2004, while the share of income received by those in the bottom fifth of the distribution declined from 7% to 5%. The share of after-tax income garnered by the households in the top 1% of the income distribution increased from 8% in 1979 to 14% in 2004."

No one can look at this and say it bodes well for social cohesion. In fact, I'm not even sure it bodes well for innovation. Consider this.

A typical senior partner in a high-end ­investment-banking, corporate-law, or ­management-consulting firm can now expect to make upwards of $1 million per year. In the stratosphere of the economy, the increases in wealth have been mind-­boggling: Even after the recent market meltdowns, there are about 30 times as many American billionaires today as there were in 1982.

So, what then, is the intrinsic motivation for these billionaires? Why do they need to work? I get the argument that people in the welfare state are less motivated to work. Why should they when they have everything paid for by the government?

But why should the wealth elite work to innovate and keep our country competitive in the global marketplace when they have everything paid for by their wealth? Time and again, I hear how lazy people are and how if you take care of them, they will do NOTHING. Isn't that exactly what is happening right now? I submit that slovenliness knows no economic bracket.

Rising inequality would have been easier to swallow had it been merely a statistical artifact of rapid growth in prosperity that substantially benefited the middle class and maintained social mobility. But this was not the case. Over the same period in which inequality has grown, wages have been stagnating for large swaths of the middle class, and income mobility has been declining.

And all of this feeds into the growing deterioration of our culture in general. This is why I have been stating for awhile that "there is no middle class." There isn't! It's some wealthy people and the rest of us who live paycheck to paycheck...worrying constantly about unpaid leave, sick days, and the rising cost of health care.

The divisive effects of this cluster of trends — ­rising income inequality and reduced income mobility, some degree of ­middle-class wage stagnation, increased personal debt, and increased class stratification of stable social behavior — are only intensified by climbing rates of assortative mating and residential segregation, as well as an increasingly crude and corrosive popular culture combined with the technology-driven fragmentation of mass media.

The last bit says it all. We are a culture that has shifted dramatically from intrinsic motivation to extrinsic motivation. This motivation...this desire...knows no economic bracket as well. Someone who makes 15K a year has a cel phone and the latest ipod. So does someone who makes 1 million dollars a year. It's all the same mindset. We want the latest gadget and then in a year we want the next one. In fact, we are encouraged to throw the old one out because it's "sucky and not cool."

Until we begin to do things for the joy of doing them (intrinsic value), we will continue to decline.

So, is there any hope. Well, according to Manzi....no and then yes...which we will see next.

State of the Union (Part Four)

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

--Dr. Martin Luther King.

If the pain of innovation calls for some mitigation of its effects, but the demands of global competition require that we not unduly stifle ­innovation, clearly some balance must be found. The task of striking such equilibrium, however, is made far more difficult by the internal deterioration of our society — which harms both our ability to compete and our capacity for social cohesion.
--Jim Manzi, Keeping America's Edge.

How appropriate to think of what Dr. King said in terms of our current discussion regarding the state of our union. I have to tell you I would have loved to hear his solution to trying to find a balance between innovation and social cohesion. This is the crux of the problem. Can we have both? As we continue to examine Manzi's article, the answer becomes more elusive.

Of the many social and cultural changes that have rocked American society over the past half-century, the most relevant to the state of our political economy today may be the growing bifurcation of America. Increasingly, our country is segregated into high-income groups with a tendency to bourgeois norms, and low-income groups experiencing profound social breakdown.

Bifurcation, indeed, and not just the social breakdown of the lower class. We are a house divided in so many ways. We have a ruling, wealthy elite and everyone else. Our country has become a plutonomy....an oligarchy...in which the majority of the wealth is controlled by a small number of people. For unequivocal proof of this, please refer to this document and this one put out by Citigroup in 2005.

In addition to this, we have political division that has become...well...a gigantic pile of shit. I'll be the first to admit that I have been a contributer to that pile. Vitriol, acrimony, and anger have always been popular in various sporting events. Football and boxing come to mind as two examples of this. Now, these three things drive our political environment. In fact, they make money off of it. Fox News, for example, makes a ton of money from raising the hate, so to speak, and essentially being the political porn version of Jenna Jameson...getting the rocks off of conservatives everywhere...telling them exactly what they want to hear.

As a reaction to this, MSNBC has added liberal commentators over the last few years who, in addition to failing to tell the whole story in an unbiased way, add further to the hate and fear pile by simply reacting to what Rush Limbaugh says on a daily basis and give him a wider audience. I have done this many times myself.

All of this is showcased under the banner of "The Battle for America's Soul."

This breakdown did not happen overnight. Longstanding academic and avant garde attacks on traditional social norms exploded into a political and popular movement identified with the left in the 1960s. In the '70s, American attitudes and behavior began to change on a mass scale. This cultural shift naturally stimulated a response in defense of tradition from the right.

One thing I do agree with in terms of where many on the right stand is a decided lack of spirituality in our country. I wonder what might have happened if Dr. King had lived. Would today's liberals and conservatives be different? I think so. Would there be as much of a divide? I think not. Of course that is why he was killed.

How ironic, then, that each party has decided to tell us what to do with our lives. The Democrats have decided that government should be the entity to control social cohesion which basically means that they get to tell us what to do with our money. The Republicans also think that government should be the entity to control social cohesion. In their case, however, it's in the name of Manzi's "defense of tradition" (gay marriage, abortion etc.) Both parties desire cohesion yet both are failing miserably in achieving due to their incredibly thick ideological blinders.

Post-war America had much more widely shared bourgeois norms, and so was better able to contend with the negative side effects of the welfare state. Today's American underclass, however, is increasingly developing in the absence of such norms — to a large degree as the result of the welfare state itself. Meanwhile, the need for innovation and the pressures of a global economy only continue to reinforce the causes of our social bifurcation.

Imagine if we lived in a country where everyone--and I mean everyone--was actually generous with their money. There would be no need for this debate. In fact, the conservative dream would be realized as there would be no more need for social programs. The liberal dream would also be realized as social inequality would be greatly diminished.

Of course, being generous isn't enough. Accepting and using that money wisely is the other part of the bargain. Many Americans would fail at this and, as Manzi describes, have regressed from social norms. In fact, there's no doubt in my mind that many affluent people have probably given in the past only to be burned by pathetic loser after ignorant asshat. I have seen this personally many, many times.

And, sadly, we seem no closer to an answer on the balance of innovation and social cohesion.

State of the Union (Part Three)

Innovation is in danger of being squashed in this country. This is happening for several reasons. The first is that the Democratic Party has decided that social cohesion is more important than remaining competitive in the global economic order.

Another big reason is that the innovation that we have had (and something I have talked about quite a bit here) is made up of nothing. The CDO, the hedge fund, and the complex stock derivative have replaced actually investing in actual goods. Part of the reason for this is that our country is not really a manufacturer of goods any longer. Just as we changed from an agricultural society to an industrial one, now we are shifting from an industrial one to a global-technological-served based one.

Yet another reason is that change is just fucking difficult for cultures. Manzi describes the historical effects of this quite well. He concludes his discussion of societal transformation with these two paragraphs.

One obvious response is to use the political process to both slow down the rate of innovation to an acceptable pace and redistribute the country's economic output in a manner designed to maintain social ­harmony. That way, the pain of innovation is avoided and the pain of stagnation is mitigated — especially for the middle and lower classes, who are most vulnerable to the effects of both. This is the logic of the welfare state, and the direction pursued by much of Western Europe since the Second World War.

The problem, however, is that the United States does not exist in a vacuum, and making our internal economic changes less stressful is far from our only concern. We also face external challenges, especially rising competition from abroad. And our position in the global order means we cannot afford to go easy on ourselves and constrict ­innovation. Quite the opposite: We need rapid growth just to keep up.

Indeed. Witness the effect of what happens when you use the government to slow down the rate of innovation.

From 1980 through today, America's share of global output has been constant at about 21%. Europe's share, meanwhile, has been collapsing in the face of global competition — going from a little less than 40% of global production in the 1970s to about 25% today. Opting for social democracy instead of innovative capitalism, Europe has ceded this share to China (predominantly), India, and the rest of the developing world. The economic rise of the Asian heartland is the central geopolitical fact of our era, and it is safe to assume that economic and strategic competition will only increase further over the next several decades.

Wow. That's a 15 percent drop in global output. To be honest, we can't afford to lose 5 percent. The way our economy stands right now and given how much we owe China, our country could end up in economic ruin.

The one question I have for anyone reading is this: how did China, with its restrictive government, end up beating Europe? I have a few ideas but need some rounding out. Juris?

And now the death of Markadelphia's dream:(

It is common to think of the post-war global economy as a baseline of normalcy to which we wish to return. But it seems more accurate to see that era as an anomaly: the apogee of relative global economic dominance by the West, and by the United States within the Western coalition. The hard truth is that the economic world of 1955 is gone, and even if we wanted it back — short of emerging from another global war unscathed with the rest of the world a smoking heap of rubble — we could not have it.

Yet the strategy of giving up and opting out of this international economic competition in order to focus on quality of life is simply not feasible for the United States. Europeans can get away with it only because they benefit from the external military protection America provides; we, however, have no similar guardian to turn to. We do not live in a Kantian world of perpetual commercial peace. Were America to retreat from global competition, sooner or later those who oppose our values would become strong enough to take away our wealth and freedom.

To put it simply, the world has changed and no one has our backs. That is why I applauded President Obama's acceptance speech in Oslo. America, more than any other country in the world, has to protect the economic freedom of the world. Because the world is filled with a bunch of greedy scumbags (Chavez, Jong-il, Ahmadinejad), our armed forces are the ones that are going to insure this stability and peace.

Unfortunately, our country has currently become "A House Divided" which will be the topic of the next post.

State of the Union (Part Two)

Continuing with my analysis of Ken Manzi's Keeping America's Edge article in National Affairs, we see why America is having so much difficulty reconciling the quandary of deregulation and social cohesion.

Reconciling these competing forces is America's great challenge in the decades ahead, but will be made far more difficult by the growing bifurcation of American society. Of course, this is not a new dilemma: It has actually undergirded most of the key political-economy debates of the past 30 years. But a dysfunctional political dynamic has prevented the nation from addressing it well, and has instead given us the worst of both worlds: a ballooning welfare state that threatens future growth, along with growing socioeconomic disparities.

A dysfunctional political dynamic. I'll be the first to admit that I'm part of the problem. Granted, this is a small blog with very little readership. Nonetheless, I do add to the stink of politics and this article has made me seriously question what I am doing. Part of me wants to blow off steam when I hear people like Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson denigrate the people of Haiti after tens of thousands have died. Another part of me ignores them, writes a check to Doctors Without Borders. Still another is nauseated at the thought of the millions in this country who accept Limbaugh's word as gold. Any choice I make contributes to this dysfunction that Manzi has identified.

Certainly, we have the worst of both worlds. Basically, Manzi is saying that both sides lack true perception and their principles are grounded into continuing the failure.

Conservatives have correctly viewed the policy agenda of the left as an attempt to undo the economic reforms of the 1980s. They have ­therefore, as a rhetorical and political strategy, downplayed the problems of cohesion — problems like inequality, wage stagnation, worker displacement, and disparities in educational performance — to emphasize the importance of innovation and growth.

In one paragraph, Manzi sums up what I have been saying on this blog for years. Brilliant.

Liberals, meanwhile, have correctly identified the problem of cohesion, but have generally proposed antediluvian solutions and downplayed the necessity of innovation in a competitive world. They have noted that America's economy in the immediate wake of World War II was in many ways simultaneously more regulated, more successful, and more equitable than today's economy, but mistakenly assume that by restoring greater regulation we could re-create both the equity and prosperity of that era.

And here's where things get really interesting. I have espoused this on my blog as well. As we get to later portions of this document, we will see exactly how I short sighted I have been with this belief and how I was wrong.

The conservative view fails to acknowledge the social costs of unrestrained economic innovation — costs that have made themselves ­powerfully apparent in American politics throughout our history. The liberal view, meanwhile, betrays a misunderstanding of the global economic environment.

This last sentence is the bird's eye view of my lack of vision. We can't return to that "Golden Age of Capitalism." It's gone. Forever. The world has changed and I, like my colleagues on the right, have not caught up with the times. Ironically and quite hypocritically, I have accused them of believing the earth is "flat." And yet I have been thinking in just the same way.

Tomorrow we will pinpoint exactly why this happened.

State of the Union (Part One)

Most of you know that I get a lot of comments and emails about this blog. We're up to around 150-200 regular readers now and, boy oh boy, do every single one of them want to give yours truly a piece of their mind.

I've gotten some interesting ones over the years but the ones that I look forward to the most are the ones that illuminate and challenge my thoughts. Out of these and once in a great while, I get a game changer.

When President Obama makes his state of the union address in a few short weeks, I hope he takes Jim Manzi's Keeping American's Edge in mind. In fact, I hope he studies it thoroughly and puts Manzi on his staff. This link was direct to me by juris imprudent, a regular poster here and on Kevin Baker's blog, The Smallest Minority. I want to start off by thanking juris for pointing me in Manzi's direction. I not only found it interesting, as juris did, but thought it to the most significant summation of the United States in the 21st Century I have seen thus far. It has changed the way I view our country. Better still it has organized several ideas in my head in such an order that my principle goal in nearly everything in life has been achieved-greater width of vision.

I am going to spend the next several days discussing this article. I may come back to it periodically over the next few weeks. Go and read it. And then read it again. It's that fucking good.

Let's begin with what Manzi (and I) think should be our chief goal.

Beyond our short-term worries, and behind many of today's political debates, lurks the deeper challenge of coming to terms with America's place in the global economic order.

This is at the crux of everything we argue about in this country. First of all, there are many people who don't want us to become part of any global economic order. Those people, simply put, are not living in reality. The world has shrunk to the point of where any talk of isolationism is ludicrous. The real challenge is to pinpoint where we fit and how can better succeed in that role while maintaining and propagating our core value of freedom.

Now, the problem.

Our strategic situation is shaped by three inescapable realities. First is the inherent conflict between the creative destruction involved in free-market capitalism and the innate human propensity to avoid risk and change. Second is ever-increasing international competition. And third is the growing disparity in behavioral norms and social conditions between the upper and lower income strata of American society.

It doesn't get any starker than that. So the question becomes, as Manzi puts it, how do we "balance economic dynamism and growth against the unity and stability of our society?" In all honesty, I think we've done a poor job at it. We have not figured out a way to balance the stewardship of government with the freedom that the market place provides. Because of this inability to find this balance, we have suffered on both and international and national level.

Indeed, as Manzi continues...

After all, we must have continuous, rapid technological and business-model innovation to grow our economy fast enough to avoid losing power to those who do not share America's values — and this innovation requires increasingly deregulated markets and fewer restrictions on behavior. But such deregulation would cause significant displacement and disruption that could seriously undermine America's social cohesion — which is not only essential to a decent and just society, but also to producing the kind of skilled and responsible citizens that free markets ultimately require.

Who are we losing power to right now? China. As I have stated previously, China is all in with green technology. Right now, we are mostly even with them. If we continue to let the climate change issue become more polarized, we stand to lose an enormous amount of economic standing in the international marketplace. As Manzi has noted, we will cede power to those who do not share our values.

And Manzi is correct in stating that deregulation and fewer restriction on behavior is what is needed for true innovation. The monkey in the wrench, though, is that this type of deregulation leaves behind a large portion of our population. Without the government there to police "just" hiring practices and progressive taxation distribution, the private sector will descend into amorality and we will lose social cohesion. We have started to see signs of this already.

Why has this problem arouse and become so difficult to reconcile? I'll be looking at that tomorrow.

Grab Bag

It's only 11 days into the New Year and I'm already scratching my head...wondering what the FUCK is the matter with people? So, whenever I get into that mindset, the first thing I think of is......Grab Bag!

At this particular point in time, my ruminations are centered around the sadly obvious: our nation is filled with lazy, drunk children whose only desire in life is to have an infinite vacation in their fucking Snuggies.

Take, for example, a Facebook friend of mine who recently put up a Photo album entitled "Jammy Pub Crawl." Yes, that's right, folks. A group of adults couldn't be bothered to put on FUCKING CLOTHES to go out in public so they wore their pajamas as they went from bar to bar.

Really?

Setting aside the fact that most of the people on the Jammy Pub Crawl were probably more comfortable in pajamas (see: Time To Seriously Consider Salads), I was positively awestruck at this new low. Of course, when I related this story to Zombie Girl on the phone yesterday, I discovered the bottom was much deeper and possibly never ending: A Snuggy Pub Crawl.

So this is what our country has come to...a nation of man-childs and woman-childs who have to wear their blankies out in public so they can feel all snuggly-wuggly when they wet their diapers and poop themselves. Good Lord....

Linked closely to this is the concept of Sunday Funday...two words I have heard quite frequently in the last two years. For those of you who don't know, Sunday Funday is a child like happy fun time way of saying, "I want to drink all day on Sunday and feel better about myself because this way it sounds cuter." And we all know that kids are cute!

Certainly, I have been known to get a good day time drunk going...if there is a game on or if I am at a music festival. And it's always fun to get drunk at any time of the day and fuck the crap out of a loved one. But dressing it up in a tickle me fucking Elmo metaphor is pathetic. Just say what it is and be proud of it: you're an alcoholic.

Why is our culture so bent on remaining in diapers? When I came up to Mpls to go to school, I wanted to be an adult. I may have not been emotionally ready but I did try to be. I went to bars, macked chicks, saw bands, and got involved in adult like endeavors (art openings, poetry readings, learning a trade and/or skill). Today, teenagers seem to want to go in the opposite direction. One of my fellow tennis instructors is in his sophomore year at college. He put up a picture of himself and his fellow dorm mates ( some girls as well) Building a Fort. They proceeded to play "Harry Potter" and pretend the fort was Hogwart's.

Huh?

When I had a group of guys and girls in my dorm room, it was a party. We'd drink. Maybe smoke a little. Make out...fuck...talk about life, the universe and everything. And what do the youth of America do today? Pretend to be a boy wizard fighting an evil, dark man. Oooooo....sounds all scawy and stwuff!

Seriously, though, getting drunk in your diapers on a Sunday and playing Harry Potter is tough work. And what better way to unwind than the Eternal Holiday Season. I've had four people in the last two days tell me that they are going to Christmas parties in the next few weeks. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Christmas officially end at 12:00 AM on December 26th? I'm a fair guy, though so maybe the holiday season can run through New Year's but after that it's fucking over and time to get on with your life. If you want to have a party in January, have an MLK party and talk about what Dr. King means to this country. Don't worry. You can still drink and take pride in the fact that his dream has been realized in so many ways:)

This is easier said than done, though, especially when Christmas starts on November 1st. In fact, when you think about it, there's always some fucking holiday to be celebrated every month. In January, there's the New Year. In February, it's President's Day-go buy a new mattress. In March, it's St Paddy's Day and Spring Break (two Wooo Girl holidays). In April, it's Easter. In May, it's Mother's Day and Memorial Day. In June, Father's Day. In July, the 4th. In August, it's National Golf Month. In September, it's Labor Day. In October, Halloween. In November, Thanksgiving. And in December, it's Christmas. And these are just the main ones.

Pick any month and, honestly, every day is fucking holiday in this country. Couldn't we have just one day that's nothing? Where no one does anything out of the ordinary and doesn't make a fuss? No. We can't. And I'll tell you why we can't. It's because of the children. For you see, dear readers, for every holiday, there has to be a Holiday Pageant. Remember when you were a kid and your church would have a Christmas show? The choir would sound beautiful singing carols, some kids would sing...a little off key perhaps but it was cute...and a re-enactment of the birth of Jesus Christ would be performed.

That world is gone.

I sadly realized this as I was watching our church's pageant this year. Mediocrity to piss poor was the order of the evening. To begin with, the adult choir was fucking awful. Just terrible. All the men were off key and the women sounded shrill and massively fucking irritating. Did they even practice? Some of the kids were OK but the soloist (a boy) was so bad I think the only note he hit correctly was a J flat. And people clapped when he was done. What?!? Worse still, there was no re-enactment of Christ's birth but a modern story about a kid giving up his new robot to a poor kid. While I applaud the spirit of giving, we're in church, folks. It's Christmas. Let's hear the story of Christ's birth and talk about how much he gave leading up to Easter.

Of course, everyone cheered and said the show was great. NO, IT FUCKING WASN'T!!! It totally gargled my balls and sucked my ass. And that's being kind. I looked around and wondered if I was the only one who was physically nauseous. Sure as shit, I was.

Everyone had this doughy, vacant look on their face...like they were barely there mentally. In many ways, the audience at church reminded me of a collection of oafish baboons...fascinated only by the bright shiny lights of the church...not caring how bloody awful virtually all of the performers were that night.

The only emotion I saw on their faces was slight discomfort and a yearning to be home...wrapped up in their Snuggies...eating...drinking in their comfy chairs....leaving their cocoon only for a Sunday Funday pub crawl in which they can do and wear the exact same thing they do at home.

Pissing and shitting themselves and their lives away in solid gold slovenliness...

The Playbook

Getting back to Iran, a recent article in the Times was quite illustrative on the current uprising. Apparently, a retired professor from Harvard, Gene Sharp, has written a manual on how to conduct successful and peaceful uprisings. His resume is quite impressive...from Burma to Belgrade...and has 198 points on how to move a country from dictatorship to democracy.

Obviously, each country is different and the folks in Iran that are currently trying to get rid of their resident psychotics in power do have their hands full. But the article did show a few things that they did borrow from Sharp which I found interesting.

Here are some of the tactics that are being used in Iran that are detailed in Sharp's pamphlet.

7. Slogans

18. Symbolic colors (green)

26. Paint as protest

28. Symbolic sounds

38. Marches

52. Silence

71. Consumer boycott
(Nokia, Siemens)

135. Popular nonobedience

194. Disclosing identities of
secret agents

I recommend reading the whole document which can be found here.

Oh Boy...

"They simply have two goals in mind, and if the first one fails, fall back to the second one," Greer explained. "And the first one is remove me as chairman, and if that doesn't work, burn the house down and destroy the Republican Party of Florida."

---soon to be the former Chairman of the Republican Party in Florida, Jim Greer (a moderate, of course).

Hmm. Sounds to me like ol' Jimmie might be a tad prophetic on the year to come. Could it possibly mean that the GOP will have so much infighting and shrink their party so much that the likelihood of any potential gains will be erased this year?

Well, that worked out well.

Take a look at this article from today's New York Times.

Are you fucking kidding me!?!?

A while back, I compared the conservative base of this country to Al Qaeda and one of the examples I used was their common views on homosexuality. I was taken to the mat because, apparently, we're nicer to our gays here. Sure, we don't kill them or beat the crap out of them like they do in many Middle Eastern and African countries. We just treat them like second class citizens, curb their civil rights, and treat them like lepers. So, I guess they should go kiss some evangelical ass and be thankful that they aren't being lynched.

But that really isn't true any more after this now is it? What the hell were these idiots thinking? They go in to a country that already has serious issues with homosexuality, talk about its "dark" agenda, and then have the audacity to be all "I'm shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED, that there is going to be gays killed as a result of our visit." What a collection of assholes.

Mr. Lively, Mr. Brundidge, Mr. Schmierer...can't the three of you just stay in our country and treat our fags like shit? I know it really sucks that you can't beat them or hang them here but, sadly, life is tough. Do you really have to go and be all international and shit about your bigotry, hatred, fear, and loathing?

Because if anyone dies as a result of your visit, as far as I'm concerned, all three of you will be international criminals (see: conspiracy to commit murder)...which means you will be just like Al Qaeda.

Really like them.

Happy New Year!

U2, New Year's Day Video, 1983.

I wonder what the new year will bring for Notes From the Front....

BEST OF 2009

Once again, another great year for films, television, and music. We might be in a craptacular economy but the entertainment industry is still churning out irresistible stuff. Here are my picks for 2009.

BEST FILM

Not even a contest this year. Most of you who know me know that, really...I have been a total geek all my life. To say that I was excited for its May release was, without a doubt, the understatement of the millennium. I was a little concerned when I saw the trailer and wondered if JJ Abrams was going to go the "Dawson's Creek" eye candy route but all of that was washed away in the first three minutes of the film.

Star Trek was fucking spectacular.

I have been a Trek devotee since I was a child. I was happy to hear that Abrams was taking the mantle away from Rick Berman (barf) who had run the franchise into the ground. I knew there would be plenty of action and great special effects but had no idea the plot would be so compelling. I don't want to give too much away but the way they rebooted the series was tragically brilliant. All of the actors were top notch and it was so fucking enjoyable that I have seen it three times and it hasn't lost it's magic.

It is now out on DVD. Go buy it.

BEST TELEVISION SHOW

Perhaps it was because everyone I know panned it and said it got all "science fictiony" but I loved Season 5 of Lost. I admit I am a sucker for time travel but it was so much more than that. Rousing action, red hot blast of a thousand suns romance, compelling (and always head scratching) writing and a massive WTF ending made it my favorite season and the best TV show of the year.

How in the heck are they going to end the series in 2010? I can't wait.

Buy Season 5 of the DVD here.



BEST ALBUM

It was a long four years since Doves released Some Cities. I think about what my life was like back when that came out...how wonderful it was in 2005....and then how equally amazing it is now in 2009 when they released Kingdom of Rust. It always blows me away that a band like Doves, whose music has terrifically depressing overtones, can manage to cheer me up. Perhaps it's because every time I listen to them I think about my friends George and Annette and how much I love them. Perhaps, too, it's because every track is mega.

From the opening chords of "Jetstream" (written as an alternative soundtrack to Blade Runner!) to the closing track "Lifelines" the album is a tome to why music is the healing elixir of the soul. "Outsiders" is just a flat out wonderful rocker... "10.03" is a heartfelt and beautiful ballad..."Winter Hill" is crush my heart wonderful for so many reasons.

Doves can wait 8 years to make another record. I don't care as long as they keep coming out as brilliant as this.

BEST TRACK
From the moment of its release in February of this year, I have had OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) about this track. I think I have played it every day of the year since that time. And from such an interesting band...

American Sam Spiegel (aka Squeak Spiegel) and Brazilian Ze Gonzales (aka Zegon) came together in 2007 to create a massively cool indie hip hop band called N.A.S.A. No, it’s not your father’s space agency but actually North America-South America…a sisterhood and brotherhood of unity that, quite frankly, our country could really use right now. All of their music reflects this mood quite wonderfully.

On February 17, 2009, the duo released The Spirit of Apollo. There are several great tracks on this record as well as a collection of guest stars like David Byrne, John Frusciante, Tom Waits, Santogold, George Clinton, and a wide variety of rappers and hip hop artists.

The track that officially became the OCD song #1 of 2009 is “Strange Enough”, featuring the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard (Wu Tang Clan), Fatlip, and the seriously stunning on several levels Karen O (lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). What an absolute fucking corker of a song!

Virtually everyone I have played it for has downloaded it. It’s rhythm is tight. The mood is intense and the lyrics are just plain cool. “Freak show pantie lover…but I’m getting too old for this like Danny Glover” or “Wild boy cowboy entertainer…insane…Purple Rainer” are just two examples of how much fun this song is.

And Karen O’s bit is mega fucking cool. Towards the end of her third rap in the tune, which is essentially the chorus of the song, she breaks down and giggles, asking Squeak and Zegon, who were presumably in the control room while she did her part…

“Something like that, right? Is that what you want?”

To which, the reply from Fatlip is:

“Perfect.”

Yes, "Strange Enough" sure is.

So, those are my picks. What are yours?

History Lesson

Rounding out my discussion of Iran, is this article from a recent issue of CSM. Neither the MSM or the base seem to want to talk about Iran pre-1979. It's not surprising. They make such great villains now...the evil Islamic terrorists with (perhaps) a nuclear bomb threatening the infidel.

And who on earth would want to talk about how British Petroleum and the United States government conspired to overthrow the democratically elected leader of Iran in 1953?

The article in CSM is quite illuminating. It sums up the US involvement in Iran's nuclear program over the years. I highly recommend checking it out if you want the full story on how we got to this point. From the article.

Ironically, the United States was Iran's first major supplier of nuclear technology. Washington signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with the shah – a staunch American ally – in 1957, under President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" program. Construction of a US-supplied research reactor began in the Tehran suburbs in 1960 and went critical, with US-supplied highly enriched uranium as fuel, in 1967.

But the shah wanted more than a nuclear toy. He had grandiose plans for a network of 23 nuclear power reactors by the 1990s, with much of the equipment purchased from US suppliers. And as recently declassified documents make clear, the course of nuclear negotiations between the shah and an array of US officials was far from smooth.

I'm curious what we sold them exactly and what they are using today. A recently declassified Defense Department memo is quite ominous.

"An aggressive successor to the Shah might consider nuclear weapons the final item needed to establish Iran's complete military dominance of the region," noted the memo.

Amazingly on target and yet we still sold them the material and helped them with their program.

As is often the case with US history and how it shapes our world today, when bad things happen or there are mistakes made, it's no one's fault. It was just an unfortunate occurrence for which no one is to blame. Be the one to dare say that the US had a hand in helping Iran's nuclear program (as I am here), and be prepared to incur the wrath of the base with their usual uni-brow commentary (America hater! Terrorist Sympathizer! Commie!).

Facts are facts, though. In addition to fomenting the seeds of hatred with the coup in 1953, we were a catalyst for Iran's nuclear program. So, the question is will we act responsibly and learn from history?

Really Missing The Point

Take a look at this cartoon at the left. Now, look at it again within the context of the articles regarding the current state of affairs in Iran.

Finally, imagine the mind of the person who finds this funny and thinks it represents reality.

Do you understand why I can never be a member of the base?

Slipping Away

Even before the stolen election earlier this year, I have wondered how long Iran, in its current state, would last. Ahmadinejad has literally driven his country into the economic ground. The people hate him and are tired of their totalitarian theocracy. Apparently, too, are many in the Arab World.

Take a look at the cover story from the CSM two weeks ago.

Beset in recent months by the bloody spectacle of regime enforcers stamping out pro-democracy protests, and by dozens of deaths, torture, and allegations of rape in secret prisons, Iran is losing influence among some of its friends in the region and stiffening opposition among foes.

Exactly right. Much of the attention in the US is on Iran's nuclear program. The rest of the world, however, and particularly the Arab world is wondering what happened to its once staunch defender. I mean, Iran is literally destroying its own people. How cool is that?

"I think we have seen the peak of the Islamic Republic's power in its current configuration," says Ali Ansari, director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland. Iran's influence has "slipped very badly," says Mr. Ansari. "Arab states have been lapping it up.... It has had tremendously damaging consequences for [Iran]. In the Persian Gulf, people were genuinely shocked – they never thought that the Iranian regime would treat its own people this way. They thought their governments [would] do that, but this is a revolutionary government. They suddenly realized it is no different."

Interesting. The peak? That sure doesn't jibe with conservatives are saying in this country. If you talk to them, Iran is about to attack New York. In fact, though...

"Iran's supporters in the region were wagering before and during the elections that the Islamic state would teach the world a lesson in democracy and present a model of Islamist rule," wrote the Saudi-owned Al-Hayat newspaper. "They have lost their wager, and certainly Islamists in Arab countries who aspire to participate in the political game and come to power have lost the most."

Another Al-Hayat story was equally blunt: "The truth of the matter is that revolutionary movements that establish a new legitimacy from illegitimacy carry early on fertile seeds for its demise."

Yep, pretty much.

Tehran's "influence must be waning, because Iran is more and more viewed as quite a fundamentalist, authoritarian Islamic regime, and not [one] that wants to protect the rights of Muslims," says Massoumeh Torfeh, an Iran expert at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. "After all, the people who are suffering in the prisons in Iran are also Muslims. The people who were killed in the demonstrations were also Muslim ... so I think their reputation is somewhat tarnished."

What? You mean torture doesn't work and makes one look bad in the eyes of the world? But here's my favorite bit from the whole piece.

"After 30 years, [the Islamic system] is losing, it's getting tired, it's getting old. It no longer has any new ideas, any new strategy to offer. It's just fundamentalist heated speech, and nothing more than that," says Mr. Torfeh. "Khomeini was very creative in his own way, in the way he presented Islam to the world. But this is now just the right- wing end of a movement, the fundamentalist end. I think these are the final stages; it's going more and more to the right, as if it was exiting that way."

If only that were true in our own country....(sigh)

The fact is, folks, that Iran is not nearly as much of a threat as certain people in this country make them out to be. In fact, those same people need Iran to be a big threat otherwise the weakness of their ideology will be exposed. We have much bigger problems to deal with at the present time. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and is a base for Al Qaeda. Afghanistan is a giant mess. Saudi Arabia is still cranking out hirabis like a cookie factory in their hate filled madrasahs. The last thing we need to be doing is provoking them into a war that will unite their country.

The best thing we could do right now is bring tougher sanctions, gather support and watch events play out in a country that is clearly falling apart.

Iran Redux

For the next few days (barring some large news event), I'm going to be taking a look at Iran and the changing dynamics in that country. There have been a flurry of interesting articles out about Iran and it is quite clear that the country is going through some major changes.

We begin with this article from last Friday's New York Times. I had actually heard about this from Pastor Eric at the gym well before the article came out. Eric, if you don't know, has become a dear friend over the last few years and is, without a doubt, the most conservative person I have ever met. Surprisingly, we agree on many things and have much fun debating politics and religion on a regular basis.

I didn't get around to reading the article until the evening and was quite shocked that most of what Eric had told me was true. The people of Iran are fucking pissed off and they're not going to take it anymore. At a demonstration, last Monday in Tehran things became very interesting.

During Monday’s demonstrations, the civil tone of many earlier rallies was noticeably absent...

Instead, the protesters, most of them young people, took direct aim at Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, chanting, “Khamenei knows his time is up!” They held up flags from which the “Allah” symbol — added after Iran’s 1979 revolution — had been removed. Most shocking of all, some burned an image of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of the revolution.

I read this and I couldn't believe it. It's clear to me that many people in Iran are willing to risk their lives for a new revolution. The old one, as most totalitarian theocracies tend to do, did not deliver. The question is this: what should the US do?

One thing we shouldn't do is increase the threat of military action. The people of Iran are ready for change and the last thing to do is find a cause to unite them again. They need to remain fractured and unstable. Of course, this is especially tricky given the information out today about Iran possibly working on a neutron trigger which I will be talking about later in the week.

Just because we shouldn't increase the threat of military action doesn't mean that Israel shouldn't ratchet up their dialogue. Considering that some Iranians are nauseated by Ahmadinejad's "wipe Israel off the map" comment, I think Israel should run some extra military preparedness exercises.

Given this new information regarding the state of the protests, we have to do everything we can to encourage this disunity...even if that means doing nothing save for the little diplomacy dance we do with the current government. There are going to be tougher sanctions and, since we gave up the missile defense shield over Europe, the Russians are on board. How do we get the Chinese on board, though? That's another question.

The next few weeks are going to be very interesting, folks and I would be interested in your thoughts. Tomorrow, I will be looking at the fall off of support for Iran in the Muslim world.

Yep

I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

Yet the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions -- not just treaties and declarations -- that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace.

--President Barack Obama, Dec 10, 2009

Really?

Before I get into some choice quotes from my guy's speech in Copenhagen, I had a brief conversation at the gym yesterday that led me on a hilarious journey (yet again) into the mind of a member of the base.

This gal I know (who happens to be very, very conservative) happened by me and I asked her what she thought of Newt Gingrich's favorable view of President Obama's speech. She is a big fan of our former Speaker of the House and wants him to run for president in 2012 so I was interested in her thoughts.

She wondered where I had heard what Newt said and I told her it was in the paper (the Minneapolis Star and Tribune). She gave me the standard line about how she doesn't read the "Star and Sickle." I reminded her that the paper is now owned by an oil company and endorsed Norm Coleman last year. It's still a commie rag, she informed me quite seriously. And she wasn't going to give President Obama's speech any thought until she read about it on townhall.com

I had never heard of townhall.com so I went to check it out. On the surface, it looks like a typical conservative leaning news site with contributors like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Fair enough. But click on a story (as I did) and you get what essentially amounts to a Sesame Street version of events. Take a look at this story.

Houston voters may elect openly gay mayor
Voters are deciding Saturday whether Houston will become the largest U.S. city to elect an openly gay mayor.

The runoff election pits City Controller Annise Parker against former city attorney Gene Locke.

Parker is a lesbian who has never made a secret or an issue of her sexual orientation.

But in recent weeks, anti-gay activists and conservative religious groups have endorsed the 61-year-old Locke and sent out mailers condemning Parker's "homosexual behavior."

Meanwhile, gay and lesbian political organizations around the country have rallied to support the 53-year-old Parker.

That's it. That's the whole story. There are several other stories that are presented in the same way...3-5 paragraphs...1-2 sentences in each paragraph and that's all there is. It's basically the news (anger, hate and rage version) in an easy to swallow caplet. Even the font is larger for crying out loud!

Is this how the right gets the news that "speaks to them?" Compare their coverage of the unbelievable events in Iran to the Times' coverage.

Really?