Categories
Economics Financial Crisis Politics The Opinionsphere

The Reagan Revolution (cont.)

There’s been quite a strong response to Paul Krugman’s column last week blaming the financial crisis on Ronald Reagan. William Greider from the left and Richard Posner from the right both made the case that it was actually Jimmy Carter who’s to blame. But I think Andrew Leonard in Salon has the best take on the whole meta-debate over the debate:

The continuing influence of the banking industry on Congress, on which point we witness new revelations nearly every day, should be enough to underline how both parties succumb all too willingly to the financial blandishments lavished by Wall Street. I’m sure Krugman would acknowledge that. Despite Posner’s dismissal of Krugman as a Democratic partisan, it is well worth noting that Krugman has been far harder on the Obama administration’s economic policy moves than your typical Republican partisan was on George Bush until late in his second term.

But there’s a different, perhaps more profound sense in which Reagan really did do it. Momentum for deregulation may have gotten started during the Carter administration, but the ideological case for it didn’t crystallize until the election of Reagan in 1980. From that point on, the predisposition to loosen the reins on the financial industry became explicit. Both parties helped get us where we are today, but one party in particular identified itself with the all-knowing wisdom of the markets. And that party is paying the price.

I still like the formulation I used – that does not lay the blame directly on Reagan or his advisors – but indirectly:

To some degree, these changes had positive effects – as the market was freer, as the economy grew, as corporations thrived, as the overall wealth of America grew.

But they spelled trouble down the road. The stimulus spending and tax cutting, the informal Bretton Woods II agreement, and concentration of wealth created an unstable system. Internally, the society was imbalanced as extremes of wealth and power were accumulated by a small minority. This eventually undermined the very free market and democratic discourse that is essential to the American tradition. A course correction later might have saved the Reagan vision – and for a time it seemed as if Bill Clinton’s moderate presidency had, as middle class wages finally began to grow again – but Bush doubled down on Reaganism when he should have pared back, and we are left with this mess.

Is this collapse Reagan’s fault? I wouldn’t say so. But he set the initial course towards this iceberg, even if the iceberg was out of sight at the time he set the course. He – and the 1980s revolutions in finance, economics, and government that his administration supported and enabled – are the true authors of this economic collapse, even if they cannot be blamed for not forseeing it.

Categories
Foreign Policy Iran

Khamenei, Palestinian Classical Music, Waterboarding Pro-Life Terrorists, and the Renegade Boy Guru

Here – for the first time in two weeks thanks to a hosting problem on the blog and a week off – is the list of best reading material for the weekend:

How Khamenei Took and Asserts Power. Mehdi Khalaji writes in Real Clear World about an aspect of Khamenei I have not previously seen – about how he was able to take such significant power in Iran. As Khalaji writes:

During his twenty years in power, Khamenei has managed to overcome his initial obstacles and transform the conventional house of religious authority into a bureaucratic powerhouse. As a result, Iranian decision-making is no longer shared, as it was in the last years of Khomeini’s life, especially with regard to war. The house of the leader makes the main decisions today, whether political or military, domestic or foreign policy related, and Khamenei is the principal decisionmaker.

Young Palestinians Take to Western Classical Music. Daniel J. Wakin had a fascinating piece in the New York Times this past Sunday about how the younger generation of Palestinians seems to have a strong interest in classical music. Wakin focuses on anecdotes – so I’m not sure if there is a discernible movement of young Palestinians becoming interested in classical music, but there is something beautiful about the idea:

The flute, [Dalia Moukarker, 16] said later, “takes me to another world that is far away from here, a more beautiful world. Because it is not a beautiful place here. It is an ugly place.”

Dalia is one of a new generation of Palestinians who have been swept up in a rising tide of interest in Western classical music in the last several years here in the Palestinian territories, but especially the West Bank. The sounds of trills and arpeggios, Bach minuets and Beethoven sonatas, are rising up amid the economic malaise and restrictions of the Israeli occupation.

Waterboarding Pro-Life Terrorists. Hypocrisy is not confined to any political movement (or even to politics.) But Conor Friedersdorf asks a basic question of those he terms the “War on Terror hawks”:

Would these predominantly conservative officials, commentators and writers be comfortable if President Obama declared two or three extremist pro-lifers as “enemy combatants”? Should Pres. Obama have the prerogative to order the waterboarding of these uncharged, untried detainees? Should he be able to listen in on phone conversations originating from evangelical churches where suspected abortion extremists hang out? The answer is probably that different “War on Terror hawks” — anyone have a better term for this? — would react differently, but as a matter of law, it seems to me that if they’d gotten their way during the Bush Administration, President Obama would have the power to take all those steps and more, a prospect that is terrifying to me, not because I think our Commander in Chief is looking for a pretext to round up innocent pro-lifers, but because it doesn’t take many violent attacks before Americans start clamoring for a strong executive response, a dynamic that tends to erode liberties in previously unthinkable ways and spawn mistakes whereby innocents are made to suffer.

Michelle Malkin tried to make similar charges of hypocrisy against those to her left in a column about the Tiller murder. I almost included her on this reading list – as her claims seemed plausible – that islamist domestic terrorists were identified as “lone shooters” while christianist domestic terrorists were identified with the larger christianist movement – and that in general, the attention paid by the media and politicians to the attacks on military recruiters has been undercover while this Tiller case has been explosive. But after investigating some of the claims she made, I don’t think I can recommend her article be read – except as a representative right-wing propaganda piece. For example, Malkin writes:

Politically and religiously motivated violence, it seems, is only worth lamenting when it demonizes opponents. Which also helps explain why the phrase “lone shooter” is ubiquitous in media coverage of jihadi shooters gone wild…but not in cases involving rare acts of anti-abortion violence.

She lists three specific people: Mohammed Taheri-Azar, Naveed Haq, and Hesham Hedayet. My brief Google searches for all three along with the term “lone shooter” turn up ZERO (0) news results (except for various conservative sites citing Malkin) – which is somewhat less than ubiquitous. Malkin also tries to say that the term “hate fuck” means to rape – which it does not. Urban Dictionary lists 10 definitions of the term – none of which imply it is rape. If the two easiest facts to check in her article are more than misleading – and are actually outright false – it’s hard to trust any of the harder to to fact check statements such as the comparisons between the degrees of media coverage of the events and the degress of administration response.

The Renegade Boy Guru. The Dalai Lama chose Osel Hita Torres “as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader” named Lama Thubten Yeshe when Osel was a baby. He lived his entire life isolated – but now has quite the monastic life. The Guardian story by Dale Fuchs is short and interesting. Here’s one nugget:

At six, he was allowed to socialise only with other reincarnated souls – though for a time he said he lived next to the actor Richard Gere’s cabin.

Categories
Foreign Policy Israel

“We must say openly the things we hold in our hearts.”

[digg-reddit-me]Laura Rozen has probably covered the growing surprise from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his allies about the Obama administration’s actions better than anyone:

Referring to Clinton’s call for a settlement freeze, Netanyahu groused, “What the hell do they want from me?” according to his associate, who added, “I gathered that he heard some bad vibes in his meetings with [U.S.] congressional delegations this week.”

In the 10 days since Netanyahu and President Barack Obama held a meeting at the White House, the Obama administration has made clear in public and private meetings with Israeli officials that it intends to hold a firm line on Obama’s call to stop Israeli settlements. According to many observers in Washington and Israel, the Israeli prime minister, looking for loopholes and hidden agreements that have often existed in the past with Washington, has been flummoxed by an unusually united line that has come not just from the Obama White House and the secretary of state, but also from pro-Israel congressmen and women who have come through Israel for meetings with him over Memorial Day recess. To Netanyahu’s dismay, Obama doesn’t appear to have a hidden policy. It is what he said it was.

“This is a sea change for Netanyahu,” a former senior Clinton administration official who worked on Middle East issues said. [my emphasis]

This helps set the stage for what appears to be one of the key elements of Obama’s Middle East policy – honest dialogue. As Obama explained in his interview with Tom Friedman in the New York Times shortly before his Cairo speech:

Obama, in an interview with The New York Times before leaving Washington, said that a key part of his message during the trip would be, “Stop saying one thing behind closed doors and saying something else publicly.”

“There are a lot of Arab countries more concerned about Iran developing a nuclear weapon than the ‘threat’ from Israel, but won’t admit it,” he said.

He then added that there were a lot of Israelis “who recognize that their current path is unsustainable, and they need to make some tough choices on settlements to achieve a two-state solution – that is in their long-term interest – but not enough folks are willing to recognize that publicly.”

And there were a lot of Palestinians, Obama said, who “recognize that the constant incitement and negative rhetoric with respect to Israel” has not gained them anything, and that they would have been better off “had they taken a more constructive approach and sought the moral high ground.”

Obama concluded:

When it comes to dealing with the Middle East, the president noted, “there is a Kabuki dance going on constantly…”

In his Cairo speech – as well as in his Middle East policies generally – Obama seems to be trying to do this. This has been especially noticeable – as noted above – with regards to Israel’s policy on the settlements. Fittingly, Obama expressed this best in his Cairo speech:

I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, “Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.” That is what I will try to do – to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

Obama here seems to sum up his theory of how political progress is made:

[T]o speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

Congressman Barney Frank – in another setting – criticized Obama for precisely this sentiment – which, depending on what results we see on his different policies, may prove to be his Achilles heel:

I think he overestimates his ability to get people to put aside fundamental differences.

Frank was speaking about an intra-American fight – but in the Middle East the fundamental differences run much deeper.

But I think Frank missed back in January what many who have been critical of Obama’s Cairo approach missed in the immediate aftermath of the speech: Obama is not asking people to “put aside fundamental differences,” but to engage in civil and constructive dialogue – something which has been a theme throughout his campaign and was especially evident in his Notre Dame and race speeches. This is only worthwhile if one believes that a dialogue that is guided by the principles of honesty and reason leads us to understand that what unites us as human beings outweighs what divides us.

In Obama’s view – we may disagree – and disagree strongly on fundamental issues – but we cannot long demonize our opposition if we are engaged in frank and honest dialogue with them.

So it seems that the first step in unfolding Obama’s new Middle East policy is to clarify where everyone stands publicly – and he has started doing so by stating explictly his position in Israeli settlements and sticking to it.

Categories
Israel Political Philosophy Politics The Opinionsphere

Leverage and Power

Glenn Greenwald:

A country, a company or an individual has every right to remain free of “interference” from others as long as they remain independent of the party seeking to “interfere.”  But if one chooses instead to become dependent on someone else or seeks help and aid from them, then complying with the demands of those providing the aid is an inevitable price that must be paid – and justifiably so.

Greenwald makes broad principled statements like this a lot in support of the specific points he is making – in this case, the idea that Israel can’t complain about American interference in its domestic affairs.

But as a civil libertarian, I find it difficult to see Greenwald accepting the application of this principle in other spheres. Wouldn’t that imply that the government would exert total control over people on welfare for example? What regulations would this invalidate between individuals and corporations?

As a practical matter, what Greenwald states is true – in that independence is inevitably given up when one gives up leverage. But at the same time, there are various laws and customs that prevent one from exercising one’s full leverage. In most circumstances, Greenwald would – I think – accept that.

Categories
Barack Obama Foreign Policy National Security Politics The War on Terrorism

The Cairo Rapprochement

Obama’s Cairo speech is an excellent beginning of a rapprochement with Muslims around the world.  Here’s a few brief comments on a few passages in the speech:

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.

Very respectful tone here. But, to my mind, theologically problematic. Obama is no theologian – but if he is a Christian, then does that not mean he rejects that Islam was revealed? It’s one thing to speak in a respectful tones about another religion – but another to accept that religion’s premises that supersede your own as true.

America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words – within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum: “Out of many, one.”

This is something Obama has done so well – to preach the exceptionalism of America. And in many ways, his own story is a symbol of this. This idea of American exceptionalism is rejected as toxic though by most opponents of America – as well as many leftists in America. At best, it is seen as a kind of crude nationalism – and at worst as a sociopathic indifference to great crimes. There are two schools of American exceptionalism – the one which suggests America is inherently better than other countries and empires – and the other which states that America’s exceptionalism can be found in how it has dealt with its ideals and its power. Obama, clearly, belongs to the second category.

For we have learned from recent experience that when a financial system weakens in one country, prosperity is hurt everywhere. When a new flu infects one human being, all are at risk. When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations. When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean. And when innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience. That is what it means to share this world in the 21st century. That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings.

Here Obama touches on the idea of the increasing interconnectedness of the world today – and in which he seems to be suggesting an alternate explanation than greed and empire for America’s involvements around the world, as well as a collective responsibility of all to create a better world.

…more than any other, they have killed Muslims…

I wish Obama had brought this up a few times – as this is such an important point. Al Qaeda and other violent extremists (the term Obama adopted, at least for this speech) have – while speaking most about attacking America – killed mainly fellow Muslims. In a recent editorial in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper, columnist Nosheen Abbas quoted a man who lived in Swat before the Taliban took over:

These hooligans come and tell us they are here to bring Islam. What? Are we not Muslims?!

This is why the most effective counterterrorism strategy that the Bush administration was able to find was to let the extremists win for a while – and let their intolerance alienate the population.

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

Although this might be the right thing to say – given our interests – I am not sure this is historically accurate. It’s a rather dangerous idea – that “Resistance through violence and killing is wrong.” Clearly – Obama is not saying that with any act of violence, one cedes one’s moral authority – for then he would be condemning the police whose authority is based on their implicit ability to do violence as well as our own military – which are even now engaged in violence with various forces in the Middle East. What he is instead referring to is violent resistance – by which he clearly is referring not to violence which supports the status quo, but which opposes it, or alternately, the violence of the weak against the strong. It’s an odd thing to condemn on moral grounds – and I’m not sure how this case can be made. There are many other instances in history when resistance would seem to justify violence – the Nazi occupation, the various genocides, slavery. What I could accept is that in recent history, it has been found that peaceful mass resistance has proven to be a far more effective tool in overturning the status quo, in empowering the weak over the strong.

Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer. [my emphasis]

I am not certain – but I feel as if this passage will be cited most of all – and will be the most influential, especially the idea of Jerusalem as “the place of peace that God intended it to be.”

So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere…

No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

This is almost exactly what I had hoped Obama would say. Democracy activists in the region had already expressed disappointment that Obama was going to Egypt, implying an endorsement of the regime. And some – in the aftermath of the speech – continued to complain that he had given up on Bush’s democracy promotion. Realists continue to assert that we shouldn’t bother with such niceties as democracy promotion – seeing it as mainly a destabilizing element. The neoconservatives on the other hand correctly pointed out that a great deal of the instability and resentment in the region came from the fact that most of the nations here are authoritarian. Obama is attempting to “thread the needle” here – and to my mind, did it perfectly. He adopted what I understand to be Philip Bobbitt’s understanding of a state of consent being in direct opposition to a state of terror. Accepting this formulation puts Obama’s foreign policy on stronger ground than Bush’s.

Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit – for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.

Am I wrong to see this as a swipe at France here?

Overall, an excellent speech – and one that was apparently well-received. The follow-up is crucial – and it remains to be seen how Obama’s focus on nations that “reflect the will of the people” differs from Bush’s democracy promotion. But the change in emphasis is key – and itself does a great deal of good.

Categories
Economics History The Opinionsphere

The Reagan Revolution (cont.)

I’m a bit annoyed at the fact that Krugman’s book – which I have not read – makes almost precisely the same point I’ve been making – but which I thought was mine independently, though inspired a bit by a phrase Stephen Metcalf tossed off in an essay on Tom Cruise:

The ’80s did for money what the ’60s did for sex.

Instead, from that phrase – likely inspired by Metcalf’s reading of Krugman – I reconstructed the view of history Krugman was advancing. I wrote:

This stability of the 1950s and 1960s came at the expense of tamping down certain social and economic forces. The social stability was torn apart by the Civil Rights movement, feminism, free love, and the later radicalisms of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This culture war has been dominating politics since then.

The economic stability of this period was destroyed by the forces of extreme capitalism, greed, deregulation, and other economic radicalisms of the 1970s and early 1980s – as labor unions were undermined, executive compensation grew exponentially, social mobility was impeded, and economic power concentrated in a handful of large corporations.

Lindsey quotes Krugman’s book in his essay:

For a generation after World War II, fear of outrage kept executive salaries in check. Now the outrage is gone. That is, the explosion in executive pay represents a social change…like the sexual revolution of the 1960’s—a relaxation of old strictures, a new permissiveness, but in this case the permissiveness is financial rather than sexual.

Categories
Barack Obama Foreign Policy Politics

Variations on a Theme

Anyone else notice that Ayman al-Zawahiri’s criticisms of Obama follow the same meme Obama’s domestic opponents tried to use to marginalize him:

His bloody messages were received and are still being received by Muslims, and they will not be concealed by public relations campaigns or by farcical visits or elegant words.

It’s also worth noting that variations on this theme – that you have to ignore Obama’s words and mastery of public symbolism and focus on his record and policies – that Hillary Clinton used, that Paul Krugman used, that John McCain used, and that Republicans have continued to use – have failed to substantially detract from popular support for Obama.

Of course, in the Middle East, Obama’s policies are far less popular than his American policies are. But I think this just goes to show how tuned in Al Qaeda is into the American media and politics.

Categories
Economics Financial Crisis Libertarianism Political Philosophy Politics The Opinionsphere

Brink Lindsey v. Paul Krugman

Last night taking the train home, I started reading Brink Lindsey’s essay in Reason countering Paul Krugman’s analysis of inequality in American history – and specifically what has caused inequality to worsen.

Now – my head was a bit fuzzy as I have a pretty bad head cold at the moment – but I found Lindsey’s argument was rather persuasive. Surprisingly so – as I’ve cited Krugman’s arguments on this issue many times on this blog (including here and here). I also recognize Lindsey’s phrase describing Krugman’s view holds an essential truth about this progressive understanding. I myself tried to express this – in a way to diffuse the charges of socialism during the campaign – “Leave It To Beaver Socialism.”  Here’s my description of the goal of Obamanomics:

Obama’s economic plan is not about socialism or revolution or any such radicalism. He’s not that type of politician. The goal of his Obamanomics (if you will) is not a socialist paradise or a European-style market socialism but a restoration of the economic justice that made 1950s and 1960s America so stable. Unless you think Leave It To Beaver took place in a socialist nation, then Obama’s economic plans shouldn’t strike you as far left.

At the time, I both recognized the power of postulating an ideal past which we should hearken back to – and understood that this is the root of reactionary politics. There is a proper way to understand history – and to try to achieve a balance that once existed. But very easily, with a slight misstep, you find you are trying to recreate a now defunct world – which is the founding myth that every reactionary subscribes to.

Lindsey concludes his essay:

[R]easonable people disagree hotly about what ought to be done to ensure that our prosperity is widely shared. But the caricature of postwar history put forward by Krugman and other purveyors of nostalgianomics won’t lead us anywhere. Reactionary fantasies never do.

Powerful stuff, true or not. And it is certainly making me reevaluate my understanding of the historical causes of inequality in 20th century America. I’ll have to read the essay again with a more clear mind. I tried looking for a progressive debunking of the essay – but all I found were attacks on Lindsey or Reason or libertarianism.

To be clear though – I haven’t abandoned my Krugman-inspired view of the economic history of 20th century America yet – and Lindsey’s argument was better at poking holes in the story offered by Krugman than giving a convincing portrait of its own. I suspect the truth may be found by accepting that liberal and conservative policies together led to the growing inequality we are experiencing today.

Categories
The Web and Technology

Twitter Updates for 2009-06-02

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Categories
Foreign Policy Politics The Opinionsphere The Web and Technology

Facebook Diplomacy (cont.)

When I wrote about this idea a few weeks ago, I realized the term had been used before – by Evgeny Morozov in a Newsweek article. But interestingly, in his article, he never actually mentioned Facebook – focusing mainly on blogs – and the power of the internet in general to organize. What Morozov is writing about is not so much diplomacy – as propaganda – and so his thesis ends up being that the internet enables dictators to spread propaganda more effectively:

That so many governments manipulate the Internet to their advantage—all the while still practicing old-fashioned tactics like throwing bloggers in jail—suggests that those who hoped to use cyberspace to promote democracy and American ideals on the cheap may be in for a tough fight. If anything, the Internet may make their jobs harder.

Bruce Etling at Harvard’s Internet and Democracy blog echoes Morozov’s conclusion – with a slight twist:

This mobilization of ordinary citizens to push government propaganda may be the most successful tactic for governments on the Internet, instead of public relations campaigns like the Bush administration’s failed efforts to ‘rebrand’ the US in the Middle East, or the Kremin hiring of a web-savvy PR firm to promote its agenda.

These two pieces were seemingly written as a counterpoint to the earlier remarks by Undersecretary of State James Glassman about the power of Web 2.0 (including Facebook) to mobilize dissident groups.

What I propose is something a bit different than either Morozov’s or Glassman’s ideas – what I propose is something more akin to a revolution in foreign affairs – as many, many individuals interact with people in foreign countries – developing their own ideas, their own contacts – both being influenced and influencing. I think this is already happening – and will inevitably accelerate – but that the principles on which it happens can be affected – which is why I proposed certain guidelines, and to understand this as a duty of global citizenship.