Stop The Spirit of Zossen 2.0

Oama’s speech on slinking out of Iraq positively pulsated with weakness. Not for reasons Rightist wing nuts might rage.

His content and delivery raise alarming implications about who really will control key American foreign policy decisions ahead: his hopey changey rhetoric or David Petraeus et al. Obama reveals he himself is unsure.

We don’t fault him on Iraq or the need to go through the motions of praising the catastrophe. He’s merely following the Bush timetable.

Our critique rests on how he handled the military in this delicate moment. We saw a young man unsure of his authority over the military and overcompensating clumsily. Think the proverbial step parent with the skeptical, hostile teenager stepchild. Attempts to lay down rules are mocked and the step parent’s role denied – openly or passively. That’s his military. He missed an opportunity to correct things before a national audience.

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Here’s a hope that everyone enjoys the weekend. That you, Dear Reader, can tune out the media led fixation on the ankle biters downtown.

It’s an unholy brew. A rootless media seeks any form of self-generating narrative for lazy producing, story selection, Nielsens and click throughs. And the Movement? It follows centuries of Counter Enlightenment impulsive tradition using public theater to create false narratives and communal identity. All fodder for the 15 minute news cycle and shallow tweets.

We chose to visit Annapolis to start off the weekend. Sure, it’s long been a tourist trap. And like nearby D.C. it’s self-satisfied, bloated and keenly aware of its wealth. Still, it’s not far up Route 50. The Severn River retains echoes of boating memories many decades ago. Plus, traffic to the overcrowded (and even more overbuilt) Delaware beaches too daunting. One notable thing – young men in their twenties lounging around the Naval Academy entrance wearing the old ‘Blackwater’ paw t-shirts and Oakleys. Without irony, too.

Where were we? Oh right. The high school play downtown.

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‘They’ used to say (incorrectly) the Wehrmacht never did winter offensives. ‘They’ now could say (correctly) Democrats can’t do offensives at all.

Facebook burps and random tweets send allegedly professional politicians and paid talking heads into hissy fits. Rightists play Democrats and much of their AgitProp infrastructure like a piano. Badly, of course.

Democrats seemingly learned nothing from 2001-2008. None of them, individually, their AgitProp allies or their (moribund) institutions demonstrate any understanding of ideological politics in today’s disassociated society of ambient social connections. It’s doubtful they will learn in time to forestall Revanchism. Such congenital failure suffocates aspirations and hopes of all non-Rightists. In retrospect 2008 was indeed a fluke, made possible by economic catastrophe, a failed presidency and timely story rather than anything inherently ‘Democratic’.

A feckless Administration addicted to expediency of course undermines meme cohesion and focus. Still, it’s no excuse for others purporting to be our Thought Leaders and Meme Givers to act like it’s still 2005 and the Movement controls all branches of government. Yet that’s exactly what they do every day, hyperventilating over a random Facebook burp or tweet airball. One insignificant flick and an entire news cycle is given to the Rightists on their terms on their issues. Over time, the cumulative impact is that what began as some trivial Rightist gesture dictates framing of our simulacra of consensus reality. The hysterical overreactions cascade like a signal chain in an amplifier until what emerges is nothing but distortion.

Democrats and their AgitProp allies truly don’t understand that the Movement could never have coalesced and reformed without their essential – and hapless – complicity.

Of course the economy is in ruins. A failed war is inescapable. We’re not unmindful of the political terrain. Faith in government competence and legitimacy at historic lows. Not all Democratic AgitProp allies are addicted to victimhood. Some focus on identifying new candidates and new funding for the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. Until their time, we are presented a false choice. In the end, whether on the more gentle accomodationist curve of this current Democratic clique or with the spasmodic inchoate raging of the Rightists, we eventually arrive in essentially the same place. One just offers the scenic route.

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1. RWR: ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’

BHO: ‘Let me be clear: it would be within regulatory guidelines to update this wall with 21st century urban planning.’

[The next day]: ‘Seeking regulatory permits to enable freedom in no way should be construed as commenting on the wisdom of doing so.’

________

2. RWR: ‘America will always be that shining city on the hill, a beacon for the world.’

BHO: ‘We must create new green jobs. America will lead the way becoming a 13 watt CFL Mini Spiral Energy Star Twist Compact Fluorescent visible in Trenton.’

________

3. RWR: ‘My fellow Americans, I am pleased to announce that today I have signed legislation outlawing the Soviet Union forever. We begin bombing in 5 minutes.’

BHO: ‘My fellow Americans, I am pleased to announce that today I have turned over the most important element of American foreign policy to David Petraeus. David will begin prolonging the war in 5 minutes declaring he *reversed* the Taleeeeeban momentum by issuing a single press release.’

(Only one of these is a joke).

________

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36%. Says it all.

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Years ago, when writing a book actually meant something, Shelby Stanton’s Rise and Fall of an American Army: U.S. Ground Forces Vietnam 1965-1973 offered incisive insight into how the U.S. Army conducted operations battle by battle, battlefield by battlefield and how the institution itself devolved in parallel with U.S. political and strategic incompetence.

It’s fashionable across the Interwebs to proclaim as Les Gelb does, in his now SNL-parody worthy fin de siecle world weary sort of way, there’s nothing terribly new in the Wikileaks material. With a smug eyeroll they type, ‘*everyone* knows’ the war is going badly and the ISI is untrustworthy. Which is not really the point.

Here, at a basic mid-level (some secret, some confidential, classified but not compartmentalized) is an incredibly rich data trove revealing how the relevant U.S. institutions acted and perceived themselves as acting in the moment. Which is a macro version of what Stanton did for the U.S. Army in Vietnam. The weight of minute detail and quantity about the institutions and their interactions is itself the story. Regardless whether the data changes the ‘picture’ whether we’re ‘winning’ exchanged as common wisdom in a Dupont Circle, er, circle jerk time loop with [take your pick, Kagan, Pillar et al.].

What emerges is not some magic revelation that the U.S. is unsuccessful per Obama’s speech macro in ‘halting the momentum of the Talleeeeban’. The granular detail makes clear military, diplomatic and other institutions are utterly incapable of accurately assessing their environment and calibrating accordingly. On it’s own, the cumulative impact is serious enough, being — predictably — a slow but accelerating disintegration of internal coherence and ethos. Anyone who knows the military as a concrete living entity (as opposed to just an abstraction ala the Neocons or NotSoBright) also knows collapse of ethos and internal coherence leads to nihilistic operations and follows a trajectory potentially ending in institutional death spiral. Apart from overall strategic failure.

This admittedly limited data dump – while massive — remains just a straw’s view. Much remains out of public view. Still, one gains clear snap shots of consistently unanchored institutional failure across the years calling into question their very ability to offer trustworthy, meaningful input towards a rational American strategy going forward.

Yes, we all ‘know’ it ‘all’ already. But consider the difference between listening to a piece of music and investing the time and neurological training to play an instrument – to understand the music from that internal perspective – let alone being able actually to play it. The difference seems small. That gap is enormous. The historical and practical impact from this data’s release has real meaning. More than some equally dysfunctional ‘thought leaders’ as they speak *at* each other while cradling stale tuna sandwiches at a Think Tank event manufactured for CSPAN.

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(N.B.: this originally was posted in the comments section but upon reflection think it deserves its own post. No worries, no effort to impersonate Krauthammer or a certain Senate Majority Leader with the deliberately stylized prose. Just some observations).

Narcissism is an occupational hazard for political leaders. You have to have an outsized ambition and an outsized ego to run for office.

Stanley Renshon

The Right’s compulsive need to maintain its Narrative within which all adherents can act out their own form of idealized Self is essentially collective narcissism. That’s offered as a lay person’s experience working, talking, and socializing with them over decades. From the Newts of the world to the most vicious ‘unknowns’ (except today the latter likely have so many Facebook ‘friends’ they have their own ‘fan’ page).

Narcissistic need to support a fantasized, grandiose self-image within a larger heroic Narrative explains alot. Not just the daily evidence of disconnect between actual behavior and the projected idealized (often censoring) personality. The post 2008 purge and radicalization are inevitable consequence. A complimentary analytical framework from a conventional political/historical perspective of Movements here and on the Continent.

Narrative radicalization and escalating vehemence through cant and acting out must — by internal logic — treble when fantasy can not surmount the limits imposed by Objective Reality (say Nov. 2008). Obama’s victory is a crisis threatening the ability to segregate their disassociated fantasized self-image with their often fragmented and undeveloped self. Why anyone remotely close to the Movement who said after defeat “now is the time for introspection” was doomed to be mau maued and kicked off the island. And Lord help you if there was a photo with you hugging Obama . . .

On one extreme one gets birthers. Another? Secession. And so on. They’re really the same. Their commonality is an irrational imperative to retreat to a safe Narrative that protects their idealized, fantasy Self. From that Barlett-esque non-emprical world adherents safely can continue to use the objective external world as a mere prop in their own internal movie.

This is in marked contrast with more normative modes of collecting and processing input, cognition and productions of ‘knowledge’ below:

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Political humor often tells troublesome truths. A reason the old Soviet Union had so many jokes. We can’t recall if we’ve shared one of our favorites before. It sums up our current exasperation with Democrats as well. Such weak reeds.

[SCENE] A Politburo Meeting Late 1970s

[AROUND TABLE] Brezhnev, Chernenko, Suslov, Gromyko et al.

The Politburo hears a classified report from an R&D center that Soviet science can now resurrect the passed. After excited discussion, a unanimous decision is reached. They must first resurrect the Great Ilyich (Vlad). And so they do.

Soon thereafter, chest heavy with medals, Brezhnev welcomes a slightly startled Lenin to the 1970s. The Politburo escort Vlad into a Zil limousine and first show him the nomenklatura apartments staggered along Kutovsky Prospket in Moscow. Then, Vlad and entourage are hustled aboard a Tupolev and flown to see the sprawling military industrial complexes in Chelyabinsk. Wearing his trademark beret, Lenin smiles, says little and scribbles furiously in his notebook. He is shown Leningrad and given a special tour of the off limits foreign currency beriozka stores reserved for elites with normally illegal foreign currency. A token for the burdens leading the dictatorship of proletariat. Lenin notes his face everywhere.

Back in Moscow, the Politburo lavishes a dinner. Much toasting and praise. The Father of All Peoples. Leader of Bountiful Wheat Harvests. Founder of Socialist Hairclub For Men. Brezhnev falls asleep, drooling. Vlad finally asks leave to visit his old Kremlin apartments and haunts.

Days pass. No one sees him. Who’s gonna disturb the Great Man? After a whole week, nervously, the ‘team of rivals’ mumble to each other, ‘I thought you were watching him’. Finally, they crack open the doors, peer in. No Vlad. Gone.

Panic. What to do? Someone blurts out, bring back Felix. If anyone can find the Great Ilyich, it’ll be Felix. The next day the taciturn Polish Chekist stands before the grey men. He asks short, specific questions about what they saw, where they went. He declares he will find Lenin. But must be undisturbed.

Felix briskly heads to Vlad’s library. He locks the door behind him. He strides directly to a bookshelf and plucks open one of Lenin’s favorite books.

As expected inside is a note: “Felix. Meet me in Vienna. We have to start over.”

———–

Starting over is a tempting notion now, too. We have a two-fold problem with Brand Obama and his Democratic coterie – made more difficult by the fact Obama is not on the ticket, except he is. First, the Brand is seemingly uninterested in wielding political power for *tangible* result. 18 months make that ‘clear’ (in his parlance). Second, the Administration is increasingly perceived as incompetent by previously pro-Obama independents – and it’s not just oil-spill coincidence.

Sure the jobless rate is JP-5 fuel for the disorganized opposition and independents. Same with BP. But they’re an accelerant, not the fire itself.

For the disoriented Movement, the fire is refusal – by a significant segment of the American population – to be part of the liberal democratic social compact. Micro dramas within the Movement/Tea Party about kicking someone out or in are a distraction. All remain furiously united in one thing: they collectively perceive themselves as the only *legitimate* political actors. True whether the jobless rate was Obama’s promised 8%, 6%, etc.

Brand Obama doesn’t understand the Movement’s role over the Republican Party. Most Democrats never will. No accommodation is possible with a Manichean Weltanschauung. Seeking ‘bi-partisanship’ when one side defiantly remains outside liberal democratic politics is lunacy. We dislike hearing ‘We told you so.’ And so apologize. But we did. In 2007 and throughout 2008. Take that Katrina and les autres at ‘The Nation’.

August-November is also too short a season to show now tangible competence. Even if they knew how. This cycle will play out with the cards in already in the shoe.

We all know Obama’s not on the ticket. Losing a chamber isn’t shocking like it was in 1994 after 40 years. It’s just one cycle. Washington always is a shirts and skins game. Two teams only. Politics remains the art of the possible. We can only look at the netroots with renewed urgency to help organize and field hardened candidates as a future real alternative. How many cycles will it take? Four? Five? If a double dip is avoided, perhaps less. That’s still a lot of coercion by this menagerie — ‘Yeah we suck, but marginally less.’

One incident speaks volumes. When Brand Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Kagan, was asked in testimony to critique any Supreme Court decision she ducked the question entirely. Then ran back to her office, flipped through a used copy of Gilberts, pre-highlighted. Only finally to proffer a third-tier law school’s One L’s (D+ obvious) written reply she’s not down with Korematsu?

My God. Exactly how much crap do they expect us to take?

—–
CODA: And re the joke, where exactly would Brand Obama agree to meet and start over? Probably Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington.

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With a dysfunctional Duma and Administration, lonely eyes turn to Joe DiMaggio the Fed for economic hope. Krugman advises don’t expect much. We agree. It’s always a comfort to know the Fed sees the same color sky as the rest of us. Still, in practical terms, there’s not much it can do. The easiest course is play to market and consumer psychologies. Which is what this piece in the WaPo is all about. ‘There’s alot we can still do.’ Except there isn’t.

Fed leaders are weighing modest steps that could offer more support for economic activity at a time when their target for short-term interest rates is already near zero. They are still resistant to calls to pull out their big guns — massive infusions of cash, such as those undertaken during the depths of the financial crisis — but would reconsider if conditions worsen.

The main floated idea? It’s a recycle. Even before Bernanke became Fed Chairman, based on his study of Japan’s ‘Lost Decade’, he noted that the Fed could do more than drive short term rates to zero or historic lows re mortgages, etc. The Fed could venture into influencing long term and private debt. How? By ‘signaling’ markets its commitment to keep such rates ‘exceptionally low’ for an ‘extended period’. To be effective this language would require an implicit commitment to embark upon (most likely) a public asset (bond) repurchasing program. This ‘comfort letter’ would in turn stimulate economic activity.

Except that even here, the Fed’s hands are largely tied, despite assurances offered by, say, the President of the St Louis Federal Reserve Bank in the WaPo item. Krugman refers (ironically) to a Goldman analysis as a guesstimate: to achieve our current near zero short term rates would be the equivalent of the Fed embarking on $10 trillion in asset purchases. If the short-lived Fed 2008-2009 actual long term asset purchase program of around $2 trillion is perceived as unprecedented and ‘massive’? So we take Krugman’s point.

Obama’s folly of premature ‘bi-partisan’ surrender to ineffectual tax cut demands gutted the already inadequate stimulus package. The ‘Summer of Jobs’ comes home to roost. ‘Mission Accomplished’, indeed. Wither economic policy now with a radicalized demos? Disturbing data suggests Democrats in power have accomplished the once unthinkable — nudging Boomers generationally to embrace the irrational Rightists. Losing this demographic is more than just a partisan political body blow per supra.

We haven’t seen the generational preference data ourselves. We don’t dismiss it, however. David Winston, while a proud partisan, is deeply committed to the empirical. This from personal experience. We tend to give both his analysis as well as generalized glosses more credence than from others that come to mind.

Go team.

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If one is serious about re-industrializing the United States to create high wage manufacturing jobs, one probably should shun hapless pundits and other ideological purveyors. To be fair the braying comes from all sides: ‘Free Markets’ cant or the tiresome “What Would Hamilton Do Today”? As par for the course, the most visible ‘experts’ provided to us on the cable news wall often can’t read a spreadsheet, think EBITDA is a new social networking site, haven’t actually worked for an industrial company or consistently met a payroll.

Economic development requires a more serious mind. But then, one could say the same about war. And look at that.

Even more than killing dark people, a sustained development concept in Bubble-addicted America is particularly challenging. Americans expect to earn inflated income by performing essentially meaningless and frivolous output. Haven’t we essentially outsourced the wars, too?

Andy Grove laments the decline of the hi-tech industry’s domestic manufacturing. He’s right that it is essentially now a (temporary) branding and marketing channel for Asian manufacturers. “Made in China, Designed By Apple In California”. Our friend comment shared this link from Grove on point: Sadly, one has to ask: where precisely have you been for the last 30 years, Andy? (Let’s overlook the Intel billions invested in India, Malaysia and China along the way.)

Americans we will assert seem generally uninterested in development matters, especially historical economic development. So it’s important to put forth first principles to frame a conversation. Say a president visits a failed state like Michigan. He declares ‘new manufacturing jobs in America’ [cue ritual applause] will come. But before that can happen, we should be clear on what’s the goal of American economic activity? To promote *consumer* welfare measured in the here and now? Or to develop a social and economic infrastructure that maximizes *societal* welfare in the medium to long term? An infrastructure to enable other economic and social expenditures (military, standard of living, life expectancy, etc.)?

The first is America 1960-2010; ‘consumer welfare’ is the metric. The second? Delayed consumption, lower standards of living and capital accumulation for the future. How one answers these questions determines divergent paths.

For statesmen or serious students of Great Power history (this excludes by definition march of trumpets Boys Life ‘history’ ala Victor Davis Hanson et. al.), there are 4 essential, successful modern development models: (a) the British until 1870s (the end of the mercantalist First Empire and commingling with ‘Wealth of Nations’ and ‘White Man’s Burden’ era); (b) the Germans from 1870-1914; (c) the American from 1880s-1960s; (d) the Soviets 1917-1970s; (e) Japan from 1945-1991; (f) the Four Tigers (copying Japan); and (g) China (1980s-today). The latter three are essentially variations on the Japanese dual economy mercantalist approach. (The BRICs are more notional, still in China’s shadow).

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