36%. Says it all.
The Crises Of Capitalism, Animated
It’s Under The Bed . . . I Saw Fox! Don’t Turn Out The Light, Please Mommy And Daddy!
What’s worse? The Movement in amoral full flight or mewling and whining on ‘the Left’ [sic], with tiresome gnashing of teeth and typing in dismay? Always despairing the [Senegalese?] referee’s failure to pull a Red Card, to make clear To The Whole World the score a blatant, invalid Rightist foul?
Josh Marshall’s swan dive into the victimization pool is rather typical:
Still, you just have to back up from that and realize that as disappointing as Tom Vilsack’s first crack at this was, the idea that he or Obama is the bad guy in this story is not only preposterous but verging on obscene (emphasis added). It’s like the NYPD as the bad guy in the Son of Sam saga because they didn’t catch David Berkowitz fast enough. Or perhaps that the real moral of the story is that the woman with the stalker should have been more focused on personal data security. Not for some time has something so captured the essential corruption of a big chunk of what passes as ‘right wing media’ (not all, by any means, but a sizable chunk along the Breitbart/Fox/Hannity continuum) and the corruption of the mainstream media itself as this episode.
Marshall’s diversionary examples are sophomorically inapposite. And irrelevant. Notice how the Administration’s premature panic, collusion and later attempt to brush it all away is literally acknowledged as just ‘disappointing’ (with Vilsack alone holding the bad)? The real story, according to TPM? Fox made them do it. (Note the perpetually passive psychological construct?)
Kos was wrong lamenting about this phenomenon (pathology?) 6 years ago. It’s not at all like he said – they [Dems et al.] always bring knives to a gunfight. ‘The Left’ [sic] bring nothing. And then scream for Mommy and Daddy. We wouldn’t want to give Dr. Krauthammer an idea for a column (without residuals) but there is something deeper going on.
What exactly has to happen in Marshall’s world for non-Righists to function effectively? He doesn’t know. We like TPM and have from day one when it was a simple blog. This is a friendly reader’s exasperation. TPM and its readers need an intervention. We’ll leave that to the pros. But in the interim, here’s free advice. Stop flinching and stop ‘enabling’ flinchers. Be careful what you wish for, too, re getting a ‘ref’. Maybe Josh never played competitive sports. Or had a different experience. In ours, even referees get tired of premature flinchers and secretly despise them.
Can you imagine the coup d’etat that would have happened somewhere along 1992-2000 with this crowd? By what year do you think Rush or Newt would have driven Clinton into house arrest at the Streisand Estate? And seized the (newly enlarged) crown out of the Pope’sAiles’ hands and put it on his swollen head? Recall Tweety *and* Hitch shoulder-to-shoulder cheering Newt and Ken Starr on like high school cheerleaders. Notwithstanding Clinton basically *was* a good Republican president, to boot.
On such gossamer thin strands hope rests.
On Andy Grove, Mercantilist Schwerpunkts And Free Trade Kool Aid
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).
There’s An App For That (Corrected)*
Good old Dave. Always the overachiever is he. Completely dependable, too. In the slick, Washingtonian-instrumental-let’s-use-each-other sort of way. A shame he’s no strategic genius.
When political science attempted to mean something other than a plug on Morning Joe, a number of scholars (notice how we don’t use that word anymore? Instead, we get Michael Beschloss) tried to unravel the linkage – if any – between going ashore in Da Nang 1965 and the progressive Johnson domestic agenda. This was before Reagan made the bear step back on American-made color TVs (yes, preposterous we know, but true, we did make them). Academics like Joanne Gowa delved into presidential records and interviews to ask “Do progressive American presidents have to wage war abroad (Cold or Hot) to appease opponents of their domestic agenda.” In structural terms, is there a terrible quid pro quo for the Voting Rights Act, the Warren Court, the Civil Rights Act, etc., etc.
We know now that Johnson, the Ur political president, certainly took the thought seriously. Democrats and Republicans alike embraced general containment. We fought a hot war in Korea. Ike threatened nukes. The Soviets were a real global threat. After the 1962 Cuban humiliation they embarked upon the largest military escalation in human history.
What’s Obama’s excuse? He’s doubled down on COIN with Petraeus’ appointment (oblique elevation) today. We dump $100 billion $16 billion a month into Afghanistan. With no credible scenario for success (however defined) by July 2011. By the way, that’s another $1.1 trillion almost $200 billion more from the date of this writing alone. Who thinks Obama politically survives a pullout right before the 2012 funny season? Even a wholly cynical ‘decent interval’ deal with the Taliban wouldn’t work in this day and age.
Obama’s smart enough to know his domestic opponents are in the nihilist militant masses. His Afghan policy won’t buy him a single vote on financial reform. Or jobless benefits extensions. He doesn’t face Johnson’s glacial constraints. Nor is he in the same league as the Nixon/Kissinger pairing (for good and ill). Obama chose to make the Afghanistan war his folly. Twice.
One must take him at his word. McChrystal’s faux pas gave him an opportunity to recalibrate. To face unpleasant truths. He chose to download the Petraeus COIN app again. Which makes Obama the biggest American strategic problem of all.
________
* We blew it. The initial numbers are patently absurd. Should have known it without typing. Rudimentary checking would have caught it anyway. We relied on a presentation by a well known foreign affairs/D.C. blogger and simply ran with it. Not a valid excuse. Not just because we didn’t source it. We were caught up making the cute iPetraeus App thing fall into place; we were lazy and regurgitated what we were told. Which is what we ridicule others, especially in the media, for doing. As Les Grossman might say, ‘The Universe is talking’. We’re listening.
Apologies.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- Next Page »