• The First Obama Administration
• Newt Gingrich’s Campaign
• Tweety’s Groveling Book Paean To JFK Before Intern Reveals Sex Scandal
• Mitt Romney At Home, Wondering Where His Dog Went
• The American Dream
• What’s Your Idea?

via arbroath.blogspot.com.

Adroit political leadership focuses their attention and mission abroad. Oceania always at war with Eurasia. Islamo-fascism threatens Kansas City.

In extreme cases, a regime feeling threatened by power ministries will use one against the other, e.g., NKVD and the Red Army. And then vice versa. Lin Bao an example in China, too. Coups or attempted coups occur when the civil regime miscalculates or is perceived as feeble. .

Unsurprisingly, power institutions, all things being equal, usually can be sated with status and legitimacy via external threat projection. The U-S-A! U-S-A! stuff we saw 2001-2011.

What happens when foreign threats evaporate and power institutions lose their priority claim on budgetary resources and mindshare? They usually will first try to manufacture new ones. Failing that, they will turn internally as predators.

For us, we’ve got Iran and China dragged across the stage. Enthusiasm for killing hundreds of thousands of brown people wanes (Johns Hopkins estimates). Obama’s new ‘strategy’ envisions a much less satisfying secondary, supporting roles reprising Libya.

As so often before, Israel serves as a proxy. When USA Today puts a “How Israel Will Attack Iran” on the front page, the meme’s got penetration.

And even so, the turn inwards continues. The Intelligence Community scramble to monitor domestic U.S. social media.

“It really ought to be the golden age of intelligence collection in that you’ve got people falling all over themselves trying to express who they are,” said Ross Stapleton-Gray, a former CIA analyst and now a technology consultant who advises companies on security, surveillance and privacy issues.

The civil government’s feabless we spoke of earlier? On full display.

the Justice Department was not following the law and had not provided Congress with the material at least for years 2004 to 2008. On the flip side, Congress was not exercising its watchdog role, thus enabling the Justice Department to skirt any oversight whatsoever on an increasingly used surveillance method that does not require court warrants, according to Justice Department documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.

The mishap is just one piece of an ever-growing disconnect between Americans’ privacy interests, and a Congress seemingly uncommitted to protecting those interests.

Congress isn’t alone in blame when an Executive is equally contemptuous of at least going through the motions. As we’ve said before, we know of no historical instance of a republic recovering from demotic oligarchical decadence and inevitable formless incoherence.

Obama apologists claim re-energizing a new ideological front against them was the goal all along. Or if not the goal, they quickly add, don’t worry. Rick Santorum benefits – genius kung fu.

All of which tells us that Obama and Friends really don’t understand contemporary politics and our polity. Still. At this late date. Their calculations remain small, traditional, rooted in the Old Consensus.

Galvanizing reluctantly dormant social wedge issue politics will not serve to improve participatory political pluralism. Such easily avoided political malpractice energizes the most anti-liberal democratic, anti-Enightenment forces and gives them legitimacy.

Whether it temporarily benefits the electoral fate of a single individual is completely besides the point. Only neophytes look at this in the temporary tweet blip landscape. Giving voice to these forces needlessly will de-stablize and echo in politics beyond today’s 24 news cycle. Amateurs may think this is just a hornets nest within Rightist circles (a) today’s Movement began as ‘just a hornets nest’; (b) MSNBC, San Francisco and the Upper West Side are not the only Democratic weathervanes.

Obama by necessity is not only his own political agent. He — as any president — serves as steward for the fabric and weal of society. Some compromises and concessions are the oxygen for participatory democracy. When that itself is under siege and question, all the more reason to avoid such a Freshman Unforced Error.

Astute observers of American culture and politics know this to be true. This unnecessary political fumble? An augur. And reminder of what ‘victory’ will mean.

Under terms of the settlement, the five lenders won’t have to pay out the bulk of the $25 billion. Some $17 billion represents credits applied toward targets lenders have to modify some of the loans on their books. Some of those modifications would have happened anyway. Based on a complex formula, bankers will earn credits on a sliding scale depending on the type of modification. The least costly refinancing methods might earn a lender as little as a nickel on a dollar; the costliest would generate a dollar-for-dollar credit.

And so on. Our old friendly acquaintance Liz Warren observes she “hopes [the settlement] is the beginning, not the end” of efforts to hold banks accountable for their destructive duplicities. Fake sincerity is equally grating, whether from Obama’s toothy visage or Mitt’s coiffed animatronics.

The settlement marks another kind of accounting transfer labeled as a ‘payment’. Mostly, money is merely moved from account to another. In that scheme of faux payments, California wins big. “$18 billion” in “payments” out of the “$25 billion paid”.

The real beneficiaries — as we know — are in fact the banks, not American citizens. A few specific Americans will benefit from the settlement’s narrow targeting. But the banks pay out almost nothing.

The State AGs posture saying the real victory is that banks will run the foreclosure mills with less blatant disdain for maintaining mere pretenses. Appearances must be maintained – that’s our victory. Americans who were evicted by bank fraud within a specific window – Jan 1, 2008-Dec. 2011 – will receive. . . $1,500. But hey, banking executives obtain some protection for liability. Turn that frown upside down!

What Barry announced is actually what Mitt Romney has been promising – expedite foreclosures, clear them out, fix ‘em up and sell/rent. Realtors are on board with that. The liquid class are too, expanding holdings, buying at the bottom. Banks can now begin clearing overhang, improve their balance sheets. All needed, we are told, to improve the economy and get lending going again.

Except, of course, banks have essentially free money (ours, in almost zero interest accounts) and from the fed. And lend it out at obscene multiples – forget about gouging us using our money with debit card fees. Moreover, the banks’ current balance sheets are almost wholly separate from corporate America’s refusal to invest or spend over $2 trillion in idle cash. So let’s stop lying to ourselves.

Americans are trapped in upside down mortgages to the tune of $750 billion. This settlement will not apply to more than 5% of that market malfunction. And contrary to what politicians say, the very (slight) incentives in the Settlement further encourage banks not to help those remaining trapped underwater, even (especially) if completely current.

Those Americans and others are left behind, drowned out by photo ops and press conferences. Their distress and its resolution will have far greater impact on (a) returning economic growth; (b) a vibrant (as opposed to moribund functional) real estate market; and (c) ultimately the banks’ own well being. How inconvenient of them.

No one here likely would argue that a functioning real estate market responding to true market signals isn’t essential for the economy. Healthy (but not predatory) banking still eludes us, too.

Because that, ladies and gentlemen, is just what went down – millions of Americans thrown under the bus for optics and the possibility — maybe — of helping bank balance sheets.

Interesting to hear some conversations among the permanent Republican/Movement D.C. class begin to mutter that *they* would be better off with an Obama victory. He is fundraising gold. The 501(c)(4)s, consulting firms and the like have never seen profits or budgets like this. Hillary in pants suits, toting Vince Foster wrapped in a rug from love nest to public park days? Chump change. Obama has made them personally wealthy.

The reasoning is simple. A second term by definition peters out in less than 18 months. He’s already a convulsive caver. Besides, Obama is thumbs up on the bombing brown people front. Sam’s recent comment about the British tourists deported simply for using British slang about partying in America on Twitter gets a grudging nod for abusing executive power.

The car wreck in leadership fighting across the House and Senate Republican minority? More time to get ducks in a row. Assuming they at least hold on the House.

A Romney presidency by contrast presents unknowns. Access is everything. Which of them will be able return to the roles they were accustomed to under Bush? Feelings are running hard now. Robo calls that Romney is against kosher food won’t be forgotten. Worse? How will he govern? Like GHWB and propose something crazy and sensible like the ADA? Sununu, Romney’s attack dog, after all as GHWB CoS famously said “We have mortgages, not ideologies.”

The country and even government may be in decadent disarray. The above may be idle musing. Tribalism may trump all in a clear need to witness ‘destruction’. But Obama’s unquestionably been very very good to a surprising strata.

And self interest? What could be more emblematic of our times?

In one sense it’s 2008 again but not HRC/Boy King. Huckabee recall took his grudge match with McCain to the bitter-most end. And he got a sweet TV deal and a new Florida bling-worthy crib out of it. Not bad for a few months of real work.

Newt’s already outside the Huckabee zone, denouncing justifiably the (remarkably feeble) ‘Republican establishment’. Besides, Fox wouldn’t be the end goal. Newt’s closing in on 70 and got ‘F U’ money already. And Ailes for his part has Glenn Beck’s rise and fall as fresh, cautionary memory. Although, Newt probably could rock a blackboard into Salvador Dali territory.

So how far can pique take Newt? He declared in his defiant (but undeniably weaker from exhaustion) election night he’s going on to every state. The New Newt MK XX’s a populist now. And wants moderates and Democrats (?) to join him. It’s so ON with the ‘Establishment’.

Veteran Newt watchers can place bets on how soon he petulantly turns on ‘Republicans’ in general. A small line, easily crossed any morning with a low sugar balance. From there, Americans themselves are unworthy of his genius? That only he can reclaim ‘American Civilization’ by ‘revolution’? He’s already thinking that right now.

What we wonder is what’s left for Romney or Gingrich to say? What attack left unsaid? What sleezy robo call unmade?

The Romney and Newt Florida election nite speeches make clear it’s Newt who retains the initiative to further radicalization. He alone would unhesitatingly hand out gasoline with glee. To burn his last bridge behind. How embarrassing should he discover he’s down to his last match. And simply whiffs out.

What do you think? Will Newt bow to traditional political realities? Or pursue his radicalism to its internally logical end?

If today’s GOP primary was a Japanese horror supernatural anime (all rights with respective owners). In both the Movement and Japanese imagination, conveniently blonde hair plays an outsized role. We think Ms. Base Babe definitely should pack, and it’s nice the pointy-headed-liberal here is wearing glasses. Probably went to a better school than Newt.

Issue No.1s are always tricky – introducing the main characters and the hero’s initial journey. While keeping a menace on the horizon. So did we miss anyone? Possibly in the Campbell tradition, the older mentor who must die for the hero to move on. That came to mind.

• Mitt Romney (in his idealized Fox News blonde state
• Tea Party and Republican base
• Liberal Media and Democratic elites
• Gratuitous T&A for Fox
• Newt Gingrich (who threatens to stalk the hero to the Convention)

Leave suggestions for Issue No. 2 below.

We bailed on the debate 10 minutes in. Scanning cable, the universe began to speak. A previously ignored channel (Movieplex? Plexamovie? Realplex?) ran the 1967 classic “Valley of the Dolls” (“dolls” referring to barbiturates). The movie (and underlying book) follow 3 single women in post-war New York showbiz from innocent enthusiasm, staggering quantities of alcohol, the aforementioned ‘dolls’ to swinging Hollywood and . . . nobody really comes to a good end. Perfect for the debate.

We switched back and forth between the two. “Dolls” is widely celebrated as so awful it might be surreal art. The Republican debate as backing track gave it a certain gravitas, too. For example, one of the 3 women, “Neely” (played by Patty Duke (who used to have her own show for kids who don’t remember B&W TV) and said loosely to be based on Judy Garland) is undeniably gifted. But also fantastically self-destructive, grandiose, destructive, untruthful, unfaithful and manipulative.

Did we mention destructive? So basically Newt. Oh universe, it’s as if you were watching CNN, too.

When Neely began a scene of drug-fuelled lunacy (including a spell in the pre-Betty Ford celeb rehab ‘sanitarium’) time to watch the debate for Newtisms. Sadly, Newt couldn’t match Patty Duke’s scenery chewing firepower. Not that we’d suggest anyone debate nationally on drugs, alcohol and grandiosity. Although at least one of them worked for Newt before.

One of Neely’s friends, Anne, proper, from New England and money, tried to fit in. Swing with the show business thing. She barely saves her life by fleeing Hollywood and embracing New ENgland home, family and friends. Her screen time? Cue to check in on Mitt.

Romney’s expectations are now so low that simply showing some signs of life makes people grant him a round. (Bachmann’s debate coach, written up on the WaPo as the “Candidate Whisperer” during her rise and despised deeply by her staff and inner circle also got alot of perhaps undeserved credit – what can 2 days on the job really do?). Still, Romney exposed Newt as the Pander Bear, a new port for South Carolina, a new ‘moon colony’ for the space coast.

Finally, the lovely Sharon Tate is Jennifer, the third friend in the triumvirate. We exclude her from this exercise with the heartbreaking knowledge we all have of what was to come shortly. Especially given the character’s tragic end.

Switching channels – while not instant – created strange sentence hand offs – A “Dolls” character begins to rant against ‘show business’ which segues naturally on CNN into media denunciation. Declarations of “I am not going to apologize for my talent!” are a smooth handover to “I am proud to have made money with LBOs”, etc. When Neely becomes particularly drug dependent and screaming for help, her agent’s prescription for tough love cued up Ron Paul, albeit less avuncular – Neely just needs to shut down the Federal Reserve.

The nite’s best line may belong to the Concierge of the Situation Room to Ron Paul: “What do you do when Raoul Castro calls?” “Ask him why he’s calling.”

With just a little work on the beats, it was almost Clouseau-level: “Does your dewg bite?” “No” GGGGGRRRRRRRRRRR “I thought you said your dewg does not bite!” “That’s not my dog.”

What’s the best way you’ve ever watched a debate?

So it’s impressive how little people get Newt. Even while talking about him ad nauseum.

Newt’s actually a chemist, of a sort. His favored (and necessary) efforts are to turn politics into their most gaseous state, that is to say radicalized and unpredictable. Amorphous. In this sense he truly is the anti-Romney and vice versa.

As a chemist, Newton Leroy Gingrich’s accelerant always is expediency. Look at the major events of his life. Expediency defines him from his first divorce through his calamitous years as Speaker to now running against LBOs and runaway judges. (An old acquaintance helped write that 52 page whackadoodle thing; if our experience writing for Newt is any guide he skimmed the intro then scrawled “Good effort, keep pushing. Newt.”)

“Keep pushing”. That drive to impart motion to politics is vital to his appeal and limitations. Newt is immersed in the Movement but not really part of it. Newt’s never even been a conservative. We don’t mean like recent (duh) denunciations by NRO, Santorum, etc. Newt’s on the Right because it’s expedient – they were and remain more pliable to his politics of expedient radicalism.

“Keep pushing” (we have that across our own papers somewhere, too). When politics are radicalized, when consensus boundaries and expectations are shattered, Newt finds his natural environment. He’s free. Whether you were for Paul Ryan’s budget or against it details for little minds. Nor whether you bashed a plutocrat for LBOs. Use a cable debate host like rag doll to mop the floor with a false narrative? All yesterday’s used tissues. “Keep pushing.”

Here’s a story. Republicans had just taken over the House. All of DC was in shock. Newt’s myth that he, Haley and the Contract had anything to do it another expedient fib. It was a last minute photo opp that gathered little attention. A famous pollster later got sanctioned by his professional association for claiming he did polling showing voters even knew about the Contract (trust us, we were there).

Still, Newt was Speaker. And it was a sweet ride for those tagging along. The Washington Post reporter covering X affairs called. He asked did the Speaker-elect really mean he would abolish X Department/Agency? Jack, then on Newt’s staff, passed the call to the Stiftung.

The Stiftung had no idea. There hadn’t even been a meeting on the subject. So we pulled a number out of thin air and said “Z function could be done by 28 people.” (28 sounded better than something round like 100). We laughed hanging up the phone.

And so across the WaPo the next day was “Gingrich Proposes Radical Slashing X to 28 people.” Newt was delighted. He didn’t care about the details. The *atmosphere* of radicalism is what he craved, keeping everyone off balance, preserving final options for him alone. Newt used to keep pestering Jack Reed, then the new Chair of the House Commerce Committee (it hadn’t been split by Tauzin’s ego yet). “Jack, of course we’re going to abolish the Commerce Department, and Education. So pick your own trophy. What ex-Department do you want over your fireplace?” (True quotes).

“Keep pushing”.

A gaseous maelstrom for the sake of preserving his expediency. Others — if they are honest — can regale you of countless times 1/2 staff would be pushing A legislation only to discover Newt personally cut a deal and promised interest groups B. *Everyone* is off balance but the most unbalanced of all.

The coup against Newt wasn’t just about some big egos ruffled. Reliance on expediency means Newt’s congenitally unable to govern – a staff, a majority or a House. It’s true he came up with 10 ideas a day, 7 looney, 2 iffy, one interesting. But all of that is symptomatic of his transcendent need to be unfettered by consequence, unbound by impact on others. Which also means his choice of Vice President should he be the nominee is critical — it’s almost guaranteed there will be something akin to a mutiny or coup in any Gingrich Administration. His final Gotterdammerung, perhaps.

“Keep pushing”.

When seen in this light, of course Newt in DC would call Marianne at home and tell her “I love you” while enduring the quiet ministrations of Callista. It’s not like there was a cigar, you know.

It’s tempting to say that Newton is essentially still an 11 year old boy. All of us and life itself are props for his fantasy narrative, in which he overcomes all dangers to save his People, slay evil (and thus redeem his expediency and win the (next) girl). Solopsism? We’ll leave the diagnosis to You Know Who. It was noteworthy to see him in South Carolina election night equating himself to Ronald Reagan, whom he demoted as ‘a B actor who starred with chimps’.

The Faustian bargain Newt seeks to close is different than 1994. There, as mentioned, his Speakership was an after thought, the Contract meaningless in the election. Here he wants the deal signed and sealed on the grandest possible American stage. His appeal to “keep pushing”, to “destroy”, “revolutionize”, “remake”, “dramatically overhaul” promises not just electoral victory.

Some supporting him don’t actually have a great deal of faith in pluralistic democracy or find caveats to render results ‘fraudulent’. What Newt’s selling is a dream. His siren call? “Imagine a future public theater (the election) *and* compelling hated institutions (the media Hollywood, etc) to document and concede their defeat.” Newt’s facility articulating this is because he’s asking them to join the joyride of his own 11 year old’s inner narrative.

“Keep pushing”. And together we will stand over the political corpses of hated psychological archetypes (an African American president of modest achievement, few convictions and little actual political will). That he will then turn on them hasn’t occurred to them at all.

They can’t know because we today refuse to talk about the Great Recession in its granular reality. We’re a people compulsively determined to pretend it’s not happening.

Of course, there’s ‘talk’. Our lives every day are filled with tactical fluff. Snarky tweets. Cable news opinion – millionaire teleprompter readers solemnly reading economic numbers like a professional sports summary. The next Obama sound byte merges with the next Republican Debate in a vortex of detachment.

Ephemera. All of it flitting like lifespans of summer fireflies. Easily interchangeable by . . . Tebow, crashed cruise ships, whether Vanity Fair some magazine bleats is Zooey Deschanel ‘over’? And so on.

That is not how (healthy) societies memorialize and create legacies about one of the great catastrophes of the modern era, the Great Recession.

What then are the actual artifacts that mark a time? In our demotic-oligarchy, the mass memory is defined by pop culture. Even as technology allows narrowcasting and splintering of audiences, the yearning for finding consensual touchstones remains. The spiraling reductionism of a ‘hit’ TV comedy show like “The Big Bang Theory” which both mocks and marinates self-referentially in pop culture is an example.

Let’s look at pop culture since 2007. Is there any break between pre-and post 2007? Anything to reflect the economic collapse and implosion experienced by at least 20-25% of the populace? Put another way, what will one find in a future iTunes/Amazon online product grid to define this time?

Not much if anything. There is no ‘break.’ More than that, pop culture is virtually unchanged. The same franchises lurch on. New IP (as they say) can be about zombies, vampires, rich people in trouble. One painful ‘comedy’ on CBS called ’2 Broke Girls’ allegedly speaks to the Great Recession. It’s really about 20-something actresses dropping excruciatingly clumsy and rushed innuendo ala the movie Bridesmaids. Apparently, empowerment for women is now to be as crude as bad male characters.

Compare how differently pop culture reacted to 9-11. Pop culture powerfully aided and abetted lobotomizing American society, making it pliable, even willfully complicit in its militarization and constitutional subjugation. ’24′. ‘The Unit’. We could spend hours documenting it all. Movies. Pop songs. Video games. Violence. Power, Kinetic death. Remember the death threats to the Dixie Chicks? U-S-A! U-S-A!

The legacy endures. Much of pop culture today is still excessively militarized or suffused with National Security State memes. One can be a ‘burned’ spy, but the answer is always the same – righteous violence, subterfuge and fast-cut action.

Why are Americans incapable of producing or unwilling to consume mass market pop culture about the Great Recession — a calamity far greater than 9/11? What accounts for the willful refusal to experience it, produce it, consume it, create it?

Imagine a hypothetical college student trying to understand the Great Recession. He or she might come across some photos or video clips of tents in some parks. But what puts them in context? What is the cultural product that gives these random images meaning? The mortgage crisis – there isn’t one scriptwriter capable of portraying the human toll for an artifact as historical legacy movie/TV show? Or songwriter for a pop album?

Dear Reader, you might well ask, ‘Why the fixation on pop culture?’ Besides demotic poli-sci-sociological riff. People consume pop culture to forget about things, lay off. Except they don’t. The revenge culture of force and violence after 2001 is proof. Every season of ’24′ Jack Bauer killed and maimed countless dark people trying to nuke LA, etc.

There’s something else afoot. It’s an almost child-like refusal to deal with reality in the hopes it will go away? Paramount, Sony, Fox – all of them collectively thinking ‘cooties’ and ‘jinx’.

It’s true there are many books about this or that. Some may survive in a future format even. Yet our definition above specifically sought out *mass* audience because that scope of consumption created a forged common experience (even if audiences have mixed reactions). College kids today know their Robot Chicken. Upton Sinclair, not so much.

Imagine that future college student looking at those tent pictures. Where’s the context? If you answer Hoover-ville, that says more about a reader’s demographic than the likelihood the same historical ‘charge’ in that label’s capacitor will carry forth into the future. Put it this way, a college sophomore today has no living memory of Bill Clinton as president, only vaguely recalls the Bush twilight. They couldn’t even vote in 2008. To them, reading about GHWB might as well be Augustine Rome temporally. Truly.

We submit that a society that can not create and experience X (however defined) about the Great Recession as it unfolds is psychologically incapable of grasping the actual challenge. And a society acting on fear and embracing avoidance only empowers those without compunction who see opportunity.

Our bet that not much will change. Which means that a lot will for those who have to live out that future.