Pundit Country

Glenn Greenwald writes of the need among progressives to separate the man from the movement, namely President Obama. It’s a sentiment that’s been growing over the last few weeks and and months as he begins to enact his agenda; one that many wish was more aggressive in both scope and nature.

However, many liberal-progressives are struggling to differentiate the man from the mission now that the man they worked so hard to put into office isn’t living up to the progressive ideals they believed (in cases inaccurately) he would. Those who are openly criticizing his policies and administrative directions are being met with harsh words from some of our own allies and organizations that, just months ago, were working together somewhat harmoniously.

What needs to be brought to light, though, is the simple truth that Obama is not the head of the progressive movement. He never was. He used that movement to achieve a political end, just as any other campaigning pol would. Some in the movement saw it as such and others did not, which is why I believe the schism is now occurring.

Greenwald notes that it’s a bit too much like defenders of the Bush administration and their never-ending love for George W. In their minds, he could do no wrong. And he asks an important series of questions both activists and organizations need to consider in the coming months as causes are advocated for and polices take shape:

I’ve always seen the unique value of political blogs as applying outside citizen pressure on Beltway institutional political power — which now resides primarily in Barack Obama and the Democrats — to reject or at least resist the standard Washington influences.  Every well-funded institutional faction is working feverishly using every means they have — lobbyists, money, advertising — to pressure the Democratic Party to serve their agenda.  Why shouldn’t “people on the Left” do the same?  Shouldn’t health care activists care more about the public option than Obama’s political standing?  Shouldn’t gay rights activists be agitating aggressively for concrete action rather than pretty speeches?  Shouldn’t civil libertarians be constantly protesting an administration that has stomped on their beliefs?  Shouldn’t anti-war activists and empire opponents be objecting to the obvious incompatibility between escalating a war and being deemed the earth’s leading peace activist?

The whole piece is here.

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• Maxine Waters: Obama Needs To Get Tough On “Neanderthals” In The Senate (huffingtonpost.com)
• Silence Isn’t Golden: Keep Demanding Healthcare. Loudly. (crooksandliars.com)
• AP: Democrats may go it alone on gov’t insurance plan (americablog.com)
• White House Contempt for Bloggers and “Left of the Left” is a Pattern (campaignsilo.firedoglake.com)

I have to admit that I never really considered this before as I’ve always thought of tribalism in it’s political context as a purely partisan frame of mind, but Henry at Crooked Timber makes an argument for the middle as partisan that makes one stand up and take notice.

I would say that this mindset is apparently quite pervasive in D.C. It shows up all the time in both the statements of politicians and the media pundits who cover them. Some have referred to it as “the bubble”, but I think tribalism is a far more accurate term. Henry (who is specifically critiquing a Financial Times journalist) notes:

In the meantime, I have a theory (it’s no more than that) of what is going on here. Mr. Crook clearly considers himself to be an independent mind, floating above the political fray and pronouncing judgments upon it. But given his past form, he is quite obviously wrong. His particular attitude to the online left suggests that his tribal loyalties are every bit as strong as those of the partisans whom he deplores – he is demonstrably happy to engage in rage-filled, irrational and delegitimizing rhetoric when it is aimed against the enemies of the “We” who “approve of consensual politics.” His tribalism is one of the center rather than the partisan left or right, but it is perhaps more pernicious for being completely unselfconscious.

The whole post is here.

Related articles

• What does it mean to be non-partisan? (themoderatevoice.com)

I find myself rarely in agreement with Tom Friedman. While I don’t consider myself an expert by any measure in foreign policy matters (the field a majority of his commentary is focused), I am almost in disagreement with him in relation to domestic issues. I’ve always felt his conclusions to be more of the same D.C. insider bunk that pervades most opinion journalism; too focused on the needs of the moneyed interests and less on the Main Street interests.

However, I am rather awed at his comparison between the public tension in the U.S. compared to the tension in Israel prior to Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995. He makes a salient point when he notes:

Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.

What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.

Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.

Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems — the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.

However, what bothers me more lately is what appears to be the administration’s lack of attention to this matter or their inability to take it seriously. If the vitrol is this bad just a few months after the election, imagine how much worse it will get in the next three years.

You can read Friedman’s entire piece here.

Robert Reich is one of the clearer voices (along with Krugman and at times, Stiglitz) in the field of experts who have been trying the last several months to explain why the much-touted recovery is not stemming the job losses that many states are experiencing. Simply put, the attention has been to the major players in the economy and not to smaller business.

The problem is, our newly expanded government isn’t doing much for average working Americans who continue to lose their jobs and whose belts continue to tighten, and who are getting almost nothing out of the rising Dow because they own few if any shares of stock. Despite the happy Dow and notwithstanding the upbeat corporate earnings, most corporations are still shedding workers and slashing payrolls. And the big banks still aren’t lending to Main Street.

Trickle-down economics didn’t work when the supply-siders were in charge. And it’s not working now, at a time when — despite all their cries of “socialism” — big business and Wall Street are more politically potent than ever.

The whole piece is here.

Related articles

• “Socialism” saved Wall Street (americablog.com)
• Economist Stiglitz sees need for global reserve currency system (dailyfinance.com)
• Why the Dow is Hitting 10,000 Even When Consumers Can’t Buy And Business Cries “Socialism” (tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Paul Krugman: We Are In Economic “Purgatory” (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)

Ezra Klein writes on the Washington Post about one of the little-discussed, but central issues on why people seem to resistant to reforming health insurance in America; namely that they don’t feel the pain of it’s true costs in a way that would cause them to demand a change rather than talk about change, but resist it when plans start to become concrete. The emphasis below is mine.

About 160 million Americans receive health coverage through their employers. In general, the employer picks up 73 percent of the tab. This seems like a good deal. In reality, that money comes out of wages.

As Ezekiel Emanuel, who advises Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag on health-care policy, has pointed out, health-care premiums have risen by 300 percent over the past 30 years (and that’s after adjusting for inflation). Corporate profit per employee has soared by 200 percent. Hourly earnings for workers, adjusted for inflation, have fallen. The wage increases have been consumed by health-care costs.

Another 80 million Americans are on public plans, mainly Medicare and Medicaid. Those costs are paid by taxpayers. And about 46 million Americans are uninsured. The costs for their care are shifted to the insured: This raises premiums for the average family by $1,100 each year, according to an analysis by Ben Furnas and Peter Harbage of the Center for American Progress.

Imagine if people who touched a hot stove felt only a small fraction of the pain from the burn. That’s pretty much what’s happening in our health-care system. It hurts enough that we would prefer it to stop, but the urgency is lost.

That’s the dilemma for Washington wonks trying to fix this mess: They look at the numbers and see health-care costs crushing our economy, overwhelming our government, swallowing our wages. But the public isn’t feeling it. Virtually no one cuts a $13,375 check for health care. Most pay 27 percent of it, or even less. The surest way to cut health-care spending would be to make people shoulder more of the burden directly, as opposed to hiding it in taxes and lost wages. But that’s about as popular as a puppy pot roast.

Obviously this is a very complex issue and one most people only experience through personal contact or through those of their friends. In fact, I would venture that most pundits only know a fraction of the entire issue. However, the simple fact remains that our economy will not recover in the manner that people are expecting if these costs go unchecked and unregulated.

The entire piece can be read here.

Related articles

• What Health Care Costs (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Obama Reiterates Support for Public Insurance Plan, Pushes Affordability (alankatz.wordpress.com)
• Health-Care Reform: Uninsured Young Adults Are a Problem (time.com)
• Ezra Klein has no health insurance (mydd.com)
• Studies Show Employers to Raise Health Care Costs, Cut Coverage (crooksandliars.com)