Nation-Building

There's something strange going on...

Recall that at the height of the health reform fight, after Senator Brown was elected in MA and the Democrats looked like they were on the verge of total failure. It looked like Obama's signature domestic policy achievement would indeed be his Waterloo... and then, Anthem Blue Cross raised rates by 40%.

On the verge of the financial reform fight, Goldman Sachs was sued by the FEC and grilled mercilessly by a bipartisan Senate committee for it's shenanigans of knowingly selling "sh$%ty" securities to customers and profiting from their failure.

The next big fight is immigration reform, and Arizona passes a draconian law essentially legalizing racial profiling of its Hispanic population - soon to be a majority. (It also revealed the Tea Party to be hypocrites when it comes to big government and Constitutional fidelity).

And of course, with the climate bill coming down the line, we have a gargantuan oil spill in the Gulf of mexico that is shaping up to be the worst environmental disaster since the Exxon Valdez.

Let's even throw in the observation that President Obama is about to select a new justice for the Supreme Court - mere months after the universally reviled Citizens United case opened the floodgates to infinite corporate money over our elections.

Notice any pattern?

If I were Glenn Beck, these dots would now duly be connected by a conspiracy theory line of outlandish proportion. But I think that it's really more likely that the convergence of reality with policy and reform is a "happy" coincidence - though of course these disasters all have real tragic consequences for ordinary people caught in the middle of them. It would be better if these tragic events could have been prevented, but by occurring, they demonstrate the lack of any preventative mechanism. And thus make the case for the reforms in President Obama's domestic agenda far more forcefully than any speech or campaign ad.

Let's just hope that the pattern doesn't hold when it's time to ratify the new START treaty.

Labels: President Obama, Purple

Continue reading/discuss I am beginning to notice a disturbing pattern ...

An interesting meta-debate by intellectual conservatives over conservatism's future is playing out. It started with David Frum's Waterloo essay, which led to his political excommunication. Julian Sanchez observed that this represented an epistemic closing of the conservative mind, a thesis that was validated by the retribution visited upon Jim Manzi for daring to suggest that conservatives will achieve more persuasion by using honest, strong arguments instead of weak, emotional ones.

All of this has led John Quiggin at Crooked Timber to argue most wisely that as conservatism implodes, liberalism needs to find its own rationale that is more than just "not conservatism". Quiggin has a list of priorities for the liberal movement to address, and closes with the general plea,

...the left has to stand for something more than keeping the existing order afloat with incremental improvements. We need to offer the hope of a better world as an alternative to the angry tribalism that threatens to engulf us.

I'm sympathetic to this argument, because it was actually one of my own critiques of then-candidate Obama in the 2008 election. I consistently argued for "transformative" change because I genuinely thought such change was achievable. However, since Obama's election, and the realities of the limitations imposed by the legislative system and a staunchly obstructionist Republican minority, I've come around to the incrementalist approach. I think that Obama represents a step back from the rightmost brink, to the center, and that the time for broader strides leftwards will have to wait until after Obama has finished restoring balance. m

DougJ at Balloon Juice also takes issue with Quiggin's last point, pointing out that incrementalism is a good thing, relative to the alternative:

It's true that pragmatic liberalism has its shortcomings as a political strategy. Much of the appeal of conservatism comes from how thorough-going its dictates are. Contemporary liberal discussion (at least as I see it on blogs and in opinion columns) mostly confines itself to governmental policies. The conservosphere gets involved with what movies you should watch, what kinds of scarves you should wear in Dunkin' Donuts ads, what kinds of countertops you should have in your house, and so on. (I'm not saying liberals can't be preachy, mind you, but it's one thing for your friend to lecture you about recycling, it's another for prominent political columnists to devote multiple columns to Avatar.) That's seductive in the same way that religion is.

That's a good insighgt and it's worth exploring that religion analogy further (even though I likely disagree with DougJ on the value of religion as a whole). The analogy I would make is that movement conservatism is a lot like the stereotypical Shari'ah (as envisioned in the fevered dreams of the islamophobes). It demands total subjugation and defines all aspects of life to fall within its purview. Everything must be judged on the binary scale and assessed by the orthodoxy as Good or Evil; the good must be enjoined and the evil must be repudiated. There is no moderation or middle ground.

Liberalism, in contrast, is how Islam is practiced by ordinary muslim folk - in essence, ijtihad. We go about our lives and try to live our lives as best we can in accordance with our principles and cultural tradition. It is inherently incrementalist; there's no master Plan, but as we become aware of ways in which we can conform our actions to our beliefs, we make adjustments. It's inherently an individual movement, because of our personal interpretations and decisions - for example, I might abstain from fish oil supplements on the basis of halal rules, but eat at McDonalds, and another may do the exact opposite. There's no central authority dictating the details, though there are authorities dictating teh rules which we have to interpret and apply to the unique context of our individual lives.

Conservatism looks at Islam and sees only Shari'ah, because it projects itself there. The reality, however, is much more mundane, as it should be.

Labels: conservatism

Continue reading/discuss Conservatism's shari'a, liberalism's ijtihad ...

It seems that every year, there's a breathless report that Iran is a year ortwo away from having nuclear weapons. Once again:

Two of the nation's top military officials said Wednesday that Iran could produce bomb-grade fuel for at least one nuclear weapon within a year, but would most likely need two to five years to manufacture a workable atomic bomb.

The time frame ... was roughly in line with the finding of a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate. That document, which is about to be updated, said that Iran would probably be able to produce a nuclear weapon between 2010 and 2015, while cautioning that there was no evidence that the Iranian government had decided to do so.

(...) The generals offered a number of significant caveats about their assessment of Iran's capabilities. When asked, for example, how long it would take Iran to convert its current supplies of low-enriched uranium into bomb-grade material, General Burgess said, "The general consensus - not knowing again the exact number of centrifuges that we actually have visibility into - is we're talking one year."

(...) Even if Iran produced a weapon's worth of material in a year, it would not necessarily mean the country was ready for what experts call "breakout" - renouncing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and declaring, as North Korea did, that the country was now a nuclear power.

I am not a foreign policy or nonproliferation expert, so take this post as purely speculative. But it occurs to me after reading the above that Iran's nuclear strategy may be inspired by Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity" - to neither confirm nor deny that they possess nuclear weapons, and thus remain free of pressure to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. This gives Israel (and thus, potentially, Iran) all the benefits of nuclear deterrence against its hostile neighbors, but avoids the legal and diplomatic pressures on a nuclear state that come with being a non-signatory to the NNPT (such as India and Pakistan).

Israel's argument for this is that it is uniquely isolated as a small nation surrounded by "enemies" and thus must rely on any strategic advantage it can. The same argument, however, applies to Iran, which is surrounded on both sides by US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, has hostile relations with a nuclear-armed Israel, and is also facing serious Arab nation hostility and fear (which currently manifests as anti-Shi'a policies, but is also spurring an Arab nuclear arms race.

At Talk Islam, a commenter observed that "the middle east has Israel to bind them together." While true, the same could be said of Iran - Israel already has diplomatic relations with Egypt, and Saudi Arabia shares Israel's paranoia about Iran. There's even reason to be optimistic about Syrian-Israeli relations. Ultimately, Iran is competing with Israel for regional hegemony, Persian Shi'a and Jews in a predominantly Sunni Arab milieu. And while the ignorant masses may hate Israel, their cynical leaders fear Iran more.

Nuclear ambiguity also gives Iran a useful loophole with respect to President Obama's new nuclear posture. That policy was written with Iran and North Korea in mind, stating that any state that is either (a) non-nuclear or (b) nuclear, but signs the NNPT will be exempt from American nuclear attack, but makes specific exception for any nuclear state that does not sign the NNPT. If Iran's nuclear status is ambiguous, however, then Iran can legally argue that it should qualify as exempt. This gives Iran additional diplomatic and legal cover.

Ultimately, Iran has as many enemies as Israel does - with the significant difference being that Israel calls the world's remaining superpower an ally. Therefore all the logic of Israel's nuclear ambiguity fully applies.

Related: Nuclear policy blogger Page van der Linden has two excellent summary articles at DailyKos, providing a recap of the START treaty and the revised nuclear posture, and a wrap-up analysis of the nuclear security summit. Both are must-read "big picture" briefing articles that really give you a great overview of how momentous and significant the progress made towards a nuclear-free world over these last two weeks.

Labels: Iran, Israel, Nuclear

Continue reading/discuss Iran's nuclear ambiguity ...

This year, I won't be getting a refund - in fact I had to cut two sizable checks to the Department of Revenue and the Wisconsin Treasury. Yes, it was indeed painful.

Fundamentally, the idea of sending your money to faceless bureaucrats is one that provokes some resentment in even the most mild-mannered citizen. In fact, there's a Tea Party rally going on right now in Capitol Square here in Madison full of people who are really angry about it, who think that taxes are a form of tyranny, who are holding signs evoking the Revolutionary War ("Don't Tread on Me", etc.) and who fervently believe that Barack Obama is a socialist/muslim/fascist/communist dedicated to destroying this nation, who will throw you in jail if you don't buy health insurance.

That's patriotism, in a way. These people believe that their liberty is being threatened, and they are making their voices heard in defense of what they believe.

However, my understanding of patriotism is that freedom isn't free. I know that taxes are actually a fantastic deal; for my taxes, I get roads and schools, water and national defense, the Internet, NASA, and of course a social safety net that keeps millions of Americans out of poverty and in health. Here's a fantastic, interactive graphic from the New York Times that makes it clear exactly where our federal tax dollars will be going in 2011.

In fact, most of the people at the Tax Day Tea Party rallies today would vigorously object if told that many of these things that are funded by their taxpayer dollar were to be cut. In fact there's a huge disconnect between what people say should be cut from the budget and how much we actually spend on those things. And often, the people most up in arms about government handouts are the ones who benefit from fedderal spending the most.

Without getting into issues of race and class - even though these are at the very heart of the Tea Party anger - it's simple to observe that most of the anger playing out today is due to a lack of information, and a deliberate strategy of mis-information. Tea Partyers are mad about lots of things that simply are not true, like being thrown in jail for not having health insurance, or about how the poor supposedly pay no taxes at all, or that the average person works four months of the year to pay off Uncle Sam.

In reality, tax rates today are the lowest in 60 years - 98% of Americans got tax cuts, directcly thanks to President Obama's stimulus plan. And the majority of Americans think taxes are fair, putting the Tea Partiers way outside the mainstream.

Ultimately, it boils down to a question of responsibility. In a strange way, the Tea Partiers marching out on Capitol Square this afternoon view freedom and liberty, ironically, as an entitlement. I view it as something worth paying for. Who between us values it more?

I paid my taxes, and I'm proud.

Related: a new poll from the New York Times and CBS about Tea Partiers' beliefs. (handy interactive graphic, too). Bottom line: lots of misinformation, leading to extreme views on pretty much everything. And Fox News is the primary engine for their anger and deception. And let's not forget that the systematic and deliberate lies being fed to the Tea Partiers today has already had direct, and tragic, consequences.

Labels: economy

Continue reading/discuss Tea party? I'm proud to pay my taxes ...

President Obama has been riding high the past few weeks, moving forward on his agenda from health care to nuclear arms reduction to the prospect of appointing another judge to the Supreme Court. However, there's a dark lining to this fluffy white cloud of hope and change - his record on civil liberties. Specifically, the problem is that the Obama Administration still reserves to itself the power to indefinitely imprison - and even outright kill - and American citizen, without public trial or evidence or due process of law. Two cases in particular stand out: the first is the case of Syed Fahad Hashmi, who has been held for three years in solitary confinement in a a New York City prison, and the second is the decision to add Anwar al-Awlaki to a CIA "target list" which permits US forces to essentially kill him on sight. Neither of these men are the type I'd want to invite over to dinner, but the fact remains that as US citizens they are guaranteed - in fact, not theory - the due process of law.

The conservative movement is unsurprisingly utterly silent about this¹. However, the Left is rightly pushing back hard. The best critiques of Obama on this front have consistently been from Glenn Greenwald at Salon, and his latest piece builds on his arguments over the past year:

In Barack Obama's America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens -- and a death penalty imposed -- is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone's guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America's newspapers -- cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they're granted -- to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist... nd the punishment is thus decreed: this American citizen will now be murdered by the CIA because Barack Obama has ordered that it be done. What kind of person could possibly justify this or think that this is a legitimate government power?

(read the whole thing, and click his supporting links as well).

Glenn's question isn't just rhetorical, but aimed directly at people like me who are generally supportive of President Obama's agenda. While I do not "justify" these actions, nor do I think they are legitimate, I do not consider them a deal-breaker for my support of the President, which is probably enough to convict me in the eyes of the Progressive Left as an Obama fanatic, or "Obama-Bot"² (essentially, that I am an unthinking robot, blindly following programming to love Dear Leader instead of seeing the Truth).

The key issue here of disconnect seems to be a misunderstanding of how the American government operates. Most of the critique from the Leftf takes the form of, "Obama should ..." or "Obama didn't..." - usually indicating a desire to essentially reverse every decision or process implemented by the Bush Administration, on the theory that 100% of the Bush actions were wrong because they were perfomed by Bush. The idea that Obama might have evaluated Bush policies on their merits, and that Obama might actually be constrained in adjusting even the ones he disagrees with, is an alien one to cynical observers on the Left.

No President is a dictator. The President is actually a centrally-located decision making node in a hierarchy of nodes, many of which form networks within the overall structure that serve to counteract his influence (often by design). Ultimately, everything the President does is a dance - much like the classic game of a wooden box with a marble - balancing everything to enact policy/move the ball - towards some specific goal.

Actually, two goals: re-election, and the welfare of the nation as a whole, in about equal measure of importance. President Obama and President Bush were no different from their predeccesors in this regard³.

President Bush appeared to have a lot of power solely because he had a Legislative Branch that had essentially abdicated its authority to him. The single most critical Check and Balance in the USCON is that of the Legislative Branch over the Executive, and that was essentially non-functional (with the Dem minority essentially cowed, unlike the current GOP minority).⁴

In addition, President Bush had the truly rare opportunity to appoint judges to SCOTUS that represented an ideological shift, unlike Obama who can only act to preserve the current ideological balance. The just-announced retirement of Justice Stevens is no exception.

Combine this with the national trauma of 9-11 and you have a Presidency that truly was unencumbered by almost all the usual constraints. The damage inflicted on the nation as a result of two terms (well, actually one and a half) would probably require an equal amount of time by an equally unencumbered President to reverse. But even then, this would return us to the status quo of circa 2000 with no major progress on any of the immensely important issues that needed addressing - health care, bank reform, Israel-Palestine, nuclear proliferation, trade, labor, education, immigration, fiscal policy, space policy, science funding, etc - by no means a complete list - but which languished under the Bush Administration's focus on terrorism and Iraq abroad and a ideological campaign to push conservative dogma at home.

Note that the focus on terrorism was justified, but carried to extremes - but we cannot for certain say that those extremes were not effective. How can we ever know if Bush had the benefit of a Patriot Act that was only half as abusive of civil rights, that we still wouldn't have had any terror attacks on our soil after 9-11 on that scale? How can anyone test that hypothesis? Bush saw it as his responsibility to err on the side of caution. That was his choice - and thus his legacy - but I doubt he will ever lose sleep over that decision.

And Bush did not create a permanent change. Much of that anti-terrorist infrastructure that Bush put in place after 9-11 was already being moderated by his second term. In fact, he himself said he wanted to be sure that what was in place would be something that even a Democratic President would find at least partially justifiable, because Bush saw it as his responsibility to ensure that the safety of the nation was contnued. Obama has a fundamental disagreement with Bush on the means, here, but utterly dismantling the framework of 8 years would leave us vulnerable in a way that he too could not justify. As Bush wound it down between term 1 and 2, so too Obama will have to wind it down over term 1 and into 2 - and whoever succeeds him will have to continue the process.

I dont like it either. And I think that if you fail to see the gradual process of restoration going on - even during the Bush era, let alone the Obama era - then you're overly cynical. I understand that Greenwald et al are ideologues of a sort and I think that they provide valuable pressure on ensuring the drawdown continues. Without them, the process would surely be slower. But this is why I dont read Greenwald's essay and despair of Obama being no different than Bush, not when so much of what needs to be done is actually, finally, getting done.

Ultimately, every failure of civil liberties under Obama's watch is Obama's responsibility. But then again, thats true no matter what he does, because no President can succeed at everything. Obama has made the decision to prioritize the rest of the domestic and foreign policy agenda ahead of normalization of civil rights - primarily because those issues are just as if not more so urgent, affecting millions of lives directly, and because the threat of terrorism is growing, not reducing - including rightwing violence here at home. Obama will preserve what tools he has inherited from Bush, and even expand others, discarding only those like Guantanamo along the way that he sees as actively inmical to the end goal. And in doing so, Obama must navigate the network in a constrained way totally unlike what Bush faced. Its a GOOD thing Obama is constrained. But it requires patience on our part.

As a male American citizen, a bearded muslim, and a brown skinned guy who flies often to countries in the middle east, the burden of Obama's continued (subset) of Bush policies is frankly more an immediate concern to me than the average person. And yes technically tomorrow I could be vanished, incarcerated without due process, and perhaps even killed outright, for nothing more than excercising my right of free speech. I'm not ignorant of the risk here, but to be honest the likelihood of all that is very low, and the imposition on my liberty far less than the economic difficulty I would have if my family lacked health insurance, or couldn't find a job, or were victims of a terrorist attack like in Austin, Fort Hood, Waco, Oaklahoma City, etc.

What makes me an Obama-bot I guess is that I am willing to trust Obama not to abuse that (temporary) authority. And I trust him precisely because he is more constrained - by Dems, by Republicans, by the media, by lefties like Glenn Greenwald - unlike President Bush was. But that trust is contingent on progress leftward over time.

And I believe the Obama era will get us closer to center, so after him the progressive era can truly begin.

--

1. This is much more important than being forced to pay a small fine. Once upon a time, "conservatives" cared about the entirety of the Constitution. Today, however, they invoke it only when their pocketbooks are threatened. There is a serious debate to be had about whether "the Constitution is not a suicide pact" but right now, the conservative movement is AWOL on that debate.


2. Perhaps I am indeed an O-bot, laboring under an illusion of free will. But I will articulate my suppoort for Dear Leader nevertheless; it is up to Dear Reader to decide if it is rationale or rationalization.


3. what? Did OBot Aziz just admit that Obama is a politician and not the One? revoke his card immediately!


4. the reason for being cowed is because the Dems are ideologically more broad, so there is genuine disagreement about what policy is Best for the Country. The GOP is more ideologically unified, therefore it rationalizes its political opposition as Best for the Country. In equating its own political fortune with that of the national self-interest, The GOP had essentially made the calculation that any victory of Obama, however small, is a huge loss for America, and vice versa and loss for Obama, however small, a huge win. This has necessitated a almost 180 degree flip on the issues, including health care and nuclear weapon policy, from the times of such still-revered conservative icons as Nixon and Reagan.

Labels: President Bush, President Obama, progressives, Purple

Continue reading/discuss Confessions of an Obama-bot ...