Open Left - Strategery

Stimulus Strategery

Chris Bowers — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:35:49 GMT

The House Rules committee is currently clearing H.R. 1 (the stimulus package), and all of the amendments to H.R. 1, for floor votes tomorrow. You can watch the hearing here.

The basic run of play is that Democrats in Congress are charging ahead on the stimulus, while the headlines continue to focus on meetings between President Obama and Republicans leaders in Congress. Elana Schor seems to be correct that Democrats in Congress don't give a rat's ass about Republican whining, and are just moving along, crafting the legislation on their own. This is demonstrated by the Rules Committee hearing, which is about to clear H.R. 1 for a floor vote, even though Republicans are still working on producing an alternative bill.

As Congressional Democrats chug along, the actual Republican strategy is not to offer an alternative, but to:

Complain about one small aspect of the bill at a time, such as contraception funding, non-existent CBO reports, non-existent earmarks and, now, ACORN.
Demand that, in the name of bi-partisanship, that small aspect of the stimulus be dropped.
Secure meetings with Obama, in order for these complaints and demands to appear relevant to the national media.
Hope that, as Digby notes, Democrats in Congress and / or liberal activists grow publicly angry with President Obama if / when he makes these concessions in order to secure more Republican votes. Thus, Republicans are fulfilling Obama's vision (even though they oppose the stimulus) while Democrats are thwarting it (even though they are writing and supporting the stimulus).
Rinse, lather, repeat.

The possible achievements of this strategy are minimal. Republicans are not going to defeat the stimulus bill, period. Further, they are not going to pass an alternative stimulus bill with the old pattern of unanimous Republican support, plus Blue Dogs, plus a compliant President. That path is also dead. Still further, they will not get any credit for the bill, even if they sign on to it. The party in power gets the blame or the credit, depending on the success of the legislation passed under their watch.

What they might get are small victories on things like contraception or ACORN, a few irritated lefties, plus a lot of media coverage for their meetings with President Obama. It is petty, but it does scratch a lot of Republican itches.

Prioritizing the Movement Over the Party

David Sirota — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:30:00 GMT

In my book, The Uprising, I wrote an entire chapter about the state of the antiwar movement, and the chapter included a look at Moveon.org. The chapter examined an organization that had - at the time - become a reflexive appendage of the Democratic Party (as opposed to a more movement-based organization focused on progressivism). I experienced a bit of backlash from Moveon partisans for the book, but that was to be expected. Talk about a taboo subject - in this case, the problem of movement-branded organizations becoming megaphones for anyone with a D behind their name - and you are bound to get people pissed.

I consider a lot of the Moveon.org leadership friends, I think they are solid progressives, and my book's chapter was meant as an honest look at both the success and failure of the organization. And I didn't enjoy writing the part about the book that explored Moveon's behavior in early 2007 - specifically, when the organization backed off pressuring congressional Democrats to take a strong position on ending the war. That's why I was thrilled to read this dispatch in the Huffington Post today - it suggests a positive shift:

"A group of progressive operatives from MoveOn and labor circles have teamed with a prominent Internet pioneer to try to give [progressive congressional candidates] the final push they need...The organization will be the first of its kind exclusively to focus on electing progressive Democrats in congressional elections...
The group's first forays are likely to be in the Illinois district vacated by Rahm Emanuel, who left to become Obama's chief of staff. Green says the group is in talks with a progressive labor lawyer, Tom Geoghegan, in that district. Another potential target: the California district emptied by Hilda Solis, who's been tapped to be labor secretary...
The organization will be dedicated to finding progressive candidates who might have an outside shot at winning and "take them under our wing," in Green's words. The group's name -- the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, or the P-triple-C -- is a reference to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which financially backs Democratic candidates it thinks have a shot to win but does not prioritize progressive Democrats over conservative Democrats. The DCCC has had a patchy relationship with the liberal blogosphere, which charges it with relying too heavily on old-school expensive Democratic consultants and not being willing to take chances on progressive candidates.

This is terrific news, and the news about PCCC's talks with Tom Geoghegan (the newest Better Democrats candidate) is fantastic. As I wrote earlier today, Geoghegan is one of the greatest living movement progressives in America and has a terrific shot at winning the March 3 special election in Illinois to replace Rahm Emanuel (donate to Tom's campaign here).

Moveon's Adam Green, a cofounder of PCCC, says the new organization "won't focus its energy on unseating conservative Democrats" and "instead, it will prioritize competitive open-seat primaries and help general election candidates." That's probably smart strategy at the outset - especially the part about competitive open-seat primaries. Those are largely unexploited but fertile grounds for progressive politics.

Find out more about PCCC here. As I said, I'm thrilled about this announcement - it suggests that Moveon.org and other movement-branded organizations are getting out of the business of simply shilling for any and all Democrats - a business that may help strengthen a party, but can weaken the chance for progressive policy results (and after all, that's what we're all in this for, right?).

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying movement and partisan goals aren't often the same. They are. But in recently attacking "the left" and in backing all sorts of conservative policies (the Iraq War, financial deregulation, free trade, etc.) Democratic Party leaders have themselves explained why movement and party are not 100% synonymous. That means we need as many grassroots organizations taking this post-election moment to get (back) into the business of reshaping the Democratic Party and building a principles-based progressive movement. The news about PCCC shows that is happening.

The Forgotten Math: Pre-WWII New Deal Saw Biggest Drop In Unemployment Rate in American History

David Sirota — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:30:04 GMT

Cross-posted from the Campaign for America's Future

On Christmas Eve, I appeared on Fox News to discuss the upcoming economic recovery package, only to be told that FDR's New Deal "prolonged the Great Depression" (you can watch the clip here). This is the latest consevative talking point - one specifically aimed at stopping President Obama and the new Congress from passing a New Deal-sized package of public spending.

And so after appearing on Fox, I decided to devote my first newspaper column in the New Year to looking into whether conservatives have any shred of evidence to support their claim that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. And what do you know, they don't...at all. In fact, as government data shows, the pre-WWII New Deal era from 1933-1940 - even including the much-hyped recession of 1937-38 - saw the single biggest drop in the unemployment rate in American history (skip down to see the graphs and data that conservatives want us to forget).
In my column, I cite data about this, noting that the economy grew at stellar rates and that unemployment dropped. I also concede that the New Deal wasn't perfect. But the basic macroeconomic data about jobs and growth - the data points we use to judge every presidential economic agenda - confirms this positive record.

Since my column came out, I've received an overflow of angry email from conservatives citing Amity Shlaes since-discredited book "The Forgotten Man" as "proof" that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. But note - the operative phrase is "since-discredited." As University of California historian Eric Rauchway has noted, Shlaes both wholly omits some relevant data and deviously manipulates other numbers:

Shlaes makes a different argument about numbers, because she uses different numbers. She starts each chapter with a rat-a-tat of just-the-facts, but instead of GDP, which represents the overall economy, she quotes the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which represents the maybe 10 percent of Americans who owned stock...Let's look at a figure Shlaes gives twice in her book and again in her Wall Street Journal editorial: She has unemployment at 20 percent in the 1937-38 recession. That's appalling-almost as bad as 23 percent in 1932. Based on such a statistic, you could think the New Deal wasn't alleviating the Great Depression. But that number hides something: A third of the people Shlaes counts as unemployed had a job that the New Deal gave them through its relief programs.

By this measure, government jobs don't count as jobs, and therefore their estimates of unemployment are far higher. To understand how manipulative this is, imagine the howls of protest conservatives would be airing if, in criticizing George W. Bush, Democrats took today's unemployment data and then inflated it by counting the millions of people who work for federal, state and local governments as unemployed.

Shlaes is backed up by other conservatives, who are slightly more honest than her in acknowledging unemployment may have decreased during the New Deal. But these right-wingers then inevitably claim that unemployment only decreased a little bit in the New Deal, and only significantly dropped when World War II and the subsequent defense buildup started.

So to end this historical revisionism once and for all - to compare apples to apples, rather than apples to conservatives' fuzzy math - let's go to the great equalizer, the Census Data, and specifically Census document HS-29 (available in PDF or Excel formats). Quoting directly from Census data, here are the unemployment rates and total number of official unemployed at the beginning and end of the presidential terms since the Great Depression:

ROOSEVELT PRE-WWII NEW DEAL
1932 Unemployment Rate: 23.6% (12.8 million total unemployed)
1940 Unemployment Rate: 14.6% (8.1 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -9.0
Total unemployment percentage change: -36.7%
ROOSEVELT WWII
1941 Unemployment Rate: 9.9% (5.5 million total unemployed)
1944 Unemployment Rate: 1.2% (670,000 total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -8.7
Total unemployment percentage change: -87.9%
TRUMAN
1945 Unemployment Rate: 1.9% (1.0 million total unemployed)
1952 Unemployment Rate: 3.0% (1.8 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: +1.1
Total unemployment percentage change: +81.0%
EISENHOWER
1953 Unemployment Rate: 2.9% (1.8 million total unemployed)
1960 Unemployment Rate: 5.5% (3.8 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: +2.6%
Total unemployment percentage change: +110.03%
KENNEDY
1961 Unemployment Rate: 6.7% (4.7 million total unemployed)
1963 Unemployment Rate: 5.7% (4.0 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -1.0%
Total unemployment percentage change: -13.6%
JOHNSON
1964 Unemployment Rate: 5.2% (3.7 million total unemployed)
1968 Unemployment Rate: 3.6% (2.8 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -1.6%
Total unemployment percentage change: -25.6%
NIXON
1969 Unemployment Rate: 3.5% (2.8 million total unemployed)
1974 Unemployment Rate: 5.6% (5.1 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: +2.1%
Total unemployment percentage change: +82.0%
FORD
1975 Unemployment Rate: 8.5% (7.9 million total unemployed)
1976 Unemployment Rate: 7.7% (7.4 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -0.8%
Total unemployment percentage change: -6.6%
CARTER
1977 Unemployment Rate: 7.1% (6.9 million total unemployed)
1980 Unemployment Rate: 7.1% (7.6 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: 0.0
Total unemployment percentage change: +9.24%
REAGAN
1981 Unemployment Rate: 7.6% (8.2 million total unemployed)
1988 Unemployment Rate: 5.5% (6.7 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -2.1%
Total unemployment percentage change: -19.0%
BUSH I
1989 Unemployment Rate: 5.3% (6.5 million total unemployed)
1992 Unemployment Rate: 7.5% (9.6 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: +2.2
Total unemployment percentage change: +47.2%
CLINTON
1993 Unemployment Rate: 6.9% (8.9 million total unemployed)
2000 Unemployment Rate: 4.0% (5.6 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change -2.9
Total unemployment percentage change: -36.3%

As you can see, in terms of the unemployment rate - that is, the percentage of the total workforce not working - the pre-WWII New Deal era saw the single largest drop in American history. Yes, I'll say that again for conservatives, just to make sure they get it: The PRE-WWII New Deal era from 1933-1940 - not the WWII era - saw the largest drop in the unemployment rate in American history. And by the way, that even includes the recession of 1937-1938. You can see it right here in graphical format:

Now, it is certainly true that the percentage drop of total unemployed was bigger in WWII than it was in the pre-WWII New Deal era. But as the data show, even by that metric, the pre-WWII New Deal era saw the second largest percentage drop in total unemployed in the 20th century, going from 12.8 million unemployed in Roosevelt's first year in office to 8.1 million unemployed at the end of his second term in 1940. That's a 36.7 percent drop - larger than the Clinton era (36.3%) and, yes conservatives, larger than the Reagan era (a mere 19%). At the absolute minimum, that would suggests the New Deal was a positive - not negative - economic force (and empirically more positive than, say, Reagan's free-market agenda). Again, here it is in graphical format:

These are the hard and fast numbers conservatives would like us all to forget with their claim that history proves massive spending packages like the New Deal will supposedly harm our economy. Indeed, as the numbers show, we'll be very fortunate if Congress and President Obama delivers as robust an agenda as the New Deal delivered kind of job success that Roosevelt delivered in the pre-WWII New Deal era.

A Half Century of Rejection - Or Why Dems Shouldn't Appoint Aristocrats/Insiders to Senate Seats

David Sirota — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:50:11 GMT

As Michael Bennet and potentially Caroline Kennedy head to the U.S. Senate from Colorado and New York, respectively, let me roll out this Congressional Quarterly story for partisans who don't care at all about the democratic - or, really undemocratic - implications of their senate appointments. The article makes the I-don't-give-a-shit-about-anything-other-than-winning case for Democratic governors avoiding aristocrats/insiders and instead appointing people who have at least some shred of experience representing constituents:

"The mix of inexperience as a winning candidate and an appointment to the Senate has seldom proved to be the right recipe. [George] Mitchell is the only Senate appointee to win election after having holding no prior public elective office since at least 1958, according to data compiled by Sen. Robert C. Byrd , D-W.Va., and a review of the appointments made since Byrd's statistical history of the Senate was published in 1993."

So, if you don't care about legislative policy or democracy and only care about holding Senate seats for people with a D behind their name, it's still gonna take a lot of rhetorical acrobatics to argue that governors appointing people like Bennet or Kennedy is a good move.

Then again, perhaps that's not a lesson about partisan politics - maybe it's also a lesson about small-d democracy, too. Maybe, just maybe, voters like to be represented by people who they've had a democratic representational relationship with in the past. In other words, maybe good democratic policy makes good politics.

Call me crazy, but it seems voters repeated electoral rejection of appointed royalty over the last half century suggests that the old-fashioned American zeal for democracy still impacts our politics.

New Yorkers Saying No to Aristocracy As Sole Qualifier In a Democracy

David Sirota — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:04:10 GMT

As billionaire Republican Michael Bloomberg dispatches his thuggish aides to presumptuously berate Democratic Gov. David Paterson for daring to consider appointing anyone other than Caroline Kennedy to the New York Senate seat, a new poll shows New Yorkers are incredibly uncomfortable with the idea:

44% of the state's voters now say they have a lesser opinion of Kennedy than they did before she started vying for the position. 33% say it's made no difference, and 23% report now having a more favorable opinion of her. A plurality of Democrats, Republicans, and independents all say that her efforts have caused them to view her less favorably.
When it comes to whether they would prefer to see Kennedy or Andrew Cuomo appointed, 58% now prefer Cuomo to 27% for Kennedy. Cuomo is favored by 65% of Republicans, 59% of independents, and 54% of Democrats.

I know what you're thinking - Cuomo is a version of political aristocracy, right? Well, sure - but the point here is not that aristocracy is automatically horrible - it's not, and I never said it was. There are terrific leaders with ties to political aristocracy, from Ted Kennedy to Ned Lamont. The point here is that political aristocracy* ALONE should not be the sole or even most important determining factor in American politics - and most especially in appointments.
Kennedy has never run for office and hasn't strongly delineated her positions on most issues. The most we really know about her is that she campaigned for Barack Obama and is the daughter of John F. Kennedy. By contrast, you can say what you will about Cuomo, but the guy has run in statewide elections, and won one, meaning he has clearly elucidated many public positions on key issues, and has had experience representing constituents.

Of course, IMHO, aristocracy shouldn't be the sole or even most important determining factor in elections either, but as evidenced by the electoral success of do-nothings like Evan Bayh, clearly it is. But at least in that case, the citizenry makes the choice. That's democracy, baby - you live by it and you die by it.

That's different than an appointment - which is, by definition, undemocratic. I would argue that in appointments, governors should actually prioritize putting people in office who have very deep experience representing as many of the people they will be representing in the new office as possible. Why? Because in a democracy, it seems appropriate to try to limit autocracy (ie. representation without election) as much as possible - even in an undemocratic process like an appointment, where one person gets to select the representative of millions of people. In that case, the way to mitigate the inherently undemocratic nature of the situation is for a governor to at least try to put someone in office who constituents have a prior representational relationship with. After all, the U.S. Senate may be the House of Lords, but officially, senators are still supposed to be representatives, no?

This is why I - and many other Coloradoans - are so incensed about Gov. Bill Ritter's selection of Michael Bennet to replace Ken Salazar (and most of the criticism deserves to be directed not at Bennet, but at Ritter for making the inexplicable selection). Bennet has barely lived in state for a decade**, hasn't ever run for or won elected office, and has no record - or even public positions - on most key issues before the U.S. Senate. Indeed, at the press conference announcing his appointment, Bennet smugly shrugged off questions about where he stands on the issues - as if that's less important than the fact that he's already launched a 2010 election campaign website. Evidently, getting elected to a seat he was given by virtue of his connections to the Beltway Establishment and Colorado corporate community is more important than telling us how he will cast his Senate votes in our name.

If even one of these factors weren't undeniably true, there might be some shred of meritocratic legitimacy to the Bennet appointment, even in the face of other far more qualified candidates. But there isn't - and the problem with that is obvious. To be "represented" in the Senate by someone like this - regardless of how he ends up voting as a Senator (and I sure hope he casts progressive votes) - isn't to really be "represented" at all, because Coloradoans have not only had no say in that representation, we have no idea what we are really being represented BY.

The forces of money and power in New York are trying to replicate what their counterparts engineered here in Colorado. And I'm guessing that what this new poll really shows is that New Yorkers have caught onto the shenanigans and are disgusted. That's not a surprise. New Yorkers - like most Americans - probably don't like the idea of someone getting to represent them who has never represented anyone, and who would get the office almost solely on her last name. We may be a culture organized around celebrity, and at times that cultural organization seems intent on creating a quasi-royalty out of our congressional representatives, but perhaps there are limits to that kind of thing. Even as we celebritize the presidency and politicians, perhaps there are still certain lines that the mass public doesn't want crossed - the line separating hype-created quasi-royalty from actual, real hereditary royalty.

* Previously defined loosely as insider connections, ties to money/privilege, power derived from genetic lineage, etc

**By the way, I've only lived in state for about 2 years...but before you say its hypocrisy to question Bennet's tenure living here, remember: I'm not running for, or asking to be appointed to, the U.S. Senate to represent this state.

The Unknown Aristocrat

David Sirota — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 23:30:00 GMT

As I said earlier, it's pretty clear that Michael Bennet was appointed to the U.S. Senate solely because of his aristocratic credentials - ie. connections to money and Establishment power and Beltway insiders. It had almost nothing to do with his relevant experience, because if that was the basis for an appointment, every other major candidate had more of that. And, as the Denver Post notes, it had absolutely, positively nothing to do with his public positions on issues:

But while everyone from business leaders to political heavyweights to education reformers agree that Bennet is almost always the smartest guy in the room, his positions on nearly every key issue facing the country are completely unknown.
"Soon," Bennet said both during and after the official announcement.
Foreshadowing the hard-fought senate race expected in 2010, state GOP chair Dick Wadhams seized on Bennet's silence.
"His continued refusal today to state his positions on issues suggests someone who isn't clear where he stands," Wadhams said. And then he demanded to know Bennet's stance on an upcoming measure in the Senate that would eliminate the secret ballot in union votes.

One of two disconcerting realities is at work here: 1) Bennet's positions are known by the Establishment forces that got him the Senate job, and those positions aren't threatening to that Establishment (read: they are corporate conservative) or 2) Bennet himself doesn't yet have positions on the major issues.

I guess the latter would be better than the former in that it would hold out the possibility that Bennet will end up being a solid Democratic vote on issues like health care, ending the war, and the Employee Free Choice Act. But the fact that Colorado now has a senator whose never held elected office and therefore has no voting record*; has lived most of his life in D.C. and not in state; has served as a key adviser to a right-wing billionaire; and hasn't stated any public positions on key issues before the Senate highlights just how odd - and troubling - Ritter's appointment is.

*Note: I think having served in elected office - or at least having run for such office - should be a key qualification for a Senate appointment not as much for political/reelection reasons, but because in having done so, a candidate has built up something of a public record on many issues (whether that public record is actual votes or public statements) and therefore the citizens being represented have some idea of where that appointee actually stands.

Reid Denies Race Charge

David Sirota — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:57:45 GMT

A day after my post on Harry Reid, he appeared on Meet the Press to deny the Sun-Times report that he believes - or told Gov. Blagojevich - that he believed top Illinois African American leaders were "unelectable." I'm glad Reid did this, and in the spirit of "innocent till proven guilty" and in light of what I originally noted was his stellar legislative record on race issues, I am inclined to believe him.

That said, it doesn't negate the fundamental point of the original post, which is that in political circles, black candidates are often billed as politically inferior or "unelectable," - and that such latent racism is considered mundane. We need to get over that racism, and if this Reid controversy - whether rooted in fact or rooted in Blagojevich spin - helped forward the dialogue on that racism, then it's a good thing.

Harry Reid's Views on Race

David Sirota — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:59:11 GMT

NEXT-DAY UPDATE: A day after this post, Reid appeared on Meet the Press to deny the Sun-Times report that he believes - or told Gov. Blagojevich - that he believed top Illinois African American leaders were "unelectable." I'm glad Reid did this, and in the spirit of "innocent till proven guilty," believe him. That said, it doesn't negate the fundamental point of this post, which is that in political circles, black candidates are often billed as politically inferior or "unelectable," - and that such latent racism is considered mundane. We need to get over that racism, and if this Reid controversy - whether rooted in fact or rooted in Blagojevich spin - helped forward the dialogue on that racism, then it's a good thing. - D

If you believe what the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting today*, then its fair to ask whether Harry Reid (D-NV) has some very disturbing - and very disturbingly outdated - views on race and politics:

Days before Gov. Blagojevich was charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, top Senate Democrat Harry Reid made it clear who he didn't want in the post: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis or Emil Jones.
Rather, Reid called Blagojevich to argue he appoint either state Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Sources say the Senate majority leader pushed against Jackson and Davis - both democratic congressmen from Illinois - and against Jones - the Illinois Senate president who is the political godfather of President-elect Barack Obama - because he did not believe the three men were electable.

Jackson, Davis and Jones are three top African American leaders in Illinois - they are each eminently qualified and have lots of experience winning elections. And yet according to the Sun-Times, Reid believes they are unelectable, while insisting that two non-black candidates are more electable. Sure, you can make individual arguments against each of those candidates - just like racially motivated employers can make individual arguments about why they fired this or that African American employee. But (if this story is correct) what gives away Reid's broader and more disturbing views on race as a whole - what tells us that this is less about individuals and more about an overarching view that black heritage is synonymous with inability to be elected - is his inclusion of Tammy Duckworth in the "electable" category.
This isn't to say that Madigan or Duckworth aren't "electable." In fact, the story really has nothing to do with them - it has to do with Reid pushing the idea that if you are a black person, you are a less politically attractive candidate to the Washington Democratic Establishment based on the discredited fallacy that if you are black and have won elections you are still less able to win elections than non-blacks who have never won elections.

Of course, winning elected office as an African American poses unique challenges. Racism remains alive and well in America - and especially in politics, where self-fulfilling ideologies (ie. if you are black you can't win) keep minority or female candidates down, and preserve the largely white male power structure inside the Beltway.

But as everyone from Barack Obama to Deval Patrick has shown, those challenges can be overcome. And what's so absurd about Reid's apparent view is that it is being expressed about an appointment to fill the seat of Obama - an African American who won statewide in Illinois - just after Obama won the presidency. It kinda makes you wonder if Reid would have told Illinois Democratic leaders back in 2004 not to back Obama for Senate because he was supposedly "unelectable."

Make no mistake about it - whether the Sun-Times story is accurate or not (and I sure hope it isn't), the undeniable fact is that the image of African Americans as inferior political candidates remains widespread in Washington's political circles even after the 2008 election, and such views are a more subtle form of racism than overt hatemongering.

Let's be real clear: Nothing in Reid's career suggests he dislikes African Americans or thinks they are inferior humans - but alleged moves like this (which are widespread throughout politics) suggests he believes African Americans are inherently inferior political candidates. That may be because he thinks America is a racist country, but his reasoning - however benevolent or not - matters far less than the expression of his belief - in this case, allegedly using his power to try to shove aside the major African American candidates because they are supposedly "unelectable." By allegedly lining up the Democratic Establishment against these candidates (and thus aligning money and infrastructure against them), he is indeed creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that actually makes these African Americans less electable.

The reason this Sun-Times story hasn't generated more news actually confirms the prevalence of these troubling views on race and politics. It's not newsy that a top Democratic official thinks the major black candidates are inferior to the major white candidates in a Senate race because that's how it's always been. Indeed, in many ways, the Democratic Establishment remains decidedly Old School in the worst sense of the term, too often seeing diversity - whether racial or gender - as a political liability rather than a strength. It may be the 21st century, but often the ugly ghosts of the 19th century still haunt the party.

*Let me add that I'm still hoping Reid issues a statement explaining how this story is wrong, or the Sun-Times retracts it.

"The Wealthy Man's Candidate"

David Sirota — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:15:00 GMT

From the Rocky Mountain News story on the appointment of Michael Bennet to the U.S. Senate:

Democrat Wally Stealey, a legend in Pueblo politics, said he called the governor's office recently and asked who was being considered.
The reply: Romanoff. Hickenlooper. Congressmen John Salazar and Ed Perlmutter. Former Senate candidate Tom Strickland.
"Michael Bennet was never on the list," Stealey said.
He said he fielded calls all day Friday from angry Democrats.
"We're in total shock," Stealey said. "We don't think he can win the next election. We think he is the wealthy man's candidate."

The piece goes on to quote corporate lobbyist Mike Feeley and former oil executive/GOP chairman Bruce Benson effusively praising the pick.

Aristocracy - alive and well in America's House of Lords.

The Golden Age of Political Aristocracy

David Sirota — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:04:25 GMT

Aristocracy n
Definition: Government by the best individuals or by a small privileged class.

Though I'm not home in Denver right now, I'm guessing there are many who are fairly to quite mystified by Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter's (D) selection of Michael Bennet for U.S. Senate. It makes no political or policy sense whatsoever. Indeed, the only thing that rationally explains this individual appointment (as well as the New York appointment and many of Obama's economic/national security cabinet appointments) is the fact that we are living in a Golden Age of American Political Aristocracy.
In terms of politics (ie. ability to get reelected in 2010, ability to lift the statewide ticket in 2010, etc.), Bennet makes no sense for reasons that are undeniable: He's A) never run for any office in his life B) never run for - or even held by appointment - a statewide office in Colorado and C) lived in the state of Colorado for barely a decade.

Had any one of these factors not been true - had he, say, lived in Colorado for barely a decade but held office, or say, lived in Colorado all his life building up strong connections in the community - there might be some shred of an argument that he is a good political choice in comparison to other candidates like Ed Perlmutter, Andrew Romanoff, Joan Fitz-Gerald, Diana DeGette or John Hickenlooper. But they are all true. I mean, Bennet is even from Denver - so you can't even make the argument that he's some sort of smart geographic choice designed to appeal to the rest of the state, again - especially when compared to the other Denver-ites (Romanoff, DeGette, Hickenlooper, etc.) who could have been named.

Policy-wise, Bennet has some education experience as head of Denver Public Schools, but his record there is, ahem, mixed, and more importantly, it is incredibly thin when put up against people like Romanoff (the Speaker of the House), Perlmutter (a congressman and former Senate president) and even Hickenlooper (Denver's mayor). Additionally, the policy area he does have significant experience with - education - is a relativcely minor issue at the federal level (for instance, federal funding comprises only about 9 percent of public education - despite the fanfare about No Child Left Behind, states and localities still make the big decisions on public education). It's not that education at the federal level is totally unimportant, it's just comparatively minor. In terms of the really huge issues the Senate will deal with - Iraq, health care, trade, economic stimulus, labor law reform - Bennet is a complete and total blank slate. We know almost nothing about him.

So as I said to start, the only thing that rationally explains his appointment is the emboldened power of political aristocracy (and, by extension, money) that is sweeping the country. By aristocracy, I mean all of the factors of aristocracy implied in its dictionary definition's focus on priviledge. That means not just familial lineage - but also money, inside connections and academic/economic advantage.

Bennet is "heading back to the Beltway" where he grew up "with the Democratic elite," as the headline in the Rocky Mountain News tells us:

MSNBC gives us more on this well-groomed scion of political and academic aristocracy:

Bennet was born in New Delhi, India in 1964. The circumstance of the exotic locale was that his father, Douglas Bennet, was serving as an aide to Chester Bowles, then the U.S. ambassador to India and previously foreign policy aide to President Kennedy.
Bennet grew up in Washington, DC and attended the exclusive all-boys St. Alban's school. He went on to graduate from Wesleyan University, and in between undergraduate school and law school he served as a body man to Ohio governor Dick Celeste. After graduating from Yale Law in 1993, he served in the Clinton administration as counsel to Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, a position that included writing speeches for Attorney General Janet Reno. (emphasis added)

Like a seasoned operative in this Golden Age of Aristocracy, Bennet promptly parlayed all of that into a big-money job for right-wing billionaire Philip Anschutz:

He worked for six years prior to his tenure at the City of Denver as Managing Director for the Anschutz Investment Company in Denver, where he had direct responsibility for the investment of over $500 million. He led the reorganizations of four distressed companies including Forcenergy (which later merged with Denver-based Forest Oil), Regal Cinemas, United Artists and Edwards Theaters, which together required the restructuring of over $3 billion in debt. Bennet also managed, on behalf of Anschutz, the consolidation of the three theater chains into Regal Entertainment Group, the largest motion picture exhibitor in the world.

Considering his lack of legislative record, lack of experience in any elected or statewide office, and considerable ties to the biggest of big money, it's logical to be concerned about how a Senator Bennet will vote on issues. Off the top of my head, I'm wondering, for instance, whether someone with this kind of resume is going to be in favor of tougher financial industry regulations?*

But I think there should be an even deeper concern about what Bennet's appointment says about the political age we're living in.

Colorado has no dearth of very, very qualified people to be U.S. Senator (especially considering that being a U.S. Senator is one of the easiest jobs in the United States - your major responsibility is to vote yes or no and then be told how awesome you are by the 50 taxpayer-funded sycophants who comprise your personal staff - a lot easier than the average factory job). More specifically, we have a lot of people who have worked very hard passing good public policy and building the grassroots of the Democratic Party for years here (many who are named on the list of aforementioned potential candidates, and which I publicly supported for appointment when hosting the big drive-time radio show here last week). Looking at this bench, and then selecting a person with almost none of those qualities confirms that what gets rewarded in politics today is not legislative accomplishments nor even political ones - what counts is money, inside connections, Ivy League pedigree and a Beltway-padded resume.

Clearly, the same (if not more) can be said of the imminent nomination of Caroline Kennedy to the U.S. Senate in New York - a state which, by virtue of its sheer size, has even more super-qualified candidates, and yet a state which will likely see its senate seat given away to the daughter of a famous politician (by no less than the heir to a local political dynasty!) based almost solely on her last name. And here's the real kicker - whether in Colorado or New York - the subversion of meritocracy and manufacturing of aristocracy counts more today than it has at any time in contemporary history.

Yes, politics is always a battle between meritocratic idealism (ie. good ideas, grassroots work, etc.) and aristocracy (ie. money, insiderism, aristocracy, privilege, etc.). Yes political aristocracy has always existed, even in meritocratic eras. And yes, there are desirable merits to various facets of aristocracy (for example, we should want well-educated people in government). But there have only been a few infamous historical moments where aristocracy has totally, completely and publicly supplanted the desirable non-aristocratic factors of meritocracy to the point where no one's even trying to hide it anymore. One of those infamous moments was the Gilded Age, when billionaires publicly tried to buy U.S. Senate seats. Sadly, the other infamous moment is right now.

What's confusing, of course, is that we just experienced a presidential election that saw the first African American elected to the White House - an election that seemed to reaffirm the meritocratic myth that "anyone can be president" as long as they are qualified. Somehow, we are being simultaneously taught that lesson while also being taught the opposite about U.S. Senate seats.

But, then, Barack Obama's White House appointments over the last few weeks underscore that - his individual election aside - this remains the Golden Age of American Political Aristocracy. In appointing primarily center-right Washington insiders, he makes the Bennet and Kennedy appointments seem mundane - even predictable. When even the first African American president in American history says insider connections, Establishment seals of approval and proximity to money/power - ie. the credentials of Political Aristocracy - should dictate upward mobility, then run-of-the-mill governors from Colorado to New York are probably going to signal the very same thing.

The problem, of course, is the psychological effect on the rest of the country. All of these moves say to America that there is a real bipartisan Ruling Class in this country, and that that Ruling Class is more adept than ever in tightening its grip over the rest of the nation. That's nothing new - most Americans have long known the political system is rigged. But what is new is that the Ruling Class's re-confirmation of its power and control is happening so brazenly and so soon after an election that thematically promised something different.

In the short term, that may only depress the activist class that had momentarily reengaged in politics based on its (all together now!) hope in those promises of change. Prioritizing aristocracy over meritocracy says to everyone from state legislators to campaign volunteers that the way to get ahead in politics is not to spend lots of time, for instance, building your local party or building a grassroots organization, but instead to simply be lucky enough to have been pulled out of the most privileged crotch as a newborn.

But there could also be a long-term effect - especially if the dominance of aristocracy in our government is expressed by either legislative inaction, or legislation designed to protect the aristocracy (the latter which would be unsurprising from aristocratic policymakers). The depressing reality of politics typically perpetuates the constant low-grade disillusionment we've all gotten used to. But when overt in-your-face reminders of that depressing reality (like the Obama Cabinet picks or the Bennet and Kennedy appointments) are dropped into the mass public's frothing stew of economic angst and ginned up "hope," once-surmountable disillusionment can metastasize into demoralization and then into backlash - and specifically, the government-is-evil kind that Ronald Reagan once rode to victory soon after a Democratic landslide.

I'm not, of course, predicting that for 2010 or 2012 - at least not yet. There's the distinct possibility that in spite of the Golden Age of Aristocracy, the government will be forced to take some basic actions to fix major problems afflicting the non-aristocracy. But if you think there's no mass psychological effect of professional politicians - whether Ritter, Paterson, Obama or anyone else - essentially celebrating insiderism, money and aristocracy, there are whole American history books which suggest otherwise.

* I just want to be clear - none of this means that Bennet will end up being a poor political or policy choice. He may end up being a great candidate for reelection and a great senator on policy. My point is simply that knowing what we know right now, on both political and policy grounds, he doesn't even come close to the qualifications of the other potential candidates - that, in short, his appointment is fundamentally about aristocracy.

Ringing In 2009 By Turning "Hope!" Into "Sheeeeeeit!"

David Sirota — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:49:24 GMT

Sitting in an airport ready to fly back from vacation, I learned that New York Gov. David Paterson (D), fresh off trying to defecate on his state's middle class, is now going to appoint Caroline Kennedy to the Senate. I also learned that my own Gov. Bill Ritter (D) is about to appoint Michael Bennet to the Senate - the same Michael Bennet who has never been elected to anything and whose longest experience in Colorado politics was serving as the top financial aide to right-wing billionaire Philip Anschutz.

There's so much nepotism/dynasty/money/corruption floating around politics these days I'm constantly amazed that anyone can remain optimistic. I'm also dumfounded at how fast the Democratic Party can turn "change you can believe in" into "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Or, to put it more succintly, I'm finding myself constantly laughing at how insistent the Democratic Party is in trying to turn "hope!" into "sheeeeeeeiiit!"

Ruminations from My Secure Undisclosed Location

David Sirota — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:16:10 GMT

I'm edging into the last half of a week-long respite here at my secure undisclosed location. I'm not paying much attention to the news (read: I'm not paying any attention to, well, anything). I'm spending my time reading Alexander Hemon's "Lazarus Project," Eric Rauchway's "A Brief History of the Great Depression" and George Saunders' "In Persuasion Nation." Oh, and watching as many episodes of Mad Men as possible.

I just checked my email, only to find the usual raft of hate mail about my last column (shocker - I got an email from a millionaire who didn't like that I discussed the need to raise taxes on millionaires...in the business of politics/writing that has become suffocatingly cliche, it's kinda depressing when even the hate mail I get is becoming cliche...)

Anyway, since this is New Years Eve, I wanted to offer up a few wishes for 2009 in no particular order:
- I hope the economy doesn't plunge off a cliff in 2009, even though I have a feeling it will.

- Out of all the possible candidates being mentioned, I hope my governor, Bill Ritter (D-CO), picks Ed Perlmutter, Andrew Romanoff or Joan Fitz-Gerald for the U.S. Senate.

- I hope in 2009, I never get caught writing anything - a column, a blog post, a magazine article, a book passage, ANYTHING - that includes this kind of hilarious mixed metaphors I just caught from the Washington Post's Marie Cocco:

One way to staunch the trend is to tip the scale -- now tilted so heavily in favor of Wall Street and wealth -- back the other way. Otherwise, when the economy recovers, the fruits will again trickle up to the executive suite.

The pro-union message of Cocco's piece is solid. But c'mon - "staunching" trends while tipping scales? Trickling fruits in executive suites? Seriously - does she have an editor? And more seriously than that - if you catch me writing anything approaching that level of basic mechanical malfeasance, please hunt me down and take away my right to be a writer.

- I hope in 2009 everyone realizes what Barack Obama once told us: That change comes to Washington, not from Washington. It's a truism that lots of political activists seem to have forgotten in recent months and years - and if we don't remember it soon, we'll be left cheering on Beltway celebrities while the nation keeps declining.

OK. I'm off to get some coffee, make breakfast and relax the day away. Have a happy New Year's celebration!

Fox News: "Historians Pretty Much Agree" That FDR Prolonged the Great Depression

David Sirota — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 00:46:12 GMT

I appeared on Fox News to discuss both the Blagojevich flap and the imminent economic recovery package from the Obama administration. You can watch the clip here. As you'll see, on that latter issue, Fox News is starting its campaign to stop Obama's big spending plan by stating - as assumed fact - that "historians pretty much agree" that Franklin Roosevelt prolonged the Great Depression, and that therefore, Obama shouldn't try another New Deal.

When I say Fox News' assertion about historians is patently false, they literally laugh at me as if I've said something so clearly untrue, something Americans supposedly assume is so obviously stupid, that it's worthy of ridicule.

The Depression issue was brought up by conservative pundit Monica Crowley - not surprising since this is the conservative talking point du jour ever since the "center-right nation" meme started looking idiotic and ever since fringe-right-wing bloviator Amity Shlaes published her since-discredited book claiming FDR essentially created the Great Depression. Crowley supported her the "FDR ruined the country" meme with the very authoritative-sounding statement that "based on all kinds of studies and academic work done on the great depression" she knows that the New Deal's "massive government intervention prolonged the Great Depression."

Of course, she doesn't offer up a single study or "academic work" as any kind of proof, and yet, when I say her assertion is absurd, Fox News anchor Greg Jarrett starts laughing at me - as if my assertion that FDR's New Deal helped end the Great Depression is so fantastical as to prompt guffawing. Jarrett proceeds to state that historians "pretty much agree" that FDR prolonged the Great Depression, and resorts to insisting that he knows that's true because "it's in the books" - whatever the hell that means. Indeed, Fox wants us to believe that what was only very recently the deranged propaganda of a handful of conservative political pundits is now such a consensus opinion among historians that to say otherwise is to evoke laughter.

Now, it's true - back in 2004, two UCLA professors published a little-noticed report claiming the New Deal's government intervention prolonged the Great Depression. But that assertion has been subsequently eviscerated by, ya know, actual data.
Here's University of California historian Eric Rauchway:

For a start, New Deal intervention saved the banks. During Hoover's presidency, around 20 percent of American banks failed, and, without deposit insurance, one collapse prompted another as savers pulled their money out of the shaky system. When Roosevelt came into office, he ordered the banks closed and audited. A week later, authorities began reopening banks, and deposits returned to vaults.
Congress also established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which, as economists Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz wrote, was "the structural change most conducive to monetary stability since ... the Civil War." After the creation of the FDIC, bank failures almost entirely disappeared. New Dealers also recapitalized banks by buying about a billion dollars of preferred stock...
The most important thing to know about Roosevelt's economics is that, despite claims to the contrary, the economy recovered during the New Deal. During Roosevelt's first two terms, the U.S. economy grew at average annual growth rates of 9 percent to 10 percent, with the exception of the recession year of 1937-1938...
Excepting 1937-1938, unemployment fell each year of Roosevelt's first two terms. In part, the jobs came from Washington, which directly employed as many as 3.6 million people to build roads, bridges, ports, airports, stadiums, and schools -- as well as, of course, to paint murals and stage plays. But new jobs also came from the private sector, where manufacturing work increased apace.
This basic fact is clear -- unless you quote only the unemployment rate for the recession year 1938 and count government employees hired under the New Deal as unemployed, which conservative commenters have taken to doing.

So, as Rauchway says, the hard data about bank closures, job creation and overall economic growth rates proves the regulations and spending of the New Deal helped end the Great Depression. In fact, Rauchway notes that the data actually suggests that the major, data-driven criticism of the New Deal is that it didn't spend enough money fast enough.

But, OK - let's say you want to cherry pick the unemployment numbers like a right-wing pundit. Let's say that, as Rauchway notes, you are a conservative dittohead totally comfortable dishonestly "quot[ing] only the unemployment rate for the recession year 1938 and count[ing] government employees hired under the New Deal as unemployed." Shouldn't you be blaming conservative ideology, and not New Deal-ism, for those numbers? After all, as Paul Krugman recently explained to a stunningly ignorant George Will on ABC News, 1937-1938 was the period Roosevelt dialed back the New Deal in the name of conservative demands that he stop spending:

By 1937 things were a lot better than they were in 1933. Then [FDR] was persuaded to balance the budget or try to and he raised taxes and cut spending and the economy went back down again and then it took an enormous public works program known as World War II to bring the economy out of the depression.

So with all of that data, let's go back to Fox News' main assertion: Is it really true that "historians pretty much agree" that the New Deal's government intervention prolonged the Great Depression? Of course not, as New York Times economics writer Daniel Gross says:

It was only with the passage of New Deal efforts--the SEC, the FDIC, the FSLIC--that the mechanisms of private capital began to kick back into gear. Don't take it from me. Take it from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who wrote the following in Essays on the Great Depression: "Only with the New Deal's rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression."...
The argument that the New Deal's efforts "perhaps had prolonged, the Depression," is a canard. One would be very hard-pressed to find a serious professional historian--I mean a serious historian, not a think-tank wanker, not an economist, not a journalist--who believes that the New Deal prolonged the Depression. (emphasis added)

In other words, it's the opposite of what Fox News says. "Historians pretty much agree" on one thing when it comes to Roosevelt: The New Deal helped end the Great Depression. But I would go even further than that, and agree with economist Brad DeLong who said that whether you are a historian or not - to argue what Jarrett and Crowley argued today is to publicly declare oneself as divorced from the facts as the most ridiculed conspiracy theorists. As DeLong says, "A normal person would not argue that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression."

But, then, these are not "normal people" - those making these arguments are right-wing automatons whose claim that we shouldn't look at actual data, we should simply accept the truth of their claims because they insist "it's in the books!" or they've supposedly seen "all kinds of studies and academic work" that proves their hysteria true.

Of course, the good news is what I said on Fox News before they cut me off: While the right's historical revisionism is dishonest, it's doing progressives a big favor.

If the right wants to try to stop a serious economic recovery package and financial regulations by trying to vilify one of the most popular presidents and popular policy programs in American history, then I'll say what George Bush once said: Bring it on. Every high school civics class teaches the broad truth about Roosevelt, the New Deal and how it helped end the Great Depression, and if the conservative movement has gone so off the deep end that they want to make crazy-sounding arguments that even high schoolers know are silly, then the progressive movement is in an even better position than we may have thought.

Maddow Busts Morgan Stanley Board Member for Lack of Transparency

David Sirota — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 12:48:06 GMT

Note: I'm hosting AM760 here in Denver this morning, and we're going to talk with Damon Silvers, one of the congressionally appointed overseers of the Wall Street bailout. Stream it at www.am760.net, and feel free to call in at 303-713-7600. If you miss it live, it will be up as a podcast here.

Last night, Rachel Maddow did something I never thought I'd see a journalist do: In the name of transparency, she went back and clarified that a bailout-justifying guest of hers actually had a blatant conflict of interest. Watch the clip here.

On Monday, Maddow had on Berkley professor Laura Tyson to talk about the bailout. You can watch that clip here. As you'll see, Tyson defended the firms that have received bailout money, saying they are not at fault in either how they are using the money, or in how they are refusing to answer questions about their use of the money. She also insisted that companies that get bailout money should be able to keep paying dividends to their shareholders.

Yet, Tyson didn't tell viewers that she sits on the board of directors of Morgan Stanley, a bank that has received $10 billion in bailout money. That's right - according to Morgan Stanley's SEC filings, Tyson makes about $350,000 a year from Morgan Stanley in total compensation from that position, and she now owns about 79,000 shares of the company. In other words, she has a direct financial interest in defending the bailout, absolving bailout recipients of wrongdoing, and justifying the use of bailout money for shareholder dividends.

Obviously, it's really unethical to appear on a show billing yourself as an objective disinterested professor at the same time you aren't telling people you are on the board of directors of the company you are effectively defending. But, as a recent New York Times story about defense commentators shows, this kind of thing happens all the time. It's completely corrupt - quite literally, paid industry spokespeople are being allowed to cloak themselves in the veneer of objectivity and use the media to limit the parameters of our political debate on major issues.

Thankfully, when I pointed Tyson's conflict of interest out to Maddow and her show's staff, they did the responsible thing and made a big effort to inform viewers about what happened. Indeed, in doing this follow-up piece, the Rachel Maddow Show displayed the kind of integrity and respect for their audience that is almost unheard of in political journalism. In being so honest about this, they really showed what their program is all about, and how they aren't willing to be used or deceived by corporate spokespeople.

Talking Energy With T. Boone Pickens

David Sirota — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:32:33 GMT

I'm guest hosting the big Denver progressive radio show this week on AM760. Today in the last hour, I had the opportunity to interview newly appointed Colorado Secretary of State Bernie Buescher (D) and T. Boone Pickens. Listen in here - I discuss Pickens' involvement in Republican politics, and ask him why progressives should trust his motives on energy considering his career.

Gay Bashing As Means of Ending Division?

David Sirota — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Has anyone bothered to explain how giving a gay basher a national platform is a decision made in the name of ending division? I'm really confused - there are lots of clergypeople in America who haven't gay bashed. And remember - it's not just that Rick Warren is against gay marriage, it's that he's very publicly attacked gay people with the worst kinds of slander.

How are Barack Obama and Joe Biden publicly claiming that their selection of Rick Warren to deliver a prayer at the inauguration is in the interest of ending division?

I mean, if they want to say its in the interest of appeasing right-wing Christians, fine - at least that makes some logical sense (as odious as such a motivation would be). But in the interest of ending division? Say what? Since when did elevating a person who bashes one group of Americans become a move specifically designed to stop division?

Sounds like Obama and Biden are interested not being dividers in the George W. Bush "I'm a uniter not a divider" kind of sense. That is, they seem interested - at least during the inauguration - in injecting a little bit of dividing, not uniting. Either that, or they are suggesting they believe that a great way to bring the country together is to unify America around the promotion of a gay basher.

Is that what they're saying - that they think gay bashing is the best way to build national unity?

Bailout Caricatures

David Sirota — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:09:44 GMT

UPDATE: Yglesias essentially concedes the point. I appreciate him doing that - shows he's arguing from good faith (which I always assumed). The key here is making sure these debates are on the merits, and I think his clarification helps do that.

Writing about the debate over the bailout, CAP's Matt Yglesias says there existed a "Sirota/Pence view that government intervention was unnecessary" (Pence, referring to right-wing Rep. Mike Pence). When I read this, I was stunned - did I ever say I thought government intervention was unnecessary?

I went back through all my columns and blog posts on the bailout and found that actually, no, I never said government intervention was unnecessary. I didn't even say anything close to that, nor did any leading progressives I know. I said the bailout - as constructed - was a sham designed to rip off taxpayers, but that government intervention on much different terms was necessary and desirable.
So why did Yglesias fabricate the storyline that I pushed the concept "that government intervention was unnecessary?" I guess it's possible it has something to do with the recent flap whereby his bosses at CAP knee-capped him over his light criticism of the corporate front-group Third Way. Perhaps he's just trying to do the Beltway's old Punch a Hippie act, whereby he proves his Beltway credentials by attacking to his left.

My guess, however, is that it's not that, and that it's something deeper and that it wasn't calculated. My guess is that it's a carelessly reflexive statement that reflects a broader trend whereby pundits and commentators have inaccurately caricatured bailout opponents. The conventional wisdom in D.C. has been that if you were for the bailout, you were supposedly a Very Serious Pragmatist, but if you were one of the majority of Americans who was against it, you were a Luddite Reactionary who wanted the government to do nothing at all and let the economy die.

Now, I agree - there were right-wing reactionaries like Pence who opposed the bailout because of an ideological antipathy to government intervention in the market.

But the progressive opposition had to do with the structure of the bailout being proposed, not the concept of government intervention. In fact, many of us said the government should intervene, only on very different terms than it did (for instance, on terms that bought voting shares of stock, included oversight measures, seriously limited executive pay, etc.).

When the final bill came to the floor of the House and Senate, progressive opponents believed it should have been voted down, because, as Matt Stoller and Dean Baker show now (and showed at the time), that would have amost certainly forced a different kind of government intervention - one likely on much better terms (not hard to do, considering the terms of the current bailout are so absurdly bad that banks are using our taxpayer cash to subsidize lavish executive bonuses, while simultaneously refusing to tell reporters or regulators how they are spending the money).

Now, of course, we know the results. Various studies have shown that those of us who raised progressive objections to the bailout have been proven right, and those who advocated it have been proven wrong. The fact that the same pre-bailout caricatures of proponents as Very Serious and opponents as Luddites now continue (and worse, continue to be pushed by progressive voices like Yglesias*) is merely a commentary on the staying power of D.C.'s fact-free memes - nothing more, nothing less.

It's the same thing with so many issues, really - the highest profile being the war. Those who opposed the Iraq War are still seen as Unserious Ideologues and those who promoted it are looked at as Serious Pragmatists.

How to end this? It's hard to say. The vast majority of the public is both intensely against the current bailout and the Iraq War, and so D.C. has effectively said that the vast majority of the public in whose name it governs is Unserious and worthy of scorn.

That's an extremist and authoritarian theme if there ever was one, and my guess is it will take years of movement work to change that dynamic, whether on the bailout, the war or any other issue where Washington has sneered at the public. Getting our government to even take We the People seriously - much less do what we want - is the challenge of our time.

* I'm not really sure whether Yglesias was for or against the bailout. It's hard to tell by his aggregate pre-vote posts, though this one suggests he was for it. If that's true and he was for it, it would shed further light on why he's now trying to dishonestly caricature bailout opponents. This is what D.C. folk tend to do - when they are wrong, rather than admit fault, they dig in and intensify their efforts to marginalize those who were right (see: war, Iraq).

COLUMN: Viva Las Vegas?

David Sirota — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:44:08 GMT

The week before last, I traveled to Las Vegas for the annual Progressive States Network/EARN conference for state legislators. It was a great event - lots of terrific legislators are planning to do a lot of really progressive things in the upcoming legislative sessions. But as I say in my new newspaper column this week, I left struck by the city of Las Vegas itself - and specifically struck by how it is such a perfect symbol for the predicament our country now faces.
Vegas is a monument to our nation's environmental and economic hubris - and gluttony. It is the product of our long-held "what me, worry?" attitude about things like energy and water, its lights helping make Nevada the fastest growing carbon emitter in the country, its desert location threatening the existence of Lake Mead.

Likewise, Vegas' central industry - gambling - represents both desperation and the root core of what crushed our economy in the first place. People come to Vegas hoping beyond hope that they can bet their way out of economic pressure, and that gambling impulse is what now guides our financial industry towards catastrophe.

But the thing is, Vegas isn't just limited to Vegas - Vegas as a concept is people everywhere wasting energy in their homes, buying gas guzzlers, using too much water spending too much on credit and betting too big with their 401(k)'s. And so the question, as I say in the column, is whether we as a country can mature beyond that Vegas attitude during this moment of crisis? Are we ready for all the lifestyle and public policy sacrifices that this new era will demand? I think we are, but it's going to take a radical societal and legislative shifts.

Read the whole column here. Not surprisingly, it has elicited some angry responses from people who live in Vegas - such as this one in the Los Angeles Times that refuses to concede even the most basic point about the problem of fast-growing population centers in the most ecologically unsustainable environment's possible. But that' sto be expected - and if the column generates debate, then that's a good thing.

The column relies on grassroots support, so if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.

Being Part of a Community - And What Unacceptable Behavior Looks Like

David Sirota — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 01:11:38 GMT

Note: It's Sunday, and so because we're off the usual mid-week news cycle, I thought it might be a decent time to air out a little meta content about our community here at OpenLeft. If you don't care about being part of the community, or about meta content, then feel free to skip this diary. Remember, nobody is forcing you to read it. Additionally, to those who may complain about a commenter's comments being discussed in this diary, I say to you only that this is a community, and when you publicly comment in the community, you should expect that your comments will be taken seriously, and potentially be used in future discussions, such as a diary like this. This is, after all, a community - and that means nobody should be immune from having their statements taken seriously. - D

Commenter cupcake gives us a healthy dose of examples of what Chris was recently referring to when he said that productive commenters are those interested in "participating in our community" and those who deserve banishment are those who are interested in "just ridiculing it."
As you can see by perusing his/her comments, cupcake spends his/her time going into comments sections to allege racism against anyone who criticizes Barack Obama. Today, he joins an attack against Salon's Glenn Greenwald with a slander of "that odious angry white woman Joan Walsh bashing Obama." On Friday, he/she hijacked a comments section by saying it was unacceptable to "bash of our first black President," and claiming "Obama's biggest enemies would be the white 'progressives.'" A few weeks ago, this commenter responded to a question about Obama's backing off his tax promise to say "I am rather tired of 'white progressives,'" adding that anyone questioning Obama are "just a bunch of white bullies who want to control our first black President."

Now let me be clear: I've got absolutely no problem having open - even vehement - debates about issues of race. In fact, I encourage such debates, because we really need to have them. To that end, I wrote a series of columns and articles about the odious use of racism against Obama and his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, during the campaign, and was raked over the coals for about a month on right-wing talk radio for talking about this very difficult subject. Racism is real, and it is institutional and systemic, and efforts to expose it, discuss it, and end it are very important.

However, I didn't make charges of racism without a lot of substantive backup as cupcake repeatedly does. And, unlike cupcake, I certainly didn't ever flippantly and repeatedly suggest that any white person questioning Barack Obama on his positions or policies is automatically a racist simply because they are white. That's a vile and disgusting charge - and one designed not just to stop the very serious discussions about racism that need to happen, but to rip apart and polarize whatever diverse community it is being aired in.

So I point out cupcake's behavior not to pick on this person, but as an important example to all of us about what being part of a community is - and is not - about. If you want to attack me, Chris, Matt, Paul or any of the other front pagers for anything - including racism - have at it. Speaking only for myself (but I'm guessing for all the other front-page posters), if I'm doing something that is contributing to institutional racism, I want to be the first to know about it.

But as none other than Julian Bond has said, Obama is going to need a lot of questioning and pressure. Even harsher criticism has been leveled at Obama by the Black Agenda Report. So repeatedly claiming that merely questioning Obama is automatically racist is beyond offensive - it should be a bannable offense, unless you make a really serious effort to substantiate the claim.

Indeed, if you are going to throw the ugliest, most personal charges at anyone here - front page poster, or fellow commenter - and not even bother to even minimally substantiate your case, then frankly, you aren't interested in being part of a community. You are interested in malicious libel and slander - and you shouldn't be welcome here.

Four Holiday Gift Ideas for Progressives

David Sirota — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 23:35:00 GMT

If you're a procrastinator like me, then you are frantically scurrying at the last minute to pick up holiday gifts for friends and family. So let me suggest four great gifts for you or any progressives you know - gifts that make great presents and that also help build and support the progressive movement. Here they are in no particular order:
1. A SUBSCRIPTION TO IN THESE TIMES: For more than three decades, In These Times magazine has been a leading independent progressive voice, featuring news, reporting and analysis from a constellation of progressive movement stars. As Cornel West says, "In These Times is the most creative and challenging news magazine of the American Left." A one year subscription to this monthly magazine is just $24.95. Subscribe here.

2. THE UPRISING OR HOSTILE TAKEOVER: Forgive the shameless self-promotion, but I wouldn't be doing my job as a writer if I didn't suggest my books, The Uprising and Hostile Takeover, as solid holiday gifts. The Uprising, just released this summer, looks at the populist uprising on both the right and left that clearly impacted the 2008 campaign and promises to shape our politics in the next months and years. The Rocky Mountain News calls it "the perfect tome for rebels of all persuasions." Hostile Takeover, released in 2006, examines the corporate forces that still have a stranglehold on our government and that threaten to crush this potential era of change. The late great Molly Ivins says the book provides "handy weapons for progressives to fight back." You can order both books at your local bookstore, or online.

3. THE PROGRESSIVE BOOK CLUB: For an ongoing stream of progressive books at discounted prices, join the new Progressive Book Club, or give a gift membership. You can join online here.

4. SALON.COM PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP: Salon is one of the best progressive publications out there and it's premium membership gets you its full content. Get a premium membership here. It's worth it.

In these difficult economic times, it is more important than ever to build and support a strong progressive movement that helps move our country in a different direction. These are four different ways to give gifts and support the movement at the same time. I hope you'll consider them - and pass the ideas on to your friends. Happy holidays!