One For All

Social Democracy's Populism Crisis

2009-12-04T20:20:00.003-05:00

Now @ THE POLITICIZER:

Because of a true belief in their ideology, social democrats and the liberal elite are disinclined to creatively undermine populist movements, even when they are threatening. To be effective, they will need to abandon these delusions.

The Geopolitics of The Mohammed Trial

2009-11-20T14:57:00.002-05:00

Now @ The POLITICIZER:

There is actually a strong geopolitical argument to be made in favor of trying Mohammed in the United States apart from any consideration of “justice” or “due process.” From this perspective, a trial on U.S. soil marks a high profile, visual departure from the “waterboard era,” and helps bolster the credibility of America’s security signals. The value of credibility is not a moot point to be dismissed as weak-kneed liberal-speak pandering to European socialists, but indeed thecrucial factor in preventing unnecessary conflict.

Hyperpolarization and the Return to Polytheism

2009-11-13T19:31:00.001-05:00

Now @ The POLITICIZER: The innate incompatibility of post-modernity and liberal democracy has spawned a gathering storm.

Young America Needs Health Reform

2009-10-30T12:22:00.000-04:00

Now @ THE POLITICIZER:

If it is re-election that gives Congress trepidation, know this: there is a whole generation of Americans, my generation, whose votes transcend ideology, party lines, talking points and soundbites. It is a generation that simply sees problems and finds solutions. Failure to solve this problem now will betray us all, and we will remember every November for a very long time.”

On The Marraige Equality Question

2009-11-06T13:34:00.002-05:00

Now @ The POLITICIZER:

Equality is a product of mind, while inequality is a product of fact, and the majesty of mind has heretofore yet to conquer the goliath Reality. This is, to us modern men, lamentable, and, indeed, even unacceptable. But the struggle for equality is perpetual and without satisfaction. Its cause is righteous in our minds, but intractable in our condition.

The Useful Illusion of Majority Rule

2009-10-23T00:13:00.003-04:00

NOW @ THE POLITICIZER:

The brilliance of Lincoln’s words aside, the United States has never been a nation of or by the People, though it has more often than not been for it. We are fortunate to live in such a nation of useful illusions.

On California II: Towards a New Neoconservatism

2009-10-16T11:40:00.003-04:00

NOW @ THE POLITICIZER:

"A new neo-conservatism must rise. One that is neither “liberal” nor “conservative” in their modern meanings, but which fundamentally understands that stability precedes justice. It must rise to destroy the injurious and foolishly fabricated moralities eviscerating our civilization, and it must construct new ones in their stead. That is the real challenge of this generation, and history will surely judge it so."

Exposing the "War on Drugs"

2009-10-09T11:37:00.001-04:00

NOW @ THE POLITICIZER: How reactionary, misguided and extortionate Federal drug regulations created, inflamed and perpetuated the “Drug War” of today.

On California

2009-10-02T03:48:00.002-04:00

Now @ The POLITICIZER: Inviolable individualism and the fall of the Golden State.

Rethinking the "War of Necessity"

2009-09-25T13:29:00.003-04:00

Now @ The POLITICIZER:

"The U.S. need only be present in Afghanistan—as the President himself realized—to the extent that we can deter the reestablishment of violent and aggressive terror cells plotting to kill Americans. Insofar as this strategic objective is less difficult, and more easily accomplished than we may have imagined, the sort of increased commitment in blood, time and treasure that general McChrystal is requesting may prove to be excessive, and may in fact detract from the very reason we are there in the first place. Indeed, expanding this “war of necessity” may not be very necessary after all."

Deciphering Obama's Missile Defense System

2009-09-18T02:47:00.002-04:00

Now @ The POLITICIZER: Though an encouraging sign for Realists, the maneuver only partially replaces the foolish plan proffered by former President Bush, causing one to wonder about Obama’s true intentions.

Conservatives and the Paranoid Style in American Politics

2009-09-13T18:25:00.004-04:00

Last week's story, slightly delayed because of the 9/11 memorial.

We've Moved

2009-09-05T01:23:00.002-04:00

Idle readers and fledgling loyal masses,

It is with great disbelief that I write to inform you that the creative talent behind One For All has been lured into a larger, more profitable, den of e-blather. Until I quit or opine so offensively that I am terminated, my musings can be found each Friday @ ThePoliticizer.com. For those so inclined, my most recent column regarding WWI and the current socio-political moment can be found at this address. I will continue to link those pieces here.

California: Ungovernable Since 1850

2009-07-29T13:17:00.006-04:00

It is perhaps unsurprising that Californians, having largely descended from folks who over the past 200 years have crossed deserts, climbed mountains, circumnavigated continents and, more recently, compromised heavily armed international borders, tend to be ardent individualists.

More surprising, however, is that there really is an international conversation right now asking whether Californians are governable. The New York Times Magazine asked this very question in a cover story last month, and the Economist has entertained a handful of articles surmising the same. As with the Orient in the nineteenth century, California will always remain an exotic and barbarous mystery to the outside observer.

Not to spoil the cocktail conversation, but the answer is quite simply no, Californians are not governable, nor have they ever been.

Pundits tapped by CNN to donate forty-second soundbytes to Wolf Blitzer’s daily den of over-simplification can point to facets of the California State Constitution that make governing near impossible and earn their paltry appearance fee. But these touchstones—the supermajority rule on budget votes, gerrymandered legislative districts, term limits in the legislature, the initiative process —are merely political symptoms of a more endemic social phenomenon that transcends, and imperils, policy altogether: inviolable individualism. Moderated as “libertarianism” by some, it is directly derivative of the same attitude that led people to the state in the first place.

While Toqueville attributed the vibrancy of America’s republic to her egalitarianism and communitarian values, Mavericks and Marlboro men spitting on conformism have always played well in California. Some still wax poetic over James Marshall and John Sutter’s legendary gold strike—the first of California’s many get rich quick schemes that have lured in risk-takers of all stripes with the chance to make it big on their own. Vegas might be just up I-15, but from one end of US-101 to the other, whether you were peddling silicon breasts or silicon microchips, California has always been where entrepreneurs, artists and non-conformists came to cash in.

It is foolish to pretend that California’s politics are somehow insulated from this social milieu. Just as Hollywood made Gods out of John Wayne and Gene Autry, it made Governors out of Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. These were men through whom other inherently individualistic Californians could give the shaft to “socialists” and “girly men” who called for personal sacrifice in the name of the political community—a spirit lesser known in the country’s breadbasket and genteel northeastern reaches.

Never mind that California’s post-war Golden Age only flourished because of government programming and cooperative endeavors, not despite of them—in Hollywoodland, celebrity always trumps reality, and the historical narrative came to reflect this mass cognitive dissonance to reinforce California’s hyper-individualist identity.

Over the course of the twentieth century, this attitude has politically manifested itself in a push for direct democracy, no matter how ill-applied or maladapted it might be to govern a State of 40 million. The individualist mantra, it seems, has left Californians so distrusting of their peers and confident only in themselves, that they have elected to directly fend for their own righteous interests.

The march towards California’s plebiscitary democracy began in 1911 with, lo and behold, the plebiscite, initially introduced to circumvent a state legislature deemed to have sold out to powerful railroad interests. Its establishment crossed a political Rubicon from which there would be no return.

From there, proud and independent Californians gradually amended the State constitution to strip Sacramento of any tangible political clout. Term limits threw out incumbents every so often, and supermajority thresholds protected John Q. Citizen from tax hikes thought to have been hammered out by corrupt politicians with slim majorities in smoke-filled rooms.

Desperate to resist their ever diminishing roles, partisans in the legislature embraced gerrymandering as a means to guarantee at least enough votes to block an opposition supermajority. A modus vivendi was reached in which legislative gridlock became the status quo. The real task of governing fell upon the whimsy of the citizenry and the ballot initiative was their scepter.

This sort of rampant mass rule had been arguably absent in advanced societies since 6th century (BCE) Athens, when the demagoguery of Pisistratus awoke the Crowd's political consciousness and unleashed their varying self-interests upon what had been a restrained, stable and handsomely prosperous polity.

The previous Solonian constitution was so eroded in this period that total collapse (the equivalent to financial insolvency today?) was only spared by the careful pandering of leaders able to court the masses yet rule as elites. Some political observers saw similar qualities in the modern-day candidacy of Governor Schwarzenegger, but it now seems that any such similarities between Pericles and the Governator were limited to their Hellenic physiques.

Still, the political environment may actually be worse in twenty-first century California than it was in ancient Athens. In Athens, the tyranny was at least of the majority. Meanwhile, a ballot measure in California needs only to attract a minute fraction of voters to be placed on the ballot, and then garner a mere plurality of votes from the smattering of registered voters (18% this last May in Los Angeles) who even bother to turnout.

Politically, the result of inviolable individualism is thus far nearer to oligarchy than self-rule. Fiscally, the result is a near impossible ability to tax coupled with an equally near impossible ability to reform spending. But this is not what most “experts” have decided. If anything, they will point to the plebiscitary process and stop there.

Yet while scrapping or at least seriously reforming the ballot initiative is certainly a good first-step, it will only change how the game is played, not the game itself. Californians will still spit on the political community and find other ways to effectively dismantle government and destroy the state, only to blame it on a “corrupt system” filled with “corrupt officials” that they themselves have created.

Excepting another Pericles, it seems as if California is doomed to failure.

Grasping Old Party

2009-06-18T18:18:00.003-04:00

The GOP (grasping old party?) thinks it has found another bramble to cling to as it plummets off the cliff of political relevancy. ABC, the sad conservatives are bellowing, have sold out to the President like the NBC-Universal evil empire before it. Indeed, they point out, not only is ABC granting the President an hour of primetime but they are going so far as to restrict partisan advertisements! How dare they prevent the crooks and liars from politicizing government transparency! The always entertaining Michael Steele has even gone so far as to “fight” ABC. As Politico reported earlier this week:

“It seems that the mainstream media has finally decided to dispense with the
pointless denials of favorable coverage of the Obama administration. Now one
network, ABC News, has actually turned its entire programming over to
President Obama and his big-government agenda,” Steele wrote in a fundraising
email under the subject line “URGENT!!! Help the RNC fight Obama & ABC
News!”

Sadly, it looks like the grownups will have to explain things again.

Look, Mike, it’s not just RNC ads that ABC isn't running, its DNC, MoveOn, and all sorts of liberal groups too. As even Drudge says before spinning the story into leftfield: "ABC is refusing to air paid ads during its White House health care presentation." Indeed, ABC doesn't want the program to become a political football for either side and allowing the President of the United States to address his constituents is hardly a political endorsement anymore than broadcasting the State of the Union address is. And, surely, the GOP will have ample opportunity to trip over itself in primetime interviews with a rebuttal of its own.

You might forget, but this is the President of the United States acting as Head of State in the interest of public transparency. This is not a spokesperson for a political party. Reagan did this sort of public forum all the time and never got hammered. In fact, he was lionized as the Great Communicator because of it. while obviously being POTUS brings with it the ability to leverage political support, such is the nature of the Bully Pulpit and is nothing newwhile obviously being POTUS brings with it the ability to leverage political support, such is the nature of the Bully Pulpit and is nothing newWhile obviously being POTUS brings with it the ability to leverage political support, such has been the nature of the bully pulpit for the past century.

This sort of manipulative and overblown Drudge-rage falls under a broad symptom I've observed in plenty of GOP blowhards lately. Call it the, "Crap-we're-not-in-the-White-House-anymore" effect.

Had McCain won, he'd probably be soaking up primetime to explain his plans to invade Iran, deregulate the economy and drill for oil in Yellowstone. It’s all the same and its time for the GOP to get over it and figure out how to be effective in their new role. That means constructive criticism, not mudflinging and tantrum-throwing every time the President does something smart they disagree with.

The Blog is Back

2009-04-29T02:50:00.002-04:00

It's Spring, and we're back to more regular posting.

Debunking the Conservative Welfare Myth

2009-04-27T10:57:00.005-04:00

Ran in the Columbia Spectator April 27:

The most recent installment of Lauren Salz’s column (“Cold-hearted conservatism,” April 22) ran on this page a few days ago and quite effectively encapsulated many of the errors conservatives commit in trying to understand, let alone solve, the problems of a modern social economy.

In a triumphant narration dripping with self-righteousness, Salz recounts how her charity work in Ghana delivered her to the revelation that charity “create[s] a culture of begging and entitlement.” Why? Because “if there are positive incentives to be the most needy, then people will respond to those incentives,” to the “moral detriment” of society.

And so we sadly recourse to 1983 and the failed conservative logic of welfare queendom that is propagated by Fox News, tea-baggers, and other conservative minions and hit men.

Unlike conservatives in Washington, Salz readily admits that the social economy is “a bigger problem that I cannot solve, or even understand.” Curiously, this does not stop her from employing the same maladapted analogies and stale clichés that conservatives apply not only to social welfare generally, but more specifically to the Obama administration’s response to the current economy.

This conservative argument relies on two points: (1) that social welfare denigrates the “self-worth” of its beneficiaries, and (2) that social welfare incentivizes sloth and creates moral hazards by catering to immediate, unrestrained desires. The first point is wound up in a particularly outdated and reductive understanding of “self-worth,” while the second is just false, even fraudulent.

The assertion that welfare programming (what conservatives call “handouts”) reduces the self-worth of its recipients implies that individuals are only valuable to the extent that they can provide for themselves.

Not only does this doctrine relegate teeming hordes of socially disadvantaged and disabled persons who lost the social lottery to permanent second-class status, it further denies any sort of subjective understanding or appreciation for the self. Conservatives, who often reek of Friedmanist claims to inviolable individuality, surely would not have meant to imply that individuals must subject their views on self-worth to a single conception, would they?

Their second point is equally flawed. Figures provided by the Administration for Children and Families indicate no evidence that welfare cheating is a significant problem. As recently as 15 years ago, less than 5 percent of all welfare benefits went to persons who were not entitled to them, and this figure is likely to have plummeted since former president Bill Clinton’s welfare reforms took effect.

Nor are recipients getting rich from welfare. Aid to Families with Dependent Children and food stamps are the two largest welfare programs. In 2002, the annual AFDC family payment averaged around $5,000, and food stamps for a family of three averaged around $2,500. With the current cost of living around $13,000 per year, this $7,500 is a little more than 57 percent of what it costs to subsist.

Is this really a positive incentive for poverty? Comically, and tragically, many conservatives say it is.

Conservatives further suggest that welfare programming effectively “gives in” to licentious desires, fostering in their minds some fantastical image of the tutelary state. But most welfare barely provides half of what it costs a family to survive. Suggesting that food stamps give license for debauchery is ludicrous to the extent that it paints feeding the hungry as an exorbitant and unwarranted act of “catering” to one’s immediate needs.

This, conservatives have said, contributes to the “moral detriment” of society. I would offer that the Congressional Republicans and misinformed tea-baggers protesting tax hikes on the top two percent of Americans better exhibit the extravagant attachment to “immediate needs” that conservatives seem to be searching for.

On a personal level, I, like many other Columbians, have benefited from these handouts in the form of federal scholarships—but not as much as my dad, whose family, after his father died when he was only 14, was supported by government programming.

This safety net kept him and his younger sister from having to drop out of middle school, and later fully funded their college and graduate educations.

Today, my father proudly pays his taxes knowing they will provide similar opportunities for today’s youth. Does this make him a self-entitled beggar, and my aunt a welfare queen?

I wrote back in November that Republicans would likely turn to Reagan-myth economics in an effort to revive their irrevocably flawed platform that had been built on culture wars and blind American exceptionalism. Indeed, it appears that they have done so.

Yet while nonsensical, forced analogies might make good rhetoric for conservative rallies, it has not made, and does not make, good policy. This country has suffered enough from conservatives’ false claims grounded in ignorance and pressured by delusion.

Their hearts might not be cold, but if there is any grand source of moral detriment in our society today, it crawls out the mouths of these conservative ideologues.

The author is a Columbia College sophomore majoring in political science.

"TBNYU" and the Slow Death of Legitimate Civil Disobedience

2009-02-20T01:58:00.006-05:00

You've really got to love delusional protest. Nothing says, "I'm young, bored, and self-entitled" like barricading the school cafeteria and issuing a slew of demands that range from freezing tuition, to, uh, declaring support for an international actor that's in the midst of a binary power struggle over some of the most contested land in history.

Because a university can do that, right?

But in the wake of what was probably the most heated electoral season for young people in quite some time, I don't find this at all surprising.

As far back as Pisistratus, charismatic leaders have been surging into power or advancing progressive agendas by tapping the support of previously politically apathetic demographics—and from Mahmoud II and Mehmet Ali to John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, the result in some of these groups is often a sort of political awakening and self-awareness that ushers in new misguided claims to license and privilege.

"TBNYU!", I'm talking about you.

Now while there is a .00001 percent chance that the divas and children who organized this garish orgy of mental masturbation are really hard-line neo-conservatives, I'm pretty sure what we have here is a classic case of "the election's over, I still feel 'fired up and ready to go,' what do I do now?"

As one of the many operatives from the recently concluded Obama campaign, I say to my former colleagues and canvassers downtown that there is a fuck-load of better ways to heal the world's wounds and move forward in the twenty-first century than seizing private property, demanding the outrageous, and making some really nice construction paper drawings.

For the majority of you bored and lonely conscripts who just recently joined the TBNYU! "movement," there are myriad other outlets for your post-election angst that wouldn't have caused nearly this much embarrassment or abuse to the conceptual legitimacy of civil disobedience—you ever hear of the boy who cried wolf?

For one (putting some of your more amusing demands aside for a moment) you might have considered seeking effective rational advocacy for reasonable goals before you stormed Kimmel like it was the Bastille. And if that whole "rational advocacy" thing didn't work, you may have tried to pare down that ridiculous list of grievances you assembled. As it is, I wouldn't be surprised if the cost of your whole gimmick actually fosters some sort of fee or hike in tuition for the next semester. Great work guys.

But I'm still giving you the benefit of the doubt here. To be honest, I'm really not convinced that any of you—recent converts and hardcore nutjobs alike—are really in it for the Gazans, or the moral righteousness, or whatever the hell it is that you say you're in it for. If you were, you probably would have tried a little bit harder than online petitions and a prematurely ejaculated "takeover" of Bobst Library this December to meet your "objective" before the pitchforks and effigies came out in the current chafing circle jerk.

I think you might just be bored and jealous that you weren't born in 1949 so you could occupy cafeterias and organize meaningful productive protest like your parents. I think you watched CNN this week and saw what was going on in France. I think you also felt vacant and meaningless without anything to justify your pop-activism anymore. Needing a cause, I think you stumbled out of an East Village bar and vomited some amalgam of student rights, human rights, and individual inviolability onto the sidewalk that you then scooped up and poured into a makeshift reactionary platform.

On principle, I hope you disperse without the pleasure of having your demands met (whatever their merits) or your appetite for a martyr's beating satiated.

Our constitution affords us the privilege to assemble and speak our minds to protest injustice and oppression. When you abuse these privileges you sully not only the image of student activism, but the legitimacy of such protest itself.

Stop bitching, you have no revolution.

Columbia Considers Charging Students Extra for Wireless Internet?

2009-02-09T12:08:00.004-05:00

The following was written in response to a recent poll given to Columbia students living in wireless equipped residence halls. The Columbia University Information Technology (CUIT) poll asked students if they would pay more to live in dorms equipped with wireless internet, and if they would mind the elimination of the supplemental Ethernet cords and wired internet service

"You damn well better not make us pay more to have efficient and reliable internet access in our rooms. Most universities in this country with lesser endowments and competencies than Columbia and its employees offer free, fast and reliable wireless networks to its students, with no extra charge added to its housing.

I expect no less and am outraged at the possibility that an organization [CUIT] which fails to consistently and adequately perform its only substantial task seeks to charge more for that failure, and, at the same time, remove those methods by which that failure can be at least mitigated to some degree.

The pertinent question is not if I would pay more to live in a wireless residence hall, but rather if CUIT and Housing Services would charge less until all residential areas have effectively been equipped to meet 2009 computing standards, or at least those established in the developed world during the past decade."

Patriot Day Address (9/11/08)

2008-09-11T18:35:00.001-04:00

"On a day like today, a point that ought to be made is that we share more in common than we often appreciate, and that it is a sad result of this past generation of partisan politics and electoral wedges that our people has been so starkly divided as of late.

On a day like today, with so much at stake, when our student body is once again brushed by the passing breeze of history, both by the present and the grim reflection of those unimaginable events seven years ago, we must not focus upon our differences, but rather on what we hold in common, and from there, begin to rebuild the strong united country we have been before.

It is true: an election is soon upon us. But it is terribly unfortunate that so often the word “election” so quickly yields to a search for difference and division. An election ought to be a civic celebration of the disciplined transfer of power we seem to have perfected in this country, not an opportunity to swell the ranks of the politically disillusioned with more misguided partisan venom.

Soldiers and senators, judges and jurymen, principals and policemen, firefighters and all of the fallen—today is your day.

To that end, when the future President of the United States steps foot onto our campus this evening, whomever he might be, may we, the members of the Columbia community, not scrutinize the candidates for whatever our narrow motives might be, but rather let us cherish the accomplishments and inspiration that both of these leaders have already delivered.

All Americans have the remarkable privilege of selecting the next leader of our country, and we the Columbia community have an even greater privilege to welcome both of these candidates, and to learn from them, right here, in Morningside Heights. It would be a shame to take these privileges for granted, and perhaps an even greater to shame sully the entire process by injecting into it our own politics.

By agreeing that we are alike more than we are different, united more than we are divided, and Americans more than we are party members, can we finally start down a path to real solutions. Compromise will be necessary, but all Americans should be confident in, while ever vigilant of, their dedicated public servants to work together for the future of our people.

Just as because of arguably the most divisive election in our nations history 148 years ago the United States now "is" and no longer "are," so someday will we, its people, and our representatives on both sides of the aisle, rediscover this common destiny to which we are all unavoidably bound.

So may today be a testament to this effort, and to the efforts of all those who have given so much, in so many ways, so that this great nation may be truly inspired to become the even greater nation that it can be. We are all so blessed, and all so grateful."

Obama Continues to Distance Himself From Columbia

2009-01-20T21:48:00.005-05:00

Obama and grandparents at a bench in Riverside Park adjacent to Columbia, a few yards from where I type this.

You gotta wonder what Columbia did (or didn't do) to our next President.

Obama, who transferred to Columbia and graduated in 1983, rarely mentioned Columbia during the campaign. Even during a visit to Columbia in September for a candidates forum with John McCain, Obama played down his connection to Columbia. If anything, he criticized the university during the event: "With all due respect to the President of this fine university, the best education I ever had was on the streets of Chicago."

Obama has also refused speaking invitations ever since the University began inviting him in 2004. By contrast, John McCain, who did not attend Columbia but whose daughter graduated from Columbia in 2006, has.

It may not come as a surprise then that, with the launch of the new White House webpage today, Obama's biographical page does not make any mention of Columbia (let alone the Ivy League or New York City). It does, however, mention that the President attended Harvard Law. It's not stylistic either: both Vice President Biden and First Lady Michelle Obama have plugs for the University of Delaware and Princeton in their bios, respectively.

Now I don't begrudge the President for refusing to chum up the Alma Mater like he does Harvard Law. I can't imagine he has much connection to, or appreciation for, a school that threw him out on the street his first night here and reportedly denied him the opportunity to graduate with honors because he was a transfer student.

Columbia is plagued by the notion that it lacks the sort of community and alumni network that other sesqui-bicentennial universities and its rivals in the Ivy League boast. (The least of it being the fact that Columbia's meager alumni giving rate hurts the school in the ever-important annual US News rankings, which on occasion ranks Ivies like the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth a bit higher, despite being what many consider lesser academic institutions). That the Columbia Club of New York, the school's official alumni organization in its backyard of New York City, has no official clubhouse in that backyard and has actually had to rent access to the Princeton Clubhouse in midtown Manhattan (not far from the Penn, Harvard, or Yale clubhouses, which serve those institutions beyond their statelines) really cements Columbia's impotence in this regard.

Now, the fact that the first Columbian elected President refuses to even acknowledge the school only makes it worse. Despite the fanfare on Low Plaza today, PrezBo has got to be worried about the way Obama avoids Columbia as if it were the plague, not unlike the way John McCain avoided Bush 43 during the campaign.

In Columbia's defense, Obama may just lack attachment to a school where he lived as a self-described "monk." That said, if Columbia denies me Latin Honors because I'm a transfer student, they sure as hell aren't getting so much as a dime from me.

The Bush Legacy in A Nutshell: Part II

2009-01-16T21:50:00.002-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I think Olbermann's been waiting to do this since January 2001.

The Bush Legacy in A Nutshell: Tragedy

2009-01-15T21:31:00.005-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Chris Matthews provides a pretty good explanation of what was so horribly wrong with the Bush presidency in this clip from Countdown tonight. Matthew's focus here is on foreign policy, but the general diagnosis of "ignorant delusion" is on the money for all facets of this presidency. It's also why I can't really despise 43. He was, and will forever remain, just too ignorant to know any better.

Bush wasn't the only one to eat up Cheney, Rove and Wolfowitz's neo-conservative delusion like it was communion. The "tragedy," as Matthews put it, is that at least a third of Americans, and nearly all of those who really, genuinely believe in objective "truths" and risen prophets, also drank the Kool-aid Bush poured them daily for the past eight years.

(If you listen to the language of Bush's speech tonight--"good versus evil," "truth and justice," "freedom as God's gift to mankind," "the universality of liberty,"etc.-- it makes sense why the message has caught on as good sermon.)

That neo-conservative ideology just seems to "fit" with many folks brought up in a popular American sub-culture is as benign as it is predictable. The only horrific and deleterious aspect is that our leaders are supposed to know better.

Religion and ideology may be the opiate of the masses, but neither--notwithstanding the two combined!--should ever become the policy of any country, let alone the world's most dominant. This is where shit hit the fan, and hard: neo-conservative dogma was not only made American policy at home, it was decidedly imposed abroad at the point of a bayonet.

In the words of the late Samuel Huntington writing in 1995, imposing one's civilization on another is "false, immoral, and dangerous." Indeed, the last eight years have shown us why.

Even though many of the damages of the Bush years may be irreversible, the forthcoming Obama presidency offers a much needed return to smart and practical optimism in U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

The Dream Lives On

2009-01-04T13:18:00.005-05:00

The following ran in today's Los Angeles Daily News. It can be found at this webpage.

THERE was once a dream that was Los Angeles, a shining city along the sea electrified by ambitions as bright as 360 days of golden sunshine. A city of high-paying jobs, where anyone could own a house in a good neighborhood, with good schools, and maybe even a pool.
Now, perhaps I'm just too young, idealistic and far removed here in New York City - an expatriate Angeleno studying in Manhattan - to realize that it's a dream that died long ago. But somewhere, buried beneath the asphalt parking lots and gated cookie-cutter mansions of the Valley, drowned out by the egos of the Westside and squelched by the red tape of City Hall, I know the dream lives on.
It lives on in the many Angelenos who remember when Los Angeles was an emblem of American opportunity and diversity, a leader in public education, good jobs and safe neighborhoods. They remember what it was like when ordinary folks like teachers, police officers, clerks, cooks and laborers could afford to work in the city and live there, too.
And it also lives on in a newer generation of Angelenos, young people my age who have a vision of what L.A. could become. We know that the future of L.A. is not the ultra-lux condos and urban chic crowd that has populated much of the recent development downtown, in the Mid-City district and along the Wilshire corridor.
We know that the L.A. of our lifetimes will be fueled by new industrial centers to provide high-paying jobs, affordable housing to live in and accessbile public spaces to enjoy.
It's a future where schools offer specialized pre-professional training and increase teacher pay while standing up to unions. It's a future with smart government budgeting that doesn't cave to bureaucratic or business lobbies, funds promising projects and takes a scalpel to bad programs.
And perhaps most importantly, it's a future woven together by a clean and effective system of mass transit that actually takes Angelenos from all ZIP codes to where they need to go.
Los Angeles calls herself the city of the future - well, now she has the opportunity to prove it. A national shift in energy policy and a new federal recommitment to public works is sowing the seeds of a new green economy that Los Angeles is primed to convert into the sort of industrial reinvigoration at the core of this vision.
Just as aerospace and entertainment industries in the '50s and '60s produced a swath of upper middle-class Angelenos who bought plots in the Valley and West Side, so too will this new economy create a new bubble of middle-high earners looking for places to live.
The future of Los Angeles is not about expanding into exhausted suburbs that now crawl up canyons and hills. The future is about growing up into condominiums and apartments. This isn't a new idea, but the problem is that all the vertical development so far in L.A. has been exclusively high-end. Los Angeles needs affordable housing for the growing middle class that will usher in a golden age.
Without proof of affordable housing, industry can't expand into Los Angeles. Without industry, Los Angeles can't afford essential improvements to mass transit, education and public safety.
These transportation improvements would add light-rail lines connecting LAX to downtown and the Westside and the Westside to the Valley - not to mention the "subway to the sea." While college preparation must be a goal for all high schools, job training and career education programs in the burgeoning green industry have benefits as well.
Improvements in public safety would explore new types of community policing, putting more cops on the street and embedded into local communities and institutions.
Realizing this dream will need sound leadership and political bravery. It will take a grass-roots effort to elect a new vanguard, one that avoids uncomfortable commitments to the usual suspects and reports first and foremost to the people and their interests. In fact, some of these leaders may already be in place.
It's an exciting time to have a vision for Los Angeles, but it's terribly frustrating to know there's only so much a 20-year-old can do from Manhattan. Yes, times are tough right now, but there is a dream that will be Los Angeles. Together, as committed Angelenos united, we will realize it one day.

Adam S. Sieff is a lifetime San Fernando Valley resident. He graduated from Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City and is currently an undergraduate at Columbia University.

War, Shoes, and Two Tyrants

2008-12-14T19:42:00.003-05:00

Scenes from today...

...and 2003...

The irony is butter-thick.