Here We Go Steelers

Here's one of the newest Pittsburgh Steelers fans---Margaret's grandson Beckett.  I don't know if Beckett will be watching the Pittsburgh-Denver playoff game on Sunday but I will.  I don't expect to enjoy it much, though.  The Steelers are heavily favored, but sports writers in Pittsburgh at least are expresssing caution.  It's likely to be low scoring, sloppy and painful to watch.

The Steelers have been painful to watch pretty much all year, and they are entering the playoffs as a Wild Card with a lot going against them. In terms of further success, playoff experience has proven to have minuses as well as pluses.  The two more important factors are the physical health of the team and momentum from the last several games.  The 2005 Steelers won the Super Bowl as a Wild Card team, but key players were coming back from injuries and they were healthier than they'd been all year as they began the playoffs.  This year they're starting with way too many injuries.  Their running back is out for the playoffs, and other key personnel--including their marquee players (Big Ben, Troy Polamalu, James Harrison)--are playing hurt.  Any one or two or more of them could be sidelined at any point.

That 2005 team also had tremendous momentum.  It was obvious as the season ended last year that Green Bay was going all the way, although another surprising Steelers team came close in the Super Bowl.  They were hampered by key injuries, and their outstanding running back in that game (although he committed a key fumble) won't be playing at all for these playoffs.  As for this year's momentum, the Steelers have none really, especially on offense. I think most thinking Steelers fans are hoping that they get by a weaker Denver team, but don't get humiliated in the next round.  Of course, as they say, anything can happen in the playoffs.

The NFL this year does have some teams that are fun to watch, at least theoretically, and all of them have a better chance to move on.  I see the Super Bowl being between either Green Bay or New Orleans and either New England or the boring Baltimore, with San Francisco as a sleeper possibility.  But if I'm forced to choose, I'd say this is New Orleans year.  They've got momentum, a quarterback that's having a record-setting year, a healthy team, and a better defense than Green Bay.  But the best game of the playoffs is apt to be Green Bay v. New Orleans (assuming it happens), in the year of the high-scoring pass offenses.

But every year recently I keep thinking that this one will be the last year I'll be watching.  How much longer can I endure moronic commercial after offensive commercial, surrounding brief moments of millionaires giving each other concussions?  Truth is I haven't watched an entire game in more than a year.  We'll see. Or not.         

Getting Better--and Maybe Getting Healthier

Friday's surprise was the strong employment report, with more jobs created than forecast, and an unemployment rate that was expected to go up instead went down to 8.5%. 

Some 212,000 private sector jobs were added last month, including a healthy increase in manufacturing and even some increase in average wages.  Once again the only sector that lost jobs was government.

Politically it was of course good news for President Obama, especially in rising consumer confidence and spending.  It has reduced his GOPer rivals to obvious lies, which admittedly isn't much of a stretch for them.  There must be something different about conservative GOPer Christianity that encourages lying as well as hatred and cruelty than the brand I learned in Catholic school.  Although it might be different in Catholic school now (both Gingrich and Sanctimonious are Catholic.)

The lie--which was identified by Greg Sargent in the Washington Post and Paul Krugman in the NY Times--is claiming the economy has lost jobs under Obama, by conveniently counting the first few months after their hero GW Bush left the country in the toilet, and before President Obama's policies were enacted, let alone in effect for long enough to show results.  (Krugman also shows what a whopper Romney's claim is that he "created 100,000 jobs.")

They continue to repeat their lies, about big government as well, while government is shedding jobs.  That may also be politically to Obama's advantage, but for the economy and society, it's very bad news.  Jobs are jobs, first of all.  And these are mostly jobs that are necessary for the functioning of this economy and this country.  They are going to wind up costing everyone more in the long run.

There is a paradox in economic growth itself.  It is necessary to put bread on the table for millions of Americans.  But high consumption and wasteful practices also create enormous waste and ruins the environment we depend on for ultimate survival.  But at least some of the current growth is better because it arises from green energy development and manufacturing, and such anti-waste efforts as retrofitting.  Plus despite the government job losses and the criminal failure of Congress to support needed infrastructure construction and repair, there actually is some infrastructure work happening, and construction jobs are up.

The truth is that the Great Recession was so damaging, and so many jobs were lost, that even at the highest levels of growth we've had in the past 20 years or so,  this economy is not going to recover what it lost for years.  That sobering truth is one that the Obama campaign will have to introduce sooner or later.  The global economy is still fragile, and the big shocks from the Climate Crisis have barely begun.  We need to have a sounder, more ecologically responsible economy, and economic justice, because it is unlikely that the kind of prosperity this country squandered and is still squandering will be seen for a long time, if ever again.  That doesn't prevent a spirit of optimism, but optimism in achieving new goals--for a sustainable, resilient economy and society-- as well as again defining old, basic ones, of economic justice and the common good.      

Bending the Arc

President Obama made another bold move on Thursday by announcing a plan to reconfigure the mission of the U.S. military, to downscale, and to slow the increase in the Pentagon budget. 

As Rep. Barney Frank said, this is important more for the change in direction than the extent of the changes.  President Obama made the point that all the Bushwars swelled the military budget and the national debt, and such expenditures aren't sustainable.   

 Romney on the other hand has announced a neocon wet dream of a foreign policy, with threats to expand American military hegemony--while proposing a tax system that has been vetted to show that it will decrease federal revenues at the same time as he proposes to further increase military spending.

President Obama made the announcement at the Pentagon, surrounded by defense department and military leaders.  Though he will be viciously attacked by warmongering GOPers, and some Dems and others will criticize him for not going farther or for taking so long, the presence of those officials testifies to the long process behind the scenes that made this announcement possible.  And once the ship of the huge U.S. military commits to a turn, it turns and keeps turning.

President Obama announced a military budget priority that has seldom if ever received emphasis before:

"We’re also going to keep faith with those who serve, by making sure our troops have the equipment and capabilities they need to succeed, and by prioritizing efforts that focus on wounded warriors, mental health and the well-being of our military families. And as our newest veterans rejoin civilian life, we’ll keep working to give our veterans the care, the benefits and job opportunities that they deserve and that they have earned."

Their True Colors

Automated outrage is unseemly from wherever it originates.  When one of Romney's boys repeated a dumb joke (badly, just like Dad) that included reference to President Obama's birth certificate, it ignited the automated furor, demands that he repudiate the idea, etc.  The kid apologized for repeating a bad joke.  Whatever it says about the Romney family attitude, I doubt he even knew what he was saying.  The reaction seemed disproportionate.

But not to recent statements by Rick Sanctimonius and Gingrich.  Rick was recorded saying,  "I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.”  When he was called on it, he denied saying it.  Here's a link--hear it for yourself.  It's pretty clear he said "black people."

The importance of this is underscored by a statement on Wednesday by Gingrich. "More people are on food stamps today because of Obama’s policies than ever in history....And so I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps."

This is I believe a key to the entire Rabid Right frenzy of this year.  What they are saying is that in these hard times, black people are being favored with government handouts, which hardworking and hard-pressed white people are paying for in high taxes.  A black President is creating a culture of dependence for black Americans, which is destroying the moral fiber of the country.

It doesn't matter that President Obama talks repeatedly about jobs and providing opportunities for all Americans to "go out and earn the money."  Or his nearly continuous praise for Americans "who work hard and play by the rules," and his emphasis on making it possible for them to earn a middle class life.  Or that any increase in food stamps or other support (including unemployment insurance) has to do with people losing their jobs and losing income, mostly as a result of the economic collapse that was the direct consequence of eight years of Republican mismanagement and misrule, and has no racial component whatever.  Except perhaps that black women are harder hit than other Americans, since they've suffered less discrimination by working in social services, teaching and other jobs that are being cut because the one sector where jobs are still being lost is government jobs.  Not government handouts---government jobs.

So first the facts, as summarized by Think Progress: "The majority of people who participate in the food stamp program, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), are white. Most of the participants are also either children (who can’t earn a paycheck unless Gingrich gets his way) or seniors who are of retirement age. In 2010, working-women represented only 28 percent of SNAP beneficiaries, and working-age men represented only 17 percent.  What’s more, an increasing number of SNAP beneficiaries actually do have jobs and receive paychecks that are the primary source of their income. Unfortunately, only 15 percent of those incomes are above the poverty line."

This by the way was true in the 1980s and 90s, when Gingrich last pulled this particular trick.  It is on the whole the oldest racist trick in the book, next to all black men are rapists and killers.  It works especially well when lower middle class whites are especially hard-pressed.  There has to be someone to blame, so instead of blaming the 1% for stealing the country's wealth and shipping jobs to slave labor overseas, they are guided by the 1% to blame non-whites. 

I am convinced more than ever that the GOP is deliberately inflaming the lower middle class white anxiety about a black President, and attempting to follow those flames to take over Washington.  It's really all of a piece.  The call for Obama's grades, even the contempt for him because he uses a teleprompter (just like G.W. and everybody else), which are dog whistle appeals to the racist image of blacks as stupid.  Romney's entire campaign is predicated on pushing this: Obama is too dumb to govern, he's screwed it all up.  White people--ALL white people-- are therefore smarter, and the smart white voters should be smart enough to vote for the rich white politicians, who will give enormous tax breaks to their fellow rich white people so that they will provide jobs for their fellow whites of the lower middle class.  So even if some whites are getting food stamps or Social Security or Medicare, well, it's those black hordes who are ruining it by taking unfair advantage.  And Obama naturally is taking care of them, because they voted him in.

This is what all the GOPer presidential candidates are saying, almost without saying it.  Although Rick and Gingrich are coming very close to saying it all out loud.

Meanwhile in Ohio

While the Romney and the anti-Romneys blathered, President Obama acted.  Directly defying the GOPer minority in the Senate that has been using its filibuster power to thwart the will of the majority, President Obama appointed Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  It was a bold use of the recess appointment that has GOPers in a furious tizzy.

President Obama made the announcement and stated his case in Ohio, where Cordray served as a popular attorney general and before that as state treasurer.  After explaining that the only reason Cordray hasn't been confirmed is GOPer attempts to subvert the consumer protection law itself (which no one disputes), and after re-stating his continuing intent to work with GOPers in Congress to do the people's business and accelerate economic recovery, President Obama said:  "But when Congress refuses to act, and as a result, hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, then I have an obligation as President to do what I can without them.  I’ve got an obligation to act on behalf of the American people. And I’m not going to stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people that we were elected to serve. Not with so much at stake, not at this make-or-break moment for middle-class Americans."

It was in many ways a brilliant political move: it puts Cordray in place and gets the work started, which GOPers will have to somehow go to court to stop.  It highlights congressional obstructionism, and challenges GOPers to continue.  The President also made the appointment on a day when the new Congress technically begins, which means that under the law, Cordray can serve until the end of 2013, instead of only a few months--which is what would have happened if the appointment had been made just yesterday.

But the substance of the appointment is the most important.  Cordray's appointment means the law can be fully implemented to protect consumers from fraudelent practices by fly-by-nighters but also by the biggest banks and Wall Street institutions (which have all poured millions into trying to defeat the law.)  It is in essence an action that carries out a fundamental role of government: to set and enforce rules of fairness as well as health and safety. 

President Obama stated the principle simply:  "We cannot allow people to be taken advantage of. And it’s not just because it’s bad for those individuals. All that risky behavior led -- helped to contribute to the economic crisis that we’re all still digging ourselves out of. All those subprime loans, all those foreclosures, all the problems in the housing market -- that’s all contributing to an economy that’s not moving as fast as we want it."

President Obama talked about an older Ohio couple who had been tricked by dishonest lenders and almost lost their house. "They earned the right to retire with dignity and with respect, and they shouldn’t have to worry about being tricked by somebody who's out to make a quick buck. And they need somebody who is going to stand up for them, and millions of Americans need somebody who is going to look out for their interests. And that person is Richard Cordray. 

And we know what would happen if Republicans in Congress were allowed to keep holding Richard’s nomination hostage. More of our loved ones would be tricked into making bad financial decisions. More dishonest lenders could take advantage of some of the most vulnerable families. And the vast majority of financial firms who do the right thing would be undercut by those who don't.

See, most people in the financial services industry do the right thing, but they're at a disadvantage if nobody is enforcing the rules. We can't let that happen. Now is not the time to play politics while people’s livelihoods are at stake. Now is the time to do everything we can to protect consumers, prevent financial crises like the one that we’ve been through from ever happening again. That starts with letting Richard do his job."

The "vast majority" is maybe an overstatement, but the principle of regulation is precise: the function of rules and enforcing them is to put noone who plays by those rules at a competitive disadvantage.  Businesses know that bad practices are ultimately ruinous for everybody--but there has to be government to make sure that the bad guys pay the price, and not the guys who are trying to do the right thing.  This is a logic that nearly everybody understood and accepted, until opposing gubment regulation became a mindless mantra.  It taps into the frustration of anyone who has to deal with impossibly complicated or onerous regulations, administered by cynical incompetents.  The answer is to improve regulations and government administration, not turn the world over to the predatory lawless.

President Obama concluded his Ohio remarks:  "I know that you're hearing a lot of promises from a lot of politicians lately. Today you’re only going to hear one from me. As long as I have the privilege of serving as your President, I promise to do everything I can every day, every minute, every second, to make sure this is a country where hard work and responsibility mean something and everybody can get ahead. Not just those at the very top, not just those who know how to work the system, but everybody."   It is the aspiration of being President of the 100%.

President Obama in Ohio--and in High Def

An Iowa Post-Mittem

Cowboy Rick went jogging and was inspired to stay in the race, surprising his own staff.  Maybe God spoke to him again.  And maybe that Voice was heard by way of the upcoming meeting of self-important preachers in Dallas (Texas, get it?) to decide if they can back a single righteous Christian candidate instead of getting beat all the time by one of them goldurn moderates, like Romney, who is to the right of every Republican who ever ran for President before this year, including himself.  They could still back Cowboy Rick, the only one of the remaining three (with Gingrich and Senator Rick Sanctimonious) who allegedly has money to burn.   Gingrich seems more likely to back Sanctimonious. in such a unified effort, but Cowboy Rick still have this last card to play.  If he doesn't get their clear endorsement, he may hear something else whispered to him on a subsequent jog.

The other Rick, Sanctimonious, got a million bucks in online contributions, which he could easily blow in a week of New Hampshire media.  One of his superpacs has dissolved, the other got more professional help, and the jury is still out on whether he will be more than the latest and maybe last anti-Romney flavor of the month. 

Meanwhile, Romney's showing in Iowa is being interpreted as showing weak appeal among GOPers.  "Independents" who participated in the GOPer caucuses generally were there to vote for Ron St. Paul.   There were actually fewer GOPers participating in this year's caucuses than in 2008, suggesting that not only Romney but the GOPer brand is dazed and confused.

What's happening to GOPerland is instructive to Democrats tempted to indulge in their purism, which no human and certainly no governing President could live up to.  Divided, dispirited, and angry with everybody.  Even the candidates are hopelessly incompetent and narcissistic, dragging everybody down to their own level.  John McCain endorses Romney, who he loathes, because he has a worse grudge against Sanctimonious.  Countering the analysis that an extended messy GOPer campaign for the nom is good for Obama, some pundits suggest that the protracted battles between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008 wound up strengthening Democrats (registering a ton of new ones, for one thing.)  That's true but the analogy doesn't hold.  GOPer participation is flat or down,  and the Obama-Clinton contests forced both candidates to be sharper on issues, whereas the GOPer race so far has been a contest in who can be the most thoughtlessly outrageous.

The GOP is in a cul de sac--a comfortable upper suburban one for some, a modest Southern suburban one for others--but they are on a street that leads nowhere.  By taking the logic of the post-Civil Rights Act 60s to its logical conclusion, the GOP has become the White Peoples' Party, when the proportion of white people in the voting population is steadily declining.  As evidenced in the states where they won in 2010 as well as in their nom campaign, the GOP has gone all in on Rabid Christian Right attitudes towards reproductive rights and privacy, sexual preference, science in schools as well as the 1% war on the global environment, all of which are on the opposite side of most Americans, especially younger ones.  And finally, even in a progressive state like California,  GOPers are incapable of supporting tax increases to support badly needed functions of government that they as well as everyone else depend on.  That will do them in sooner rather than later.  We might end up with a paralyzed government for another four years.  But in the longer run this GOP is doomed.            

As Scheduled

The Quadratids sounds like the name of a band, or maybe a circus act featuring four child siblings.  But it's actually a meteor shower, with its peak last night--and for once, I saw it.

I saw the most shooting stars between 4:45 and 6 a.m.  Not the 120 an hour that probably were visible from prime locations (view of the whole sky without light) but I saw a couple of dozen here...Some were the usual long thin streaks, some were fatter, shorter and considerably brighter than ordinary shooting stars.  I saw several that covered a fair amount of sky and left a vapor trail.  Most traveled from right to left so to speak, but I saw one spectacular one that shot across left to right high in the sky, long enough to look like a rocket.  There were often two within a few seconds of each other, and once I saw two at the same time!

Mostly it was waiting and looking (I started at around 3, came back in, tried again at 4, etc.) in the cold, at times with a cup of hot tea, listening to Beethoven quartets.  It was an unusually clear night for this time of year.  However our house doesn't offer an ideal view of the north and east, where these comet fragments were coming from.  Our best unobstructed, unlit view is more west and southerly.  So I saw the best ones from a small space outside the toolshed and woodpile.  But at last I've seen enough of a scheduled shower to say I saw it.  It's probably the best I've seen.            

Iowa Promises

In his usual dishonest remarks about President Obama,  Romney cited candidate Obama's surprise victory statement after the Iowa caucuses in 2008 as a litany of promises made and broken.  This video from that statement exactly four years ago proves Romney very very wrong.  The only hope that hasn't yet materialized to some extent is a nation less divided.  That's still to come, and if it comes at all, it will be with President Obama.

Iowa Babble

Having again invested too much time in listening to babble about the Iowa caucuses, I will now as usual compound the error by investing too much time writing--or venting--about them.

Romney eventually won by a handful of votes over Rick Sanctimonius, having scored a handful of votes fewer than he did in 2008 when he came in second to Huckabee, who nearly doubled Romney's vote total that year. Romney got almost exactly the same percentage of the vote: 25%.  He remains Mr. 23%

 The news is the Sanctimonious surge peaked at the right time, and the epic fail of the Cowboy Rick campaign, which may well be over in a matter of days.  The Bachmaniac campaign staff urged her to stop, while hinting darkly that they didn't get Evangelical preachers endorsing them because she is a woman.  So far she is resisting this advice, so if she goes on it will likely be with new or no staff (again) as well as no money.  Update: Bachmaniac dropped out, but Cowboy Rick announced he would stay in, and compete in South Carolina. 

The salient fact for the general election in Iowa was something that the Democratic state chair said on MSNBC, though noone there seemed to have heard it: most of the counties that Romney won are solidly Democratic, which means it is unlikely he will win them in the general.  There were Dem caucuses, ignored by the media because there was no opposition to Barack Obama,  but 25,000 Iowans came out anyway, and reportedly these were enthusiastic events.

The other news that bears on the upcoming New Hampshire primary and the rest of the GOPer nom race is the impression that Gingrich (who finished a weak fourth to Rand Paul's dad) is going to make it a personal mission to destroy Romney.  He started in his own rambling remarks, scoring with the assertion that Romney won't transform Washington but will simply "manage the decay."  Earlier, his Superpac "leaked" that it is preparing an anti-Romney blitz in New Hampshire.

 Judging by Gingrich's complimenting Rick S. (as he did in one of the debates as well), it seems he would have no trouble endorsing him if Rick S. proves resilient beyond Iowa, and Gingrich himself doesn't resurge in the South.  It's also worth remembering that the 2008 GOPer candidates were united by one thing: they all wound up hating Romney.  That may turn out to mean something if it happens again in 2012.

There will likely be a parade of GOPer establishment endorsements of Romney, but the conventional wisdom seems to be that he was wounded by this tiny victory.  So those endorsements may mean less than Cowboy Rick dropping out, especially if he endorses Rick S., and ditto Bachmaniac.  St. Paul doubled his 2008 vote in Iowa, so he goes to New Hampshire with some strength.  As someone on Charlie Rose pointed out, Romney has to win 51% of the delegates in these primaries (all proportional this time) by convention time, and if St. Paul keeps getting 20% and the anti-Romneys (probably down to Sanctimonious and Gingrich) keep getting enough votes to add up to more than 50%, the coronation may have to be postponed.
   

How To Profit From the Coming Apocalypse

Well, it's here: the year 2012, which according to dubious interpretations of Mayan prophesy as well as the X-Files finale, is doomsyear.  Several versions zero in on the Winter Solstice of 2012, so we have nearly a whole year to waste.  Unless you're in California, where the apocalypse comes in September: that's when Amazon starts charging sales tax.

I've long been interested in apocalyptic tales as stories about the future.  In modern literature, H.G. Wells The Time Machine set the standard and defined an aspect of the genre: it's a cautionary tale, a prediction (at least metaphorically) of what the future could be if certain aspects of his present were taken to their logical conclusion.  They also happen to be aspects of our present: the great divide between the wealthy and the workers.  In Wells' tale, the wealthy evolved into the Eloi, a race of silly brainless but beautiful children.  The workers evolved into an entirely different species, the Morlocks, misshapen brutes who lived underground and tended the machines that kept the Eloi ignorantly and blissfully alive--for the sole purpose of serving as the Morlocks' lunchmeat.

These days it's hard to find what we're supposed to be cautionary about in most post-apocalyptic tales, which tend to be the literary equivalent of survivalist fantasies, the fascination of how the last doomed carry on as best they can.  The pall of the Climate Crisis is cast over these stories, but seldom explicitly.  There just isn't the creative energy that produced so many apocalyptic tales (many explicitly cautionary) in the shadow of the thermonuclear arms race in the 1960s.  There hasn't even been an environmental apocalypse to match Soylent Green.   Though it could be argued that the fashion for zombies and vampires indicates an apocalyptic mood.

As for the supposed Mayan apocalypse, it lacks much of a good story at all.  Plus it's so cosmic that it can't be cautionary--there's nothing we can do but wait for it.  The truth will be out there!  But there was one interesting observation in a USA Today review of the Mayan apocalypse literature (such as it is):

 "The buildup to 2012 echoes excitement and fear expressed on the eve of the new millennium, popularly known as Y2K, though on a smaller scale, says Lynn Garrett, senior religion editor at Publishers Weekly. She says publishers seem to be courting readers who believe humanity is creating its own ecological disasters and desperately needs ancient indigenous wisdom."

Well, that's not wrong.  The so-called New Paradigm reflects the Native Paradigm, as science has wandered onto the reservation of taking nature seriously.  There's a lot of guff about indigenous wisdom of course, which the Mayan apocalypse fad exemplifies.  But seeing humanity as a part of nature, of our time as part of time, of all life as related, which were profound axioms of indigenous cultures, can still be the basis of human civilization's salvation, if such is still possible.
    

Happy New Year!

Iowa Out

The tragicarnival of the GOPer nominating campaign will have its first gong show in Iowa a few days into the new year.  Millions of dollars spent, thousands of hours wasted (including too many of mine) on a caucus of a few thousand GOPers, mostly zealots, in Iowa.  It's the few as well as the futility that makes it a microcosm of this tragicarnival so far, though the worst of it would be implications for the future of the country and the planet, due to one of these evil clowns becoming President.

Polls of stunning approximation fall over each other daily as reporters go into the field, and report what their intuition says. (Chris Matthews likens it to visiting Brigadoon, as Iowa "comes alive" to the Beltway arbiters of reality every four years.) On Wednesday (Dec. 28) the buzz was Ron Paul.  By Thursday the buzz was Romney.  On Friday it was Rick Sanctimonious.  But maybe Cowboy Rick (Perry), too.  One Washington Post columnist ( E.J. Dionne) was smelling a Sanctimonious surge to the top, while another (Eugene Robinson) had a feeling it was Cowboy Rick who had the momentum.

All everybody (nearly everybody) agreed on was that Michele Bachmaniac was toast, and so is Mitt Gingrich--a cap on the absurdity so far.  Gingrich was so far ahead in the polls a few weeks ago that it seemed he could sweep to the nomination.  Now he's slipped so far down in Iowa that it seems more likely than not that he will not win, place or show, and will soon drop out of the race entirely.  There's no mystery as to why this happened.  The conservative establishment media and officeholders went brutally public with their scorn, and shortly thereafter some millions of dollars were directed to creating and broadcasting slashing attacks on him, and he had plenty to attack.  Reporters say that nearly half of the abundance of GOPer ads on Iowa TV are attacks on Gingrich.  The only question I have is whether the money people directed the initial establishment attacks in the media as well, or were empowered by them to spend with such generous ferocity.

The question as of Friday was whether Iowa TEvangelicals would become sufficiently alarmed at the prospect of a Romney victory to finally coalesce around one candidate--which would likely be one of the Ricks.  How would caucusees react to the Des Moines Register final poll on Saturday night?  What will be said from the pulpit at their churches on Sunday?  It doesn't look as if either Rick is going to give up for the greater good--you know, a Christian self-sacrifice kind of thing.  But there is some perception that Paul (not the apostle, the libertarian) is fading a bit.  Neither Paul nor Gingrich are going to pick up each other's voters.  But Paul looks strong enough to remain in the top three.  Romney does, too.   Especially if Mr. 23% holds steady--that might even be enough to win.

As for the Third Man (and it is very likely to be a male person), there's a sweet irony: the best outcome for the TEvangelicals is also the best outcome for the Obama campaign.  And the name of that outcome is Cowboy Rick.  The reason is the same: the Third Man--the last TEvangelical standing in win, place or show position--can coalesce the TEvangelical forces in upcoming primaries, and at least string out the process if not change the Romney nomination.  But if its Rick Sanctimonious, he doesn't have the money or organization for the long run, having been no more than a joke until now.  But Cowboy Rick, even if he is a joke, does have some bucks, and apparent access to more (this may have changed however, since he found grade school civics questions too intellectually challenging) and he has at least theoretical appeal in the South.  So Cowboy Rick can carry the Tevangelical banner longer and maybe farther.

Which would delight the Obama campaign.  A quick conquest by Romey, the apparently most formidable GOPer candidate, would start off the new year with head to head viciousness, and would completely doom any congressional action the country needs. If Cowboy Rick could be Romney's focus for a few months, good.  Cowboy Rick actually winning the nomination, better.  That's where it all stood as of Friday night. 

The Des Moines Register poll released on Saturday evening showed strong momentum for Rick Sanctimonious over the final two days of polling, moving ahead of St. Ron Paul, and challenging Romney for the win.  It would seem that this Rick could be boosted further by this result in the remaining days, based only on the movement (because in fact the percentage differences from first place to third are only a touch outside the margin of error.)  Factor this in as well: Rick S. has new TV ads running, which claim he is the most electable against President Obama.  If caucus voters are willing to give him a look, especially TEvangelicals, because he may have the best chance of the anti-Romneys to win,  then the next item they need to tick off is can he beat the hated un-white President.  That ad is also running in New Hampshire, suggesting that contrary to conventional wisdom, Rick S. can go the distance to become THE anti-Romney and THE TEvangelical candidate.

Cowboy Rick on the other hand has let it be known that he'll have 1500 folks working for him to deliver caucus votes, and his ads are going at the other Rick directly (for wasting their tax dollars on earmarks as Sen. from PA.)  It now all could come down to what Evangelical ministers say in church on Sunday, opines E.J. Dionne.  Think on that a moment.  For about two centuries, the rebellion against qualifying government officeholders on the basis of their religious affiliation was known to be a prime basis for American settlement, and the fear about JFK in 1960 was that as a Catholic (no one had ever been elected to the presidency with that religion) he might violate the Constitutional and foundational separation of church and state, and take orders from the Vatican.  In his famous speech addressing the question, he directly pledged that as President his country would always come first.  Now a potential President has to be almost literally anointed by clergy of a minority branch of Protestant Christianity.  Give us our country back indeed.                           

R.I.P. 2011

I've spent a lot of time the past few nights collecting and posting photos of people who died in 2011.  I've posted them in the appropriate sites: the theatre people at Stage Matters, the authors at Books in Heat, the science fiction figures at Soul of Star Trek, the boomer heroes and pop culture figures at Boomer Hall of Fame.  There's even an earlier post at Blue Voice about three of my college professors who died this past year. 

Even with all those, I've missed some significant names, like artists Cy Twombly, Richard Hamilton, Lucian Freud.  I also don't know what to make of two of the weirder notices I came across: like the 23 year old German porn actress, Sexy Cora, who died from breast enlargement surgery complications, and an Italian actress named Dorian Gray, who committed suicide by gunshot.

I started doing this a few years ago, with the stubborn conviction that I should pay respect to people whose legacy should be remembered.  A way to say thank you.  But this year it may have gotten away from me.

So here I want to note just four that mean a lot to me.  I noted the contribution of Lynn Margulis here earlier.  I posted about James Hillman at 60s Now.  Hillman's work has been most present with me, and I didn't know he died in October until a few weeks ago.  Neither of these two have made the lists or photo albums of big newspaper and media sites, with Elizabeth Taylor and Steve Jobs.  I included two photos of Hillman because they show two aspects of him that I value.  Upon reflection, it does seem that he had seen to his legacy well.  He'd written his books, saw to an edited complete works, left some late thoughts on video, and apparently cooperated with a biography, the first volume of which is published in 2012.  The biography may tell us more about the smiling man in the black and white photo.

The black and white of Hillman in the center even resembles the black and white of Joko Beck at upper left.   She's another person whose passing doesn't make those lists.  But her books, especially Everyday Zen, were and are important to me, and she was personally a teacher to a dear departed friend.

The fourth photo is Vaclev Havel, who bridged the gap between the arts and politics, and brought a human, ethical spirit to both.  His books are still inspiring.  (Even this extra-large photo cuts off the right edge, so you might need to click on the collage to see it in full.)

I leave them, and you, and 2011, with these words from Wallace Stevens' poem, "Peter Quince at the Clavier":

Beauty is momentary in the mind
The fiftful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.

The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebrations of a maiden's choral.

Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scraping,
Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise. 

Class and Climate

Stephen Marche at Esquire begins his article, "We Are Not Created Equal":

"There are some truths so hard to face, so ugly and so at odds with how we imagine the world should be, that nobody can accept them. Here's one: It is obvious that a class system has arrived in America — a recent study of the thirty-four countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that only Italy and Great Britain have less social mobility. But nobody wants to admit: If your daddy was rich, you're gonna stay rich, and if your daddy was poor, you're gonna stay poor. Every instinct in the American gut, every institution, every national symbol, runs on the idea that anybody can make it; the only limits are your own limits. Which is an amazing idea, a gift to the world — just no longer true. Culturally, and in their daily lives, Americans continue to glide through a ghostly land of opportunity they can't bear to tell themselves isn't real. It's the most dangerous lie the country tells itself."

There's lots of support for his major contention of a pretty rigid American class system, the 1% v. the 99%, including one new anecdotal: when the New York Times asked members of Congress whether even a friend or relative has suffered from the Great Recession, fewer than 20 even replied.  Congress, suggests the article, is on average comprised of "rank and file millionaires," many of whom became wealthy or increased their wealth while "serving." 

But Marche is wrong about one thing: this is not necessarily the "most dangerous lie the country tells itself."  The most dangerous lie is that global heating isn't real, there is no Climate Crisis.  The two lies are not unrelated, but the future of civilization and life as we know it on planet earth, with suffering and destruction spread throughout generations of humanity and many other species, is at stake with that second lie. 

We are not dealing with the causes of the Climate Crisis, and so the future prospects continue to get worse.  We are not even prepared to deal with the effects.  Of our major institutions, only the military is taking it seriously, and so is preparing to fight wars that may result, which will only hasten the onrushing New Dark Ages. 

Our scientific institutions and their often courageous scientists are openly mocked, vilified, ignored, and now perhaps worst of all, being prevented from doing their work.  Another NY Times article asserts that scientists could be doing a better job figuring out if and how the unprecedented spate of spectacular weather-related disasters of 2011 and 2010 are related to the Climate Crisis.  The reason they aren't doing as much as they could be doing is not only that there's no political urgency, but that there is an active political hostility to Climate Crisis research that results in less funding.

Such disasters usually result in damages that might add up to $3 or $4 billion in any given year in the U.S..  In 2011, they added up to at least $50 billion.  So far, apparently a small price to pay for the payoff of denial--psychologically to many, but in money to a very few of the few at the top of the American class system.  

Tales of Christmas Past

Elsewhere I've posted two tales of Christmas past that coincidentally are exactly 60 and 30 years ago respectively, this Christmas.

"Christmas 1951" is a fictionalized account of Christmas with my family in that year.  That's been posted for a few years, right here.

The other is an account of the decorating of Greengate Mall in Greensburg, PA, in 1981, with photos I took of the results in the days after.  I did that for my book, The Malling of America (which still makes a fine last minute Christmas gift, which you can order from your favorite online bookseller.)  An account of that all-night decorating appears in that book.  But I've just reposted excerpts from that chapter, along with photos (some posted on another blog, others never posted before) and more about Greengate and Christmas there (apparently a subject of ongoing nostalgia back home.)  It's all on Kowincidence, my repository for articles and reviews published long ago (though not always in this form.)    The direct link to Greengate Christmas is here.

So happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and see you back here after.

Sneak Previews

The spectre of one caucus in one house of Congress being thoroughly and inexorably isolated while being thumped on the head continuously in the media was a kind of amazing spectacle to watch, but House GOPers got it, with further consequences to come.

The payroll tax cut continues, as does unemployment insurance, for the next 60 days.  Speaker Banal told his GOPer caucus he would sign off on it (reportedly in a conference call that was electronically rigged to be only one way), the House and Senate voted by "unanimous consent" (so they didn't actually have to come back to Washington) and the President signed the bill into law, and went off to join his family for Christmas in Hawaii.

But right after New Years, Congress has to consider extending both provisions for a full year.  Most pundits assume the House GOPers will meekly submit so this issue goes away, but no one knows really.  Whether John Banal can survive as Speaker is another question.  Some analysts suggest he will if only because the GOPers don't have anyone ready to replace him. 

The political consequences for the 2012 elections are even more interesting to contemplate.  President Obama did several things for himself.  He fought irrational and extortionate GOPers and won.  He bolstered his claim to be fighting for the middle class, which was already becoming effective, according to new polls.  GOPers demonstrated their hypocrisy and obstructionism.  There's little disagreement on this right now.  The question is whether this will all be forgotten (remember when all Democrats had to say was that GOPers voted to kill Medicare, and the election would be over?)  or whether this is one of those instances that a party's image is fixed in the electoral mind, and is taken into the voting booth even 10.5 months from now. 

There are two examples that come to mind, one very recent.  That's Barack Obama as the candidate who promised to end the war in Iraq.  The primaries made this clear.  And after all the rest of the campaign, and all the noise and polls and more noise, that probably was still the issue that won him the presidency.  (And oh, by the way, he just ended the Iraq war--and his poll numbers went up.)

The other example, perhaps more apropos, was when Speaker Gingrich and his GOPer extremists shut down the government in a fit of arrogant extortion.  It's conventional wisdom now that this doomed the GOPer Congress and re-elected Bill Clinton, despite scandal.  But there was considerable time between the shutdown and the election.  In that case, the electorate got that GOPer image fixed, and it stayed. 

This example also suggests something else.  Some pundits claim that if the economy is bad, the electorate blames the President because they don't know or care who is actually responsible.  But voters did not blame President Clinton for the government shutdown.  They blamed the GOPer Congress.

Here's one other byproduct of this payroll tax cut fight, according to a brilliant analysis at TPM by Kyle Leighton: it made voters aware of the existence of that tax cut.   As he says, they heard President Obama fighting to keep a tax cut they didn't know they had.  One of the many ironies has been that GOPers have seemingly gotten away with accusing President Obama of raising taxes when he has actually cut taxes for most people--for the 99% or a good portion of them-- and more than once.  Media broadcast these charges and never both to correct the lies.  So many voters didn't know that President Obama cut their taxes.  Now more of them do.  And this can turn around some other perceptions as well.

The last pre-Christmas news was significant, especially in terms of what it may portend politically for 2012.  The U.S. Justice Department has blocked the new voter ID law in South Carolina for being discriminatory, in that it would disenfranchise a high proportion of African Americans.  This doesn't mean that Justice will stop the many other such laws enacted by GOPer state governments trying to disenfranchise people who may be part of groups that mainly vote Democratic.  Justice can do this in South Carolina because it is one of the states covered by Civil Rights laws that gives the federal government this oversight.  Apparently the only other state covered that has a new law like this is Texas.

Some advocates believe that Justice can use other laws to at least sue states for discriminatory effects.  But the political and psychological effects of this action are likely to be large.  South Carolina's governor and attorney general are vowing to fight this, which will keep it in the news, and make more people aware of how GOPers are trying to take away the right to vote from people they don't like.   In both situations, what happened this week may be like a sneak preview of 2012.       

Elected Extortionists

GOP Speaker of the House John Banal

The House Republicans have outdone themselves.  Having taken the United States and the world to the brink of economic catastrophe in the debt ceiling crisis they created, and having made extortionist demands by threats of bodily harm against the nation and its institutions, House GOPers have now refused to pass the bill that continues the middle class tax cut and extends unemployment insurance, if only for two months.  This bill, which passed the Senate on an extremely rare bipartisan vote of 89-10, must pass the House or millions of Americans will see their paychecks decline starting January 1 (an average of $1000 a year, and for an income of $50,000, some $40 a week), while longterm unemployed will see their benefits end. This also withdraws millions of dollars from the economy and will increase unemployment.  Merry Christmas.  Happy New Year.

The most insidious element of this latest GOPer-created crisis is that if Speaker John Banal just allowed this bill to be voted on, it would most probably pass, because a majority of the House supports it.

This is the House version of the Senate system of extortion, which requires 60 votes rather than the simple majority of 51, because of their chronic misuse of the filibuster.  If the Senate GOPers hadn't used their form of extortion, this tax cut would have not only been extended for a year but broadened, so more Americans would see more of a tax cut, along with extending unemployment insurance.  It would all be paid for by a 3% surcharge on Americans making more than $1 million a year.  That bill passed the Senate with a majority.  But GOPers killed it by requiring a two-thirds vote to override their filibuster.

The filibuster and other such procedures seek to provide a minority with some check against excesses by the majority, but they are meant to be invoked rarely, not regularly.  Basically, legislation that passes by a majority vote is democracy.  Subverting this democracy to get your goodies is extortion.
The Senate GOPers succeeded in their extortion, by requiring that the tax surcharge for the very wealthy be dropped, and that an unrelated requirement be added to force President Obama to decide on the Keystone tar sands pipeline.  And that was simply to extend the tax cut and unemployment for 60 days.

That's not a big enough ransom for the House.  They want a long list of demands, including shortening unemployment benefits, means-testing and drug-testing, dropping some environmental regulations, etc.  So far the White House, the Democratic leadership in the Senate and House, and even Senate Republicans, are refusing to negotiate with these terrorists.

There is lots of talk in Washington about the fury of Senate GOPers directed at House GOPers, and about the hypocrisy of GOPers refusing to vote for a tax cut which they claim is what they want to be doing, as well as their specific hypocrisy in claiming to want to pass a year long extension when they've been publicly opposed to it.   But what no one is saying loudly enough is that congressional GOPers are subverting the Constitution, attempting to extort public officials, and undermining not only the economic recovery, the economy and the economic lives of millions of Americans, but the United States itself.    Merry Christmas.  Happy New Year.

President Obama in front of the counter that is counting down the days until the middle class tax cut expires.  At a press briefing on Tuesday he said: "I just got back from a ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base, where we received the flag and the colors that our troops fought under in Iraq, and I met with some of the last men and women to return home from that war. And these Americans, and all Americans who serve, are the embodiment of courage and selflessness and patriotism, and when they fight together, and sometimes die together, they don’t know and they certainly don’t care who’s a Democrat and who’s a Republican and how somebody is doing in the polls and how this might play in the spin room. They work as a team, and they do their job. And they do it for something bigger than themselves."

"The people in this town need to learn something from them. We have more important things to worry about than politics right now. We have more important things to worry about than saving face, or figuring out internal caucus politics. We have people who are counting on us to make their lives just a little bit easier, to build an economy where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded. And we owe it to them to come together right now and do the right thing."

The New Waltons Story

There once was a television series called The Waltons.  It began with a Christmas story in 1971, then a weekly series that ran for nine seasons.  This drama was about a small town rural family in the Great Depression and during World War II.  With three generations living under one roof, they were poor but hard-working, with intimate connections to others in their town, and connections as well to the wider world.  They remain the image of the American family.


A real life Walton grew up in the same era, and became the entrepreneur who created the Walmart empire, now a global empire.  His family has reaped the benefits.

But this is a different America.  Courtesy of the Rachel Maddow Show, consider just this one statistic:  the net worth of the bottom third of the American population--some 93 million people--together equals the net worth of six members of the Walton family.   So those three people there have more money than at least 47 million of their fellow Americans, put together.     

Emerson for the Day

"Make the most of your regrets....to regret deeply is to live afresh."

Thoreau

Going Postal on the Post Office

From the steps of the Post Office in Greensburg, PA, it was possible to watch the parade of Buffalo

Bill's Wild West Show, and a lot more of this town's life.  This building now houses the public library, but the "new" post office (probably 50 years old by now) is across the street.  This photo was in 2010 and posted here by someone who identifies himself as Burgh15. Takes me back.

It's easier to start a war than to end one.  But it is easier to end a postal system than it is to start one.

The U.S. Postal Service predates the Constitution, though it wasn't called that then.  It is yet another system that has worked and has been the envy of the world, that shortsighted politicians and greedy (therefore non-sighted) business types can't wait to destroy.

The USPS is especially important for four specific reasons.  First, other businesses (and the USPS these days is a business that turns a profit) depend on it--including Fedex and UPS.  Second, it provides relatively secure, good paying jobs all over the country, which are secured through merit(basically by passing a test.)  Therefore it has been one of the least discriminatory employers for at least the last half century.  I suspect the first reason may get Congressional attention, and the second one will focus the attention of Democrats in Congress, to fix the idiotic problems that Congress has imposed on the USPS.

The third reason it is vital is that it goes everywhere, not just the most profitable urban corridors.  It is one of those institutions that holds the country together at the same time as it links all parts of it.  It is a foundation institution in small places, which is losing its others--such as the railroad station and the public library.  This is of even greater importance in the computer age, which encourages decentralization of businesses.  Without USPS, small businesses out in the country would find moving products impossible or prohibitively expensive.  But the role of the Post Office as a civic institution should not be overlooked.  In many small towns it is the prime representative of the federal government, a benevolent symbol of one nation.

The fourth reason is redundancy.  It is dangerous for a nation to put all its eggs in untested or vulnerable baskets.  New technologies may be more fragile than the hubristic new technologists realize.  Other fully privatized systems for moving mail and packages are subject to the same unpredictability as all corporations: they can go bust, they can be done in by financial manipulation, or they can cut so many "unprofitable' services that the country as well as the economy is helpless.

Having a system in place which is both centrally controlled and decentralized, in which the nation and every village and town have a vested interest in operating it efficiently, and which has worked--not always too well, but overall with remarkable consistency--for hundreds of years, could turn out to be extremely vital, especially in the times of emergencies that we are inevitably going to enter.

It's been fashionable to badmouth the Post Office.  People have legitimate gripes but amplified and simplified by the twittering media monomind, it's added up to a crippling image which is out of proportion to the facts.  USPS takes no government money, for example.  Did you know that?  It costs nothing in taxes.  And its services have improved to a pretty competitive level, at least where I live.

The announced cutbacks are being held off for now--let's hope that our otherwise entirely clueless Congress can eke out a moment of sanity to remove the barriers to a successful USPS continuing to improve into the future.

Predicting the Unique

Political pundits sometimes sound like sports reporters, only with worse grammar.  (Sports reporters, at least on ESPN, may be the last group in America to understand the difference between "fewer" and "less.") Polmouths handicap the current though actually upcoming presidential election based on statistics, the more arcane the better.  It's often like predicting the outcome of a single football game based on quarterback ratings or a baseball game by comparing the respective teams won/loss ratio in that ballpark over the past century: it gives you intelligent-sounding talk to fill the air between commercials.  But the meaning of those stats, particularly applied to any given game, are questionable.

The predictive value of historical statistics is dubious, but that doesn't stop the polmouths from saying that "the American people" will or won't do something, based on what some other "American people" did or didn't do in the past.   There are always some factors that are different from the past.  In this election, there are at least two very significant differences.

The Republican Party has never been so dominated by angry fanatics.  They are so angry and so fanatical and self-righteous that they seem to be slipping away from the control of the big monied interests that have successfully manipulated them.  Many, maybe most, are fanatical Evangelicals, who simply don't care about governance or the actual responsibilities of elected officials, including members of Congress and most particularly of the President.  Their belief system doesn't include believing in the premises of economics, science in general, government and foreign policy that have always been held in common by most voters and almost all national public officials.   That stuff is irrelevant at best, and evidence of evil most of the time.

Evangelicals or not, the so-called conservative GOPer is characterized by anger and hatred: anger and hatred when in power, and when out of power but still numerous enough to poison government and the political process. 

The Republican party has not always been a near total toxic waste dump, but it seems to be now.  It is taking the pundits by surprise, and it is so far making a big difference in this 2012 campaign.  If it continues, either Mitt Gingrich will be nominated, risking alienating the majority of voters, or if the establishment takes back some control, Newt Romney will be nominated, and the Rabid Right will angrily walk away, perhaps to back their own non-GOPer candidate.  This is different--at a much higher temperature and of a much different character than the Goldwater rebellion of 1964.   The major question that the election will answer on this score is how much this anger is shared among the so-called Independents, who are mostly yesterday's GOPers.

The second factor is so obvious that everyone ignores it.  It's President Obama.  In case you haven't noticed, he's black.  He's the first black President of the United States.  He's unique, and I don't think that's appreciated enough, or at least admitted by the pundits. 

On the plus side for Obama, he was elected by a multiracial coalition that in population terms is still growing.  On the minus side, there is still a lot of conscious and unconscious racism at work.  Even in Obama's landslide victory in 2008, a recent Harvard study concluded that he lost three to five percentage points in the popular vote because of racial animus.

Part of the hate, and part of the fuel behind the hate and anger of the Rabid Right is racist.  The Rabid Right led then by Newt Gingrich hated Bill Clinton with irrational intensity.  But hatred for President Obama is made more powerful by racial animus.  The racist buffoonery that occasionally gets exposed is the tip of the iceberg.  There are all kinds of racist dog whistles in the language even of the candidates: Obama as the "food stamp President" (Gingrich), or as privileged by affirmative action who won't release his college grades because he wasn't and isn't very smart (Trump to Limbaugh.) 

Not to mention the Kenyan dogwhistles which say "black" as loud as they say "foreign."  To these folks,  black is foreign.  The country they "want back" is the one run exclusively by whites (even if they are darker brothers by another mother of white kingpins like the Kochs.)  Reporters are starting to recognize a violently negative mood among GOPer primary/caucus voters, and the violent anger is directed at President Obama.  To say it's all from racism would be simplistic.  To think that racism isn't a big part of it is willed blindness.

 The pundits' favorite stat is the correlation between the unemployment rate and the Presidents who get reelected.  But there were exceptions, and this election is even more exceptional.  The turgid, angry, hateful, fanatical and violent mood of the GOPers has so far produced a field of candidates that by conventional standards is exceptionally weak--and exceptionally absurd. Meanwhile, the first black President is for the first time seeking reelection.  Do these factors outweigh the apparently persuasive stats from the past?  We'll see.  But it's not a done deal.  Even apart from the likelihood that the majority of voters understand they have a year to decide how to vote.  And the big stages of the party conventions and the presidential debates are still to come.    

Happy Christmas: The War Is Over

On Thursday, Defense Secretary Panetta and Chair of the Joint Chiefs Demsey "cased the colors"--put away the flag--at a military base in Iraq, formally ending the U.S. military presence in that country.  The war is over.

The day before, President Obama addressed returning (and cheering) troops at Fort Bragg:

"It’s harder to end a war than begin one. Indeed, everything that American troops have done in Iraq -– all the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building, and the training and the partnering -– all of it has led to this moment of success. Now, Iraq is not a perfect place. It has many challenges ahead. But we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people. We’re building a new partnership between our nations. And we are ending a war not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home."

It is harder to end a war than to begin one.Yes, a bitter truth some of us were crying out in 2003--it is the tragic fact that letting loose the dogs of war is much much easier than reigning them back in.  So nearly 9 years of pain and waste later, at least a trillion dollars spent, hundreds of thousands of lives lost and maimed, millions of lives deformed, and our entire political process so fractured that we are unable to respond to the real threats we face, this terrible and quite possibly catastrophic war is over.

Barack Obama promised to end this war.  He did what he promised, and continues to be castigated for it in shameful terms by mad dog GOPers in Congress and running for president.  Let's hope the American people leash them up good in the next election.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"Blessed be he whose mind had power to probe
The causes of things."

Virgil

Gazing

There's a rule in astronomy: if I'm watching for a meteor show, it will be cancelled.  Sort of.  Skies didn't get clear here until the wee hours, when the moon was high.  But I stood in the cold for awhile, a few hours after the predicted peak of the Geminid meteor shower.  Even though the moon is past full, it is still very bright here--I was casting a definite shadow. When I first got here I was astounded by how bright the moon gets here on the North Coast, and I guess I still am.  The first place we lived had a skylight in the bathroom, and one night I saw my reflection in the mirror by moonlight.  Tonight--this early morning, with the sound of distant garbage trucks grinding and beeping--there were only about a hundred heavenly bodies visible (including, reputedly, five planets.)  But they were very bright and twinkling.  I don't remember stars really twinkling like this when I was a kid in PA, though I could see many many more of them.  Tonight was like a highlight reel.  The big dipper.  Orion.  Very nice.  And over Orion I caught one flaring meteor, just to the side of where I was looking.  That was it.

But last evening, just after dark, Margaret was walking home and saw a meteor twist across the sky, in a long wobbling path.  She happened to be looking in exactly the right place, and had no idea there was a meteor shower.  Well, there may be some tomorrow night.

Meanwhile on Tuesday a pretty trustworthy poll had Paul running even with Mitt Gingrich in Iowa, while in a national poll, Gingrich was leading for the nomination but against him, President Obama gets 51% to under 40 for the Gman.  

Scared Mittless

It started here, O happy few.  Now Rachel admits that she keeps calling Mitt Newt and Newt Mitt.  Michelle Backmanniac of all people introduced the Mitt Gingrich/Newt Romney ID into the GOPer debate.  And on 60 Minutes Sunday, President Obama affirmed the essential point: there's really no difference in what they advocate.  What he didn't mention is that they are identical in other ways as well--both serial hypocrites and liars who will say anything to gain momentary advantage.

But as the Iowa caucuses approach it does seem down to Mitt Gingrich vs. Newt Romney.  As Gingrich has taken off in the polls, the GOPer (Nixon/Reagan.Bush/Bush jr) establishment as well as lots of current and former members of Congress who "served" with Gingrich, have been loudly and ferociously attacking him.  Yet what the polls do make clear is that nobody loves Romney, and he appears to be even more nervous than circumstances warrant, which suggest he's really really worried.

But the first unreality check (something the prospective GOPer nominee must pass) will be Iowa in a few weeks.  What Iowa will suggest is whether Gingrich's bet that traditional "retail" politics and political organization no longer matter, and that the brute force of media will (pardon the expression) Trump all.  Because he has no effective Iowa organization at all, especially among caucus participants, by all accounts.  So will the caucus results reflect the opinion polls, which show Gingrich about 10 points ahead?  That's what we will learn from the results.  And that outcome will suggest whether Gingrich can be successful in getting the nomination.

If traditional Iowa caucus politics prevails, first place could very well go to Ron Paul.  That's especially if between now and then, something turns negative for Gingrich.  Paul sees him as his biggest threat in Iowa and has made the most devastating anti-G ad and statements.  Paul combines that focus with good organization and a dedicated group of Iowa activists.  Low turnout favors him.

I have to say I'm surprised that after word got around that Romney was actually going to jump into the Iowa fray, it took so long for his campaign to start there.  It took too long, both in terms of organization and especially it got overwhelmed by the Gingrich boom of the past couple of weeks.  Now Mr. G is topic A.  Nobody seems to be taking a second look at Romney.

Even more impressive than G's poll numbers in matchups is this Rasmussen poll in which 49% of GOPers find Gingrich the more electable candidate, with Romney at the level he seems to maintain for everything, the 20s%.  GOPer Ras isn't the most reliable pollster, but if GOPers really see G as the electable, then Romney's last remaining rationale is gone.

So the function of Iowa will likely be to further inflate or prick the Gingrich balloon.  If Romney still wins New Hampshire, then the noise goes on, but political heads are finding a path for G to the nom, which nobody did a month ago.

All of this is the politics of consequences, rather than the disgraceful circus politics in general and the GOPer race in particular have become.  As someone said on TV, it would be a farce if it wasn't a tragedy.