The K.F. Stone Weekly

Comedy, Tragedy, Economy

  

   Horace Walpole [1717-1797], the master of Strawberry Hill and 4th Earl of Oxford, was a noted writer, art historian, antiquarian and member of the English Parliament.  He was also a first-class wit.  His best-known epigram teaches "This world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel."  For Walpole, this was far more than a mere aphorism; it provided, in his words, "a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept."  [Note: Democritus and Heraclitus were two pre-Socratic thinkers, the former known as "The Laughing Philosopher," the latter as "The Weeping Philosopher."]

   Walpole's quip has been banging around my brain the past several days as I digest and contemplate what is being written and said about the emerging Obama economic team and the even more emergent Obama economic strategy.  For those who think -- and thus more likely to find comedy in this world -- the Obama economic team and strategy are laughably Clintonus revivicus -- Clinton revisited. "And he promised the American people a new beginning with new faces!" the thinkers snort.  "What's so new about Volker, Summers and Geithner [who by the way is not Jewish]?  Aren't they all Rubin retreads?  We know what to expect!  More kowtowing to Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.  What a joke!" 

   Then, there are those who feel -- the tragedians. Their lament goes something like: "There's no way on earth Obama's going to be able to fulfill any of his campaign promises.  Universal Health-care, Global Warming, Alternative Fuels -- they're all pipe dreams.  Sure as God made little green apples, he's going to put us into an economic hole from which we're never going to emerge!"

   Could it be that both the thinkers and the empaths have it wrong?  To my way of thinking what President-Elect Obama has laid out so far is not the second coming of Bill Clinton and doesn't mean the stillbirth of his vision for America.  I think a large part of the problem is that those of us who think or feel -- or indeed, both -- have become so accustomed to [and frustrated by] second-rate thinking, shallowness, callowness, cronyism and political slight-of-hand, that we have lost the ability to trust, to believe or even to hope. 

   Yes, many members of Barack Obama's economic team do have a connection to the Clinton White House -- and mostly through Robert Rubin.  But let us ask: if Barack Obama had named people with virtually no connection to the Clinton White House, Treasury of the Fed, would the critics have been any less voluble?  Was he supposed to select people whose only experience was theoretical or -- even worse -- garnered in the Bush White House?  The obvious answer is "no."  And, from listening to what Obama's picks have been saying the past few days, it is clear that their thinking, their understanding of economic reality, has both grown and shifted with the times.   

   One of the things that Americans are going to have to get used to is something which much of the rest of the world has already figured out: that Barack Obama is one hell of a lot smarter than most of us. I don't know about you, but I for one feel much more comfortable and optimistic having a president who is both brilliant and politically gifted.  Yes, we have had really brainy presidents in our lifetime; Carter and Clinton both had  stratospheric I.Q.s -- for all the good it did them.  And, we've had presidents who were politically gifted; Johnson and Reagan come to mind.  But with Barack Obama, we see a man who is both.  Already, he is laying the groundwork for what looks to be a harmonious, highly productive working relationship with Congress.  In selecting Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, Obama has a key man who sees partners and allies where others have seen only enemies and adversaries.  Unbelievably, it may well be that the lame duck 110th Congress will pass Obama's economic stimulus package even before he takes the oath of office January 20th. 

   As noted above, the "tragedians" are already predicting that due to our overwhelming fiscal crisis, the entirety of Obama's campaign promises of social and economic reform are D.O.A. Not so fast.  From what the president-elect has been saying and indicating the past several days, these social and economic reforms are actually part of -- not apart from -- our economic recovery.  His proposed economic stimulus package -- which may well be on his desk for signing come January 20, 2009 -- dwarfs anything ever attempted by the federal government.  And while the professional wet blankets and troglodytes of talk radio have already damned the incoming administration to the fires of Hell, Wall Street and much of the world's financial markets are responding most positively.  No doubt part of this is the result of a collective sigh of relief; George W. Bush and his cowboys are finally headed for the bunkhouse. Most, however, seems to spring from the very real understanding that the United States will once again, after so many years, be in the hands of professionals. 

   From all indications, Barack Obama has a holistic view of the economy.  Health care, green energy investment, education reform and a new approach to regulating financial markets are all part of this view.  One little-noted example of what the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne termed Obama's "decision to tether social and economic policy" came a couple of days ago when, in the midst of naming his economic team, the president-elect also announced Melody Barnes as the Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

   Back on March 4, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt took the oath of office and embarked on his "First hundred days."  During those heady hundred days, the 73rd Congress enacted everything from the Emergency Banking Relief Act [March 9], and Civilian Conservation Corps Reforestation Relief Act [March 31] to the Federal Emergency Relief Act [May 12] and the Tennessee Valley Authority Act [May 18]. Many of the nation's leading business writers and financial lions accused both Roosevelt and Congress of being dangerous, out-of-touch Socialists; traitors who were attaching a lethal anchor to the body politic.  And yet, in so many ways, Roosevelt and his New Dealers were proven both farsighted and correct.  They literally saved a nation.

   We can fully expect both those who perceive the world as comedy and those as tragedy to cast vitriolic aspersions upon the Obama Administration and the incoming 111th Congress.  They will accuse them of conspiring to bring America to wreck and ruin; some will even persist in the canard that it was Obama himself who caused the recession and that if only America had voted for McCain-Palin, none of this would have occurred. 

   Be both patient and hopeful of better days to come.  And while you're at it, turn a deaf ear to the naysayers of comedy and tragedy whenever they speak of economy. 

   For as Horace Walpole also quipped:

   "By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses; one misses more nonsense than sense."

©2008, Kurt F. Stone

Clash of the Titans

  "A politician," Carl Sandburg once noted, "should have three hats.  One for throwing into the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected." 

  What interests us here are the second and third hats.

  Considering that today, few men or women wear hats and even fewer know the difference between say,  a Fedora, a Derby, a Gatsby or a Trilby, perhaps the great Chicago poet's quip is a bit stale.  Nonetheless, dated or not, it still offers up more than a glint of truth.  For campaign promises are by their very nature hard to keep;  and not merely because those making the promises may well be lying or pandering to the public.  Rather, promises and planks -- even when made by that most rara of all aves, the honest politician -- are perhaps best understood as glimpses of the candidate's more idealistic profile; of what he or she would do in an ideal political world -- one devoid of lobbyists, legislators, committees, mark-ups or compromises.  

   During the recently concluded campaign, Barack Obama clearly told the American public what he would do in that ideal political world:

• Enact national -- if not universal -- health care.
• Significantly reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.
• Cut taxes for the vast majority of Americans.
• Bring the war in Iraq to an honorable conclusion.

• Make America a leader -- not a follower -- in the war on global warming.

   In order for the Obama Administration to have even a ghost of a chance for any of these idealistic promises to be enacted, it will need to have like-minded allies occupying the most powerful positions in Congress.  Interestingly, a clear majority of those promises must go through the same committee in the House: Energy and Commerce. Well, as of late yesterday, that committee's gavel was placed in the hands of California Representative Henry Waxman -- a man who although easily a head-and-a-half shorter than Barack Obama can comfortably look his new president right in the eye.  Moreover, in this "Clash of the Titans," Waxman's narrow 137-122 secret ballot victory over outgoing committee chair John Dingell, Jr. of Michigan is viewed by many as a clear win for the incoming president and a defeat for the automobile industry. 

   Make no mistake about it: House Energy and Commerce is the granddaddy of all committees; it has perhaps the broadest, most important mandate of any panel in the House.  Its areas of primary interest include global warming, alternate fuels and health insurance. In selecting Waxman over Dingell, the Democratic Caucus has shown itself both willing and able to take a new, greener path.  Waxman's victory -- which makes him the fourth most powerful member of Congress -- is also noteworthy because he successfully defeated the man who has the second longest House tenure of anyone in American history. (The late Jamie Whitten of Mississippi served 53 years, 60 days; Dingell will overtake him in mid-2009.)

   On March 3, 1933, John David Dingell, Sr. (1894-1955) was elected to the House from a Detroit district.  One of his era's most productive urban liberals, he would be reelected 11 times and die in office on September 19, 1955.  Less than two months after his death, his son John David Dingell, Jr. would be elected to take over the remaining portion of his term; he has been in the House ever since.  In other words, for the past three-quarters of a century, Michigan's 15 district has been represented by two men both named John Dingell.  No one in American history has ever spent more years on Capitol Hill than John Dingell, Jr.  Indeed, the younger Dingell -- he is now 82 years old -- has been there for 70 years; he started serving as a congressional page back in 1938.

   During his 53 years in the House, Dingell has been both a highly successful legislator and a powerful committee chair.  From 1981-1995 and again from 2006-2008, he chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  He oversaw the breakup of A.T. &T. and the sale of Conrail, cosponsored (along with Henry Waxman) the 1990 Clean Air Act, and pushed harder than anyone for national health insurance.  (Once, when asked what a desirable health care system might look like, he replied, "Canada's, right across the river.") 

   But Dingell has also understandably been a strong advocate for the auto industry, which has often put him at odds with environmentalists and those concerned with auto emission standards, global warming and those who favor alternative fuels. 

   Enter Henry Waxman.

   First elected to the House in 1974 from what we Angelinos call "The Westside," Waxman has been a highly successful legislator in areas as diverse as clean air and water, Medicare for the poor and AIDS research.  But it is as an investigator that Henry Waxman has made his greatest mark.  Over the course of his nearly 35-year career in the House, Waxman has presided over investigations of the tobacco industry (which he accused of adding nicotine and other substances to cigarettes and then lying about it in their testimony), the Bush Administration's Medicare prescription drug bill (which he predicted would be a windfall for the pharmaceutical industry) and waste in reconstruction projects in Iraq.  As head of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, he was the only committee chair entitled to issue subpoenas without a committee vote.  His defeat of John Dingell for chair of Energy and Commerce is not just a personal victory for Henry Waxman; it is potentially a victory for Barack Obama and the issues he committed himself to when he first threw his hat into the ring. Having a man like Henry Waxman chairing House Budget and Commerce makes the chances of President Barack Obama having to either talk through -- or pull rabbits out of -- his hat less of a necessity. 

   Unlike Dingell, Waxman is neither beholden to -- nor in lockstep with -- the automobile industry.  He is in a much better position than his rival titan to enact meaningful global warming legislation.  Indeed, he is in a far better position than Dingell to mandate that Detroit produce both hybrid and flex-fuel automobiles which would cut American reliance on foreign oil and have a positive effect on the global environment.

   Perhaps Barack Obama will improve upon Sandburg's dictum and find yet a fourth use for a hat: throwing it joyfully into the air whenever a campaign promise becomes the law of the land. 

©2008 Kurt F. Stone

How Do YOU Spell "Interregnum?"

  

    Now that the "dog-days" of autumn have given way to the "lame ducks" of winter, one might logically be hoping for an interregnum; a brief respite between that which is soon to end and that which will soon begin.  Goodness knows the American public needs it; a "time out," a release from the intense partisanship of the past year when one side said all sorts of nasty, untruthful things about the other.  If we actually did have this interregnum, we could get back to the discovery of what we have in common, and jettison all that which has been keeping up apart.  And, during these days of woeful economic news, we could certainly all use a bit of what Jefferson called "skeptical optimism." 

    Historically many countries, many cultures did observe such a period between the end of one reign or rule and the beginning of another. And yet, even before the new ruler acceded to the pulpit, dais or throne, his subjects would have already pledged their wholehearted support.  For the French, it was summed up in that wonderful, slightly archaic phrase Le Roi est mort, vive le roi! -- "The King is dead, long live the King!"  Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way in America. Oh sure, we do have relatively smooth transitions from one administration to the next for which we should feel a legitimate sense of pride.   And despite just how much change and dislocation, how much planning, hiring and moving is involved in a change of administrations, it generally appears to come off without a hitch. 

   That's the surface appearance of transition; a delightful interregnum that is all handshakes and warm smiles. 

   But of course, just a matter of inches beyond the horizon there is a very different reality.

   Despite the fact that our national election ended less than a fortnight ago, and that we have more than nine weeks until President Elect Obama takes the oath of office, the interregnum is dead and buried.  It didn't even last twenty-four hours.  Indeed, the Republicans and their allies are already sizing up candidates for 2012, already launching frontal assaults on a president, an administration and a vast coterie of allies that have yet to take over the reins of authority.  To listen to most of America's talking heads, one would presume that Communism has come to America; that churches will all soon be shuttered, and Bibles burned; that guns will be confiscated and that this nation's most bloodthirsty enemies will be taking over Capitol Hill. 

   In the first week since the election talking heads have been blathering on incessantly about "The Obama Recession," forthrightly proclaiming (!) that our economic woes began -- and have been caused by -- Obama's election.

   In the first week since the election, sales of handguns and both semi- and fully- automatic weapons are breaking all-time records.  It is reported that gun shops in many "red states" like Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama have a backlog of orders for new AK-47s -- at $1,000.00 a pop.  "Folks are coming in to buy as many weapons as they can," one gun shop owner told a reporter from the Washington Post, "before Obama takes all our guns away from us."  Other gun owners say they arming themselves against the possibility of future race riots. 

   Where in the world did they get the idea that as President, Barack Obama will be confiscating handguns or that there are race riots on the horizon? 

   From talk radio, that's where.

   Not only that; many of the talking heads, have continued beating the drums of fear and derision; the campaign against Barack Obama and the so-called "left" has never ended.

   There is no interregnum.

   Their targets -- those whom they proclaim to be the true enemies of freedom, the malevolent dispensers of immorality -- include Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, women, minorities, immigrants, gays, lesbians and all those they choose to call "liberals."  What all of this adds up to is the beginning of both the 2010 off-year election and the 2012 presidential contest.

   Need proof?  Read the following at your own risk:

   Note: For what follows, I thank Eric Alterman and Media Matters for America, who have done the lion's share of the research . . . 

   Talkshow Host G. Gordon Liddy:

• "Pennsylvania has been described as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, with Alabama in the middle.  Obama is counting on the urban elites and the welfare class to win the state for him.  But he's putting on a show for the rest of Pennsylvania." (10/30/08).
• "[T]he problem that I have is with people who come here and instead of wanting to become Americans, you know, fly the American flag, learn English, and so forth, they want to fly the Mexican flag, they want to speak Spanish, you know, and other varieties of illegal alien . . . . They want to reconquer America, like they say." (6/5/08)

    Talkshow Host Michael Savage:

• "We need to get our troops out of Iraq and put them on the streets of America to protect us from the scourge of illegal immigrants who are running rampant across America, killing our police for sport, raping, murdering like a scythe across America while the liberal psychos are telling us they come here to work." (8/4/08)
• "Why should we care about homosexuals trying to destroy families through the mock marriages that they perform in order to mock God, the church, the family, children, the fetus, the DNA of the human species?  Why should we care about it while we have a financial meltdown?  Because the spiritual side of the downturn on Wall Street is directly related to the moral downturn in the United States of America." (10/1/08)

   Talkshow Host Mark Levin:

• Speaking of television satirist/comedian John Stewart (nee Liebowitz): "I'm really tired of these phony intellectuals . . . arrogantly looking down their sizable noses at our armed forces . . ." (7/18/08).

    Commentator Ann Coulter:

• "If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democratic president." (6/16/08, Newsradio 850).

 

    Talkshow host Lee Rogers:

• "The female leadership of the Democratic Party" is made up of "ugly skanks . . . Sarah Palin's good-looking and they hate that . . . . I think we have to ask: Would you like Sarah Palin better if she got pregnant again and did have an abortion, because its obvious, with a lot of liberal women, killing babies is the main priority they have." (KSFO, 9/17/08).

    

    Talkshow host Bill Cunningham:

• Speaking of Barack Obama's childhood: "[I]magine at the age of 1 or 2 seeing your father for the last time.  See, his father was a typical black father who, right after giving birth, left the baby.  That's what black fathers do.  They simply leave." (10/28/08)

 

    Talkshow host Neal Boortz:

• "[W]hy is it that the people who are being affected by the floods in Iowa and the upper Midwest, why is it that they seem to be so much more capable of taking care of themselves and handling this disaster than were the people of Katrina in New Orleans? . . . . think the answer's pretty clear, is that up there in that part of the country, you find a great deal of self-sufficiency. Down there in New Orleans, it was basically a parasite class totally dependent on government for their existence." Boortz described this as being a "cultural issue, not a racial issue." (6/19/08, Cox Radio)
•  "I am fed up with this conventional wisdom that Katrina and the disaster that followed was George Bush's fault. It was not. The primary blame goes on the worthless parasites who lived in New Orleans who you -- couldn't even wipe themselves, let alone get out of the way of the water when that levee broke." (1/30/08)

   And on and on and on. 

  I'm sure you get the picture.  Even before the election has been certified, battle lines are being drawn, "enemies of decency,"  "enemies of American values" are being lined and pointed at with accusatory fingers.  And for what?

   Keeping ratings high?

   Keeping all those who voted for McCain/Palin and the Republicans in a state of perpetual anger, stupefaction and fear?

   Your guess is as good as mine . . . perhaps better.

   All I know is that I am personally celebrating a brief interregnum.  And for at least the next couple of months, I will be repeating over and over those classic words of Ovid:

                      Quicquid erit, melius quam nunc erit

 Namely, "Whatever comes will be better than what is . . ."

©2008 Kurt F. Stone

====================================================================================

Can you help me?  In a couple of weeks, the name of this Blog, "Beating the Bushes," will -- most thankfully -- become an anachronism.  I am seeking a new name.  Among the suggestions I have already received are:

• "The K.F. Stone Weekly"
• "The Stone Weekly"
• "The Weekly Stone"
• "Everybody Must Get Stoned!"

    If you have a suggestion, could you please drop me a line?  You can reach me at kfstone@bellsouth.net

   Thanks!

 

 

A Letter to Thomas Jefferson

    Dear Mr. President:

       It's been almost 36 hours since the announcement that Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, and that come January, he and his family will be moving into your old home on what we now call Pennsylvania Avenue. 

      Amidst all the joyful tears, bear-hugs and "high-fives" of the past day-and-a-half, the thought came to me: that no one had taken the time to inform you of -- let alone thank you for -- this incredible, epochal event.  ("What in the name of Poor Richard's Almanac is a high five?" I can hear you asking. Just ask to be introduced to a fellow named Walter Payton, and he'll be able to clue you in . . .)

      So why am I writing you, instead of Abraham Lincoln?  Well, to be perfectly honest, I had given it some thought, but Tom Friedman got there first, which is just as well, because I've always felt a lot closer to you than to Mr. Lincoln.  Precisely why this is I cannot say with anything approaching pinpoint accuracy.  However, I can tell you that for as long as I can remember, there's been a foot-high marble bust of you sitting on the corner of my desk, and that over the years I've started out almost every writing session staring at your likeness.  I don't know, I just have an affinity for people of keen intellect who have the capacity to teach, to inspire and to uplift.

     Which brings us to President Elect Barack Obama. Mr. President, you would be so impressed with him.  Like you, he is a highly-educated man of ideas and ideals.  Like you, he expresses those ideals with both clarity and eloquence, although he is a far, far better speaker than you ever were.  Like you Mr. President, Barack Obama is a man of great passion.  Like you, he has been mercilessly attacked on the so-called "issue of religion.  In your case, it was Mr. Adams who repeatedly accused you of being "a howling atheist," and threatened that should you be elected, that you would "confiscate and burn all the Bibles in America, tear down all the churches and put an end to the institution of marriage." In Senator Obama's case, a group we call the "Right-wing Punditocracy" has continually charged him with being both a foreign-born Muslim, of "palling around with terrorists," and of being "part of an extremist liberal fringe," all of which are really bad accusations in our day and age.  I am happy to report that he responded in much the same way as you; with both eloquence and passion. I well remember how you categorized these attacks: "They neither pick my pocket nor break my leg!"  To a great extent, that has been Senator Obama's response -- though not in the same words.  (By the way, if you wish to find out what the "Right-wing Punditocracy" is all about, ask to meet Tim Russert.  He moved into your neighborhood four months ago.) 

     Oh yes, as you will find out -- if you do not already know -- Barack Obama is what today we call an "African American." 

     Does this shock or depress you?

     I rather doubt it.

     Oh, I can already hear the words of disapprobation that will come my way from having written you, and not President Lincoln.  "It was Lincoln who freed the slaves!" they'll protest, "Not Jefferson. He was a slave-owner!"  "And besides," they'll no doubt add, "Jefferson's a Virginian; both Lincoln and Obama are from Illinois!"

     OK, I'll freely admit that there's a wondrous bit of historic irony in the fact that he who signed the Emancipation Proclamation and he who would eventually become both the symbol and fact of its ultimate fulfillment, came from the same state.  History certainly does work in mysterious ways; like both you and President Adams dying on July 4, 1826 -- fifty years to the day of your greatest joint triumph.  And I certainly do know that you were a slave owner.  But I also know that it was never something you relished, that you made provision to free them all before you died, and that it is ridiculous to expect an 18th century southern aristocrat to live, think or behave like an enlightened 20th-21st century liberal.

     Mr. President, you should be so proud of "We the People."  You see, prior to this historic election, our leaders had spent the better part of a decade appealing to that which was greediest and most bigoted in the American psyche.  Throughout this prolonged and stormy night, much of our polity became privatized; citizenship morphed into consumerism; our leaders addressed our fears far more often than our hopes or dreams. We saw basic civil liberties eviscerated; privacy, we were told, was a stumbling block in the path of national security; habeas corpus as just some dusty old Latin phrase devoid of meaning.(By the way, if you don't understand what "morphed" means, ask to speak to Michael Crichton; he just arrived in the afterlife yesterday.)  

     Then along came Barack Obama; a man with an utterly unique background, a finely-honed presidential mien and that most American of all messages: "If we work together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish."  Unlike any politician of the past half-century, Mr. President, Senator Obama actually appealed to our higher angels, not our basest fears.  He did not claim to have all the solutions -- a quick fix for every crisis or challenge.  Unlike his recent predecessors, he did not ask us to just go shopping and leave the rest to him and his advisors.  He actually acknowledged and paid heed to the awesome power of We the People. And for that, Mr. President, he has you to thank.  For you -- above all your founding colleagues -- were the one who most firmly grasped and then articulated the concept of an enlightened citizenry.  Most blessedly -- some would say amazingly -- we understood both the passion of the man and the power of his message.  And we elected him, by what today passes for an overwhelming majority.  

     I have to believe that as President, Barack Obama will show the world an American face that is at once startlingly new and comfortably old. For he is the United States of America; a unique, fortuitous blending of color and culture, of intellect and ideal.  Unlike our outgoing president, he is a man who is obviously comfortable in his own skin.  For him, there is no need pretending to be that which he is not.  And while he may not be the man others would choose to have a beer with, I for one would be honored to discuss theology or shoot a few hoops with him. 

     In short Mr. President, you should be so proud of the America you created and of the people your creation spawned.  We have finally shown ourselves to be worthy of the efforts and struggles, the dreams and visions of people like yourself, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln, to name but a three.

     In closing, could you do both of us a favor?  When you get a chance, could you please, please share the joyous news with a handful of my favorite people? For they, like you, deserve to bask in the warm glow of this supreme accomplishment, of this new beginning. 

    Please, if you can, deliver the news to:

    Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. Debois, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Kivie Kaplan, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jacob Javits and Paul Wellstone.

      Just tell them that there is a new/old American cheer going round that proclaims,

     "Yes we can!"

     "Si se puede!"

     "Oui, nous pouvons le reparér!"                       

     "!ohkufh ubjbt if"             

      Many thanks to you Mr. President.  And please give my warm regards to Mrs. J. and Patsy.

     Your most ardent and thankful admirer,    

   KFS                                                                           

 

©2008 Kurt F. Stone