How My Republican Party Destroyed the American Economy
By · CommentsThe Op-Ed below is by David Stockman, a director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. His observations on the state of the American economy, and how it got to its present condition, are well worth reading. He does not exonerate Democratic administrations, but does lay much of the responsibility at the feet of his own party. Unfortunately, even though Stockman is a Reagan Republican, those who love to blame the entirety of our problems on the current administration, and who should pay the most attention to Stockman’s comments, will dismiss them completely. Partly because they are diametrically opposed to their firmly held biases, and partly because they are printed in Satan’s own newspaper, The New York Times.
David Perkins
Four Deformations of the Apocalypse
by David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan
reprinted from The New York Times
IF there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt — if honestly reckoned to include municipal bonds and the $7 trillion of new deficits baked into the cake through 2015 — will soon reach $18 trillion. That’s a Greece-scale 120 percent of gross domestic product, and fairly screams out for austerity and sacrifice. It is therefore unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to insist that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.
More fundamentally, Mr. McConnell’s stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts — in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance — vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.
This approach has not simply made a mockery of traditional party ideals. It has also led to the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy. More specifically, the new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one.
The first of these started when the Nixon administration defaulted on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world. Now, since we have lived beyond our means as a nation for nearly 40 years, our cumulative current-account deficit — the combined shortfall on our trade in goods, services and income — has reached nearly $8 trillion. That’s borrowed prosperity on an epic scale.
It is also an outcome that Milton Friedman said could never happen when, in 1971, he persuaded President Nixon to unleash on the world paper dollars no longer redeemable in gold or other fixed monetary reserves. Just let the free market set currency exchange rates, he said, and trade deficits will self-correct.
It may be true that governments, because they intervene in foreign exchange markets, have never completely allowed their currencies to float freely. But that does not absolve Friedman’s $8 trillion error. Once relieved of the discipline of defending a fixed value for their currencies, politicians the world over were free to cheapen their money and disregard their neighbors.
In fact, since chronic current-account deficits result from a nation spending more than it earns, stringent domestic belt-tightening is the only cure. When the dollar was tied to fixed exchange rates, politicians were willing to administer the needed castor oil, because the alternative was to make up for the trade shortfall by paying out reserves, and this would cause immediate economic pain — from high interest rates, for example. But now there is no discipline, only global monetary chaos as foreign central banks run their own printing presses at ever faster speeds to sop up the tidal wave of dollars coming from the Federal Reserve.
The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.
In 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts, matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration’s hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces — the welfare state and the warfare state — that drive the federal spending machine.
Soon, the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget — entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans’ fiscal religion.
David Stockman, a director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, is working on a book about the financial crisis.
Through the 1984 election, the old guard earnestly tried to control the deficit, rolling back about 40 percent of the original Reagan tax cuts. But when, in the following years, the Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker, finally crushed inflation, enabling a solid economic rebound, the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts.
By fiscal year 2009, the tax-cutters had reduced federal revenues to 15 percent of gross domestic product, lower than they had been since the 1940s. Then, after rarely vetoing a budget bill and engaging in two unfinanced foreign military adventures, George W. Bush surrendered on domestic spending cuts, too — signing into law $420 billion in non-defense appropriations, a 65 percent gain from the $260 billion he had inherited eight years earlier. Republicans thus joined the Democrats in a shameless embrace of a free-lunch fiscal policy.
The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector. Here, Republicans have been oblivious to the grave danger of flooding financial markets with freely printed money and, at the same time, removing traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation. As a result, the combined assets of conventional banks and the so-called shadow banking system (including investment banks and finance companies) grew from a mere $500 billion in 1970 to $30 trillion by September 2008.
But the trillion-dollar conglomerates that inhabit this new financial world are not free enterprises. They are rather wards of the state, extracting billions from the economy with a lot of pointless speculation in stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives. They could never have survived, much less thrived, if their deposits had not been government-guaranteed and if they hadn’t been able to obtain virtually free money from the Fed’s discount window to cover their bad bets.
The fourth destructive change has been the hollowing out of the larger American economy. Having lived beyond our means for decades by borrowing heavily from abroad, we have steadily sent jobs and production offshore. In the past decade, the number of high-value jobs in goods production and in service categories like trade, transportation, information technology and the professions has shrunk by 12 percent, to 68 million from 77 million. The only reason we have not experienced a severe reduction in nonfarm payrolls since 2000 is that there has been a gain in low-paying, often part-time positions in places like bars, hotels and nursing homes.
It is not surprising, then, that during the last bubble (from 2002 to 2006) the top 1 percent of Americans — paid mainly from the Wall Street casino — received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90 percent — mainly dependent on Main Street’s shrinking economy — got only 12 percent. This growing wealth gap is not the market’s fault. It’s the decaying fruit of bad economic policy.
The day of national reckoning has arrived. We will not have a conventional business recovery now, but rather a long hangover of debt liquidation and downsizing — as suggested by last week’s news that the national economy grew at an anemic annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter. Under these circumstances, it’s a pity that the modern Republican Party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism when the old approach — balanced budgets, sound money and financial discipline — is needed more than ever.
David Stockman, a director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, is working on a book about the financial crisis.
New Book Review Posts Buzzi Review
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Ruth Buzzi’s Review is Making the Rounds
Originally posted on Amazon.com, Ruth Buzzi’s beautifully personal review of Dear Austin – A Letter To My Son has been picked up by the widely read, and highly respected literary blog, The New Book Review.
Ruth’s review includes a recounting of her own departure from home at the age of seventeen, with her father putting her on a flight to Los Angeles to attend The Pasadena Playhouse for the Performing Arts. She credits her father’s faith in her judgment, as well as her own drive and high goals, for her subsequent success in her chosen profession.
Read her entire review, and post your own comment, at The New Book Review.
I Am Humbled
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And for those of you who know me well, you know that ain’t easy!
The emails, the Facebook posts, the private messages – the outpouring of kindness, good wishes, and even excitement over the release of Dear Austin – A Letter To My Son in paperback and digital editions has taken me somewhat by surprise. It could even mean that some of you really aren’t the raving asses that I thought you were. But I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.
I was genuinely touched by the overall reaction to the letter when it was first posted here a few months ago, and since. It has been read by several thousand people on this website, and linked to from several other sites around the world. I get emails from people I don’t know and will never meet, people I’ve been out of touch with since high school or college, and current friends and colleagues who relate moving stories and thank me for the letter. And, of course, there have been the occasional snarky comments.
But the response has been overwhelmingly positive, and in all honesty, it has all been a bit much to take in. And now your reactions to the book. I am almost speechless, another rarity for me, and truly humbled by the fact that so many people give a damn about the success of this little book. Some even willing to put out their hard-earned money.
I need to mention the work of Carl Bluemel, of Bluemel Creative, for the amazing job he did on the cover graphics and the book design and layout. Without his talent and expertise, this project would have been even longer in the making, and would not have turned out nearly so well. He is a patient and accomplished man.
As inadequate as it is, I can only say “thank you” to all of you. You make my life richer for being in it. I wish there were a way I could show my appreciation, but that would probably involve some kind of effort on my part and, as you know, I’m pretty busy.
Thank you. Seriously.
David Perkins
SORRY: I just got yelled at for not including a link to the book site. www.davidmperkins.com
California Schools – The Beatdown Goes On
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Teachers! Who Needs ‘Em?
By · CommentsAll we really need is the right testing algorithm. Right? If we could just find that one magic (standardized) test, teaching could be completely automated. Done by computers. We could set up classrooms with 30 (or 50) computer terminals, put one IT guy at the front of the room, and then my friends you could just stand back and watch the learnin’ begin!
Once again, I owe my good friend and Texas educator, Peggy, for bringing this article by John Young to my attention. It is reprinted here from his blog, which is linked to below. He is a writer who should be read with regularity. And, someday, when I have a payroll, I need to put Peggy on it.
Public flogging of teachers continues
by John Young
www.johnyoungcolumn.com
I blame my mechanic — the fact that I don’t change my oil often enough, don’t check my tire pressure regularly, and don’t know my carburetor from my glove compartment.
I’m sure you will agree with me that my mechanic is solely to blame for any malfunction of my car. It can’t be that I invest too little in it, or that I take only passing interest in its interests — that is, until it doesn’t motor me to every chosen destination.
We need new accountability standards for mechanics. Assemble the lawmakers.
I’m serious here. Just about as serious as some policy makers are about education.
Those policy makers, and the citizens for whom they posture, blame teachers for all the ills of the schooling machine.
It couldn’t be any outside influences that affect learning — not the inattention of parents, not whatever roiling events outside school walls might make it difficult to learn, not too-crowded classes, not administrators and policy makers who don’t really get what teachers do.
Something very detrimental to learning has been happening under the guise of education reform for nearly two decades. Americans have been convinced that standardization is education. They have been convinced that the way to “excellence” is to treat children’s minds like one treats tomatoes during canning season.
In the process, too many Americans have swallowed the propaganda that those who don’t buy the standard (King James?) version of school accountability employed by state after state don’t support excellence.
In Florida a pitched battle rages over one more quest to reduce education to tomato paste on the butcher block of standardization. Reformers seek to pin teacher pay increases to test scores. The bill would require school districts to set aside 5 percent of their entire budgets starting in 2011 for “performance” pay increases. If they have any leftover money, they could use it to develop new tests, like end-of-course exams. Otherwise, they would have to give it back to the state.
The bill also would essentially rewrite the rules for teacher contracts. And in telling districts how they can pay teachers, it would wipe out considerations like advanced degrees and experience.
The most offensive thing about this is that it’s not really about education. It’s about a political vendetta. The party of Bush and Cheney and Limbaugh and O’Reilly has had it out for “teachers’ unions” from the day some marginally educated focus group said the term was disparaging enough to be gold.
So, we have people stepping up saying they know how to “fix” education. Even if they confuse teaching with conveyor-belt work. Even if they consider Sarah Palin learned.
Ah, standardization. I once heard a person say, seriously, that if only schools would be like the Army, our problems would be solved. You see, all enlistees have to learn how to assemble a rifle. Have to. And will.
But, then, education isn’t training. Education is a higher quest. Or, so we once assumed. Unfortunately, our political system has instituted a concept of schooling that casts students across a sea of bubble-in questions.
You say teachers oppose assessment? That’s the most ridiculous claim of all. I have a book that has 450 pages of really great assessments — classroom exercises that show if students are using critical thinking skills. It has activities which can make school fascinating and truly challenging. No one craves assessments — quality, diagnostic assessments — more than a teacher, or at least the vast majority of true classroom professionals.
The same goes for most mechanics. But I’m holding mine accountable for my inattention. If my oil pan ends up empty, heads will roll down at the shop.
John Young is a nationally syndicated writer who lives and teaches in Fort Collins, Colorado. He writes for Cox Newspapers. E-mail: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
Texans Take Note – News From The Outside World
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I know Texans don’t generally give a crap about what the rest of the country, or the world for that matter, thinks about us. But this time, they’re laughing at us and they’re a little bit spooked by us at the same time. And they’re not wrong. We might wanna take a few notes this time. Below, some reprinted observations by SF Gate columnist, Mark Morford. You know, San Francisco, where all those crazy hippies live.
Dear Texas: Please shut up.
Sincerely, History
By Mark Morford,
SF Gate Columnist
Hey, kids! Here’s something I bet you didn’t know: Black people? Back in 1800 or whenever? They liked being slaves. True! Many savvy, industrious Negroes actually volunteered for that fine, desirable position. It was a completely balanced, fair, hugely successful system, until those damn liberals came along and ruined everything. I know, right? What a shame.
Do you know what else? America was wholly victorious in Vietnam. It’s a fact! Kicked some serious enemy butt! Mission accomplished! Sure it was a little bumpy for awhile, but President Nixon, that great and wronged American hero, put us on the righteous path in the end, wrapped that sucker up beautifully and made America the noble Superman to the world. Hey, it’s the truth! You can look it up in your history textbook!
Even more good, newly historic news: Despite what you may have heard from the liberal media, America has very much won its recent, God-sanctioned wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Angry Allah loses again! Just look at this handy diagram on page 281, Figure 4-9. See those little dark-skinned bodies stacked up neatly beside that minaret? Right next to that completely unstaged photo of the toppled Saddam statue? Look how many there are! Graphs never lie.
Did you know, back in the frontier days, that Native Americans welcomed the white man with open arms? Absolutely true. Those poor, sunburned people were so beaten down and exploited by their oppressive dictator “chiefs,” they were forced to believe in all sorts of disgusting pagan sun gods and had to eat, like, rocks and snakes and stuff.
It’s no wonder they greeted proud, fair-minded American colonials as great liberators — yes! Just like in Baghdad! — and happily gave us free access to their fields and their women and their wonderful bead-making technology, in exchange for, you know, gin and fireworks. And casinos.
Never doubt America’s irrefutable greatness, kids. Our prison system, for example, is the finest in the world. Also, dirty Mexican people had no role whatsoever in the Civil War or U.S. history (except as troublesome immigrants, yuck), hip-hop music is in no way, shape or form to be considered a significant cultural movement — unlike totally awesome Country & Western, and the War on Drugs is going spectacularly well, thanks to our fine military, numerous Afterschool Specials and the deep love of Jesus — who, if you look really closely at those old photographs from the Bible, is clearly wearing a U.S. flag pin on his robes to go along with his friendly, competely legal sidearm. God bless America.
These irrefutable facts — and many more just like them — are brought to you by the Texas State Board of Education, packed like a jug of rancid tartar sauce with intellectually numb simpletons who smell like ignorance and taste like fear. The TSBE: We make revisionist brainwashing fun!™
Maybe you didn’t hear? The little item about how a small pod of pale ultra-conservatives in Texas has just demanded a whole slew of specific changes be made to history textbooks down in the Lone Star State? About how, in fact, nearly every change is a rather ridiculous rewriting of history and the language surrounding it, all tending to favor — can you guess? — white privileged capitalist males, a bitter Christian God, and a whitewashed version of history that never actually existed?
Not much shocking about it all, really. “Texas education” has never exactly equated with “intellectual range and nuance.” But there’s a big, ugly snag: Due to the state’s huge purchasing power, the decisions of these tiny-brained ultra-conservatives could well influence what goes into various school history textbooks nationwide.
So it is that that some inbred neocon beliefs about homophobic God and gun-loving country will ooze their way into the minds of unsuspecting youth in a completely different state say, 10 years’ hence, like a poison slowly leeching into the cultural water supply. Ah, Texas conservatism. It’s the new DDT!
What, too harsh? I’m not so sure. Yes, everyone knows that history is slippery and spurious to begin with, all about context and spin and who’s telling the tale. History is, after all, written by the victors.
What they don’t usually add is how history is then revised by the politicians, gutted by the church leaders, molested by the power mongers, skinned alive by paranoid militants, poorly codified by the speechwriters and then spun, torqued and diluted by countless mealy “experts” before being shoved down the gullet of unsuspecting youth, where it is partially digested like so much liquefied school lunch meat, only to be wrongly half-remembered later in life by the most insane among them, who then quickly gets his own talk show on Fox News. And lo, the circle of life continues.
Say what you will about standardized testing, draconian teachers’ unions, lazy tenured teachers, crumbling campuses, slashed budgets, et al. I can think of no better argument for mortgaging everything you own so as to afford a private/charter school for your kid than the disturbing fact that these Texas State Board mongrels might have any power whatsoever to shape young minds by way of further tainting the already wobbly, spurious historical record.
Maybe it doesn’t really matter. After all, it’s widely understood that, given the state of public education, children don’t really learn much in school anyway. The system is so problematic and the teachers union so dangerously obstinate, there’s a good chance your kid will never crack open one of these flawed, historically inaccurate textbooks in the first place. Small consolation indeed.
It’s not all dire and brimstone. Prior to this ridiculous move — and by the way, the board’s revisions still have to be ratified, so there’s a slim chance public outcry and a deep sense of shame at their own repellent personal politics will get them to back off — there’s apparently been a small amount of improvement in school textbooks over the years.
From what I understand, in the wake of wildly influential bestsellers like “Lies my Teacher Told Me” and the late, great Howard Zinn’s “People History” series, among many others, school textbooks underwent some significant improvements in the past couple of decades, slightly more multicultural and inclusive, balanced, realistic. Not nearly as thin, lopsided, sexist, jingoistic, myopic as they used to be. Is that damning with faint praise? Maybe.
Alas, if California weren’t so utterly broke, slashing education budgets and shutting down schools, maybe our fair state could launch a counter-attack, demand some reasonably accurate historic revisions in those selfsame texts. Time was when we had some killer purchasing power of our own. Remember? Yeah, me neither.
Sadly, from what I hear, California schools don’t even use textbooks anymore. Or classrooms. Or desks. They all disintegrated sometime back in 1987. History is now taught by means of sock puppets, toothpick dioramas and firecrackers. And gin.
Of course, I’m completely exaggerating. The changes the Texas Board is shoving through are probably relatively innocuous, just another toxic chemical added to the already lethal school lunch menu, one of a thousand, really. I’m sure everything will be fine. Kids won’t mind a whit that they’re being fed heavily processed, dangerous, non-nutritive mental crap. Hell, they’ll probably enjoy it. You know, just like all those happy, contented slaves.
Texans – Take Back Your Schools
By · CommentsEven though I still consider myself a Texan, I don’t live there anymore. I certainly don’t have any children in Texas schools, so how and what the Texas Board of Education decides to teach the children of their state really shouldn’t concern me. It shouldn’t. But it does.
The practical reason, of course, is that textbooks created for the education system of Texas inevitably end up in school systems across the country. It’s such a huge market for textbooks that the major publishers are willing to bow to their wishes when revisions to history are requested, and the rest of the country can take it or leave it. This is not the first time Texas has skewed history for children all over the U.S.
This time, it seems, Thomas Jefferson was getting way too much credit for his role as a founding father. Writing the Declaration of Independence and most of the Constitution clearly just makes him a glory hog. The Texas board wants his responsibility in the creation of this country pared down a bit. That separation of church and state thing apparently still pisses them off.
On the other hand, there are some important figures of the past that the board feels are getting short-changed at the checkout stand of history. Confederate President Jefferson Davis is one of them. The Texas board feels that Jeff’s presidency should be treated more on an equal par with Abraham Lincoln’s. I mean, it’s only fair. He was a president, too.
Another much maligned, and unfairly disparaged character from the more recent past is Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. The board feels he’s been poorly treated by historians, and would like to see his image rehabilitated a little. The fact that he was a demagogue, a drunk, and an unrepentant liar shouldn’t completely overshadow the possibility that there really may have been communists in the federal government. I mean, really. He could have been right.
There are over 100 such “adjustments” to the state curriculum by the board, and these aren’t even the most egregious. These are just the easiest to make fun of. And, I’m afraid that the impracticality of it is not what’s really gotten up my nose. I think it’s more emotional than that.
What has happened in Texas, again, is that a handful of appointed and elected political hacks with a social and political agenda have been empowered to second-guess and overrule the panel of professional educators charged with creating the social studies curriculum for the state’s school children. They have, once again, held the state up to national and international ridicule, but worse, they seek to cheat the children of Texas of an honest and unbiased education.
This board, without a single educator or historian among them, has chosen to rewrite history to suit themselves and their own narrow ideology. No one cares if they wish to go through life ill-prepared and ignorant. Clearly they don’t mind. But to impose systematic, state sponsored ignorance on an entire generation of school children is immoral.
Shame on them.
This small band of ideologues is being allowed to lead the next generation of Texans into intellectual bankruptcy. The parents of Texas expect and deserve better for their children. They need to stand up and demand it. Now. Before the books are printed.
David Perkins
Be Kinder Than Necessary
By · Comments“Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.”
It’s a great quote, but it’s unclear who said it. It actually seems to be an amalgamation of two separate quotations. Author James M. Barrie, of Peter Pan fame, said “Be kinder than necessary.” But his advice stops there. Plato is quoted as saying “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
Whoever pushed these two together actually created a more thoughtful and salient point. It’s worth remembering the next time you find yourself about to be ungracious with someone.
Echoes of Oklahoma City 1995
By · CommentsMy dear friend Peggy, a fellow Texan, sent this to me today. I think it offers a lot to think about and, as you know, The New York Times suffers from very poor circulation so I thought I’d lend them the weight and influence of my blog. Thank you, Peggy.
The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged
by Frank Rich
Reprinted from The New York Times
February 28, 2010
No one knows what history will make of the present — least of all journalists, who can at best write history’s sloppy first draft. But if I were to place an incautious bet on which political event will prove the most significant of February 2010, I wouldn’t choose the kabuki health care summit that generated all the ink and 24/7 cable chatter in Washington. I’d put my money instead on the murder-suicide of Andrew Joseph Stack III, the tax protester who flew a plane into an office building housing Internal Revenue Service employees in Austin, Tex., on Feb. 18. It was a flare with the dark afterlife of an omen.
What made that kamikaze mission eventful was less the deranged act itself than the curious reaction of politicians on the right who gave it a pass — or, worse, flirted with condoning it. Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a “Tea Party terrorist.” But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner. That rant inspired like-minded Americans to create instant Facebook shrines to his martyrdom. Soon enough, some cowed politicians, including the newly minted Tea Party hero Scott Brown, were publicly empathizing with Stack’s credo — rather than risk crossing the most unforgiving brigade in their base.
Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, even rationalized Stack’s crime. “It’s sad the incident in Texas happened,” he said, “but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary. And when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the I.R.S., it’s going to be a happy day for America.” No one in King’s caucus condemned these remarks. Then again, what King euphemized as “the incident” took out just 1 of the 200 workers in the Austin building: Vernon Hunter, a 68-year-old Vietnam veteran nearing his I.R.S. retirement. Had Stack the devastating weaponry and timing to match the death toll of 168 inflicted by Timothy McVeigh on a federal building in Oklahoma in 1995, maybe a few of the congressman’s peers would have cried foul.
It is not glib or inaccurate to invoke Oklahoma City in this context, because the acrid stench of 1995 is back in the air. Two days before Stack’s suicide mission, The Times published David Barstow’s chilling, months-long investigation of the Tea Party movement. Anyone who was cognizant during the McVeigh firestorm would recognize the old warning signs re-emerging from the mists of history. The Patriot movement. “The New World Order,” with its shadowy conspiracies hatched by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Sandpoint, Idaho. White supremacists. Militias.
Barstow confirmed what the Southern Poverty Law Center had found in its report last year: the unhinged and sometimes armed anti-government right that was thought to have vaporized after its Oklahoma apotheosis is making a comeback. And now it is finding common cause with some elements of the diverse, far-flung and still inchoate Tea Party movement. All it takes is a few self-styled “patriots” to sow havoc.
Equally significant is Barstow’s finding that most Tea Party groups have no affiliation with the G.O.P. despite the party’s ham-handed efforts to co-opt them. The more we learn about the Tea Partiers, the more we can see why. They loathe John McCain and the free-spending, TARP-tainted presidency of George W. Bush. They really do hate all of Washington, and if they hate Obama more than the Republican establishment, it’s only by a hair or two. (Were Obama not earning extra demerits in some circles for his race, it might be a dead heat.) The Tea Partiers want to eliminate most government agencies, starting with the Fed and the I.R.S., and end spending on entitlement programs. They are not to be confused with the Party of No holding forth in Washington — a party that, after all, is now positioning itself as a defender of Medicare spending. What we are talking about here is the Party of No Government at All.
The distinction between the Tea Party movement and the official G.O.P. is real, and we ignore it at our peril. While Washington is fixated on the natterings of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Michael Steele and the presumed 2012 Republican presidential front-runner, Mitt Romney, these and the other leaders of the Party of No are anathema or irrelevant to most Tea Partiers. Indeed, McConnell, Romney and company may prove largely irrelevant to the overall political dynamic taking hold in America right now. The old G.O.P. guard has no discernible national constituency beyond the scattered, often impotent remnants of aging country club Republicanism. The passion on the right has migrated almost entirely to the Tea Party’s counterconservatism.
The leaders embraced by the new grass roots right are a different slate entirely: Glenn Beck, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. Simple math dictates that none of this trio can be elected president. As George F. Will recently pointed out, Palin will not even be the G.O.P. nominee “unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states” (as it did in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Waterloo). But these leaders do have a consistent ideology, and that ideology plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there, not just to the peaceable (if riled up) populist conservatives also attracted to Tea Partyism. This ideology is far more troubling than the boilerplate corporate conservatism and knee-jerk obstructionism of the anti-Obama G.O.P. Congressional minority.
In the days after Stack’s Austin attack, the gradually coalescing Tea Party dogma had its Washington coming out party at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), across town from Capitol Hill. The most rapturously received speaker was Beck, who likened the G.O.P. to an alcoholic in need of a 12-step program to recover from its “progressive-lite” collusion with federal government. Beck vilified an unnamed Republican whose favorite president was the progressive Theodore Roosevelt — that would be McCain — and ominously labeled progressivism a cancer that “must be cut out of the system.”
A co-sponsor of CPAC was the John Birch Society, another far-right organization that has re-emerged after years of hibernation. Its views, which William F. Buckley Jr. decried in the 1960s as an “idiotic” and “irrational” threat to true conservatism, remain unchanged. At the conference’s conclusion, a presidential straw poll was won by Congressman Paul, ending a three-year Romney winning streak. No less an establishment conservative observer than the Wall Street Journal editorialist Dorothy Rabinowitz describes Paul’s followers as “conspiracy theorists, anti-government zealots, 9/11 truthers, and assorted other cadres of the obsessed and deranged.”
William Kristol dismissed the straw poll results as the youthful folly of Paul’s jejune college fans. William Bennett gingerly pooh-poohed Beck’s anti-G.O.P. diatribe. But in truth, most of the CPAC speakers, including presidential aspirants, were so eager to ingratiate themselves with this claque that they endorsed the Beck-Paul vision rather than, say, defend Bush, McCain or the party’s Congressional leadership. (It surely didn’t help Romney’s straw poll showing that he was the rare Bush defender.) And so — just one day after Stack crashed his plane into the Austin I.R.S. office — the heretofore milquetoast Minnesota governor, Tim Pawlenty, told the audience to emulate Tiger Woods’s wife and “take a 9-iron and smash the window out of big government in this country.”
Such violent imagery and invective, once largely confined to blogs and talk radio, is now spreading among Republicans in public office or aspiring to it. Last year Michele Bachmann, the redoubtable Tea Party hero and Minnesota congresswoman, set the pace by announcing that she wanted “people in Minnesota armed and dangerous” to oppose Obama administration climate change initiatives. In Texas, the Tea Party favorite for governor, Debra Medina, is positioning herself to the right of the incumbent, Rick Perry — no mean feat given that Perry has suggested that Texas could secede from the union. A state sovereignty zealot, Medina reminded those at a rally that “the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”
In the heyday of 1960s left-wing radicalism, no liberal Democratic politicians in Washington could be found endorsing groups preaching violent revolution. The right has a different history. In the months before McVeigh’s mass murder, Helen Chenoweth and Steve Stockman, then representing Idaho and Texas in Congress, publicly empathized with the conspiracy theories of the far right that fueled his anti-government obsessions.
In his Times article on the Tea Party right, Barstow profiled Pam Stout, a once apolitical Idaho retiree who cast her lot with a Tea Party group allied with Beck’s 9/12 Project, the Birch Society and the Oath Keepers, a rising militia group of veterans and former law enforcement officers who champion disregarding laws they oppose. She frets that “another civil war” may be in the offing. “I don’t see us being the ones to start it,” she told Barstow, “but I would give up my life for my country.”
Whether consciously or coincidentally, Stout was echoing Palin’s memorable final declaration during her appearance at the National Tea Party Convention earlier this month: “I will live, I will die for the people of America, whatever I can do to help.” It’s enough to make you wonder who is palling around with terrorists now.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: March 2, 2010 The column by Frank Rich on Sunday, about the conservative movement, misstated the job status of Tim Pawlenty. He is the current governor of Minnesota, not former.
Tax and Spend Democrats! Oh, Wait.
By · CommentsHere’s An Interesting Chart
It tracks U.S. Government revenue increases against U.S. Government spending increases going back through eight presidents. As you can see, the light blue bar represents the increase in revenue, and the dark blue bar represents the increase in spending by the U.S. Government during the tenure of each president.
The last one pretty well demonstrates what happens when you hand out multiple tax cuts while trying to prosecute two wars. Wonder if George understands now why he was the only president in history to do that? Even John McCain pointed out what a bad idea that was. Until he became a presidential candidate, of course. Then, he was of big fan.
Interestingly, one of the largest federal tax rate cuts in the history of this country came in the Revenue Act of 1964, under President Lyndon Johnson. And in case you’re wondering, we were not yet mired in the war in Vietnam when this took place. We were still only there in an advisory capacity. It wasn’t until 1965 that everything went to hell in Southeast Asia.
Republicans Quietly Scramble for Stimulus Cash
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From Daily Kos
Washington Times: GOP lawmakers privately admit stimulus created jobs
by Jed Lewison
Tue Feb 09, 2010 at 08:42:03 AM PST
If there’s one thing that unites the Republican Party it’s that the stimulus bill was a job-killing piece of legislation that was the worst thing in the whole entire world for the economy, right? Or maybe that’s just what unites them in public, because in private the Washington Times reports they’ve been working overtime to get their hands on job-creating stimulus cash.
Sen. Christopher S. Bond regularly railed against President Obama’s economic stimulus plan as irresponsible spending that would drive up the national debt. But behind the scenes, the Missouri Republican quietly sought more than $50 million from a federal agency for two projects in his state. In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Mr. Bond noted that one project applying to the USDA for stimulus money would “create jobs and ultimately spur economic opportunities.”
Bond isn’t alone. Remember Joe “You Lie” Wilson?
Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican who became famous after yelling, “You lie,” during Mr. Obama’s addresses to Congress in September, voted against the stimulus. Nonetheless, Mr. Wilson elbowed his way into the rush for federal stimulus cash in a letter he sent to Mr. Vilsack on behalf of a foundation seeking funding. “We know their endeavor will provide jobs and investment in one of the poorer sections of the Congressional District,” he wrote to Mr. Vilsack in the Aug. 26, 2009, letter.
You see the pattern? Slam the stimulus in public, but in private, ask for stimulus funds to create jobs. For example, Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah:
On Feb. 13, 2009, Sen. Robert F. Bennett, Utah Republican, issued a statement criticizing the stimulus — but two days earlier, he privately forwarded to Mr. Vilsack a list of projects seeking stimulus money. “I believe the addition of federal funds to these projects would maximize the stimulative effect of these projects on the local economy,” he wrote.
And here’s even more quotes uncovered by the Washington Times in private letters written by Republican lawmakers seeking stimulus funds from the Agriculture Department:
Sen. Mike Johanns, Nebraska Republican: “The proposed project would create 38 new jobs and bring broadband to eight hospitals, five colleges, 16 libraries and 161 K-12 schools”
Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican: “It is anticipated that the project will create over 200 jobs in the first year and at least another 40 new jobs in the following years.”
Rep. John Linder, Georgia Republican: “the employment opportunities created by this program would be quickly utilized”
Kudos to the Washington Times for having done the leg work of filing the FOIA requests to expose these examples of Republican lawmakers talking out of both sides of their mouths, publicly lambasting the stimulus as a job-killing measure, but privately conceding that it actually created jobs. It’s hard to imagine a more effective way of demonstrating Republican hypocrisy on the question of whether the stimulus bill creates jobs, and Dems should remind them of it every waking day.
Reprinted from Daily Kos
Fat, Dumb, and Not So Happy
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After my annual physical, a little over a year ago, I was told that I needed to lose some weight and lower my blood glucose level. I was informed that I had slightly elevated blood sugar and my doctor warned that, if I ignored it and it continued to rise, it could grow up to become diabetes. My doctor’s a real buzzkill.
My two best friends on this planet are diabetic. They both have to inject insulin daily to keep their blood glucose levels in check. They seem to manage pretty well, but it’s a dominant factor in their lives. They have to think about it almost all the time. And I have apparently come very close to joining them. My first thought was, “Well, maybe this is not so bad. We could cut down our costs by sharing syringes.” Then one of them pointed out that, if I wasn’t one already, that idea alone would make me a moron. So, I dropped it.
I came home, got online, and started searching for the diet that would allow me to lose thirty pounds and lower my blood sugar without interfering with my penchant for eating Butterfingers and washing them down with Beck’s. Alas, I didn’t find it. My considerable and careful (seriously) research did however yield a diet plan that seemed to fit most of my requirements (sans the Butterfinger/beer snacks).
So, I zoomed off to Amazon.com and ordered The South Beach Diet: Super Charged by Arthur Agatston, M.D. This was, apparently, a new and improved version of the already famous South Beach Diet, with extra added super powers. While I was there, I also ordered The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook by the same aforementioned doctor. The South Beach Diet promises to “show you how you can burn more calories and fat in less time, as you lose your cravings for sugary and starchy carbs, lower your blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and improve your overall health.” Just the ticket. How hard could this be?
My books arrived a few days later, and I began flipping through them. The recipes looked good, and there seemed to be very little that you had to give up entirely, and even those for only a couple of weeks. I read a little bit each day, but it began to look like this was actually going to require some action on my part. I hadn’t counted on that. Both books lay on my living room coffee table for several months. After all, I was going to do this, but I had to wait for the right time to start. Then, mysteriously, they got moved to a drawer, still in the living room, but out of sight. And then, inevitably, out of mind.
Before you could blink, another year had rolled by, and I found myself sitting naked on the butcher paper covered table in my doctor’s office, explaining why my blood glucose level was almost the same as the year before. Just as a side note, I find it difficult to explain anything convincingly when I’m naked. Goes back to high school, but that’s a story for another post. On the upside, I had lost ten pounds over the previous year, and he offered lukewarm commendation for that.
I slunk back home, rummaged through the credenza drawers, and resurrected my South Beach Diet library. It was time to get serious. Really. Luckily, this diet does allow you to eat most of the things you like, with some variations in preparation. For instance, steak is fine. Chicken-fried steak with country gravy, not so much. Anyway, because of this, my wife was happy to join me on the new regimen. She had no weight to lose, and as far as we know her blood sugar is fine. She was going for the “improved overall health.” Plus, I knew it wouldn’t last if we were preparing two different menus for every meal.
Before I discuss results, I should point out that this routine has been the easiest to follow and stick with that I’ve ever seen. You’re encouraged to eat three meals a day plus at least two snacks in between. The goal is to never let yourself become very hungry. It concentrates on high-fiber, nutrient-rich carbohydrates (from vegetables, fruits, and whole grains), good unsaturated fats, lean sources of protein, and low-fat dairy. And I promise that I have yet to feel deprived.
Beef, pork, fish, chicken, cheese, fruits and vegetables, whole-grain breads, cereals and pastas, nuts, peanut butter, wine, light beer, and even desserts. It’s all here. It’s all okay. Like I said earlier, the things that you’re required to give up entirely are only disallowed for the first two weeks. After that, you start to add these things back into your meals. The premise is, that by this time you have lost any cravings for the “bad” things in your diet, and can now enjoy them as part of a balanced nutritional plan. There is even guidance for dining in restaurants. It’s really not that hard.
So, how have I done so far? Not bad. In the first week, I lost eight pounds. Over the next two weeks, I lost an additional eight pounds and my blood glucose level is down by six points. And I began reintroducing “forbidden” foods back into my diet after the first two weeks. Phase One, the first two weeks, is aimed at breaking your cravings. I am officially into Phase Two of the diet now, and will be until I reach my desired weight. I intend to lose another ten pounds. In Phase Three, there are essentially no restrictions on what you can eat, but you’re expected to have come to a truce with food by that time, and have reached a new understanding of quality and quantity. Your new eating habits are presumed to be second nature by then.
I have to say that I’m sincerely impressed with this approach. I’m never hungry. I feel better. And I’m beginning to look better, since the weight I’ve lost seems to be coming off my belly. You know, where I was storing the Butterfingers and Becks. As with most diets, the weight lost in the first week or two is largely water, so it’s important to stay well-hydrated and keep your electrolytes in balance. Take full advantage of the snacking aspect of the plan. It’s important not to let yourself become famished. And if you have underlying medical conditions, always ask your doctor if this kind of plan is right for you.
If you decide to give it a try, I wish you good luck. I will post updates here to let you know if I run into any serious drawbacks, and to let you know how I’m progressing on the weight and blood sugar fronts. Here’s to your health.
David Perkins
Update: January 31, 2010
I know I promised, in the article above, to keep you posted on my progress with the South Beach approach to health and weight loss, but I decided to wait until after my next visit to the doctor, so that I would have some concrete and verified numbers to report. I figured that would be better than a week-to-week “here’s how much weight I’ve lost” kind of post.
Well, I just got those numbers a few days ago; new lab results and a visit to my killjoy of a doctor. I have to say that he was much more pleasant this time, since my results surprised even him.
First, since I began to change my eating lifestyle in October, I’ve lost 25 pounds. Now, that’s not a record-shattering number by any stretch, but since my goal from the outset was to lose 30 pounds in total, it means I’m almost there. I’m down from a peak, about 16 months ago, of 241 pounds to a svelte 205. I lost ten of that before starting on the South Beach program.
Secondly, and probably more important than the weight loss, is the decline in my blood glucose levels. High blood sugar was the real impetus for my starting this whole experiment in the first place. In October, the number was 112. That number is still “normal” but it’s at the high end of the normal range. Enough so that my doctor was concerned about a “pre-diabetic” condition. I’m happy to report that my blood glucose reading earlier this week was a surprisingly low 88. I’m told that anything under 100 is good. You know, unless it’s 16 or something like that. Then, you pass out and lapse into a coma. But, 88 is very good.
An unanticipated, at least by me, side effect of all of this is that my overall cholesterol level has dropped by about 40 points to a healthy 155. And my LDL level (the BAAAAD cholesterol) is 103. My doctor informs me that 100 is the perfect LDL level. My blood pressure is 110 over 70, but it’s always been in that area, so that’s not new.
I feel better and, if I do say so myself, I look better. I rarely have that uncomfortable stuffed feeling no matter how much I eat, and during the course of this entire four months, I have never felt deprived of food. It’s actually kind of amazing, but true. And, I have started to wear some of my abandoned clothing. Things that had either become uncomfortable, or that made me look like I was shoplifting a watermelon.
I should also point out that, at the very beginning, I made the decision that the “diet” would not effect what I had to eat during Thanksgiving and Christmas. On those occasions, I ate pretty much as I always have, in terms of what I ate. I probably ate less, however, just because it didn’t take as much to make me feel full.
I had pumpkin pie and apple pie, ice cream, whipped cream, and eggnog, as well as cornbread stuffing all the usual Thanksgiving and Christmas fare. But, in each case, I indulged myself for only one day and then went back to my new routine.
My wife weighed herself on the day after Thanksgiving and was depressed to see that she had gained two pounds. I waited for a week after Thanksgiving to weigh myself, and had lost two pounds since the previous weight check. The lesson here – you wouldn’t weigh yourself with a tray of food in your hands, so why do it with the same food in your stomach? Weigh yourself when you will be encouraged, not discouraged. And don’t weigh yourself too often. Try to go two, or three, or even four weeks between weight checks. You will almost never be disappointed.
And a last side note; I sent a copy of the South Beach book to a family member who is overweight and diabetic. He was having some difficulty taking off the weight and bringing down his blood glucose levels. After less than one month on the South Beach program, he has lost 20 pounds and reports that his blood sugar level has “plummeted.” I’m sure he meant that in a healthy way.
So, that’s my update. I don’t have any negative things to say about the South Beach program. It’s a couple of books. No fees. No special meals to purchase. No meetings. And no bizarre or exotic foods to eat. There are support websites, official and unofficial, where recipes and advice are available, but whether or not you use them is up to you. I took a look around on the web, but the program book and the cookbook proved to be all that was necessary for me. For you? Maybe not.
If I’ve left questions unanswered, feel free to drop me a note and I’ll tell you what I know and what I think. I will close by saying that, if you’ve had a hard time staying with a weight loss program, or if your issue is also blood sugar, I encourage you to give the South Beach book a try. It’s a small investment – or even free if you visit a library. The payback just might be a healthier and better life for you. Good luck.
David Perkins
The South Beach Diet: Super Charged is well laid out and easy to understand. You don’t have to guess whether something is okay or not. There are specific lists of foods for you to “enjoy” and to “avoid” for each phase of the diet, as well as lists of foods to reintroduce into the next phase. There are sample menus for you to follow if you wish, there are recipes and shopping lists, and thousands of resources online that offer even more ideas for new dishes and menus.
The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook offers 200 additional recipes, that can be prepared in thirty minutes or less, for breakfast, soups and snacks, salads, fish and shellfish, poultry, beef, pork, and lamb, vegetarian entrees, side dishes, and desserts. Each recipe includes prep time, cooking time, and a complete breakdown of calories, fat, protein, carbohydrate, fiber, and sodium per serving.
The South Beach Diet: Dining Guide is a roadmap to dining out. It gives advice on what the best bets are in most restaurants. You can reference by type of cuisine, by restaurant name, by city, or by “chain.” Hundreds of restaurants across the country are listed, including Chili’s, Macaroni Grill, Cheesecake Factory, Cracker Barrel, Lone Star Steakhouse, Luby’s Cafeteria, and even McDonald’s, KFC, and Jack in the Box. You can look up Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Italian and dozens of other cuisines. It’s a great tool to have when dining out, particularly early on in the program.
Masterful Performances Freshen a Familiar Tune
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Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one. A broken down, burned out, booze-pickled, emotionally incapacitated country music legend swerves across the Southwestern U.S. in a prehistoric GMC Suburban (I think) playing one-night-stands in gloomy bars and bowling alleys, while steering his life directly for a cliff, where he is apparently content to fly off the precipice fully aflame and end it in a pathetic, almost unnoticed, explosion.
Jeff Bridges is Bad Blake, the aforementioned country music legend. Blake has clearly enjoyed better times but has stopped writing songs, taken refuge in the bottle, and trolls the substrata of the entertainment world living on memories of hits past. Meanwhile, a younger protégé, Tommy Sweet played by Colin Farrell, has hit the big time on the strength of Blake’s songwriting talents. Blake seems bitter.
The inevitable romantic interest for Blake is Jean Craddock, played persuasively by Maggie Gyllenhaal, as a Santa Fe reporter sent to interview Blake before a local performance. She’s the mother of a four-year-old son, with emotional baggage of her own, but she’s drawn to Blake despite their age difference and the fact that, during most of the film, he looks as if he smells like a ripe wheel of cheese on a warm day. Still, against her better judgment, they become involved. And, heartened by the only emotional connection he’s felt in some time, Blake seeks redemption in, and for, Jean.
If this sounds like a song you’ve heard, or a film you’ve seen before, you’re right. You have. But you haven’t seen it done this well since Tender Mercies in 1983, which won Robert DuVall a Best Actor Oscar for his turn as the drunken, washed up country singer. Maybe not coincidentally, DuVall is an executive producer and supporting actor in Crazy Heart. This is territory fraught with potential cliché, and they didn’t manage to avoid them all, but they did skip the big one, and first time writer-director Scott Cooper does an able job of steering clear of the ones that could have made this just an adequate film. The screenplay was adapted from the novel by Thomas Cobb.
What makes this film a must see, however, is the performance by Jeff Bridges. It may be the best of his career, even though he’s been Oscar-nominated four times before. The minor surprise here is that both Bridges and Farrell are good enough singers to be convincing in their roles. Not a great singer, Bridges nonetheless has a smoke and whiskey cracked, but resonant, voice that at times reminded me of Kris Kristofferson. Except that Bridges carries a tune a little better than Kris.
Bridges turned 60 a couple of weeks ago, and looks pretty good. Bad Blake is 57 in Crazy Heart, and looks an unhealthy 77. Bridges is completely convincing as Bad Blake, a man on his last leg, soaked through with alcohol, and beaten down by his own hand. But he can still croak out a poignant lyric in a quiet moment and make you believe it. And his rowdy, drunken stage performances are just as well done, and comically sad.
The songs, by Stephen Bruton and T-Bone Burnett, sound like genuine country hits that you’d swear you’ve heard on a jukebox somewhere at some time. Stephen Bruton, who was a close friend and collaborator of Kristofferson’s for years, died in May 2009 of cancer, just as the film was completing production. The film is dedicated to his memory.
Robert DuVall takes on a small role as Houston bar owner, and Blake’s best friend, Wayne. DuVall is always quirky and fun to watch, even in a secondary role. My old friend Beth Grant makes a brief appearance here as well, as a one-night-stand for Blake just before he meets Jean Craddock. She is always memorable in whatever role she takes on, and this one is no different. She commands your attention whenever she’s in the frame, and is always willing to offer herself up for a comic moment. And you will laugh.
This film came very close to not being released at all. Its distributor, Paramount Vantage, folded its tent before the film was completed and her parent company, Paramount Pictures, had no interest in the film. But neither did they want to give it up to another distributor. It seemed destined for direct-to-dvd release. Some skillful negotiations by Scott Cooper’s agent finally worked out a deal for Fox Searchlight to handle distribution. And we’re all lucky for it.
It will be just fine on DVD when it gets there, but this film deserves its time on the big screen. It’s good enough, and it’s important enough, and these performances are powerful enough to be seen in a real theater. That’s where good films belong.
History For Those On The Run
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The following video, from Newsweek, covers the highlights and lowlights of the first decade of the 21st Century in just 7 minutes. It’s not quite Cliff’s Notes, but it’ll do. It may be preceded by a 30 second commercial. But then, what isn’t? Enjoy.
Happy Thanksgiving
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be blessed with friends, and family, and good food and drink. May you have a warm and safe place to enjoy them all. May your team win, and may there be a “friend” to whom you can gloat. May you reconnect with someone you’ve missed. May you miss someone who’s gone. May you take a moment to know how blessed you are, and take another to help someone who’s not. May you have a joyful and heartfelt and glorious Thanksgiving.David
A Disturbing, Powerful, Starkly Emotional Surprise!
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I am almost at a loss for words to describe the film Precious, except in one and two word gasps. It is the most disturbing and emotional film experience I’ve had in recent memory. But it is, ultimately, inspiring as well. Not in a feel-good Rocky kind of way, but in a more sober, realistic, and humbling way. One that makes you glad to know that there are people who can overcome obstacles that you don’t think you could even survive.
Precious is set in 1980s Harlem, and looks at a few months in the lives of a very dysfunctional family. The screenplay, by Geoffrey Fletcher, was based on the novel, PUSH, by Sapphire. It is unnerving, and gut-wrenching, and appalling, and humorous, and sad, and uplifting. Precious gets in your face in the first five minutes, and will not get out of it for the next 100. It will grab you by the hair and drag you to places you do not want to be, and it will not let you shut your eyes. It will pause briefly, from time to time, to let you exhale and laugh, and then it will grab your hair and be off again.
Directed by Lee Daniels, Precious stars Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz, Sherri Shepherd, and Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe. You will be hearing some of these names a lot when “awards season” rolls around, and Mo’Nique is almost certain to win Golden Globe and Oscar nominations, if not the little gold statues themselves. She is a powerhouse of an actress, and this film should make her well-known, at the very least.
The rest of the cast is also outstanding, particularly newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the title role of Clareece Precious Jones, an overweight, undereducated 16-year-old who is physically and mentally abused by her mother. Almost unrecognizable is Mariah Carey in her role as the social worker who reaches out to Precious. Both of these actresses should also find themselves the focus of much attention at awards time.
If you think you’ll skip it, because Precious sounds like a typical teen-in-trouble made for television movie, or because it sounds too bleak for your entertainment tastes, you should seriously reconsider. This film is what movie theaters are meant for. It’s not one to watch at home on DVD. You need to see it in a place that affords quiet, and darkness, and a couple of moments to gather yourself while the end titles roll. It is a film you will think about, and perhaps talk about, for days or weeks after you see it. It is unrelenting. But it is, at the same time, oddly encouraging, and compassionate, and funny.
Except for some occasionally distracting camera work, I have no complaints about Precious. It’s an outstanding effort by all concerned. You shouldn’t wait until all the awards buzz starts to find a theater where it’s playing. It’s not your typical holiday fare, but it will make you thankful for a lot of things in your life you may not have thought about. Precious is rated R for all kinds of good reasons.
UPDATE: 12/8/09
Barbara Bush and I are hardly kindred souls, but when it comes to the movie Precious, we share the same opinion. You should see it! Read her take on the film in this week’s Newsweek magazine.
What’s Christmas All About Anyway?
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Last year, about this time, my most excellent friend, Jeff, got a call from his brother, Richard, in Cleveland. Richard suggested to Jeff that, since there was nothing they could give to each other for Christmas that either of them really needed, maybe they should take the money that would be spent and give it to someone, or some cause, that could really use it.
Jeff considered this, and thought it was not only a good idea, but one that deserved wider exposure. So, the cheap bastard called me up and asked, “How about if I don’t give you a Christmas gift?” After my initial outcry, and amid a hail of obscenities and protests that I had been really good all year, he finally got around to explaining the idea that his brother had hatched. Grudgingly, I allowed as to how it probably wasn’t a terrible idea. And, I agreed to approach my “gift-giving” circle of friends to see how they felt about it. I suggested that this moratorium on gifts should not affect the children on our lists but, that instead of the adults exchanging gifts, we make a donation of equal or greater value to whatever charitable organization we considered worthy.
Ryan and I estimated what our gift expenditures would probably amount to, and chose to give a few hundred dollars to the Valley Food Bank, in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. What better use, we decided, than making sure that a few families who might not have a decent Christmas dinner would get one. Our friends responded in kind. Or, I should say, at the very least they did not give us a Christmas gift. We prefer to believe they donated to charity instead. Except for one or two. They know who they are.
But, I decided to take it one step further. I also contacted all of our friends that did not ordinarily exchange gifts with us, and recommended they float this idea within their own gift-giving circles. If this could be passed along, sort of like a chain letter, the amount of good that could come from just a few hundred dollars in each circle of friends could be increased exponentially. I got positive responses from several of them, indicating that they had also gotten family and friends to agree to this plan.
And so, here it is the holiday season again. With Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, and Little Richard’s birthday all coming in December, there is something meaningful being celebrated by hundreds of millions of people around the world. Whether you’re celebrating for religious, or secular, or personal reasons, this is the time of year when most of us try to find the good in the rest of us; when we attempt to put aside our social and political differences to come together, however briefly, to recognize our common humanity.
We do that, in most cases, by exchanging gifts with the ones we love, and by being a little kinder to those we just like, or don’t know at all. I’m suggesting that those you love already know that you love them. I also believe that most of them would be proud to participate in a scheme that would take the ten, or twenty, or fifty dollars you might spend on their gifts to help someone that you, and they, don’t even know, have a better Christmas, or Hanukkah, or (insert your holiday here).
Most of us are fortunate enough to be with family and friends for our holidays, and to share in abundant meals, good times, and the warmth that comes from being together. More families than you can imagine will not have that in this holiday season, and no matter how generous you have been throughout the past eleven months, more is always desperately needed at this time of year.
So, this should put my friends and family on notice. If you’re older than 21, no gift for you. And we don’t expect one from you. Where your particular slice of the gift budget will be going, we haven’t decided yet. We may, once again, choose the Valley Food Bank. But we’re looking at several others as well. We may give to more than one of them. If you think you might want to participate, but don’t have a cause in mind, I’ve included a few links below to a handful of excellent choices. You can also find others in your local area that deserve your help. Pick one. Give. You’ll have a more satisfying, more fulfilled Little Richard’s Birthday. Trust me.
David Perkins
Save The Children: Donate as little as $10 to help train new mothers, and to feed, clothe, immunize, and educate children living in rural poverty in the U.S. and around the world.
Global Giving – Changing the World is Only A Click Away: Where you can choose exactly what project you wish to give to. Select by topic, i.e. children, environment, aids, education and so on. You may also designate in which country your donation will be spent.
Valley Food Bank: A central hub that collects, processes, and distributes food at no-charge to a network of rescue centers, food pantries, and soup kitchens to provide hot nutritious meals and food baskets to the homeless and to needy families throughout the San Fernando Valley.
And for the children on your list:
FineChristmasGifts.com offers a list of the “Hottest” Christmas gifts for kids for the 2009 season.
Transformers Optimus Prime can be found at this site. Apparently a “must have” for many kids, I’m guessing mostly boys.
Lego City Now is the place to check for prices and information on all things Lego City. A perennial favorite at Christmas time.
Bakugan Maxus Dragonoid is apparently second only to Optimus Prime on the most wanted list this year. You can find him here.
FurReal Friends interactive pets, like Lulu My Cuddllin Kitty Cat, are listed here with links to best prices and vendors.
Do You Play Well With Others?
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Lyndon L. Olson, Jr., 62, served as United States Ambassador to Sweden from 1998 until 2001. On November 12, 2009 he accepted the eighth annual Texas Legacy Award from the Center for Public Policy Priorities at a luncheon in Austin, Texas. The following are his remarks from that luncheon. It’s five or six pages long, but they are well worth the read for anyone who is interested in public policy, politics in America, and the civil discourse related to both. Take the time. You’ll be glad you did. Thanks to my friend Peggy for sharing this with me.
David Perkins
Lyndon Olson
Thank you very much for this honor. I appreciate the kind remarks of my friend Congressman Edwards. I also appreciate the opportunity today to talk to this distinguished group about a concern of mine. I want to talk with you about civility, both in society in general and in our politics in particular.
I encourage you to think back…for some of us way back…to those report cards we got in first grade. Most everyone had different type cards and categories, but they were pretty much variations on the same basic theme. I’m not talking about your arithmetic or reading or penmanship grades. I’m talking about the comportment column, with things such as exercises self-control … respects the rights of others … shows kindness and consideration for others … indicates willingness to cooperate … uses handkerchief (important even before the H1N1 virus) … and, my favorite was usually right up at the top of that 6-week report card and it’s of particular significance to our discussion … “plays well with others.”
We were being taught about and graded on one of the most fundamental skills of our civilization: how to get along with others. There is a reason that plays well with others was one of the first things we were taught and evaluated on. And folks, I don’t think we’re getting a very good grade on plays well with others these days. Many of us don’t even want to play with someone we don’t like or disagree with.
Where did all of this come from? In the majority of my life this hasn’t been the case. Those of us in this room over 40 or 50 didn’t grow up in anything like this environment. We didn’t live like this. Not in our communities … not in our politics. We lived in a political world with strong feelings and positions, yes. And we took swings at each other politically. But it didn’t come down to the moral equivalent of street brawls and knife fights. Politics has always been a contact sport, but the conflict didn’t permeate every aspect of our society and rise to today’s level of social and verbal hostility. It is very unhealthy. And I’m not sure what to do about it. But I know it when I see it and hear it. And I know it is time we focus as much attention on our civil behavior as we do on achieving our personal and partisan agendas. How we do that, I don’t know. But I want to raise the issue, ask the questions, and encourage you all to give it your consideration as well.
We live in an era of rudeness, in society in general, in the popular culture, and in our political life. Our culture today, in fact, rewards incivility, crudeness, and cynicism. You can get on TV, get your own talk show or reality series if you out-shout and offend the other guy. Everyone screams, no one listens. We produce a lot of heat but little light. The proclivity is to demonize our opponent. People don’t just disagree … the challenge to the other is a battle to the death. Character assassination, verbal abuse, obnoxious behavior, and an overbearing attention on scandal and titillation – all that isn’t just reserved to day-time TV anymore—it’s the currency of prime-time, of late night, of cable news, of the Internet, and of society in general.
What happened to us? Should this be a sign of alarm? Is the problem selfishness—we won’t be denied, we must be immediately gratified? We want everything we’ve ever seen in the movies? How do we live and get along like our parents and their generation? They had to sacrifice. They didn’t get what they wanted when they wanted it. Is today’s need for instant gratification a problem?
We are more inclusive today…and that is a good thing—but has that good made for increased tensions?
Is it the 24-hour news cycle? The 24-hour news cycle demands instantaneous news, which feeds off of controversy, scandal, and easy answers to difficult questions. There is scant time for reflection or reasoned analysis. Market forces demand instantaneous information and jarring entertainment values, not sober analysis or wisdom. The news media are more prone to focus on the loudest, the most outrageous, and the most partisan actors. And given the rise of the political consultant class, candidates and campaigns are louder, more outrageous, and meta-partisan. Political consultants have helped create a permanent campaign where politics takes precedence over governance. The political consultants egg on all this for profit, creating controversy where little or none exists so the message, the theme of the day, is played out on TV and the media. They’re paid handsomely to cause strife and create conflict in order to raise hackles, money, and attention … fomenting issues to suit their agenda. It’s all about the message, not the solution, not the negotiation, the debate, the compromise to move forward. It’s about who is controlling the message, who is defining the message, who is creating the message, who is keeping the conflict alive often where none existed before the consultant decided one was needed. Is this what keeps us at each other’s throats?
Is it talk radio, attack TV? Is it the talk shows, the shout festivals where absolute hyperbole is the only currency? Mean-spirited hyperbole and hyper-partisanship breeds cynicism. Citizens are increasingly cynical about politics and about their government’s ability to work. The damage to the ship of state, to the fabric of the nation begs repair. Whose job is it to change course and effect the necessary repairs? I’m not sure I have the answer to that, but I propose that in a room full of policy makers and politicians, men and women who talk to the media, who work in the public arena, who hire consultants, who set agendas, maybe we have a role to play in making things better.
You know, I can say that there are some people in this room, people I consider dear friends, who understand this problem and I believe share my concern. To those friends I say, you and I both know that we disagree very fundamentally on some very big issues but the truth is that we could care less about our disagreements and are more concerned about where we can find consensus and reasons to work and live together to construct a better future. I consider this kind of commitment to trust and open dialogue crucial to maintaining a sustainable society.
And indeed, isn’t it about building a better future for our community, for our country, for our children? I say that even on the most intractable of issues, there is room for constructive debate, for consensus building, for the search for some common ground.
President Johnson once said to his Democratic colleague, Gov. George Wallace of Alabama, during the crisis of civil rights in the South: “What do you want left behind? You want a great, big marble monument that says, ‘George Wallace: He built.’ Or do you want a little piece of scrawny pine lying there that says, ‘George Wallace: He hated’?” The people I know in this room are builders. But we are confronting a world today where hate seems to be a predominant factor in the crisis of incivility confronting our politics.
Where are the rules that govern conduct? What happens eventually after this continuous rancor tears the fabric of our society completely asunder? Can we survive with this tenor…taking no prisoners, giving no quarter?
I’m asking these questions because you folks here are blessed with skills, talent, experience and a commitment to a positive public policy. You understand the importance of maintaining and protecting our commonweal where we strive to serve our clients, our community, our country, and our state. If civil discourse self-destructs, we cannot move on the issues that matter. Think of this as an environmental crisis … the environment being our civil society and our very ability to live and work and prosper together.
I don’t want to sound pious or preachy here, but if we are to prevail as a free, self-governing people, we must work together. We shouldn’t try to destroy our opponents just because we disagree. We have to govern our tongues. The Proverbs tells us, chapter 18, verse 12, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” How we choose to use words—for good or for wrong— is clearly our choice. The health of our democracy depends upon a robust public discourse.
Recognize that I am not saying that conflict in our political life is to be avoided. Hardly so. It is not only proper but necessary for candidates to vigorously debate the issues of our day and examine their opponents’ records. Don’t let people confuse civility with goody two-shoes niceness and mere etiquette. Civility is a robust, tough, substantive civic virtue, critical to both civil society and the future of our republic. Civility entails speaking directly, passionately, and responsibly about who we are and what we believe. Divisions based on principles are healthy for the nation. Vigorous and passionate debate helps us to define issues and to sharpen positions.
Conflict cannot, should not be avoided in our public lives any more than we can avoid conflict with the people we love. But just as members of a household, as a family learn ways of settling their differences without inflicting real damage on each other, so we, in our politics, must find constructive ways of resolving disputes and differences.
Our work is here. We build from the base. We will foster change first by our example … by working together, respecting one another, and negotiating our differences in good faith and with mutual respect. Civility is neither a small nor inconsequential issue. The word comes from the French civilité which is often translated as “politeness.” But it means much more. It suggests an approach to life…living in a way that is civilized. The words “civilized,” “civilité,” and “city” share a common etymology with a word meaning “member of the household.” To be civilized is to understand that we live in a society as in a household. There are certain rules that allow family members to live peacefully within a household. So, too, are there rules of civility that allow us to live peacefully within a society. As we all learned in 1st grade a long time ago, we owe certain responsibilities to one another. Perhaps we spend a lifetime learning how to play well with others. So be it. It is a crucial goal for a civil society.
Thank you.
Health Reform’s Human Stories
By · CommentsThe following is a first-hand account of the free health care clinic staged at the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana this past weekend. The doctors, nurses, technicians, and other personnel were all volunteers. The facilities, equipment, instruments, and medicines were paid for by Americans all over the country who donated generously so that several of these clinics could be held in multiple cities around the U.S. The eyewitness account was written by Rich Stockwell, Senior Producer for Countdown on MSNBC. This article is reprinted from Countdown’s website.
David Perkins
Countdown Producer Bears Witness to
America’s Health Care Shortcomings
Rich Stockwell Senior Producer 'Countdown'
New Orleans, La. — – It happened as I watched a 50-something woman walk out, after spending several hours being attended to by volunteer doctors. “She’s decided against treatment. A reasonable decision under the circumstances,” the doctor tells us as she heads for the next patient. The president of the board of the National Association of Free Health Clinics tells me why: “It’s stage four breast cancer, her body is filled with tumors.” I don’t know when that woman last saw a doctor. But I do know that if she had health insurance, the odds she would have seen a doctor long ago are much higher, and her chances for an earlier diagnosis and treatment would have been far greater.
After watching for hours as the patients moved through the clinic, it was hard to believe that I was in America.
Eighty-three percent of the patients they see are employed, they are not accepting other government help on a large scale, not “welfare queens” as some would like to have us believe. They are tax-paying, good, upstanding citizens who are trying to make it and give their kids a better life just like you and me.
Ninety percent of the patients who came through Saturday’s clinic had two or more diagnoses. Eighty-two percent had a life-threatening condition such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or hypertension. They are victims of a system built with corporate profits at its center, which long ago forgot the moral imperative that should drive us to show compassion to our fellow men and women.
Health reform is not about Democrats or Republicans or who can score political points for the next election, it’s about people. It’s about fairness and justice in a system that knows none. I’d defy even the most hardened capitalist-loving-conservative to do what I did on Saturday and continue to pretend that the system in place right now is working.
Countdown chose to highlight and raise money for the Association of Free Clinics because we knew the work they do is so vitally important and we wanted to show in real terms how great the need is. We invited several politicians to attend so they could see first hand how critical the situation is. All declined. Some explained that they talk with constituents all the time and know very well of the need for reform.
I have news for them, these people didn’t need to speak. Their actions spoke far louder than any words. Having to get a check up and diagnoses at a free clinic because they have no other option tells you all you need to know. There are no words that can accurately describe the quiet desperation on the faces of the patients. Every single one I spoke to, and every one I heard talking with doctors, expressed their gratitude for the event and wished that they were held more often.
They have been given the resources in their local communities with which they can get follow up care, but they are also the few. Over 700-thousand people in Louisiana alone have no health care, most of them with jobs that don’t offer insurance.
Or, worse, they have to decide whether to pay for that or food and housing. Four patients were taken out on stretchers and admitted immediately to hospitals. One woman who didn’t know why she was feeling bad had a blood pressure of 280 over 180, numbness in her right arm, and “a slight headache.” She now has a shot at survival, but without her attendance at the clinic, it was a matter of time before the inevitable happened.
I spoke with a nurse who was there not as a volunteer, but as a patient. He works two part time jobs at hospitals providing quality care to those who have the one thing he doesn’t. Many of his patients share his condition of high blood pressure, but they are fortunate to have insurance to pay for him to care for them while he goes without.
His situation is not uncommon, he has tried for years to get more hours at one of his jobs so he will be eligible for benefits, but it hasn’t happened yet. Our system of for-profit health care can’t afford to give him and others benefits – might make the stock price drop a penny or two. The last time the media gathered at that convention center, it was for a natural disaster in which our government was rendered useless due to incompetence.
This time we were there to cover a man-made disaster of even larger proportions. This is a disaster that goes largely unseen by most Americans. It is not too late for our current government to show that they are competent, and can do what the vast majority of Americans are asking them to. The incredibly dedicated people at the Association of Free Clinics told me the clinic would change me and I knew it would. None but the most hardened and heartless among us could watch that event and not be moved to action.
I have changed. I am gratified that just over one thousand people were able to get the minimal amount of care and resources for follow up. But, I am heart-sick for the many more like them who didn’t have the time or didn’t know that they could get care on Saturday.
They walk through their lives not knowing when the ticking time bomb might go off.
Politicians continue to tell us we are the most compassionate and caring people, and clearly we have done much good in the world. I left the event overwhelmed by the hard work and dedication of the volunteers, doctors, nurses, other medical professionals, as well as ordinary citizens who came to help. I am left with one overwhelming question: what does it say about us as a nation of people who can live in a country so rich and yet allow this to continue?
