Buck Naked Politics

Remembering Howard Zinn

by Bill Kavanagh: Historian Howard Zinn, who we lost in January at age 87 to a heart attack, worked throughout his lifetime to create a different America, one based on human values and the rights of ordinary people to control their own destinies. Zinn wasn't waiting for an American political leader, espousing hope and change, to make the world a better place; he advocated that the people pressure all our leaders through direct action to create jobs, to fight against corporate domination of our politics, to break down racial barriers, and to insure decent healthcare for everyone. Moreover, Zinn worked to end the dominance of the military industrial complex that has so shaped the post-World War II world.

These were just a few of the goals Zinn illuminated in his academic work, by documenting great movements that have pushed our history forward. He spent his lifetime presenting American history as a series of alternatives between passivity in the face of power and the people's occasional willingness to engage in struggles that have not always succeeded fully or quickly, but have eventually led to greater freedom, more economic power for ordinary working people, the poor and the oppressed. His most popular work, The People's History of the United States, has helped preserve a narrative of American movements for change and struggle that helped shape our history every bit as much as the powerful and well-connected leaders who rode astride the changes they created.

Obama at Year One

by Bill Kavanagh: There are few politicians who could have inspired the sort of hope that Barack Obama did coming into office, arriving in the wake of a near collapse of the American financial system a year ago. His inaugural address raised the nation's expectations. We hoped, we looked for change, we thought perhaps we'd crossed some significant barriers in the country's history. Mostly, we looked for leadership in a time of great anxiety.

Then came a search for consensus. For reasons that have more to do with Obama's nature than with empirical evidence, the new President looked for bipartisanship in addressing the nation's dire financial straits. He took a massive stimulus bill that most economists said would be the minimum necessary to get the country moving again and split it down the middle. Obama designated slightly more than half towards job creation, largely in infrastructure; the rest he saved for tax cuts, hoping the huge giveaway might bring Republicans and conservatives into the big stimulus tent he was creating. It didn't.

Instead, Republicans voted, to the last, against the stimulus plan and lambasted the President as a socialist. They sat on their hands and dared President Obama to pass his recovery plans without them. So, without pulling the $400 billion tax cut, he did. Without offering any plan of their own, the Republican Party had succeeded in paring off almost half of the stimulus funding towards tax relief. Obama had reached across the aisle and had been rejected, even while still siphoning off a huge percentage of the job creating effect of the stimulus bill.

Howard Zinn 1922-2010

by Bill Kavanagh: We've lost Howard Zinn today. While most of the mainstream political world will have comments about a speech by the President tonight, I'm left much more affected by the reaction that we will no longer hear from the people's historian.

While President Obama delivered another elegant, yet less than progressive address to the Congress and the American people, the country won't have the benefit of one consistently honest and frank voice in response. Howard Zinn understood that, as Americans, we need to celebrate the heroism of those of people who stand up against established interests, especially when those interests oppose democracy and the rights of working people.

I'll reflect more on Zinn's legacy in the coming days. For the moment, the verbiage of State of the Union address pales by comparison to the silence Professor Zinn's absence creates. Until we can deconstruct President Obama's promises of change and hope, and compare them with the unrealized substance of his promises to working people, we will have fallen short of the tough standards to which Zinn held political leaders.

“I think people are dazzled by Obama’s rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president — which means, in our time, a dangerous president — unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.”

—Professor Howard Zinn

Perhaps, in remembrance of Zinn, we should apply a tougher standard to the realization of the democratic ideals the President so often invokes in his rhetoric. We might ask, "Where is the real change and hope we can believe in?"

Meanwhile, whatever the President may or may not really desire, let's take a moment for reflection on the work and life of Howard Zinn, who told the stories democracy must enshrine, not of the powerful or of the well connected, but of those who go forth, day after day, to live out the promise of government for the people, by the people, and of the people. May they not perish with Professor Zinn tonight.

(Bill cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond.)

The Selling of Democracy

by Bill Kavanagh:  American democracy has long been corrupted by the influence of corporate cash, lots and lots of it for all parties. It's led to an orgy of giveaways and an almost total lack of oversight, a belief in markets and their wisdom, and ultimately has resulted in the disastrous meltdown of 2008-9. We're enduring unemployment and foreclosures at Depression levels, lost retirements and lost hopes as a consequence. And yet, it seems, what we've endured so far is not the limit—not by a long shot.

Now, the Supreme Court, by the same one-vote majority that brought us Bush v. Gore, has struck down any limit on corporate spending to affect elections. Corporations are now people, in the important respect that they enjoy freedom of speech. The only electoral and speech difference between me and a corporation now is the corporation's ability to print their messages everywhere you look, to hire public relations consultants to massage them into your daily life and entertainment as you contemplate your votes, and to ensure that their messages get in front of you in every possible way, while my speech is confined to this blog— or a sandwich board if I prefer to wear one.

Mass Senate Notes

by Bill Kavanagh:  How out of touch was Martha Coakley's Massachusetts Senate campaign? Here's a stunning bit of information, dated well after polling began to show that the Brown campaign and the stealth effort by Tea Party activists had chipped away at Coakley's lead:

Last Thursday, after the White House awoke to the danger, Mr, Axelrod called Mr. Newman, a senior advisor to Ms. Coakley, to ask what the White House could do to help; he was assured, as Mr. Axelrod later related the conversation to associates, that things were well in place and that Ms. Coakley was wary about getting any more operatives from Washington.

Today's piece by a team of NY Times reporters tells the tale of how the Coakley campaign was caught napping in a sort of reverse battle of Lexington and Concord. Everything we've been saying here about the witlessness of her strategy is confirmed in interviews with insiders from both sides in a good postmortem of the Massachusetts Senate slaughter.

Two other interesting election notes that should be pointed out:

1) Several bloggers have made mention of the message Rep. Michael Capuano took back to the House Democratic Caucus in December, after losing the primary to Ms. Coakley in a beauty contest that was all about name recognition. Capuano told incumbents that "You're screwed," referring to the deep anger he had encountered among Democrats over unemployment and the escalation in Afghanistan during the primary campaign.

To this point, it can't be overstated how important lower turnout among Democrats was in the Massachusetts special election— and how a lack of enthusiasm among them essentially made the difference.

To amplify the message about jobs, Capuano related an episode from a meeting he had in one Massachusetts town, where local officials urged Congress to provide funding on the basis that it be used to employ people:

He asked one crowd if it thought that a town could start hiring people within a month if it was given a million dollars on the condition that it begin employing people-- the crowd was certain it could.

After the event, a top finance official from the town approached him. "Not only could I do it in 30 days, I could do it in a week," she said.

2) A great map of town-by-town results in Massachusetts shows how vital Capuano's observation was (check it out at this link), but also points out a wierd phenomenon. The western part of the state went heavily for Coakley. Across the board. This was true in the rural areas, as well as in the lefty Pioneer Valley towns of Amherst and Northhampton, which one would have expected to go Democratic. Someone in the Coakley campaign was doing their job— and it would be great to understand this data better.

(Bill cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond .)

Martha Coakley: A Study in the Political Choke

by Bill Kavanagh: However the Massachusetts Senate race turns out, it should be clear that the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, has brought a world of pain on herself and her candidacy. Her campaign was run so pathetically that in local parlance, she's known as "Chokely." No matter that the Senate campaign has moved into national view as a repudiation of Democrats, Obama, liberalism, Keynesian economics, and the post-meltdown end of conservative rule, the underlying fact is that it should never have been close in the first place.

To start with, Coakley won a short primary campaign almost completely on name recognition against some lesser-known candidates with only local bases. Stronger Democratic candidates stayed away from the race, thinking that Joe Kennedy (Teddy's nephew, not Joe Kennedy the Libertarian, who IS actually running) would ultimately step in to take the seat in a walkaway. Coakley wasn't tested in any way by the primary, since she had money to run ads and was the only statewide officeholder among the Dem. choices.

Then, having won the primary, Coakley seemed to assume the seat was hers. She made less campaign stops in a six-week general election stint than an express train, seeming to forget the basic lesson of politics: the candidate works for the people. Coakley actually dissed retail campaigning when questioned by the press about why she didn't get out more, making it seem like she thought it was beneath her. Her media was horrible, at best making it seem as if she was running for town selectman or prosecutor, and later, at worst, like her opponent was some sort of barbarian who needed to be caged.

Scott Brown's Far Right Side: Not Featured in Most Coverage

by Bill Kavanagh: Massachusetts Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown has been the beneficiary of a superficial look at his political history, since until around two weeks ago, he wasn't even given a chance of becoming the next Senator from the Bay State. Now that media attention has turned towards him, a series of statements and positions at odds with the genial, GMC truck-driving independent persona Brown has created in his campaign have begun to surface. Whether this information will be pivotal in deciding whether the surge for Brown in the polls continues or crests is anyone's guess at this point.

What is becoming clearer by the day, however, is that Scott Brown hasn't always been the friendly, reasonable personality he's been working the cameras as. Beyond the conservative stands he made with the Republican minority in the Massachusetts State Senate on more than 90% of votes, Brown's distance from the extreme right is called into question by his 2008 comments on television about President Obama's (then candidate Obama) parentage. In a live commentary during which he was defending Sarah Palin from comments about her daughter Bristol's pregnancy out of wedlock, Brown said, "Quite frankly, Barack's mom had him when, when she was eighteen years old..."

Brown was interrupted by another panelist, who commented, "... and married."

Brown then continued, laughing, "Well, I don't know about that, ha ha... but more importantly, (then segued back to Bristol Palin)..."

This comment seems to place Brown in the company of right wing conspiracy theorists who claimed Barack Obama was some sort of plant from Kenya, a meme that was common among the far right during the 2008 campaign. In 2009, Brown has kept his distance from Palin, realizing she is kryptonite in Massachusetts.

This time, before he was regarded as a serious contender, Brown kicked off his Senate campaign by taking a "no new taxes" pledge, lining up with the Republican leadership on opposing the stimulus package, and opposing healthcare reform in a state which already has a similar plan. His espousal of tax cuts, opposition to a Wall St. bank levy, and Tea Party-style economic positions is all well to the right of most Massachusetts voters, but his economic platform has been less examined than his opposition to "the machine" and his shots at President Obama's response to the meltdown as "big government."

Will Brown get a pass from Massachusetts voters, who are looking to show their anger at the status quo? We'll know by Wednesday morning.

(Bill cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond .)

Massachusetts' Quirky Senate Campaign

by Bill Kavanagh: The Senate's 60th vote for healthcare reform and the rest of the Democrats' agenda rests with the people of Massachusetts on Tuesday. They are choosing between a dry but steady prosecutor who made her name as a specialist at putting away child abusers and a flashy State Senator whose makeover from Republican to independent maverick has been accomplished in weeks through a savvy media campaign.

Martha Coakley ran a campaign designed around Massachusetts' enormous Democratic registration advantage: she evidently initally thought she'd bore the voters and win on the numbers without much of a thrill. Her sound bites grated, but conveyed her positions without a twist. She was a matter-of-fact-attorney turned Attorney General. Not much charisma there.

Meanwhile, Republican Scott Brown busied himself turning his record around for a state that didn't know his name to sell a projection of a truck-driving guy in National Guard fatigues with a winning smile. His media portrayed a man of the people for "the peoples' seat." He buried his opposition to the state's gay marriage law, his support for allowing medical personnel to opt out of emergency contraception for rape victims, and his lonely characterization of waterboarding as legitimate interrogation. In short, he created a likable character without ties to anyone currently in power during a bad season for incumbents and the well-connected.

Two Taxes We Like

by Bill Kavanagh: A tax on bank debt and a tax on large bonuses to bankers sounds about right as a way to recover the public's investment in the financial system— and a way to participate in the tremendous upside our investment has provided to the bankers running the financial companies. The tone-deaf cries from financial CEOs that they will cut back on loans if the debt tax goes through only makes it more certain that the public will demand it. And a tax on banker bonuses is better focused than clumsy attempts to limit pay. It also puts some of the bonus money in the public's coffers instead.

One hilarious reaction came from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who thought it was unfair that the tax would only apply to banks with over $50 billion in assets. He wasn't so concerned with getting a huge share of TARP money and his ability to buy up WaMu as a result, but a tax on his windfall, that seemed inequitable. Dimon had just described the financial crisis to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission as, "something that happens every five to seven years. We shouldn't be surprised."

If it turns out that the banks help finance stimulus in this way, maybe we can even get unemployment under control before several more years go by. Wouldn't that be lovely? I'm not holding my breath that this will be anywhere near enough, but it wouldn't hurt.

(Bill cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond .)

Haiti's Devastating Earthquake

by Bill Kavanagh: This morning, people in Haiti are awaking to the aftermath of a devastating 7.0 earthquake in their small, impoverished nation. Reports about the devastation are still sketchy after the quake hit at approximately 5 PM yesterday. One clinical health director in the capitol was quoted in the NY Times in an e-mail yesterday, “Port-au-Prince is devastated, lot of deaths. SOS. SOS . . . Temporary field hospital by us at UNDP needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us.”

The National Palace has collapsed, the United Nations mission headquarters as well, giving one the impression that if these buildings have gone down, the condition of the average structure in the city must be even worse. A hospital collapsed in Petionville, one of the richest districts in Port-Au-Prince. There are fewer reports from the vast poor districts, where housing is not so well constructed.

The Huffington Post lists several relief organizations working in Haiti. The Sioux Fall, South Dakota Argus Leader reported on two groups, Helping Hands for Haiti and Kids Against Hunger, who were attempting to bring aid and food to Haiti when possible. One Helping Hands staffer, Dave Oswald, who returned last week from Haiti, is quoted as attempting to find his contacts, despite the lack of phone service to Haiti, to regain the ability to get food to people directly via commercial flights. He stressed the role of nonprofits as opposed to the Haitian government, which has a reputation for taking days or weeks to distribute aid and from which a significant portion is siphoned off by black marketeers.

The BBC calls Haiti "The Worst of Places for a Big Tremor," cting not only the nation's poverty, but also the relative lack of preparedness for infrequent quakes in the Caribbean. The last earthquake, in 1946 on the Dominican Republic's side of the island of Hispaniola it shares with Haiti, took almost 2,000 lives.

Jobs Bill Coming?

by Bill Kavanagh: OK... this could be a little ray of sunshine. Probably little is the operative word, but little is better than none. The Senate will bring a jobs bill to the floor soon. The best news is that Byron Dorgan will co-write the bill. He's got nothing to lose by saying what he really thinks, having stepped back from seeking re-election.

The $174 billion House bill would provide some relief, but not the large program needed. One can hope the Senate can come somewhere near that, but it will doubtless be stuck short of a huge effort to end our rampant unemployment. Look for some way to make this bill into a deficit-neutral scenario instead of in-your-face help for the jobless.

(H/T to Ezra Klein for this)

(Bill cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond.)

Friday Night Highlights for the Stay-Home Set

by Bill Kavanagh: I guess Brad DeLong's Friday night was pretty dull, but it's all to our benefit this morning. His "Ten Economics Pieces Worth Reading: January 9, 2010" is a helpful scan through our current situation, financial reform, the commercial real estate bubble, big bank breakup proposals, the economics of the New Deal, China's stability, deficit reduction, and a few other things.

Personally, I didn't read anything last night, but did watch Bill Moyers Journal, which featured David Corn and Kevin Drum on financial reform (and why we'll not get any real reform). They laid out the basic reasons why Congress does Wall Street's bidding: money, money, and money. It's pretty hard to argue with their analysis when one considers how complex financial reform tends to be and how easy it is for financial firms to evade restrictions with a word change here and there— and a contribution here, there, and everywhere.

As a personal aside, I'm fascinated by how Kevin Drum has transformed into a Washington journalist in the seven or so years since I started reading his Left Coast "Calpundit" blog — and has even started wearing suits and ties. I'm not sure the sartorial changes are for the best, but it's great to see his work on magazine covers and network television (PBS is network television, right?).

(Bill cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond.)

Looking Towards November

by Bill Kavanagh: The turn of an even-numbered year sets one to pondering what maneuvers the major parties are likely to engage in between now and November's elections. The Republican line is pretty well set around a strategy of not being responsible for anything that's happened since January 2009. Most observers expect the GOP to continue a policy of obstruction and protest against anything Democrats attempt to accomplish. For a few reasons, it's less clear what Democrats will attempt to do legislatively this year.

One in Four...

posted by Bill: Bob Herbert writes today in the NY Times about missed opportunities. It's a must-read, though if you miss it, he will doubtless reprise the theme again soon. Herbert is the only columnist in the mainstream press consistently reporting about the stark reality of our failure to provide the basics for a huge swath of our population.

If America is to seize the new year with vigor, we need to come to grips with the facts about our economy. We've had zero job growth in the last decade. Our industrial base has eroded to little more than a shell of its former greatness. We don't have a program to change this situation. And now, one in four American children are fed with the assistance of Food Stamps.

Looking for Real Cures

by Bill Kavanagh: Today's NY Times carries an editorial that warns the Obama Administration against sticking with the economic half-measures it continues to take since the meltdown of 2008. Here we are, heading into 2010 and the US economy is still dragged down by zombie banks, loaded up with bad mortgage paper, a lack of credit for small business, little regulation on the financial markets, continued high unemployment, and a growing political obsession with closing the budget deficit while the need for more stimulus looms large. The Times editors ask whether anyone has learned the lessons of the meltdown— and if the US will avoid the fate of the Japanese 'lost decade' of the 1990's.

There are few reasons to believe the political class in the US cares enough about the long-term health of our economy to take the hard steps necessary to restore real economic health to our system. Despite this, one hopes there are enough voices out there to keep discussion alive about actually fixing those banks that are still zombies, instituting some serious new regulatory barriers to prevent the next bubble, and putting our people back to work. We must get our priorities straight in the United States— or we'll be looking at another economic collapse in only a matter of time.

(Bill cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond.)

Afghanistan Stimulus Plan

by Bill Kavanagh: I'm thinking about Afghanistan this morning. Not so much because I'm a real foreign policy wonk... mostly I'm thinking about it because I read a blog called Here and Far, which my blog-friend Matt Mabe and his girlfriend Molly write. Matt is stationed in Gardez, Afghanistan and Molly is a writer here in the US. Matt is battling not only the Taliban, but also the depressing holiday angst that comes with going without his home, his girlfriend, his family, and the security which comes with waking up in a bed no one is presently trying to shell.

My heart goes out to Matt and to Molly.

NY Times Backs Investigation of Trading Practice

by Bill Kavanagh: In a NY Times Christmas Eve article, Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story revealed huge and aggressive bets that Goldman Sachs and other trading firms were making against their own clients in the CDO market during the period leading up to the financial meltdown of 2008. In addition, the reporters pointed to Goldman's continued issuance of CDO's which were designed so poorly that many of them failed within months, creating greater profits for the firm's enormous contrary bets on the same products' demise.

These practices, along with the 'triggers' that amplified the losses in the credit default swaps market (see AIG's bankruptcy) seem to have had, at the very least, the potential to create serious contagion in the credit markets. In an editorial today, the NY Times calls for an investigation into these practices and for greater regulation of the derivatives market to prevent future abuses.

In a post here on Christmas Eve, we called for investigations based on these revelations as well. It's in all our best interests to highlight these abuses and deal with the practices they reveal before the next bubble bursts.

(Bill cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond.)

How Traders Might Just Have Caused the Collapse— For Profit

by Bill Kavanagh: Today's NY Times piece, Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It, and Won, by Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story, is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how the credit collapse of 2008 came about. It's a challenging story, detailing some of the staggering bets that Goldman Sachs and other derivatives marketers made against products they themselves were creating, even well into the housing market collapse.

If Congress and regulators are truly serious about better protecting the credit markets, some detailed questions should be answered about whether hair 'triggers' constructed in these instruments logarithmically increased the chances of a catastrophic housing securities market collapse. What's more troubling is the evidence that some of the CDOs were marketed by the same firms that were betting heavily against the housing market. The story raises the possibility that some CDOs were hyped just so that the firms' own bets against them would payoff more richly— even as their clients were enticed to buy more and more bad housing securities products.

It's a shame that this article appears on a day that most of its readers are busier with "The Night Before Christmas" than with the Grey Lady's front page.

Half a Loaf

by Bill Kavanagh: Like many of you, I'm sick to death of the slow-motion evisceration of the healthcare 'reform' bill winding its way through the Senate. As we inch toward the decade's end, it seems that each day brings a new Senator out of the woodwork to take his or her rightful fifteen minutes of infamy. As each dim Senatorial light insists on stripping out another element of reform, in order either to please a lobbyist or to insure against anyone who might later claim they were a progressive for voting "Yes," I have to wonder whether what's left in this legislation is worth fighting for.

But there is a wealth of experience out there, starting with the missed health insurance opportunity offered during the Nixon years, to remind us that passing on significant reform in order to drive home our revulsion at the way Washington works will delay any healthcare progress, however slight, for at least another presidential administration. That's at least four more years of millions of uninsured Americans staying outside the system, getting sicker and dying faster.

'Climate-Gate?' Oh, I Wish...

by Bill Kavanagh: As Brad DeLong is fond of saying, "Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?"

It's pretty disheartening, just as President Obama has announced he'll be going to the Copenhagen Climate Conference at its closing (implying a possible deal to announce on carbon emission reductions) to see that the WaPo is instead playing up the ridiculous 'Climategate' story so prominently. It's a great distraction for those who'd rather bury their heads in the sand than deal with the reality of climate change, but a real disservice to readers who by now should have little doubt of the severity of the crisis we are into.

I remember when the Post was a beacon for press freedom and independence. Do you?

(Bill cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond .)