Condescending Saviors

 

I wrote this shortly after the Democratic Convention:

This recent convention solidified five deficiencies of the Democratic Party. Rather than addressing these well-known criticisms, the liberal elite, the party owned them with a nice helping of Jingo.

One is their use of the term middle class. Looking down from the upper I suppose what they see is the middle class. I wrote about class in my book, Another Data Processing Book. In US land we have nine classes, a tic tac toe board, upper, middle and lower both ways:

Upper upper	Middle upper	Lower upper
Upper middle	Middle middle	Lower middle
Upper lower	Middle lower	Lower lower

 

 Most of us are middle-lower and lower-lower. There is a big bulb at the bottom with a long tail stretching out into the distance. Somewhere on that tail you can parse out a small segment that contains the population middle-middle. We aren’t in it, and we know that. I haven’t found the middle class all that amenable to my company and I’m okay with that. Democrats use the term middle class as aspiration. Perhaps they are squeamish, if there is a middle, then there must be an upper and lower, but those terms are too offensive. It is disorienting to use the word middle without lower and upper. The disposition of wealth does not fall into a bell curve and that should be an advantage to Democrats. The middle-class votes for Orange Jesus.

Second is the use of the term workers. When we think of workers, we think of unions. For most of us, unions mean we can’t get jobs. We aren’t in the 11%.  To raise wages, you must reduce hiring. Occasionally we get sucked into organizing efforts that end disastrously. Boycotts, wildcats and new trade unions are illegal. Companies are fined and unions imprisoned. Again, Democrats aspire; we live here. Union people are often middle class.

Third is the argument that we should do it for mom. MAGA base hates its mom. I’m not saying they are wrong. Mom didn’t think much of them. When mom doesn’t make you special, you find other justification.

Fourth is the subsidies. I’m not talking about services but subsidies. If everyone got something, no one got it. Mortgage interest deduction is a good example. The deduction means banks charge homeowners more interest. As Adam Smith explained, if ministers get free tuition, there will be too many ministers for churches to hire. Subsidizing home buying makes housing more expensive. If tips were tax free, we would tip our lawyers. If everyone has a college degree, it is not a distinction. We all know this.

Fifth, we need to end our empire. It’s too great a sacrifice and too expensive. Take Gaza, please. US and Qatar interest in Gaza is preventing the development of Gaza Marine, Thirteen something trillion something cubic something times whatever. Qatar is now our junior partner selling natural gas to Europe and neither of us want a large gas field selling to our market. Texas is giving natural gas away and Europe is buying. That is why the US is recovering so well. That is why we blew up the pipeline.  US and Qatar favor any policy that delays development. Stooge is a subset of chump. It is cunning, it is also dumb. US produces the most oil, we won, we’re the OPEC. Why should it be US ruining the world to make a buck? All empires fall. Let’s go out with more style. If you don’t share, no one will play with you.

This doesn’t mean we should hire an idiot to run the country. The first time the babbling baboon ran they didn’t bother with a platform. Since there were no stated objectives and who would want to work for him, they just made a mess. The Project 2025 document begins by acknowledging the mess. This time Republicans created a ridiculous and defensive platform, they hate immigrants, trans and poor people. Republicans hire the undocumented. They put on a big show, but they hate the documented immigrants who will someday vote. Abortion is only illegal for poor people in stupid states. Republicans know that they are so hateful that people become trans to avoid being gay. Hateful and rich doesn’t make it legitimate. Republicans don’t understand they are giving away the game. You can’t govern without legitimacy.

Bobs court is an embarrassment. Each decision is worse, with no pretense of sense or justification. Cleaning up this mess will require constitutional amendments. Most idiotic in the history of courts is giving the president free reign. Mealy mouthed as it was, the court did not write an opinion to restrain the president. The decision provides a silly framework to justify any executive decision. In principle, our president could order Bobs killed. Bobs is corrupt, it’s in the national interest and it’s an official act.

There was a US citizen running around Yemen running his mouth. The president ordered him killed. Then we killed his sixteen-year-old son. The first two were killed with missiles. Then the next president ordered a ground operation to kill his five-year-old daughter and the family taking care of her. Presidents have little fear of prosecution. There is no reason to make that official.

Government is all in the wrist. It almost doesn’t matter what the policy is if it is executed well and conversely how good it is if executed poorly. Democrats mean well, or at least profess good intentions. A president must come in with about four thousand people or at least 400 who can each bring ten. Even if fat and furious made sense, he doesn’t have the people. Would you work for him? Look what happened to the ones that did. Six months doesn’t give much pension. Do you want Island of Misfit Toys on your resume?

Obama handled three epidemics. El Pompadour couldn’t get an appropriation for the vaccines. Instead, they drained the government research budget. Government research is where the future comes from. That set us back at least ten years.

Troll in chief privatized government intelligence. Our government intelligence is temps.

When someone announces they are an idiot, they are a one issue voter, or undecided they give away the argument and they can’t state their true reasons. Hope they are not registered. There is nothing wrong with being either liberal or elite if you deliver. If only more poor people voted. If only more poor people voted in the primaries. The harder it is to vote, the more it matters.

Voting for the gibbering gibbon won’t keep black people out of your neighborhood. You know that. Persecuting poor women in stupid states doesn’t stop abortion. This is a democracy. Eventually abortion will be unequivocally legal; we’re sick of your shit. Ending abortion doesn’t stop women working. No one wants to marry your stupid ugly kid. You know that too. You are not going to bring down the American empire. The American empire will end when it’s good and ready and it won’t be because of losers like you. All you have done is make another mess that everyone else will have to clean up, just like every time before.

Rock is dead.

Kind of fun. But then I wonder if I was telling you anything. Would this have any effect? Would it be positive?

It is yet another vestige of slavery that such a small plurality, less than 2,500,000 votes, produces so dramatic an advantage. There were only about 6 million registered voters that didn’t vote.

When training a police officer or prison guard someone has the responsibility of explaining to them that if they are taken hostage, it is possible that they will be the first target of the police sniper. This policy became obvious at the Attica Prison uprising. This minimizes casualties. Porky’s 47 cracks about Hannibal Lecter are a juvenile reference to the Isreal Hannibal directive that informed the Israeli people that they are all prison guards. Juvenile slyness targets a demographic.

Incels affect a depraved exploitative homosexuality. Orange Julius fellatio references was for their benefit.

There is no reasoning with MAGA. Biden cut bait in Afghanistan, not Don John. Big Greasy jailing children and sending their parents back to die insulted the Mexican undocumented and they quit coming. The fruit rotted, stores closed on Mondays and there are more jobs. That combined with Double O zero raising oil prices and Covid supply shocks without the undocumented to cushion them, brought inflation. Admittedly Mexico doesn’t seem to have street gutters, and they use adobe not brick, wait till they are arguing in front of the Supreme Court. It is wrong to let Cubans run Catholic charities. East Orthodox handled their federal money. We haven’t quite made it, but if we can survive the Irish, we can survive anything. Except for 9/11 Muslims are Irish lite.

MAGA likes undocumented. The undocumented work for MAGA. MAGA is not going to round up and deport its own undocumented. It is the people in the system, paying taxes, workmen’s comp, social security, that will someday vote who MAGA targets. Whatever rationalization MAGA offers, it ends with voting for His Hugeness.

MAGA doesn’t care about any of this. They don’t care about the price of eggs. They hate women, blacks, and themselves. Whatever talking point they throw, there is no way that Rumbo will deliver, except for keeping a woman out of the White House.

You can’t change people’s minds. What you can do is bring in new constituencies. My mom helped win an aldermanic by registering students in 1959. Big Cheeto’s success in 2016 was bringing his audience into the Republican party. Kind of like converting the King of the Khazars.  Jews quit proselytizing after that. Bidens victory was due to the Democratic snap back, more new Democrats registered than Republicans. Each election registered more voters. This election the Republicans found incels and enough women want their pussy grabbed. Besides running a woman, the Democratic mistake was concentrating all that resource on the existing voting base rather than registering more voters. Taylor Swift and Beyonce can’t overwhelm the incels by themselves. Someday we may run out of unregistered, but for now even Democrats should have found constituencies amongst the more than 80 million. Showing voter registration should be obligatory at concerts, events, demonstrations and family gatherings.

The Business School at University of Chicago just made the argument that we vote for Democrats when times are bad and Republicans when we feel prosperous. This is in line with Adam Smith’s view of the constant cycle between ruination and salvation in democracies. It was said that Democrats must be bought, and Republicans are already there. Everybody is bought. The difference is that Democrats seek consensus, and Republicans think they are right.

It is almost impossible to believe that “can you get me 11,000 votes” and electric Musk didn’t steal the election. There is the Adamowski argument. Adamowski was the Cook County States Attorney in 1959. Daley got Republicans to trade him away for Nixon votes. Since the States Attorney is supposed to police elections, if he can’t do his job he doesn’t get to keep it. If the election is stolen from incumbents, they are incompetent. Again, Democrat incumbents want an obvious plurality. Democrats are hurt that misogyny beats ability.

As to registered voters. I am going to state the obvious. During an election voters have power. The voters are deciding who to hire. We used to go door to door canvassing precincts to determine how people are going to vote. There is a quantum problem. Someone might say:

-I was going to vote for your candidate.

Canvassers should be short, elderly, and like your pet. One tactic is to ask people if they want to volunteer.  They don’t, but if they looked guilty, they were probably a plus. Once we contacted you and determined your preference, we did not contact you until election day. If you hadn’t voted we would helpfully remind you. If you were a minus or a zero, we didn’t want to remind you to vote. If you were a plus any further contact might change your mind.

Once we had experience in the precinct, we didn’t have to canvass everybody. There was the legendary Mrs. Isenberg of East Hyde Park who had five precincts. Voters knew when she was available to ask her how to vote if they weren’t sure. She may have occasionally canvassed if it was expected.

As I explained in an earlier post, I vote against anyone who robocalls me. Once you know I am voting for Harris and I am not donating money, any further contact may discourage me, even texts. The message Harris gave is that her campaign did not know who I am and has too much money. Just because I am voting for you doesn’t mean I should be pestered. Harris is the first candidate who wanted my donation more than my vote. Would you solicit money on a job interview? I would like to see a list of donors who did not vote.

The Democratic Party did fine out of this, everybody made money. Now they can stand back, and watch Republicans make another stinking mess. Grifter in Chief is already shaking the tariff money tree, looking for his taste, just as before with a wider scope. Please don’t ever say managed trade again. We need the free trade amendment. Put that on the list with ending the presidential pardon, abortion is legal amendment, dropping the second amendment, ERA, making federal election law an amendment, ending the Department of Labor, legalize drugs… The Democrats expect to come roaring back. After Big Bill Thompson Chicago is a Democratic city. Assuming there is another election. Mr. Microphone and the right wing Yippees denying legitimacy while owning the oil market invites a coup.

How Hillary Lost

 A ridiculous amount of effort is spent criticizing Hillary Clinton’s character. When elections are that close, every infraction is magnified. There is a much simpler material explanation.

It is pathetic how cheap Congress is. Most of their time is spent on phone banks raising money. There was a moment when it looked like Chicago’s alderman Vrdolyak would be sent to Congress. Imagine:

-This is a billion-dollar appropriation? I get more than this for a zoning variance.

Occasionally money rains on Washington. World War II was cost plus. Johnson unleashed Taiwan. When Nixon made the China deal, they had so much cash they were shoving it into filing cabinets. Reaganauts were Nixon wannabes. Bush Sr. held up the Saudis for Kuwait. Hillary Clinton was queen. She shook down healthcare so hard their teeth rattled. Everyone in Washington should love Hillary Clinton. The Saudis had to sit down, and Ross Perot complained about the service. Insurance and Pharmacy were in a bidding war to see who could shut it down fastest.

Healthcare was not going to allow Hillary the presidency, either time. Obama, lawyer that he is, crafted a compromise that has held. Healthcare was still frightened of Clinton. Who could they pay? Orange Julius is unreliable. Would you give money to Rumbo? Healthcare paid Putin. Healthcare didn’t have to report it. Putin used the marketing tactics we taught him for His Hugeness:

-Oh, we wouldn’t interfere in your elections.

Cambridge Analytica had a pass because they were doing god’s work. Everyone looked the other way while Cambridge Analytica, a creature of England’s security service, violated privacy protection. Cambridge Analytica was identifying the goofs. If a goof was heading to Syria say, we would know who they were. When Bannon’s boyfriend, Mercer, got hold of Cambridge Analytica he said:

-Show them where the polls are.

Cambridge Analytica shared lists with the Russians. The Russian problem was that they had no one reliable to coordinate with. Would you work for El Pompadour? Fat and Furious had to shout over the top.

It was just enough. As Joe Kennedy said:

-I’m not paying for a landslide.

I have an entry in this blog on Brexit where I speculate that healthcare paid Putin for that.

The Supreme Court is going to twist constructionist into a pretzel arguing that the 14th amendment is unconstitutional.  How can you argue original intent if you won’t respect the letter of the law? They just ignored the 9^th amendment in their “argument” against abortion. The Supremes took that original intent from the inquisition. The definition of fascism is ignoring the law in favor of popular will. Given that the law is so brazenly flaunted, our only hope is crossing over to vote for Haley in the primary.

Quotas

 

In Another Data Processing Book I have an essay on affirmative action. I also have a blog entry In Defense of Privilege. In light of recent events, I am revisiting them here.

Most people seem to believe that affirmative action meant that we simply instituted quotas. Affirmative action law was passed by whites. If you could demonstrate merit, and not very strictly, you didn’t have to have quotas. So, case by case, company by company, school by school, it was proven in a court of law that they had legacy, employees’ kids, preferences, that they did not select on merit. They had quotas and now the question was how big those quotas should be. This maximized work for the lawyers. That is why there are law firms devoted to civil rights law.

Current arguments against quotas have a misplaced notion of fairness The arguments of the time focused on institutional autonomy. They used phrases like “academic integrity”. Invariably these institutions receive federal money. They recognize everyone else’s patronage. We the people decided to use our patronage in this way.

Affirmative action is why all these institutions have requirements and tests. They provide screens to justify the decisions they want to make. When I was hitting for programmer trainee jobs, if you could make it past reception and the initial interview you were then tested. Reception and the initial interview weren’t all that easy. Reception wants to minimize the work load. At Sears the first interview question was about High school. I had gone to Kenwood; we don’t talk about Kenwood. Or rather when we do, nobody believes us. You were supposed to say:

-It was just like Leave it to Beaver, only better.

One common screen was a low starting salary.

The tests had several dyslexia questions and then the washout question. No one got the washout question. Then the company could pick and choose as they always had while satisfying the legal requirement. Sometimes the question looked doable but the answer was none of the above or cannot be answered with the information given. Unless you recognized the point was to wash everyone out it is difficult to pick those. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail there is a joke about swallows. At Time Inc. I was looking down at the test and I recognized a swallow question. I am one of the few who got the washout question. Now the company was in a difficult position, I was not one of the intended. They did their best to discourage me. Being dense I figured that was more of their selection process. Thanks to affirmative action I was the merit hire. This was not common. The class was white. The first thing the instructor told us was:

-Anyone can be a programmer.

We all laughed.

The essential function of middle management is to avoid responsibility. Affirmative action gave middle management a handy dandy all-purpose excuse for difficult personnel decisions. Whites accepted when they were told:

-We had to take a black guy.

There might be one black in the class, but that is not why you didn’t get in, laid off, or terminated. The perception of quotas was far greater than the reality. Imagine the white resonance when every bad thing that happened to them and theirs was quotas. White rage means black people get killed.

More blacks were hired. It was still racist. A fellow student was a double major in mathematics and physics, on the dean’s list. When he interviewed, he was offered human resources jobs. He then got his MBA from University of Chicago. When he interviewed, he was offered human resources jobs. He decided to work for his dad. I saw some of those black human resources retiring decades later as vice presidents and directors, wasn’t that bad.

Obama, with all his qualifications, practiced civil rights law.

It used to be that the aspiring young man with the good degree started in the mail room.  He wasn’t always a relative, but sometimes there just wasn’t anyone else, what can you do? The point of such a job was that he met everyone in the company. Everyone understood why he was there and they took him under their wing and mentored him. He was given further responsibility. Someone from reception who knew everyone coming through the front door was selected for his secretary. If they worked well together, they were a team that moved up in the company. This reinforced corporate culture, although sometimes he would take the company in “a new direction”.

The new requirements mean that the young man has to pass a clerical aptitude test. Those kids are often dyslectic, mom drank. Instead, they get an MBA degree. This means they are coming into the company as middle management and much less approachable. They even select their own administrative assistant. They believe, with their year of accounting, they are experts in business. This corruption of status is the worst consequence. We had an MBA president:

-I am the decider.

Now that the supreme court with their defiant rejection of quotas have returned to privilege, we see the end of all the various requirements. Your degree will be considered rather than required. As will whatever other abilities and references. In Chicago an alderman is a good reference. Companies and schools are no longer required even a pretense. If you think blacks were the only beneficiaries of quotas, wait for it, wait for it. Bosses hire people like themselves. The confirmation bias is that homogeneity is more comfortable. This means you ladies. There are women who resent working. If you hate your job, try full time work for a husband.

The great logicians, Russell and Whitehead, selected the wealthy applicant, Wittgenstein, over the one who tested higher. Endowment is logical.

Worst President

1. Kennedy nearly blew up the world. Eisenhower had been waving the bomb around but now there was reprisal. Berlin, Bay of Pigs, Missile Crisis, Assassination, it was called brinkmanship.
2. Reagan was just running his mouth, but middle management on both sides was listening. Brave Petrov, Able Archer, Fleetex, KAL 007, Reagan calmed down after he was shot. Both Irishmen believed they had a special relationship with the Soviet Union.
3. Jefferson unleashed Napoleon on Europe. The only real consequence of the Louisiana Purchase was funding Napoleon. Jefferson said he expected Napoleon to attack the British, but the French direction was clear after the Seven Years’ War.   Napoleon was a general not an admiral. Dropping guns in Haiti, backstabbing Washington on the loan, stopping the tobacco deal, don’t say it turned out for the best. We don’t know what would have happened. Jefferson was slime.
4. Wilson’s intervention in World War I led to World War II.
5. Teddy Roosevelt was our most popular president. Roosevelt picked the next two presidents. He campaigned for our World War I intervention in support of the British. Roosevelt’s island by island suppression of the Philippines was an example to Japan. Japan and Germany were United States wannabes.
6. Eisenhower was a great general. His selection from the ranks as head of the European theater was a miracle. Unfortunately Eisenhower was a great general. Countless successful interventions of small forces, guns and money throughout the world murdered the idealists and frustrated sovereignty leading to disaster that Eisenhower was no longer around to manage.  He was embarrassed in Indonesia. Eisenhower put out the fires without clearing the underbrush. The SOCOM fantasy persists to this day.
7. Jackson, westward expansion and the associated atrocities seem inevitable. But Jackson left us with no shred of decency or self-respect.   There was also his financial manipulation in support of the overseas Dutch. Jackson and Van Buren established the Democratic Party which eventually gave us the Civil War.
8. Nixon, Cambodia and Indonesia will suffice.
9. Bush Jr. the MBA chump who fell for Bin-Laden’s provocation. Lead the US out of prosperity and into ruin.
10. Tyler joined the Confederacy.
11. Washington started the Seven Years War. He skimmed the French funds meant for his starving troops. He did keep the British occupied until France could win the Revolution. Without the benefit of gunpowder. If you don’t believe the British could have won, let me refer you to India, China and South Africa. Fortunately the British didn’t send the bad boy who would have dropped guns in the South and burned granaries in the North. Washington’s great mistake as president was sending Jefferson to France. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Jefferson’s job in France was to get the tobacco deal; instead he went to the other side. Jefferson was probably tipped by the Turks. Without the tobacco deal we had Shay’s rebellion. When it was clear that the French weren’t giving the loan in part because of Washington’s even handed policy, Washington was told to grab his hat and not let the door hit him on the way out.
12. Don John is the piñata for the ecological disaster.
13. Buchanan, pro slavery president just before the Civil War.
14. Andrew Johnson obstructed Reconstruction.
15. Lyndon Johnson got the China Lobby to support his social programs in exchange for the Vietnam War.  Johnson is the reason people are terrified of a socialist president. Obama holds him up as the example of change without consensus.
16. John Adams got the loan from the Dutch and sold out to the British, but his fundamental function was to hold off Jefferson. Only managed one term.
17. Hoover tightened up standards and enforced prohibition before he was elected president; disrupting business arrangements which helped bring on the Depression. Hoover and his cronies supported the Germans. In Hoover’s case because he had worked for the British.
18. Fillmore opened up Japan. That worked out well.
19. Cleveland was such a stinker.  The death knell of reconstruction.
20. James Monroe supported Jefferson.

Best President

1. Franklin Roosevelt, you may question his character and policies, but Roosevelt led us through the Great Depression and the Second World War. His appointment of George C. Marshal was great. As was Henry Wallace and Eleanor Roosevelt.
2. Lincoln won the election of 1864. McClellan would have been victory for the South.
3. Ford, modern presidents have the advantage of greater disaster and recovery. I have a soft spot for goodhearted insider conservatives. We could have had John Connally.
4. James Madison wrote the Constitution. Conciliated with Britain. We could have lost the war of 1812. Held on to Maine. Wasn’t named Jimmy.
5. Carter, insufferable sanctimony worsened by being right. Carter creeps up in the rankings. I see why Rosalyn beats him.
6. Truman, someone finally fired McArthur. Held off Dewey.
7. Bush Sr. Adam Smith bemoans the constant cycle of wastrels and saviors in politics. Republicans hold this as their fundamental tenet, the Santa Claus Presidency and opposition to socialism. Bush Sr. was the statesman who lied and saved the Republic. Clinton was smart enough to keep his policies. I would rate Bush Sr. higher except hijacking Carter’s Iran operation in support of Reagan. Also participating in the shooting of two other presidents.
8. Obama should also rate higher. His legacy will forever be marred by his successor.  The Department of Justice did not prevent Republicans from fixing the election.
9. John Quincy Adams failed to hold off Jackson, always right, never enough.

There are a number of dynasty, bookend, adversary and conjoined presidents. Did we always elect the wrong one? The various scandals look quaint. Rights usually mean right to have slaves or suppress unions. Empire is judged by atrocity. I have a new respect for meh presidents, who didn’t embarrass us, get caught, or mess up.

American Presidents as Agents of a Foreign Power

George Washington – France

John Adams – Dutch pirates

Thomas Jefferson – France

James Madison – France

James Monroe – England

John Quincy Adams –England

Andrew Jackson – Dutch pirates

Martin Van Buren – Dutch pirates

William Henry Harrison –Dutch pirates

John Tyler -Dutch pirates

James K Polk – Dutch pirates

Zachary Taylor – England

Millard Fillmore – Spain

Franklin Pierce - no

James Buchanan - no

Abraham Lincoln – no

Andrew Johnson – no

Ulysses S. Grant – England

Rutherford B. Hayes – England

James A. Garfield – no

Chester A. Arthur – England

Grover Cleveland – England

Benjamin Harrison – no

William McKinley – no

Theodore Roosevelt – England

William Howard Taft – no

Woodrow Wilson – dupe of England

Warren G. Harding – no

Calvin Coolidge – no

Herbert Hoover – Germany

Franklin D. Roosevelt – England

Harry S. Truman – Taiwan

Dwight D. Eisenhower – Taiwan

John F. Kennedy – no

Lyndon B. Johnson – Taiwan

Richard Nixon – China

Gerald Ford – Saudi Arabia

Jimmy Carter – God

Ronald Reagan – Russia

George H. W. Bush – Saudi Arabia

Bill Clinton – pirates

George W. Bush – Iran

Barack Obama – pirates

Romney 3.9 Percentage Points Behind Obama

It is obvious by now that both Obama and Romney campaigns were trying to keep the race as close as possible in order to maximize fund raising. Our political campaigns are in the potlatch tradition.  They provide the means for us to make payouts within the tax code without the appearance of impropriety.  Very little of the activity has much to do with influencing votes

Dick Morris, the manic depressive Delphi, argues that the United States electorate should be romanced like an adolescent with a constant barrage of upbeat optimism.

When we step back from all the clutter there appear to be some fundamentals driving the voting choice.  I believe that we can build a model for these beliefs based on our history.  It is generally held that we Americans have no historical sense or memory but I contend that we do have a mythology based on our collective memory of historical events.

One of our collective modern issues is that most of us, at least below a certain age, have never been in a true drag out physical fight.  In the past, one of the earliest lessons learned on the playground was that you can be right and you can lose the fight.  Conversely you can be wrong and you can win.  Deprived of practical experience and subjected to constant bombardment of TV people seem to have confused winning with moral superiority.  A classic example is the statement:

-We were wrong to go to war in Vietnam because we lost.

The “because” is the fallacy.  We may well have been wrong and we certainly lost but that is not the reason.

Unions are a good example.  The success of unions in the thirties and forties was met by legislation restricting trade unions, wild cat strikes and boycotts.  Once the union movement was stifled most people took the position that unions were no good because they failed.  I have yet to hear a free market proponent call for unleashing our unions because international competition will keep them in check.

This moral vindication paradox is the reason that the Romney people speak of disillusionment.  For them Obama’s ideals must be invalid because they were not implemented.

Looking back in recent memory, who were the best and worst presidents?  Over time presidents that were reviled have become sainted and the accomplishments of the heroes have been lost.

Eisenhower looks pretty good, getting the troops out of Korea and into Little Rock.  He was a general, he excelled at using the minimum force necessary to flip governments, suppress rebellions and put out brush fires around the world.  Later, however, each of his successes became new and greater conflagrations. Much as we have come to realize that we need brush fires to prevent catastrophes, stifling national autonomy leads to eventual global crisis. Eisenhower, because of his competence, may have been our worst president.

Kennedy is the most frightening, by his own count taking us to the edge of nuclear destruction three separate times. The portrayal of Kennedy and his brother as idealistic has once again conflated idealism with recklessness.

Nixon has the greatest infamy but he was handed the worst mess in recent history.  He blew smoke, kicked sand and somehow bluffed us through our international bankruptcy while convincing the China lobby to go along with recognizing China and the strategy of Vietnamizing the war.

Bush Senior is another who pulled us out of disaster.  Clinton gets the credit for sticking to the course that Bush set.

Given this history, it is not surprising that Americans almost preferred a lying double talker to a party ideologue.

How can you criticize someone for selling out his ideals when the ideals are so rotten?  Good for Romney, taking the tease party for a ride with that ridiculous platform.

The one group I really disliked from the Vietnam War was the Vets for Peace.  They would always start their speech by saying that they didn’t know what they were getting into when they went off to war.  Talk about not listening.  What did they think the peace movement was carrying on about?  This passionate naiveté is our worst quality. Please don’t tell me you didn’t know that going up to Tyson’s hotel room would end badly. The Vietnam War wasn’t Johnson’s mistake. It was the price Johnson paid to the China lobby for backing his legislation. Being disappointed with Nixon’s illegal activities is a howler. Who would have thought that big spender, fight anyone anywhere Bush Jr. would lead to fiscal disaster?

I suppose that the voters were frightened that Romney might actually believe that his platform had popular support, rather than that we were hoping for his betrayal of it.

South Side Vignette

It was difficult for me working against fourth ward Alderman Timmy Evans.  I liked his people.  They were better than some, try as they might to distinguish themselves.  I was carpet bagging, coming into their precinct/ward from my own ward, the fifth. There are fifty wards in Chicago. You would think that with fifty aldermen it wouldn’t be such a big deal, yet the aldermanic elections are the most hard fought.  Mom had called me out at the last minute to poll watch for a new candidate, Toni Preckwinkle.  I had to go to my job, so I was more like the old regular democratic workers who showed up in the morning and the night, to check in and get the count.  Timmy’s people just wanted their three extra votes.  The way it works is that they report their expected vote count. Then Timmy, or whoever, says,

-That’s great, can you get me three more.

This is somewhat insulting.  Either you were holding back on your reported count or you have some magic way of convincing people to change their beliefs and vote for your candidate.  A good precinct captain knows how the vote is going to go; they know who votes in their precinct, how they voted in the past and how they are likely to vote in the future.  That’s what a precinct captain does. 

Three more means steal three votes.  This federal crime was routinely committed. The judges didn’t want any fuss so they gave me the option. I guess Tim just wanted the practice; we weren’t going to win this one, so I blessed the three bad ballots, got the count and dropped it off at the Preckwinkle headquarters. 

Toni kept running, election after election, until finally Alan Dobry, the fifth ward democratic committeeman, went to the mat for her and sent Timmy off to his judgeship.  One of Timmy’s idiots printed up some fliers picking on Toni’s husband and Dobry gathered them up and redistributed them where they would do some good.  Since Dobry hadn’t printed them, he broke no laws. Nonetheless, brave Alan received considerable criticism from those who are not good enough to even breathe his air.  I think of this whenever I receive solicitations for WTTW. I’m sure my sweet old mother was smiling down on Alan from on high.

In an earlier election, after the first one I was in, but before the one she won, Toni had called on mom when one of her new people was experiencing some difficulty working his precinct. The fourth ward wasn’t near as nice as it is today.  He wasn’t sure how to cope and asked for help so Toni sent her best. Mom showed him how to whoop and holler, to let people know you are coming, and stand back from the door after you knocked.  I’m not good at canvassing myself, too big I guess.  I ask them how they are voting but they just take my literature and smile. What you want voters to do is be comfortable and tell you what they think. Like many things, mom had an easier time teaching this to others than to her sons.

Mom pulled out her old jokes, when people asked for money she’d laugh and say,

-Well, we don’t have that much, but they do. Don’t vote for free. You know they are giving it out.

I guess it worked; Timmy’s people got some heat from people expecting payment, because eventually Gentleman Tim came by and asked how much it would take for her to go home.  Recognizing that a bribe is an implicit threat, mom took the money.

She was very impressed with the new Preckwinkle precinct captain.

-He’s going to be somebody, she told me.

-What’s his name?

-Barack Obama.

-Not with that name, I said.

I think it is worthwhile, now that the elections are over and hopefully no harm can be done, to show that the neighborhood did try to raise the president correctly. Unlike most candidates, Obama has actually been in the trenches and done the work.

Can the President Kill People?

The short and simple answer is yes. The various authorities and means available to him are as diverse and varied as our government agencies.  Most obviously as Commander in Chief the president commands the military.  The military will carry out his orders. The military should also record his orders and report the consequences.  Such reports should be available for review by authorized persons making it likely that they will become public.

The military has overcome this oversight in the past by various well known mechanisms. One legendary example was the order to troops in the Pacific to feed captives from their own rations. Another is to maintain favored units or individuals who well understand that their privileges depend on obedience and discretion. More normally certain areas or endeavors are categorized as off limits and subject to summary execution.

J. Edgar Hoover was a remarkable instance.  His homosexuality made him so vulnerable that he would carry out any executive order.

The National Security Agency, now under military authority can carry out any activity approved by a rubber stamp court.  Richard Nixon crossed the line when he was caught using NSA authority in his political campaign. At that time the NSA was overseen by a committee rather than a court.

Outside the vast array of military intelligence groups there are seven known US intelligence agencies. The Central Intelligence Agency is unique in the world as the only government agency chartered to operate without pretext or legal protection.   Their direction is to not get caught.

 The national police agencies include the Treasury, US Marshals, Drug Enforcement Agency, the aforementioned FBI, Forestry and the new TSA.

It seems reasonable given this assortment that the president could find someone to do his bidding.

Kennedy maintained relationships with gangsters, presumably under NSA authority, George W. Bush found it necessary to circumvent review of some of his projects and Franklin Roosevelt worked with British intelligence. Whatever the means, one would think that a reasonably competent government executive could have as much effectiveness as a corporate leader.

Apparently they just noticed that there is a black guy operating the crane.

The President’s Tucson Speech

I’m surprised that no one has recognized Obama’s speech in Tucson.  The papers give credit to a young speechwriter from Wilmette.  This same well-worn speech has been given thousands of times by ministers across the country.  Whenever someone has died for standing, the ministers trot out this chestnut.  You can’t beat them on hatred, stupidity or bitterness, so you concentrate on love, decency, truth and caring.   Because we are the good, the righteous and just, and they are filthy swamp slime and don’t you ever, ever, ever forget that.

I can’t stand watching Palin.  I just don’t have the tolerance for it.  She may be some kind of smart, but when she is talking, she gets an irritating unfocused stupid look. Reading the text of her speech, it seemed reasonable. Except that while I understand that she talks in code, people should say what they mean. If she meant votes, she should have said votes.

We have learned a few things about Congresswoman Giffords.  I doubt that I agree with her views much, but she sounds like she’d be fun at a party.  I look forward to hearing what she thinks of this tragedy.

It’s so sad that the response focuses on the size of magazines.  The NRA solution of arming everyone is sad as well.  People like me, with intense hair trigger tempers, should not carry arms.  Only the Secret Service seems to be taking a fact based, rational, even humanist approach.  At the risk of over simplifying, perhaps this is a national health care issue.