In another six months we may be digging out Robert Kuttner's prescient 2007 book The Squandering of America and shaking our heads in sorrow. As is so often the case in biped history, the really bad news may turn out to have been hidden in plain view.
Kuttner’s thesis is that our politico-business elites systematically have ignored the lessons learned from the economic meltdown of the 1930s and undermined the regulatory apparatus constructed in its aftermath to avoid a repetition. They have rationalized this dismantling of the financial safeguards for the usual reasons—herd-driven greed and the irresistible temptation of the possible—sort of like knocking off defenseless Iraq. Wall Street highwaymen saw that they could get away with holding up the financial system and walking off with a cool billion. So they did.
Now the speculative game is unraveling on all sides, led by the famous subprime mortgage debacle. But Kuttner argued that the spinout could come from a half-dozen arenas of irrational, over-leveraged, unregulated, speculative shenanigans—all made possible by the bipartisan abandonment of the government’s role as referee.
If he’s right, the casualties haven’t even begun to pile up. With hundreds of secretive hedge funds driving the credit, stock and commodity markets, all on borrowed cash, further disruptions are not only inevitable but likely to cascade throughout the system in a most unpleasant way, and not just for them.
Homowners are obviously on the hook now, but these guys also control our pension fund money. Given all the bogus hysteria over the alleged future bankruptcy of the Social Security system, it would be ironic if instead it was the private sector that went bust and left us destitute in our old age.
But don’t expect to hear much about this from McCain, Obama or Huckabee as they roam New Hampshire chirping about ‘change’ and defending us little guys. Politicians now need such obscene amounts of cash to compete that they live way too far up the GI tract of big business to be suddenly shining any useful torches on those pipes. Or as Kuttner phrases it in his subtitle, ‘How the failure of politics undermines our prosperity.’
Edwards, whose populist rhetoric comes closest to sounding an alarm, hasn’t caught on much, and given the influence all that money buys, it’s even harder to believe he would or could actually do what he says once elected. Real change may indeed be en route, but it’s far more likely to result from disaster on a massive scale than from the superficial, feel-good rhetoric driving this electoral process.
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Sunday, 6 January 2008
There Will Be Prizes
One common feature of the many film critics’ Top 10 lists this year was the consistent, though not universal, presence of There Will Be Blood. Hardly anyone had seen it at the time the lists came out since it had opened only a couple days before the new year, just in time to qualify for Oscar nominations (and Top 10 lists).
If I didn’t know that Hollywood is an honest place where altruistic people dedicate their lives to Art, I might suspect that some sort of fix was in. The pre-release buzz was so laudatory and breathless that it took me three tries to get near the picture at all as every show was sold out hours in advance.
Blood tells the story of a turn-of-the-century oil prospector and entrepreneur against a backdrop of frontier life in the Southwest circa 1900. The title suggests an epic tale of ruthless competition for the black gold and the accompanying pervasive social and political corruption, a sort of Chinatown with tumbleweed.
Instead, we get derricks-by-Disney. Daniel Day-Lewis, starring as Snidely Whiplash, masticates his lines en route to full dastardliness around the fourth reel. His main antagonist is a pimply lad who fancies himself a faith-healer and whose preaching is about as lively as a sixth-grade Christmas pageant. Although a good decade elapses in the course of the film, the kid’s stilted dialogue doesn’t advance any further than his facial hair; even his spots remained fixed in place.
But no matter—his job is to be a pious creep, rile Day-Lewis and annoy us so that we can relish his come-uppance. Even more annoying, though, are the three hours we spend watching this sprawling mess of a movie trudge to its pointless conclusion.
By the end we’ve seen a few bits of frontier lore, observed the primitive and dangerous mechanics of early oil extraction, and watched a parade of characters roll by in matching period costumes. But the personages are as flat as the cut-out buildings of the hokey western sets.
Blood isn’t the worst movie around, but it’s sloppy, unconvincing and an awful bore. Why anyone would dare call this clunker a ‘masterpiece’ is a total mystery. However, if a Gucci bag full of cool electronics were to appear on my doorstep, I promise to praise it as great filmmaking.
If I didn’t know that Hollywood is an honest place where altruistic people dedicate their lives to Art, I might suspect that some sort of fix was in. The pre-release buzz was so laudatory and breathless that it took me three tries to get near the picture at all as every show was sold out hours in advance.
Blood tells the story of a turn-of-the-century oil prospector and entrepreneur against a backdrop of frontier life in the Southwest circa 1900. The title suggests an epic tale of ruthless competition for the black gold and the accompanying pervasive social and political corruption, a sort of Chinatown with tumbleweed.
Instead, we get derricks-by-Disney. Daniel Day-Lewis, starring as Snidely Whiplash, masticates his lines en route to full dastardliness around the fourth reel. His main antagonist is a pimply lad who fancies himself a faith-healer and whose preaching is about as lively as a sixth-grade Christmas pageant. Although a good decade elapses in the course of the film, the kid’s stilted dialogue doesn’t advance any further than his facial hair; even his spots remained fixed in place.
But no matter—his job is to be a pious creep, rile Day-Lewis and annoy us so that we can relish his come-uppance. Even more annoying, though, are the three hours we spend watching this sprawling mess of a movie trudge to its pointless conclusion.
By the end we’ve seen a few bits of frontier lore, observed the primitive and dangerous mechanics of early oil extraction, and watched a parade of characters roll by in matching period costumes. But the personages are as flat as the cut-out buildings of the hokey western sets.
Blood isn’t the worst movie around, but it’s sloppy, unconvincing and an awful bore. Why anyone would dare call this clunker a ‘masterpiece’ is a total mystery. However, if a Gucci bag full of cool electronics were to appear on my doorstep, I promise to praise it as great filmmaking.
Saturday, 5 January 2008
The CIA's Torture Porn
Now that there are criminal investigations underway, we’re going to hear a lot about knowledge and complicity in the CIA and the White House about the destruction of the torture tapes. But we should be taking a moment as well to consider why exactly they were made. Tom Englehardt of tomdispatch.com makes an obvious point that I haven’t read elsewhere: that one purpose of the tapes was training.
If you lived in South America during the 1970s or ‘80s, you heard a lot about how people are tortured, most of which you wish you could somehow wash out of your brain afterward. But the human rights organizations also researched how the torturers became who they were. After all, even for a seriously sick element, some of this stuff takes a strong stomach. How did their bosses create a cadre of human beasts who wouldn’t flinch at it?
One way found to desensitize them was by showing videotapes of torture, starting with animals. (I’m not making this up.) After the video was over, the instructor then quizzed the group with specific questions about how this or that organ was successfully tormented or the precise way the various techniques and instruments were applied. This procedure gets the group to distance itself from the victim and concentrate on the techncial aspects of the ‘performance.’
If this sounds repulsive and nauseating to you, then you remain a human being for now. However, it very probably describes exactly the scenario that has been playing out in secret camps run by agents of the United States of America with the enthusiastic support of the very highest levels of its democratically elected leadership.
How does that make you feel?
If you lived in South America during the 1970s or ‘80s, you heard a lot about how people are tortured, most of which you wish you could somehow wash out of your brain afterward. But the human rights organizations also researched how the torturers became who they were. After all, even for a seriously sick element, some of this stuff takes a strong stomach. How did their bosses create a cadre of human beasts who wouldn’t flinch at it?
One way found to desensitize them was by showing videotapes of torture, starting with animals. (I’m not making this up.) After the video was over, the instructor then quizzed the group with specific questions about how this or that organ was successfully tormented or the precise way the various techniques and instruments were applied. This procedure gets the group to distance itself from the victim and concentrate on the techncial aspects of the ‘performance.’
If this sounds repulsive and nauseating to you, then you remain a human being for now. However, it very probably describes exactly the scenario that has been playing out in secret camps run by agents of the United States of America with the enthusiastic support of the very highest levels of its democratically elected leadership.
How does that make you feel?
Friday, 4 January 2008
Ironies of Iowa
I watched the Iowa caucus proceedings on C-SPAN for a while, and the sight of average folks shuffling around high school gyms and church basements trying to express their political will was heartwarming. It’s a flawed and unrepresentative process but a democratic one, and last night was an excellent example of its potency in channeling a popular statement of considerable weight. My hardly original take on the outcome is that the country is in a rebellious mood and ready to kick serious butt.
Question: Strip away from triumphant Mike Huckabee the abortion nastiness, the antigay pandering and the sudden, born-again hostile stance on Mexicans, and what do you have?
Answer: a liberal.
While some of us smile nervously at the strength of the Bible-thumping social reactionaries, Republican Wall Street must be even more uneasy at the class undertones of the thumping it got last night at the hands of the prayerful.
The bankers and CEOs should have known better than to anoint a slick standard-bearer like Romney who so patently tailors his message to the political exigencies of the moment. It looked too much like an expression of contempt for their long-time evangelical patsies who have patiently supported their own pauperization (and ours) in exchange for anti-sex education and a state religion.
It’s still hard to imagine Huckabee getting much further in this suddenly entertaining election cycle, given his many rough edges and lack of a serious war chest. But the disarray among the Republicans as they, for once, fight over the Titanic’s desk chairs will be most amusing to watch.
***
So the youthful hordes said to be swarming to the Obama banner were not an illusion. No doubt they will be treated much more kindly by the media than were the Deaniacs of four years ago since the Obamians are as politically bland and vague as their candidate’s speeches. Whereas Howie the Screamer actually had positions that threatened the status quo, Barack gives out a string of thundering commonplaces and cozy bromides.
But the image of the skinny black guy riding the shoulders of American youth towards the White House is irresistible, and it seems obvious in retrospect that the symbolism should have moved the depoliticized teens so deeply. Having spent a lot of time in the southern U.S. this last year, I can attest to the complete dismantling of the color bar and the eagerness of many white Americans to distance themselves from the blatant forms of racism of our recent past.
This says very little about the more institutionalized racism in things like housing, education and health that persist quite merrily there and elsewhere and do not stir local youth to any particular signs of dismay. But symbolism is real, and now that the Clintonoid machine has been dealt what we can only hope was a deadly blow, the possibilities for something new are legion.
A lot depends on what is really going on in the mind of Mr Obama, which so far has not been at all evident.
***
Summary: The vast sums of cash oiling the Republicrat juggernaut could not stop the expression of popular will. Neither Romney nor Clinton, H, were served by their careful, focus-group-driven phrases and their systematic courting of the nomenklatur and the elites. The stock rhetoric doesn’t add up, and people want something new. Good for them.
Question: Strip away from triumphant Mike Huckabee the abortion nastiness, the antigay pandering and the sudden, born-again hostile stance on Mexicans, and what do you have?
Answer: a liberal.
While some of us smile nervously at the strength of the Bible-thumping social reactionaries, Republican Wall Street must be even more uneasy at the class undertones of the thumping it got last night at the hands of the prayerful.
The bankers and CEOs should have known better than to anoint a slick standard-bearer like Romney who so patently tailors his message to the political exigencies of the moment. It looked too much like an expression of contempt for their long-time evangelical patsies who have patiently supported their own pauperization (and ours) in exchange for anti-sex education and a state religion.
It’s still hard to imagine Huckabee getting much further in this suddenly entertaining election cycle, given his many rough edges and lack of a serious war chest. But the disarray among the Republicans as they, for once, fight over the Titanic’s desk chairs will be most amusing to watch.
***
So the youthful hordes said to be swarming to the Obama banner were not an illusion. No doubt they will be treated much more kindly by the media than were the Deaniacs of four years ago since the Obamians are as politically bland and vague as their candidate’s speeches. Whereas Howie the Screamer actually had positions that threatened the status quo, Barack gives out a string of thundering commonplaces and cozy bromides.
But the image of the skinny black guy riding the shoulders of American youth towards the White House is irresistible, and it seems obvious in retrospect that the symbolism should have moved the depoliticized teens so deeply. Having spent a lot of time in the southern U.S. this last year, I can attest to the complete dismantling of the color bar and the eagerness of many white Americans to distance themselves from the blatant forms of racism of our recent past.
This says very little about the more institutionalized racism in things like housing, education and health that persist quite merrily there and elsewhere and do not stir local youth to any particular signs of dismay. But symbolism is real, and now that the Clintonoid machine has been dealt what we can only hope was a deadly blow, the possibilities for something new are legion.
A lot depends on what is really going on in the mind of Mr Obama, which so far has not been at all evident.
***
Summary: The vast sums of cash oiling the Republicrat juggernaut could not stop the expression of popular will. Neither Romney nor Clinton, H, were served by their careful, focus-group-driven phrases and their systematic courting of the nomenklatur and the elites. The stock rhetoric doesn’t add up, and people want something new. Good for them.
Thursday, 3 January 2008
“They All Lie”
That’s what Suffolk County (NY) prosecutor James McCready said in defense of the intimidation and psychological games he used to get then 17-year-old Martin Tankleff to ‘confess’ to murdering his parents. Tankleff is now 36 and served nearly two decades before getting out of prison just last week when an appellate court threw out his 1989 conviction.
The new county D.A. said Wednesday he won’t retry Tankleff, an admission that the case against him was rickety, to say the least. The appeals court had found ample evidence that other person or persons were involved in the double killing, and Governor Spitzer is considering a new state-led investigation, which may include a look at police misconduct.
McCready was featured in a TV investigative report on the case a few months ago and challenged on his use of a police gimmick: they told the shocked teenager (who had just discovered his parents’ corpses) that his father had recovered consciousness in the ER and fingered him as the assailant. The kid assumed he had done something in his sleep and began to confess, then promptly repudiated the confession.
The father had never said any such thing (he remained dead), but that hesitation was enough for a jury to convict Tankleff and ruin his life. The police had a suspect and didn’t bother to look into the forensic evidence that would have contradicted their fantasy construction.
Witnessing the denouement of this terrible miscarriage of justice certainly throws some light on the official use of torture to wring confessions of all sorts out of guys with Arabic surnames, then throwing away the records of same. As the probe into who knew what about the destruction of the infamous torture videos proceeds, we can fall back on Prosecutor McCready’s dictum about the suspects:
“THEY ALL LIE.”
The new county D.A. said Wednesday he won’t retry Tankleff, an admission that the case against him was rickety, to say the least. The appeals court had found ample evidence that other person or persons were involved in the double killing, and Governor Spitzer is considering a new state-led investigation, which may include a look at police misconduct.
McCready was featured in a TV investigative report on the case a few months ago and challenged on his use of a police gimmick: they told the shocked teenager (who had just discovered his parents’ corpses) that his father had recovered consciousness in the ER and fingered him as the assailant. The kid assumed he had done something in his sleep and began to confess, then promptly repudiated the confession.
The father had never said any such thing (he remained dead), but that hesitation was enough for a jury to convict Tankleff and ruin his life. The police had a suspect and didn’t bother to look into the forensic evidence that would have contradicted their fantasy construction.
Witnessing the denouement of this terrible miscarriage of justice certainly throws some light on the official use of torture to wring confessions of all sorts out of guys with Arabic surnames, then throwing away the records of same. As the probe into who knew what about the destruction of the infamous torture videos proceeds, we can fall back on Prosecutor McCready’s dictum about the suspects:
“THEY ALL LIE.”
Moment of Sort-of Truth
At long last we'll have some concrete results, rather than pundit pomposity, to look at after the Iowa caucuses are done tonight. That’s a relief although I’m not looking forward to the endless parsing of the numbers. Seems appropriate that the voting is occurring along with the first blast of Arctic frigidity in these parts. Shopping’s done, partying’s over, and now it’s time for getting through winter somehow, catching up on work and facing the unattractive domestic and international panorama about to be bequeathed to us by the lamest ducks since James Buchanan encouraged the secessionist movement in the 1850s. My only prediction is that 2008 is going to be full of surprises. Pretty safe, eh?
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
Election Year
Now that the New Year is upon us, and the first Moment of Truth draws near, it’s time to define ourselves. Who will win the presidential nominations and the final prize?
My friend Jerry started a parlor game tradition for the holidays, in which everyone has to say who they think (not favor) will be the winning nominees and finally the president-elect. He asked a roomful of us that, on tape, at a 1979 New Year’s Eve party in New York, and not one person predicted that Ronald Reagan would become the president a year later. It all seems so inevitable after the fact, but it certainly was not at the time.
The results of replaying this game have been quite fascinating because the answers change from one holiday to the next. During Thanksgiving festivities everyone was convinced that Giuliani would take the nomination and carry on to win next November (myself not included). When we entered the pre-Christmas season, Giuliani’s name had all but disappeared from the buzz in favor of Hillary, McCain, Romney and even Huckabee (who was still a second-tier dark horse).
By New Year’s Eve the predictions had shifted again, but interestingly enough there’s no sign of consensus, which seems to coincide with what the polls are saying, too: who knows? There was still plenty of polemic and emotional engagement with the outcome although it’s hard to see how it can last through this endless election season.
Personally, I would love to see a candidate with the foreign policy chops of Joe Biden, the populist, kick-butt rhetoric of Edwards, the careful homework of Clinton’s team and the iconoclasm of a Richardson or a Kucinic. Throw in the lanky boyishness of Obama, and an out-front defender of secularism and/or the rule of law (none of the above), and you’ve got the candidate I want to vote for.
As for the Republicans, God only knows who will win, and since they claim to be consubstantial with the Holy Ghost, I don’t understand why they need to have primaries at all. I guess it’s to spend some of the money pouring in from the guys they’ve made so happy in the last 20 years.
However, given the total mess Huckabee has made of his 15 minutes of fame, it would be grand to see him win and tie the entire party’s collective panties into a real Gordian knot. A Republican meltdown would force the Democrats to define themselves more concretely instead of clambering over one another to occupy the mushy center.
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