Ukraine

Right now, that's all that's need to be said, when it comes to describing the political agenda.

Nothing else has changed.  All of the other problems we face, and I've discussed, are still with us.  I would still describe some of them, like voting rights, as existential in nature, because they are to at least some degree.  But now there is one that, in its immediacy and lethality, and its impact not just on the U.S. but the world, pushes everything on our agency to the side.  Not forever, but for now and probably for the near future.

Why?

To begin with, Ukraine is about American security in the truest sense

Despite efforts to portray the Ukraine crisis as a territorial dispute between two countries, and nothing more, it is much more than that.  Vladimir Putin's long-term goal has been to reconstruct the Soviet Union, functionally if not formally, by taking control of all the former Soviet republics through either direct annexation of territory, or the establishment of "friendly" (translation:  puppet) governments in them.  It's not particularly far-fetched to think that he wants to revive the Soviet era of glory to an even greater extent, by invading the former Warsaw Pact nations and installing puppet governments in each of them.  It may not even be very far-fetched to think that his ultimate goal is to shatter NATO, leave Western Europe under the shadow of his revived Iron Curtain, and extend that shadow all of the way to the shores of the U.S., forcing us to ramp up our military at the expense of our nation's domestic needs.

If this sounds like Cold War "domino-theory" thinking to you, I can't say I blame you.  Putin's militarism and appetite for yesterday's Soviet glory, combined with his unprovoked and reckless attack on Ukraine has put Europe and NATO (and, therefore, us) back on a Cold War tactical footing.  Only now, for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, it has the potential to become a hot one.  

Even worse, Putin is now not only an active external threat to us, but an internal one as well, thanks to his alliance with Donald Trump.  Trump has been able to convince his followers that, despite ample evidence that he was Putin's puppet as President, Putin is somehow on our side, which means that Putin's opponents are inevitably "our" opponents.  This is why, even as Europe and the rest of the world have come together in opposition to Putin, Americans are bitterly divided over whether to support Russia or Ukraine.

This internal division plays right into the hands of both men.  As Rachel Maddow has pointed out, Putin's standing among the Russian people has depended in no small part on having the surrounding nations look even more dysfunctional than Russia, thereby discouraging Russians from thinking they can improve their lives by rising up against his dystopian regime.  It is precisely because of the progress Ukraine has made toward becoming a functional democracy that Putin needed to invade it once he lost Trump as an ally in the White House.

Just as Putin needed chaos among Russia's neighbors to look strong at home, he also needed chaos in the one county with the greatest ability to stand up to him--ours.  This is why he wanted Trump as president from the very beginning, and why he would be happy to see Trump win a second term:  so that Trump could continue and expand upon his previous work to divide Americans to the point of total dysfunctionality.  In Putin's decrepit mind, so long as the nations opposing him are flailing, they can do nothing against him.  And, more so than with regard to any other nation, Putin fears what a strong, united America can do, and his only hope to prevent us from shutting him down is to turn us against each other.  

So successful has he been in doing so that he's even got Rupert Murdoch talking out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to Putin:  having Tucker Carlson worship him while the New York Post blasts him.  And so ludicrous has this two-faced, treasonous approach to Putin become that at least one other conservative news outlet has noticed and condemned it.  That doesn't matter to Murdoch, and other well-heeled right-wingnuts:  the only unifying organizational principal among American conservatives is hating people who disagree with them.  

This is a perfect recipe for political chaos, and Putin, with the help of Trump, has made and continues to make the most of it.  That's why it's past time for us to ask, and act upon the answers to, two questions:

1.  Does the behavior of Murdoch's News Corporation sink to the level of treason enough that action could be taken against its broadcast licenses?

2.  To what extent did Trump, during his time in office (and perhaps since then, given his theft of classified documents) actively aid and abet Putin's planning for his invasion of Ukraine (and who knows what else)?

We need answers to these questions, and fast.  But the need for the answers is all the more reason that we absolutely need to give the Ukrainians all of the humanitarian and military help we can.  They've proven that they are willing to fight to win, if they have the tools to do it.  We have those tools; in fact, we have a surplus of them.  Here's an opportunity to make the most of sunk tax dollars while giving Ukraine the firepower needed to knock Putin back off his feet.  In the short run, it appears that, whatever we have in firepower to help Ukraine, it looks like sharing it is going to happen.

Like Kuwait, Putin's invasion of Ukraine this is a clear violation of international law that demands U.S. leadership of the UN and our allies; for that matter, the leadership that the larger international community can provide.  And, like the end of the Cold War, this is a defense of the liberation of Europe, an achievement wrought at no small cost, and one that has yielded enormous political and economic gains.  Those gains have been threatened by authoritarian backsliding in India, Brazil, Poland, Hungary, and, sadly, here at home.  This could be a moment to turn that tide back in the right direction.

And we cannot possibly afford to fail.

The Fault Of Rising Prices Is Not In The Stars, But In Ourselves

"Inflation, huh?"  You might be asking yourself that as you read the above title.  "Why is he writing about that again?  Didn't he just do that about a month or so ago?  Why is he coming back to this?  I don't need him to tell me that prices are going up."

Well, no you don't.  None of us do.  And you're quite right in thinking that I wrote about it a month or so ago; that's because I did, in a more far-ranging blog post.  And I'm not writing about it now to change anything I wrote before.

Then again, inflation continues to be a topic not only at the gas pump and the grocery store, but in the media, and political media in particular.  That's a reflection of what happens when political journalism becomes identical to its cousins in sports and journalism.  Who's up, what's down (or vice versa) is all that matters.  It's all frosting, and no cake.

And inflation shows no signs of abating anytime soon.  A new year and a healthier Christmas shopping season than expected hasn't taken anything out of the steam of the price jumps, or the relentless focus on their potential political impact in this fall's elections.  You have only to look at this article to appreciate both points.

There's a great deal of irony in all of this.  From the relentless focus on prices, you would not know the fact that, overall, the economy, especially as measured by overall growth and unemployment, is in phenomenal shape, even allowing for what will hopefully be a short-term stock market hit due to the Ukraine crisis.  Not even the seemingly endless series of Covid variants has been able to hurt what Democrats have been attempting to promote as a "Biden boom," with little evident impact on Biden's approval ratings.

In short, and again except for the Ukraine crisis and the lingering pandemic, inflation is topic A, and likely to remain so as long as prices continue to rise.  And the Republicans have been doing everything they can to exploit this for their own purposes, pointing fingers at Biden's successful spending bills and attempting to lay the blame at the White House doorstep (and the steps of congressional Democrats).

What they haven't been terribly good at explaining is what they would do about it.  In fact, they've made no attempt whatsoever to explain what they would do about it.  They've gone so far as to run away from efforts to make them explain what they would do about it.  Mitch McCONnell was asked what the Senate Republican agenda would be if his party regained control of that chamber, and his answer was, effectively, "vote for us and find out."  The agenda, in other words, would be maintaining Republican control of power for the benefit of the party's donors, and no one else.  Inflation?  So long as that can be blamed on someone else, they don't care.  At all.

But what about us?

We, the people, once upon a time, had the willingness to make choices and, more importantly, make sacrifices that were need to end fascism and ensure freedom around the world.  In the last century, we did it twice.  We rationed, we did without, we gathered scrap, we took on jobs that would never have seemed like choices in peacetime.  We sent family members into harm's way, many of whom suffered much worse than harm.  And all of us paid taxes, or bought bonds, to support the most powerful war machine in history in its successful effort to save Western civilization.  We proved that freedom truly isn't free.  And not just with our lips.

That's not what America is anymore, and I'm a serious skeptic as to the question of whether it can become that nation again.  Ever since the 1980 presidential election, it has been painfully clear that we as a society is not willing to do without.  The dominant domestic political ideology hasn't been liberalism, or conservativism.  It has been, and remains, consumerism.  Woe to the President and party who fails to see that and religiously abide by that reality.  It brought down Jimmy Carter, both of the Bushes, and it absolutely has the potential to do the same to the Democrats in this year's midterms.  "Sure, Joe, you saved democracy, pushed back against the virus, and got people back to work.  But I'm made about filling up at the pump, and it would never occur to me to find a way to save money on gas."  That would take real effort.  That would raise the specter of doing without.  

The America of the 21st century is not willing to do without. In fact the dirty little secret of the last four decades is that we will have been willing to accept wage is well below the cost of living simply because of the short-term gratification of low prices. One could come in fact, call this the Walmart syndrome.  I had somehow, after that, that as a society we would wise up and do better and, so far, we have not done that.  And, at this relatively late stage of my life, I despair of our society’s ability to do what we absolutely needed to do during both World Wars and what we need to do again right now.

However, please understand that, in writing this, I'm not making the case for throwing up our progressive, Democratic hands and calling it a day for the American experiment.  What I want to make the case for here is to start by taking a realistic look at what we've become.  And then, think realistically about the steps we need to take to have any chance of getting out of this mess.

As is the case with most aspects of economics, inflation is a phenomenon with various causes.  And most of them, with the exception of interest rates, are beyond the control of politicians.  Worker shortages?  Workers, like the people who employ them, will get back into the workplace when it suits their interests to do so, and not a second sooner.  Supply chains?  Basically at the mercy of the virus in other nations and a globalized economy.  Biden can and should be visibly engaged in making a difference with these, but the harsh reality is that there's only so much he can do.  As is also the case with mitigating the impact of the pandemic.

But, if he wants to do something with a real impact, something that would, historically be truly bipartisan, he should find a way, perhaps with the help of historians, to find his inner Teddy Roosevelt and start doing some finger pointing of his own.  Daily.  Publicly.  And, rhetorically, in the strongest possible terms.  I am, of course, thinking about this speech. 

The malefactors of great wealth from two centuries ago have come back in full force, and are, if anything, more powerful than ever before.  That is in no small part because they function globally, and not just nationally.  And, though they contribute to both of our major political parties, the fact is that they have a preference between the two of them, and it is time for Biden and other "corporate" Democrats to stop thinking otherwise, and stop pretending that we all live in a world in which the difference can be fairly split.  The center, if it exists at all, sits all too cozily in the vest pockets of Wall Street.  It's long past due time to give it a good, swift tug to the left.

It's not like it would be all that difficult to do.  Never in our history has it been more transparent that high prices are not driven by consumer demand and the difficulties in meeting it, but entirely by the lack of political will to stop the malefactors from engaging in malefactions.  Take everybody's favorite inflation poster child:  gas prices.  Are they going up because gas companies are struggling with costs?  Uh-uh.  They are going up because they know no one will call them out from naked profiteering.  Their loyalty is neither to the consumer nor the country.  It's to their shareholders, who are not looking out for anyone but themselves.  Take a look.

And, if he wants to make it even more bipartisan, and make a pass at Trump voters, he might want to link it to globalism.  Make the case not only against profiteering, but for policies that would promote bringing jobs home.  Here's a personal favorite of mine:  loans to Rust Belt states to seed new manufacturing jobs in states that have lost thousands of those jobs over the past several decades.  This is the kind of bread-and-butter politicking that Biden was elected to engage in.  So engage in it already, Joe.  I'm not the only voice out here telling you to do this; I've got company.  As Don Draper is famous for saying, if you don’t like what people are saying, change the conversation. That’s bipartisan too; Republicans do it all the time.

And you may even already have an opening to get something done, something that could help to address profiteering AND globalism while stealing another issue from the Republicans:  the national debt.  If Joe Manchin is at all serious about what he's been saying recently, it might be possible to build back better, bring jobs home, bring the budget into balance, and bring corporations down to earth when it comes to their power, here might be the vehicle to do it.  One, in fact, that might actually allow the Democrats to not only survive the midterms, but thrive in them as well.  There's any number of reasons for being skeptical about Manchin's sincerity about this; he could have made a proposal like the current one months ago, so why now?  Doesn't matter.  Even if he's bluffing, Democrats and progressives should get to work with him on a deal and get it put together within a month, and on Biden's desk shortly after that.  It might be their last hope.  It might be everyone's last hope.

In the end, whether we get their by sacrificing, or get there by fighting the real enemy, we are the ones who have the power to determine whether we get there at all.  Power does not trickle down.  Power rises up.  We're the ones who have to rise.

I pray that we will get there in time.  I worry that we won't.  Whoever reads this, and shares this, please do everything in your power to prove me wrong.  Washington won't save us.  Only we can save ourselves.

What A Difference A Week Makes?

The Feiler faster thesis may be on the verge of getting one of its more dramatic tests, regarding the seeming shifting of Joe Biden's political fortunes.  I was all set to write about how a convergence of events this past week--progress uniting NATO against Russia's potential invasion of Ukraine, the killing of ISIS's leader by U.S. troops, and record-breaking job numbers--have suddenly made the reports of Biden's political demise look, if not greatly exaggerated, at least not definitive.  But, perhaps unsurprisingly, Jennifer Rubin beat me to it, as you can see here. 

It's an opportunity to reshape the political narrative, and one that Biden appears to be making the most of, especially by way of his visit to New York to address concerns about rising crime rates.  Will it make a difference?  Only time will tell.  My impression is that, right now, inflation is still the number one issue for undecided voters and, if it is still rising or not on the downswing by Election Day, that may be enough to swing their decision.  Not unfortunately, the prospect of handing Congress and multiple statehouses over to a party that is little more than a personality cult.

Perhaps, sadly, it's best summed up here.  I hope he's wrong.  I pray he's wrong.

And I hope and pray that (a) Biden and the Democrats pull it out, or (b) G-d will brace all of us for what comes afterward if they don't.

Is The Power Of Good Enough?

As the nation seems to inch closer and closer to moving from what could be called a "cold civil war" to a hot one, I find myself more and more cynical about the possibility of reversing the slide toward political violence as the rule rather than the exception.  I know enough about history to know that, when it becomes the rule, everyone has already lost.  Sometimes, as was the case on January 6 of last year, I wonder whether it may already be too late.  I don't want to be the last person to realize when we have reached that point, if I could otherwise prevent even a single life from being lost.  But I also don't want to be someone who comes to the wrong conclusion early enough to tip the balance in the wrong direction.  And, all too often in history, "the moment when" is something that only becomes visible in hindsight.

Which is why I find myself wondering whether the power of doing good is enough.  Is it?

It's been written that leaders of non-violent protest such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King were successful primarily because their opposition rationalized their own existence as having been created by means that at least followed the forms of democratic processes.  On the other hand, dictators like Hitler and Stalin would simply have steamrolled over any attempts to opposed them by non-violence.  And, in the case of King, he ended up meeting a violent end despite his dedication, and that of his followers, to peaceful protests.  Taken in the context of the violent history by which America was settled by whites at the expense of peoples of color, it's difficult if not impossible to have a lot of faith in democratic processes as being enough--or even reliable--to stop people who, ironically, agree with Mao Zedong that all power comes out of of the barrel of a gun.  

Then again, one should hope if not pray that it will be enough; it beats the alternative, and millions of Americans have sacrificed everything to make it possible.  And, unless we can find a way like Dr. Strange and Spider-Man to tap into the multiverse, we will never know how many lives were spared by Gandhi and King's leadership.

I found myself sorting through all this this recently while I was watching Lawrence O'Donnell's nightly program on MSNBC, "The Last Word."  O'Donnell updated a story that had been prominently discussed by Fox News about a Washington state trooper who famously (thanks to social media) resigned from his job rather than comply with a mask-wearing mandate.  Fox had prominently treated his refusal as the act of a true American hero.

Until, that is, the trooper caught the COVID-19 virus.  And passed away as a consequence, leaving a family of five behind him.  Unsurprisingly, Fox found it inconvenient to disrupt their party line by updating the story.

Some commentators might have updated it for no other reason than to billboard Fox's obvious hypocrisy, to say nothing of the callousness inherent in doing so.  But O'Donnell didn't do that.  Instead, noting the GoFundMe page set up on behalf of the trooper's family, O'Donnell pledged to make a $10,000 contribution to the page, and encouraged his viewers to make a contribution to it, to whatever extent they could,  Within a matter of minutes after he did so, viewers added an additional $3,000 to the approximately $7,600 that had already been raised.  Counting O'Donnell's contribution, and as of the time I am typing this, the page has raised over $56,000.  You can read about this in detail here.

That's a lot of practical good will demonstrated by a viewer base that, for the most part, did not see eye-to-eye with the trooper when it comes to mask mandates.  Including me.  And it stands in sharp contrast to the treatment, or lack thereof, that Fox gave to the trooper's death.  The money will go some distance toward helping the short-term needs of his family.

But does that do anything to move the country away from a violent cataclysm?  I don't know.  My fear is that it has the potential to have the opposite effect--that is, to make progressives and their political allies look "soft" and therefore ripe for downfall by a sudden, substantial surge of force.

And, quite frankly, there's nothing "soft" about a good many of us.  Myself included.  If it comes down to fighting physically for the same of the Constitution and the people it protects, I would not shy away from fighting, and even dying to do that.  The folks on the other side of the ideological divide underestimate the prevalence of that feeling on our side at their peril.  Perhaps at everyone's peril.

Look, I'm 65, overweight, have no military training, and have never picked up a loaded firearm other than a BB gun (and that was decades ago).  But if it means following in the footsteps of my uncle in World War II, and many others, I have no problem dying on behalf of the greatest experiment in freedom and democracy the world has ever know.  On the other hand, I can't say I'm super-eager to do it, either.  I'd like to make it to my grandchildren's' bat and bar mitzvahs, at the very least.  And I suspect that most people feel the same way.  On both sides of the divide.

But I'd like to think that O'Donnell is on to something here.  What if, apart from the Washington three-ring-circus, we could as private citizens find ways, on both a large and small scale, to generate good will in ways that, like the virus, don't discriminate by partisan identification.  Offhand, I'm not sure what a large scale effort would look like.  But I'm not prepared to discount the possibility that it could happen, either.  Small-scale opportunities, like the GoFundMe page, abound.

Just as I think we need to be prepared to fight, but only if we have to, we need to give peaceful resolution of our differences a chance to happen.  That's what the Constitution was ratified to enable in the first place.  We need to stop talking about the Constitution as a club to use against each other, and understand it once again as the framework as a process for resolving our differences.  And, as an essential prelude to that happening, we need to find the ability to believe in each other's value as human beings, regardless of our political differences.

Contributing to the GoFundMe page is one small way of doing that.

Which is why I've done it.

And why I hope you will, too.