Friday, October 30, 2015
Technology Created Climate Change ...
... and technology may yet help us to combat it. Here's what the Canadians are doing.
The Perils Of Punditry
Or, why it is dangerous to assume that Obama will never, ever be elected president.
Is Our Imagination Finally Catching Up To Our Technology?
It appears that may be the case, as 3D filmmaking is now being used to tell more sophisticated stories. Take a look.
Could The Democrats Retake The House?
If this is true, perhaps they should ignore media "certainty" about the impregnable nature of the Republican majority, and mount an all-out effort to make Nancy Pelosi the Speaker again.
The Real Existential Threat To Israel
And its not the Palestinians, or the Israeli Arabs. However, that's not what you might conclude from reading this recent Op-Ed piece in the New York Daily News. Its author blames the recent stabbing attacks against Jews by Israeli Arabs on a mindset in which Israel's Jewish population is just another colonial occupier of what is truly Arab land, as the Ottoman Turks and British were before them.
As the husband of a Jewish wife and stepfather to two Jewish children (to say nothing of my two Jewish grandchildren), and as a supporter of democracy, I take a back seat to no one in defending Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and homeland. But, if democracy is to mean anything at all, that should mean that we are free to question what way or ways are best to ensure Israel's existence. And here, the author falls short. He doesn't have good ideas or bad ones. He simply has none at all other that a vague assurance that "we'll stay, and tough it out — whatever the world thinks of the steps we have to take — for as long as it takes." (Emphasis added.)
It's that phrase "whatever the world thinks of the steps we have to take" that I find chilling. All the more so since he cites polls showing that Israelis "overwhelmingly would like to get out of the West Bank and live peacefully alongside a Palestinian State that would recognize Israel." This is a large part of the problem. Instead of getting out of the West Bank, Israel under its current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has come close to obliterating the Palestinian presence in the West Bank. Take a look (courtesy of fosna.org):
As the husband of a Jewish wife and stepfather to two Jewish children (to say nothing of my two Jewish grandchildren), and as a supporter of democracy, I take a back seat to no one in defending Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and homeland. But, if democracy is to mean anything at all, that should mean that we are free to question what way or ways are best to ensure Israel's existence. And here, the author falls short. He doesn't have good ideas or bad ones. He simply has none at all other that a vague assurance that "we'll stay, and tough it out — whatever the world thinks of the steps we have to take — for as long as it takes." (Emphasis added.)
It's that phrase "whatever the world thinks of the steps we have to take" that I find chilling. All the more so since he cites polls showing that Israelis "overwhelmingly would like to get out of the West Bank and live peacefully alongside a Palestinian State that would recognize Israel." This is a large part of the problem. Instead of getting out of the West Bank, Israel under its current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has come close to obliterating the Palestinian presence in the West Bank. Take a look (courtesy of fosna.org):
Under Netanyahu, Israel has implemented a systematic plan of development in the West Bank that has as its goal the systematic absorption of the region into the rest of Israel in everything but name, even at the expense of uprooting Palestinian families from homes they have occupied for decades. And this has been done without any extension of rights to those who have been uprooted. This, combine with the wall the Israelis subsequently erected between the West Bank and the rest of the country, has effectively turned the West Bank Palestinians into refugees--and Israel, hitherto a beacon of democracy in a region of autocrats, into what can only be considered an apartheid state.
It might be somewhat easier to believe both the Daily News Op-Ed author and the polls he cites if none of the foregoing facts were true. Sadly, they are very much true. And it only further dehumanizes the Palestinians to pretend that none of this has anything to do with the wave of stabbings. Let me be clear: nothing justifies the stabbings. But the "whatever the world thinks of the steps we have to take" mentality only serves to illustrate the ancient maxim that two wrongs never make a right. Sadly, since the 1948 Israeli declaration of independence, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shows how, time and again, two "rights" can continually combine to make things wrong.
So, if getting tough is not the answer, what is? Is it as simple as getting rid of Netanyahu? Sadly, no. Does the answer lie in somehow convincing the Palestinians that their leadership is less interested in protecting them than they are in maintaining ties to the petrostates that are funding them? Even if we thought we had that much magic in our persuasive abilities, it wouldn't be enough to stop the leaders and the petrostates from bullying the Palestinians into becoming living weapons for a demented vision of what Islam is supposed to be.
Which is tragically ironic. Because, ultimately, it's not the petrostates that are funding this madness. It's we, the people of the United States, and the rest of the world that has built an entire civilization around the petroleum underneath the petrostates.
Almost forty years ago, Jimmy Carter warned us that "the struggle for energy independence is the moral equivalent of war." For the Israelis and the Palestinians, that is especially true. Both nations--and I do not use the word nations lightly here--are the victims of a system of energy production that is as vicious as it is unsustainable. Without American, and for that matter international, dependence on Arab oil, the entire international community would be able to bring its full weight onto the side of the Israelis and the Palestinians against the petrostates that are using their Arab "brothers and sisters" as human proxy weapons, to appease the fundamentalists within their own borders.
We think we need oil. We don't need oil. And G-d knows that neither Israel or Palestine need oil. They need peace. They deserve peace. It's never been more within our power to give it to them, especially given the current state of sustainable energy. The time was really yesterday, but I'll settle for now. Get off of oil, America, and give peace in the Middle East a chance.
Amen. And Shalom.
Note To Republicans: Find A Way To Like Governement ... At Least A Little Bit
This week's passage in both houses of Congress of a two-year(!) bipartisan budget agreement with the White House failed to ignite the usual cheering for bipartisanship that usually erupts from the mainstream media at similar moments. Perhaps that's because of an obvious problem: there have been relatively few similar moments in the past seven years. In fact, the only reason this particular moment came to fruition is largely the fact that it was negotiated in part by a lame-duck Speaker of the House who had no reason to appease the Tea Party lunatics in his asylum.
Of course, he was aided in one sense by these lunatics: their weeks-long inability to agree on his successor, culminating in the briefly-floated possibility of a return by Nancy Pelosi to the Speaker's chair, destroyed what little credibility they had as a governing force for the nation. Which raises once again for discussion the central dilemma of the modern Republican Party: their appetite for power and their ability to satisfy it is not truly paired to a philosophy, or even a series of policies, that would allow it to govern.
You needed to look no further for evidence of that absence than this past week's Republican Presidential debate. Not surprisingly, the subsequent media coverage of that event shown an uncanny grasp of superficialities. Much was said, for example, of the "brilliant" exchange of ad hominem insults between the Florida Twins, Jeb! and Marco (Agua! Agua!) Rubio. (And no points to yours truly for just now joining in the ad hominem fun.) A great deal was also made of Ted Cruz's moment when he remembered the Spiro Agnew rule: when all else fails, go after the media.
But relatively few, if any, commentators dwelt upon the near-appalling lack of anything from the ten warm bodies onstage that even resembled a coherent plan for, in Donald Trump's words, making America great again. We got invocations of Saint Ronald, bumper-sticker nods to his agenda (balance the budget by cutting taxes, proven time and again not to work). And that's it. Not a single idea, old or new, to illustrate what they would actually do if given the job for which they're auditioning.
It ought therefore to surprise absolutely no one that an overwhelming majority of Republican voters still have no idea of whom to vote for. In all honesty, why should they? What idea have they been given of what would happen if they voted for any of these people? But some of this uncertainty comes from the mindset of Republican voters, who have been systematically programmed for decades by the leaders of their party to hate, hate, HATE government in all forms (with the arguable exception of the military, which they use to access overseas resources for their contributors). And, even though many of them benefit from various forms of government (as have Republican leaders), the voters lap it up and reflexively shape their entire thought processes around it.
In the current race, this is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that three candidates with absolutely no experience in political office--Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina--have spent months with a consistent hold in polls of between 50% and 55% of Republican voters. And the only selling point that any one of the three of them have is that fact: a complete lack of relevant experience for the most powerful job in the world. Somehow, being a real estate developer, a surgeon, or a failed CEO has some relevance to the kinds of political trade-offs and hard choices that have to be made on behalf not of a development site, a patient, or a group of stockholders, but an entire country of diverse interests at the center of an increasingly interdependent world.
Except that it doesn't. Trump, Carson and Fiorina have held jobs that allow them to focus on limited, specific sets of circumstances, one at a time. A political leader can't do that; he or she is in a constant juggling act of reconciling the different needs of diverse constituencies. This is true even at the level of local government. And, within the framework of a federal system with divided powers, "taking charge" in a private-sector way simply can't happen. Talking about it, as Trump loves to do, won't make it so; talk is about the only aspect of The Donald that's cheap.
That's why there's only one way for the Republican Party and its voters to become a truly potential governing force again: learn to love the act of governing. It's not that difficult. Government, after all, can be small or restrained without being evil. Personally, I think our history proves that it can be large and ambitious and be a tremendous force for good, which is why I'm proud to be a Democrat. But, if there's anything that Democrats and Republicans can and should agree upon, it is that some level of government is necessary. Go back to the words of the Preamble to the Constitution, if you're so in love with that document. Those words embody what the Framers hoped that government can and would accomplish. Sorry, Grover Norquist, but there's nothing in there about bathtubs.
This means thinking about how to govern, and communicating the results of that process in a compelling, even memorable way. But, above all, it requires a commitment to governing, to reconcile the interests of a diverse nation. Including, and perhaps especially, those who disagree with you. Personally, even though I think the current state of the Republican Party is good political news for Democrats, it's not good news for the nation as a whole. Which is why I'm routing for the Republicans to take my advice.
Try governing. It actually works. And, when you do, you won't have to resign from office in order to get something done.
But relatively few, if any, commentators dwelt upon the near-appalling lack of anything from the ten warm bodies onstage that even resembled a coherent plan for, in Donald Trump's words, making America great again. We got invocations of Saint Ronald, bumper-sticker nods to his agenda (balance the budget by cutting taxes, proven time and again not to work). And that's it. Not a single idea, old or new, to illustrate what they would actually do if given the job for which they're auditioning.
It ought therefore to surprise absolutely no one that an overwhelming majority of Republican voters still have no idea of whom to vote for. In all honesty, why should they? What idea have they been given of what would happen if they voted for any of these people? But some of this uncertainty comes from the mindset of Republican voters, who have been systematically programmed for decades by the leaders of their party to hate, hate, HATE government in all forms (with the arguable exception of the military, which they use to access overseas resources for their contributors). And, even though many of them benefit from various forms of government (as have Republican leaders), the voters lap it up and reflexively shape their entire thought processes around it.
In the current race, this is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that three candidates with absolutely no experience in political office--Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina--have spent months with a consistent hold in polls of between 50% and 55% of Republican voters. And the only selling point that any one of the three of them have is that fact: a complete lack of relevant experience for the most powerful job in the world. Somehow, being a real estate developer, a surgeon, or a failed CEO has some relevance to the kinds of political trade-offs and hard choices that have to be made on behalf not of a development site, a patient, or a group of stockholders, but an entire country of diverse interests at the center of an increasingly interdependent world.
Except that it doesn't. Trump, Carson and Fiorina have held jobs that allow them to focus on limited, specific sets of circumstances, one at a time. A political leader can't do that; he or she is in a constant juggling act of reconciling the different needs of diverse constituencies. This is true even at the level of local government. And, within the framework of a federal system with divided powers, "taking charge" in a private-sector way simply can't happen. Talking about it, as Trump loves to do, won't make it so; talk is about the only aspect of The Donald that's cheap.
That's why there's only one way for the Republican Party and its voters to become a truly potential governing force again: learn to love the act of governing. It's not that difficult. Government, after all, can be small or restrained without being evil. Personally, I think our history proves that it can be large and ambitious and be a tremendous force for good, which is why I'm proud to be a Democrat. But, if there's anything that Democrats and Republicans can and should agree upon, it is that some level of government is necessary. Go back to the words of the Preamble to the Constitution, if you're so in love with that document. Those words embody what the Framers hoped that government can and would accomplish. Sorry, Grover Norquist, but there's nothing in there about bathtubs.
This means thinking about how to govern, and communicating the results of that process in a compelling, even memorable way. But, above all, it requires a commitment to governing, to reconcile the interests of a diverse nation. Including, and perhaps especially, those who disagree with you. Personally, even though I think the current state of the Republican Party is good political news for Democrats, it's not good news for the nation as a whole. Which is why I'm routing for the Republicans to take my advice.
Try governing. It actually works. And, when you do, you won't have to resign from office in order to get something done.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
WHEN Is This Nonsense About Vaccines Going To End?
Hopefully, with Carly Fiorina and her sinking Presidential campaign.
The REAL Number One Problem In This Country Today
Our unbelievable inability to admit mistakes. Especially political ones.
This isn't the first time I've written about this and, given what I've learned about this county over 59 years of living, it probably won't be the last. Every now and then, however, some event or news story triggers my anger over this and motivates me to comment on it. The most recent trigger came by way of the New York Times--specifically, this article in which the author attempts to identify the reasons for the rise of anti-politicians in the current Presidential race.
As the headline indicates, most of the voter frustration that leads them to support the Trumps and Carsons of the world stems from flat wages. Fair enough; they should be frustrated by flat wages. But the author's attempts to drill deeper doesn't produce much more than than, except a generalized belief that both of the major political parties have somehow conspired to make a mess of the lives of everyday Americans. Even worse, one individual ends up explaining everything with the tired old Reagan mantra of government-bad-and-rich-people-good. He is quoted as saying “For me to prosper, the economy has to prosper, and it’s the rich people that produce jobs," and blames government overkill for driving jobs to Mexico, citing an E.P.A. fine of "tens of thousands of dollars" as an example.
And as for the inconvenient truth that wages in Mexico are lower than they are in the U.S.? Well, it turns out that he hasn't looked into that.
Really? All of that information is a few clicks away on the Internet, and a hard-working guy like you can't be bothered to take the time to look into it? Seriously? You wait for it to show up on Fox News? Well, be prepared to wait a very long time. Because Fox News is owned by the very same "rich people" you claim "create jobs." And those rich people have a vested interest in not telling you what's going on. Which, among other things, is that they don't believe they're making money when they "create jobs." Their idea of making money is hoarding it overseas.
And if they do decide to employ people, it will be people who expect even less in pay than you do. And expect less from the government. Take a look at China, where unregulated capitalism has produced air pollution so terrible that wearing surgical masks in public is routine. Better yet, spend a week in China, and see if you still think the E.P.A. is a bad idea. You might come home wanting to become a member of Greenpeace.
Or maybe not. Because that would require you to look at more than three decades of voting for the people who told you to love rich people and hate the government at all costs. And admit that you were wrong. And that is something that the members of the whole conservative project, from Ronald Reagan on down, will never, ever do. Because the entire conservative project depends on never admitting mistakes, and explaining them away when they happen.
And there could be no bigger mistake that saying that "rich people" create jobs. Rich people do nothing of the sort. Spending creates jobs. My spending is someone else's income; someone else's spending is my income. That's how rich people become rich in the first place: by inducing other people to spend money. This is Econ 101. This is ridiculously easy to understand. Why don't these people get it?
Because, from 1980 onward, they found it easier to believe than to think. And, even as the evidence that their belief was wrong piles up with each passing year, they still find it easier to believe than it is to do the right thing: admit they were wrong, and change course.
It will take an entirely new generation to do that. This is why I have said many times that, more than being local, politics is generational. The good news is that a new generation of voters is on its way, one that isn't carrying the Reagan baggage.
For my taste, it can't get here soon enough. And here's hoping it will be able to admit its own mistakes, when it makes them.
This isn't the first time I've written about this and, given what I've learned about this county over 59 years of living, it probably won't be the last. Every now and then, however, some event or news story triggers my anger over this and motivates me to comment on it. The most recent trigger came by way of the New York Times--specifically, this article in which the author attempts to identify the reasons for the rise of anti-politicians in the current Presidential race.
As the headline indicates, most of the voter frustration that leads them to support the Trumps and Carsons of the world stems from flat wages. Fair enough; they should be frustrated by flat wages. But the author's attempts to drill deeper doesn't produce much more than than, except a generalized belief that both of the major political parties have somehow conspired to make a mess of the lives of everyday Americans. Even worse, one individual ends up explaining everything with the tired old Reagan mantra of government-bad-and-rich-people-good. He is quoted as saying “For me to prosper, the economy has to prosper, and it’s the rich people that produce jobs," and blames government overkill for driving jobs to Mexico, citing an E.P.A. fine of "tens of thousands of dollars" as an example.
And as for the inconvenient truth that wages in Mexico are lower than they are in the U.S.? Well, it turns out that he hasn't looked into that.
Really? All of that information is a few clicks away on the Internet, and a hard-working guy like you can't be bothered to take the time to look into it? Seriously? You wait for it to show up on Fox News? Well, be prepared to wait a very long time. Because Fox News is owned by the very same "rich people" you claim "create jobs." And those rich people have a vested interest in not telling you what's going on. Which, among other things, is that they don't believe they're making money when they "create jobs." Their idea of making money is hoarding it overseas.
And if they do decide to employ people, it will be people who expect even less in pay than you do. And expect less from the government. Take a look at China, where unregulated capitalism has produced air pollution so terrible that wearing surgical masks in public is routine. Better yet, spend a week in China, and see if you still think the E.P.A. is a bad idea. You might come home wanting to become a member of Greenpeace.
Or maybe not. Because that would require you to look at more than three decades of voting for the people who told you to love rich people and hate the government at all costs. And admit that you were wrong. And that is something that the members of the whole conservative project, from Ronald Reagan on down, will never, ever do. Because the entire conservative project depends on never admitting mistakes, and explaining them away when they happen.
And there could be no bigger mistake that saying that "rich people" create jobs. Rich people do nothing of the sort. Spending creates jobs. My spending is someone else's income; someone else's spending is my income. That's how rich people become rich in the first place: by inducing other people to spend money. This is Econ 101. This is ridiculously easy to understand. Why don't these people get it?
Because, from 1980 onward, they found it easier to believe than to think. And, even as the evidence that their belief was wrong piles up with each passing year, they still find it easier to believe than it is to do the right thing: admit they were wrong, and change course.
It will take an entirely new generation to do that. This is why I have said many times that, more than being local, politics is generational. The good news is that a new generation of voters is on its way, one that isn't carrying the Reagan baggage.
For my taste, it can't get here soon enough. And here's hoping it will be able to admit its own mistakes, when it makes them.
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