Bipartisanship seems to be working wonders

Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger...That’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.

So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh.

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It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

Aside from the partisan hackery (which is to be expected from Krugman, although I clearly am not recommending 'bipartisanship' as an alternative), Krugman's most recent article is right on. Obama and the Democrats have already squandered crucial moments of their mandate and political capital blathering about 'bipartisanship', which has had the net effect (surprise, surprise) of empowering an otherwise pummelled and defeated opponent and enabling them to try to derail the Democrat's plans. Nevermind that the plans in question, according to Stiglitz and Krugman, are grossly inadequate and far from 'audacious' enough. The result of the love affair with 'reaching accross the aisle', however, is that these tepid policies are further diluted by a pathetic congressional minority who has seen their power halved in the last four years at the polls. And its hardly just the Republicans who are diluting it: 'centrist' Democrats like Ben Nelson in the senate have been recently trying to defang the stimulus bill by swapping spending for tax breaks.

Obama claimed that he would bring in a new era of sweeping change. But so far he has willingly given over some of his own mandate to the neoliberal extremists on the Right and thus reneged on his promise for change by reaching out (even if only rhetorically) to a party that is thoroughly convinced that 'gummint spending is the problem, tax cuts are the only solution'. Reaching out to these morons means giving up even the most moderate conceptions of 'change' on the table already... it means in effect reverting back to the Bush years. I mean let's be honest: all we can expect from this language of 'change' at this point is increased spending on things like education, healthcare, infrastructure (particularly public transit) and public employment. If the Democrats cannot even deliver on these modest goals, in what sense are they even a nominally 'progressive' party at all? Everything that liberals have claimed that Democrats needed in order to really pass bold reforms has fallen in place: a heavily popular president elected in a near landslide, a House in firm control by the Dems, and a Senate that is ONE vote shy of a supermajority, heavy cheering for new Administration. Yet, what do they do right off the bat? They blather about bipartisanship. Its hardly peripheral to this discussion to note that the 'they' in question is largely a clique of bankers, ex-financial execs, tax-evaders and otherwise class-enemies of the majority of the population.

What is the point of voting for Democrats if they spend so much time worrying about whether the Republicans (or Capital) are happy?

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Voters Who Love Too Much

As I walked down Michigan Avenue after Obama's election to the presidency, I passed thousands of people who were shouting and celebrating. Young people mounted the concrete traffic dividers, banging on drums and chanting "Yes we can!" or "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!" They chanted his name over and over again, dancing in the street, their faces lit up with indescribable excitement. And I have to confess: it made me uncomfortable.

It's not that I don't celebrate Obama's election. There are a thousand reasons why his opponent needed to be defeated, and why his victory must be lauded. It’s historic, and it carries deep meaning for the entire planet. One of the first reasons I ever had for supporting Obama was the sheer wonder it would be to have his face, name, and voice represent the United States on the world stage.

Yet as the heavy burden of the Bush years is lifted, I feel more trepidation than relief. I’m a million miles away from that fist-pumping, dancing joy I witnessed.

As progressive young people shout the name of our President-elect, I must ask again: what precisely are they celebrating? Do I even want to know? After all, Obama won an election that revolved all too often around personality. Do these drum-beating enthusiasts really care about his positions on the war, on gay marriage, on the bailout, on health care? Or is Barack Obama merely a figure they adore, a man whose rhetorical power moves them and makes them believe in a world more beautiful than ours?

I believe it’s a crucial civic question. After all, when you’ve purchased T-shirts and buttons and maracas bearing Obama’s image; when you’ve made Hussein your middle name on Facebook; when you’ve called his acceptance speech a piece of great literature; how can your relationship with Obama possibly evolve into a healthy one between constituent and elected official? Will these jubilant masses be capable of anger if Obama’s plans for U.S. troops amounts to a mere shifting of personnel from one Middle East danger zone to another? Will they be capable of resistance when they discover that Obama’s health care plan may be one of the first things to go? Will they identify Obama’s capitulations to corporate interests before it is too late, or will they still be drunk on the thrill of watching their team win the biggest of game there is?

In my opinion, this is a frightening time for Obama supporters. The man whose inspiring words still ring in your ears has retreated into a room with his advisors. He no longer requires your vote. The names of people from a centrist Clinton administration are surfacing in our newspapers. Obama’s expected to name the Secretary of the Treasury soon – a position of increased importance, given the economic crisis – and he’s choosing from a list that includes a Goldman Sachs executive, a former chief economist for the World Bank (“women-just-aren’t-good-at-science” guy), and the man who helped negotiate JPMorgan Chase’s first giant acquisition. Some people say Obama’s first staff pick Rahm Emanuel will help keep Democrats from “overreaching” after their significant gains. The same old voices are emerging from the woodwork, encouraging Obama to move to the middle, to be honest with the American people about what is and isn’t “possible”.

Obama himself may or may not be a change agent. But he is certainly now surrounded by people who have a vested interest in keeping some things very much the way they are. People who think his moderate health care plan would be too much, too soon.

Honestly, fuck that. If we’re smart, we’ll wake up from this dream-state and stop singing the praises of the man who now charts the course of our country. Your President-elect is not your boyfriend, your homeboy, your savior or your plaything. He’s responsible to the American people. But if we keep banging on drums and chanting his name, we won’t look like a very difficult crowd to please.

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Naomi Klein on the bailouts and the nonsense of free marketism

From The Guardian, her best points:

Before getting to the optimism, she has to temper our hopes with some realism:

During boom times, it's profitable to preach laissez faire, because an absentee government allows speculative bubbles to inflate. When those bubbles burst, the ideology becomes a hindrance, and it goes dormant while big government rides to the rescue. But rest assured: the ideology will come roaring back when the bailouts are done. The massive debts the public is accumulating to bail out the speculators will then become part of a global budget crisis that will be the rationalisation for deep cuts to social programmes, and for a renewed push to privatise what is left of the public sector. We will also be told that our hopes for a green future are, sadly, too costly.

But then on the hits this "common sense" ideology of deregulation is taking in the crisis:

This spectacle necessarily raises the question: if the state can intervene to save corporations that took reckless risks in the housing markets, why can't it intervene to prevent millions of Americans from imminent foreclosure? By the same token, if $85bn can be made instantly available to buy the insurance giant AIG, why is single-payer health care – which would protect Americans from the predatory practices of health-care insurance companies – seemingly such an unattainable dream? And if ever more corporations need taxpayer funds to stay afloat, why can't taxpayers make demands in return – like caps on executive pay, and a guarantee against more job losses?

On new approaches that can enter the mainstream discourse because of the epic failure corporations have been:

With the World Trade Organisation talks off the rails, this crisis could also be a catalyst for a radically alternative approach to regulating world markets and financial systems. Already, we are seeing a move towards "food sovereignty" in the developing world, rather than leaving access to food to the whims of commodity traders. The time may finally have come for ideas like taxing trading, which would slow speculative investment, as well as other global capital controls.

And now that nationalisation is not a dirty word, the oil and gas companies should watch out: someone needs to pay for the shift to a greener future, and it makes most sense for the bulk of the funds to come from the highly profitable sector that is most responsible for our climate crisis. It certainly makes more sense than creating another dangerous bubble in carbon trading.

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