Liberals Charged As Condescending!

In an article that appeared in the Washington Post entitled: “Why Are Liberals So Condescending?” Gerard Alexander sets forth a long list of images that he claims Liberals have of the Right. The article can be found here and I urge readers to read it, because not only do I plead guilty to having those views, but I assert that they are all true and much more besides. I think it is a perfect description of the Right (Republicans). I couldn't have described them better. It is not condescension. It is fact!

On economics they have only one prescription for everything--cut taxes.

Under Bush they turned the biggest surplus in history into the biggest deficit in history and gave us what could have been a depression to rival that of 1929, and while we have avoided the worst, we are still suffering from its after effects.

In well-researched writing on my blog entitled Lying Pays Off!!!!! Smears Succeed!!!! Obstructionism Is Rewarded!!!! I document the behavior of Republicans in the Congress and out.

In the face of this Mr. Alexander says:

"A few conservative voices may say that all liberals are always wrong, but these tend to be relatively marginal figures or media gadflies such as Glenn Beck." Well, I don't remember it being phrased as "liberals are always wrong" that would be far too mild for the minions of the Right. No they accuse liberals of far worse things and it clearly is not limited to "marginal figures or media gadflies such as Glenn Beck."

Thus we see such reputed moderate Republicans as Susan Collins engaging in fear mongering and lying when she says:

“The Obama administration appears to have a blind spot when it comes to the War on Terrorism. . . . There’s no other way to explain the irresponsible, indeed dangerous, decision on Abdulmutallab’s interrogation. There’s no other way to explain the inconceivable treatment of him as if he were a common criminal. This charade must stop. Foreign terrorists are enemy combatants and they must be treated as such. The safety of the American people depends on it.”

 

The new "moderate" Senator from Massachusetts said similar things. It  is a charade indeed, but the charade goes the other way.

The New Yorker sums it up succinctly saying:

"According to Kate Martin, the director of the Center for National Security Studies, in Washington, the military can’t simply grab suspects inside the U.S. and hold them without charge or a hearing. 'It violates the Constitution, which extends to everyone inside the U.S.,' she said. 'You can’t be seized without probable cause. You have the right to due process, and to a trial by a jury of your peers—which a military commission is not.' Confusion on this point may derive from the Bush Administration’s controversial handling of two suspected terrorists, José Padilla and Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. Both men were arrested in the U.S. by law-enforcement officials, and indicted on criminal charges. But Bush declared Padilla and Marri to be 'enemy combatants,' which, he argued, meant that they could be transferred to military custody, for interrogation and detention without trial. (Neither suspect provided useful intelligence.) The cases provoked legal challenges, and in both instances appeals courts ruled that Bush had overstepped his power. The Administration, not willing to risk a Supreme Court defeat, returned the suspects to the civilian system."

John Brennan who is  a career CIA officer and has served in numerous Administrations in ever higher positions and was the  Acting Director of the National Counterterrorism Center under President Bush said on Meet the Press that he is "tiring of politicians using national security issues as a political football" 

But this kind of libel is not new to the Republican Party. Richard Nixon accused his Democratic rival Helen Gahaghan Douglas of "being soft on Communism". Senator Joseph McCarthy accused the Truman Administration of "twenty years of treason" which Ann Coulter decided to top this with “Liberals are up to their old tricks again. Twenty years of treason hasn’t slowed them down.” Indeed, “in my next book, [I’m] going through 50 years of treason by Democrats.”

When Clinton aide Vincent Foster committed suicide Rush Limbaugh "claim(ed) that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton."

Alexander writes with derision of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," charged by Hillary Clinton during the Clinton Administration as showing essentially a paranoid view. But was it? "Mr. Scaife, reclusive heir to the Mellon banking fortune, spent more than $2 million investigating and publicizing accusations about the supposed involvement of Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton in corrupt land deals, sexual affairs, drug running and murder" and he certainly didn't work alone. They took a land deal the Clintons were involved in, that they had in fact lost money in, known as Whitewater, and made it look like the biggest fraud of a century. They pushed it until Clinton felt compelled to ask for a Special Prosecutor to investigate the affair. Now in all previous cases the court which was to choose the prosecutor under the then existing law, had always chosen one of the party of the person being investigated, so as to make sure that there would be no hint of partisanship. But here that tradition was violated when a partisan Republican panel appointed Kenneth Starr, who already had a reputation for a high level of partisanship. They then financed a suit by one, Paula Jones, thereby keeping the Clinton Administration off balance and unable to fully function. They eventually succeeded in catching the President in a lie in the Lewinsky affair, leading to Clinton's impeachment on a straight party line vote. It was obvious from day one that they, and it wasn't just Scaife, were determined to get Clinton by fair means or foul.

Let us move forward to the Health Care debate and the falsehoods told there. They have never engaged on the merits. they have used lie after lie, the claim of Death Panels being the most outrageous, but not alone. See: Health Insurance Reform - Lies and Damned Lies.

Well Mr. Alexander might say that was just Sarah Palin, but aside from the fact that Palin is a leading Republican light, not a single Republican disavowed these lies. But see also: Health Insurance Reform.

How can one have a serious policy discussion with a group that relies on so many falsehoods.

Whether it is the fault of the media, or the fault of the Administration, the lack of knowledge on the part of the public is appalling. According to the Pew Research Center's News just 32% know that the Senate passed its version of the Health Care legislation without a single Republican vote. And, in what proved to be the most difficult question on the quiz, only about a quarter (26%) knows that it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster in the Senate and force a vote on a bill. 

If we look back on the build up to the Iraq war and beyond we find again the total lack of accurate information that the American Public has. In 2005 a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 56 percent of Americans still thought that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the start of the war, while six in 10 said they believe Iraq provided direct support to the al-Qaida terrorist network — notions that had long since been thoroughly debunked by everyone from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee to both of Bush's handpicked weapons inspectors, Charles Duelfer and David Kay. 

Alexander talks about "The Republican War on Science" as though it were some kind of fiction. But the record of Bush Administration agencies ignoring the evidence of their own scientific staff, has been documented too often to require further discussion. Their refusal to acknowledge global warming in the face of an almost unanimous scientific consensus, speaks for itself.

He argues that evidence of the costs of cap-and-trade carbon rationing is waved away as corporate propaganda. That is simply not true. Of course there are costs to cap and trade. Nobody denies that. This is an example of their favorite tactic of setting up of a straw man. The point is not that there would be no costs, but that the cost of doing nothing is far greater. Not only does CO2 present a mortal threat from global warming, but it is causing untold health problems which are a burden on the economy and the Health Care system. But Alexander here illustrates exactly why it is so hard to have a real discussion. That straw man is a favorite tactic substituting for honest discussion.

Alexander says: "But, if conservative leaders are crass manipulators, then the rank-and-file Americans who support them must be manipulated at best, or stupid at worst. I wouldn't say stupid, but as I have illustrated, the public is so ill informed and so consistently lied to, that the ability of Democracy to function becomes a sham. Voting does not Democracy make. An informed public is necessary to the process, and when we have a whole party that consistently misrepresents, fear-mongers, and appeals to prejudice, we as a society and as a democracy are in trouble.

Let us remember that the Nazis came to power by the vote of the people.

Says Alexander that "It is now an article of faith among many liberals that Republicans win elections because they tap into white prejudice against blacks and immigrants." But that is absolutely true. What else is behind the birther movement against Obama. Why is his birth more in doubt than say McCain's (who in fact was not born in any of the 50 states) or any previous President.

It was not so long ago that then Republican majority leader Trent Lott said in praise of Strom Thurmond  that the country would have been better off if segregationist Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948.

In addition, while it is not widely known, since the Johnson civil rights legislation era, no Democrat for President ever achieved a majority of the white vote in the US. Obama got 43 percent of the white electorate which was more than any previous Democratic candidate got, but it hardly shows that the race issue is dead. 

As for anti-immigrant,  a few weeks ago I received an e-mail being widely circulated of a 1929 song that went something like, "If you don't like things here, go home, go home". Unfortunately the link is no longer active and so I can't reproduce it.

According to the Washington Post of February 11, 2010 "Former House member Tom Tancredo, famed for his attacks on illegal immigration, gave backers of the racial explanation all the ammunition they needed."

"In an astonishingly offensive speech, cheered by the Tea Party crowd, Tancredo declared that 'people who could not even spell the word 'vote' or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama....Even worse, if that's possible, Tancredo harkened back to the Jim Crow South that denied the right to vote to African Americans on the basis of  'literacy tests' that called for potential black registrants to answer questions that would have stumped PhDs. in political science...The reason we elected "Barack Hussein Obama," according to Tancredo, is "mostly because I think that we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country."

As for Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he was no neo-conservative. He was a liberal, and a Democrat, if ever there was one. Yes, it is not to the credit of other liberals that they discounted his concerns, but what does that prove? That liberals are not always right. Conceded gladly!!!

As for the Supreme Court Decision of Free Speech for corporations I addressed that at length here.

Mr Alexander suggests that we need to listen to the Tea partiers, but their message is incomprehensible. "Don't touch my Medicare - I am against government programs." and it tells us something about them as they cheer Tancredo and Palin and their hate-mongering.

All I can say is that Alexander indicts the movement by describing its character. The liberal impression is not one to apologize for, for it is accurate in describing the Republican Party. It was a vicious party during McCarthy and Nixon, it did great damage under Reagan, but nothing that went before, compares to what it has now become.

Liberals aren't always right, and I have severely criticized them on my blog, under the heading: Doesn't Anybody Really Care? where I also further documented the viciousness of the Republican party, but to read the Right even among its so called intellectuals like Krauthammer or Wills is not particularly elucidating.

I sincerely believe that what the Republicans and the Right in general seeks is a country of aristocrats, giving out of the goodness of their hearts and with condescension, a handout here or a job there. The old Russian model of serfdom seems to appeal to them. They have said that they believe that the only function of government is defense against external and internal foes. That means no public school system, no SS, no Medicare, etc., etc. Can no one hear them.

In Defense of the Banks

The title probably makes the blood pressure go up for quite a few people. The banks after all are the villains that brought our economy down, and that is undoubtedly true.

But it overlooks one cogent and vital point and that is the nature of our capitalist system. Now some of my audience may react that this is exactly why we need to get rid of the capitalist system, but I say to them, nobody has as yet come up with a better one. China, India, the USSR and a number of other countries have tried planned economies, and all they got were shortages, a low standard of living, and more poverty than any capitalist system has ever seen.

So as far as I am concerned I am for a capitalist system, or more accurately, a mixed economy with regulations that prevent inappropriate risk taking, and unethical behavior. Regulations have been the US model going back long before Roosevelt’s New Deal, and as least as early as 1890, when the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was enacted. A mixed economy goes back to the founding of the Republic, when the Constitution mandated that certain businesses, such as the delivery of the mail shall be a government function. Since then the US government has taken on innumerable business functions, from building canals, to land grants, to subsidizing the railroads, building highways, developing a widely envied (at least it used to be) public education system, establishing our National Parks, creating unemployment insurance, Health Insurance in the Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and VA programs and Social Security, to name just a few.

But why would I defend the banks? Well, they did what all businesses do in a capitalist system. They try to make as much money as they can, and that is what the banks did. So where was their fault. They used overly risky, ill considered and even unethical means toward their end of maximizing profits. But as long as what they did was not illegal, they did nothing wrong under our system of laws or even ethics.

Some, particularly in Republican circles, joined to some degree by left wing organizations, such as moveon.org, decried the bank bailout, and felt that they should reap the consequences of their reckless behavior. On a level of pure theory they are right, but we live in a real world, and the consequences of a melt down of our banking system would have had disastrous consequences for the whole economy, indeed the whole world. The failure to save Lehman brothers, which shook the economy, gives some indication of the abyss, which we were facing. Let us remember that F.D.R. dealt first with the banking crisis when he was inaugurated and despite unprecedented actions still had a 22% unemployment rate after 5 years in office.

In my opinion the fault lay in a misconceived believe that the capitalist system is self-regulating. Some, despite all evidence to the contrary, still believe that. Fortunately, many, among them the great apostle against regulation, the former Chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, have recognized that they were wrong, or as the conservative British newspaper, the Guardian, said:

“… Alan Greenspan has conceded that the global financial crisis has exposed a "mistake" in the free market ideology that guided his 18-year stewardship of US monetary policy.

“A long-time cheerleader for deregulation, Greenspan admitted to a congressional committee yesterday that he had been "partially wrong" in his hands-off approach towards the banking industry and that the credit crunch had left him in a state of shocked disbelief.”

Even former President Bush, in his last year in office recognized the crisis and urged a bailout of the banks which was authorized by the Congress in a display of bipartisanship not seen since, with both Presidential candidates, McCain and Obama, voting for it along with a majority of Democrats, and a minority of Republicans, who clinging to their faith that the markets would right themselves, were willing to risk a total meltdown in pursuit of their ideology, and now oppose regulating the banks, having learned nothing from this crisis, or for that matter earlier crisis, and the people who through their votes support such irresponsible behavior.

We now see similar behavior from the Toyota company who resisted recalls and an emphasis on safety for fear that it would have a negative effect on their bottom line and we saw it during the Savings and Loan crisis of the ‘80s and ’90 which like this crisis was caused by the removal of regulations that until then prevented the calamity and would have prevented it had they remained in force, or as About.com explained it:

“Savings and Loans were specialized banks that used low-interest, but Federally-insured, deposits in savings accounts to fund mortgages. In the 1980's, the popularity of money market accounts reduced the attractiveness of savings accounts, so the banks asked Congress to remove restrictions. In 1982, the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act was passed, which allowed S&L's to raise interest rates on deposits, make commercial and consumer loans, and removed restrictions on loan-to-value ratios. At the same time, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board regulatory staff was reduced thanks to budget cuts.

“In an attempt to raise capital, banks invested in speculative real estate and commercial loans. Between 1982 and 1985, these assets increased 56%. In Texas, 40 S&L's tripled in size, some growing 100% each year.

“By 1983, 35% of the country's S&L's weren't profitable, and 9% were technically bankrupt. As banks went under, the state and Federal insurance began to run out of the money needed to refund depositors. However, S&L's kept remained open, making bad loans, and the losses kept mounting.”

Unfortunately, the lessons of that crisis were not learned, particularly since that too resulted in an essential bailout under a Republican Administration. Or as About.com puts it:

“By 1989, Congress and the president knew they needed to bail out the industry agreed on a taxpayer-financed bailout measure known as the FIRREA provided $50 billion to close failed banks and stop further losses. It set up a new government agency called the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) to resell Savings and Loan assets, and use the proceeds to pay back depositors. FIRREA also changed Savings and Loan regulations to help prevent further poor investments and fraud.”

But why any of this should be a surprise is difficult to fathom. Sport analogies are so very popular in our culture, and here there is one that is at much on point as any could be. Our capitalist system works on competition. Competition is the heart and soul of sports. But can anyone imagine sports without regulations and umpires to enforce them. With the Super Bowl just behind us, can anyone imagine that game without rules, among them unnecessary roughness, holding or other tactics considered unfair.

          The President has introduced legislation that would begin to repair this situation. The banks and their protectors in the Republican Party want to block these. They are essential if we are to avoid endless repetition, but even they are not enough. We need to once again separate investment from commercial banking, by reenacting the Glass-Steagall Act, as ably set forth by Thomas Frank in the Wall Street Journal: We need to cap usurious interest rates, whether disguised as fees, or in the form of charging interest for a month when the loan is in fact for a day.

          The idea that competition, the heart and soul of our capitalist system, can function without regulations and strict enforcement should by now be self-evident. The villain is not the banks, but the government that fails to set up regulations, the agencies that fail to enforce them, and the people who through their vote create such a government.

Eating Crow

On January 21 2010 I posted a commentary on my blog entitled: "Lying pays off!!!!! Smears succeed!!!! Obstructionism is rewarded!!!!"

I received a comment from Bruno Lederer of Stamford, Conn. that read as follows:

“It is true that there were many smears and lies by the Republicans, and that that had some influence on the outcome in Mass. However, the main reason for the voter revolt there and in NJ and Va. was the use of federal money to rescue the automobile companies, AIG, and the banks, coupled with the unemployment situation in the country, and the fear that the health bill would result in more taxes. The trouble with Obama's approach was not that it was wrong, but that there was no real attempt to educate the voters as to the reason for his policies. I know that it does not seem fair for voters to penalize the democrats for policies that are much more reasonable than those of the Bush administration but that is the way voters are. The fact that special deals were made with the senators from Louisiana and Nebraska rubbed many voters the wrong way, and confirmed their negative view of Congress and politics. It is now imperative to fashion a health bill that will be acceptable to Olympia Snow, if possible, though the road will be much rougher now. Moreover, there is still time for Obama to try to educate the voters.”

When I published my commentary: “Doesn’t Anybody Really Care," I intended to use this comment in the body of my opinion piece, but in doing so inadvertently misquoted the comment and misrepresented it. This led to the following exchange between Bruno Lederer and me, which I am publishing in order to correct this misrepresentation.

Bruno wrote:

“Just two short comments in response to your recent misquote of my letter and mischaracterization of what it contained. Your changed "Republicans" to "Republican" in the first line, giving the impression that I was referring only to Sen. elect Brown as the person guilty of lies, smears etc. when I was referring to the Republican party as a whole. I also never said that the filibuster may have had some influence on the outcome in Mass. when I was not referring to the filibuster as influencing the election result, but the lies and smears of the Republicans. I also take exception to the statement that my letter shows no indication that I care, which I do, as you should know.”

To which I responded:

“I just spent quite a bit of time reviewing your complaints. At first I could not figure what their basis was, and then as I searched further I saw your point. You are right!

“I was careless, though none of it was intentional."

“The dropping of the s in Republicans was the result of a spelling and punctuation check, though that should not have applied to a quote. In adding a comma, I apparently substituted the comma for the s."

“As for my misquoting you on the filibuster when you referred to the "many smears and lies" again inexcusable carelessness, due to my equating them in my own mind."

“I will distribute this exchange, or any other statement you wish me to make, though I recognize that corrections never undo the damage done by the original misstatement."

“What bothered me about your comment was that I had written an angry commentary which can best be summarized by its title, "Lying Pays off!!! Smears Succeed!!! Obstructionism is Rewarded!!!" and you came back with what I considered to be a dispassionate analysis of the election. Of course, I know you care, but I don't think that one could tell by what you wrote. But in any case, I was not intending to attack you, but looking for a good lead in to the contention that we liberals should be able to muster at least as much anger and outrage as the Tea party people. 

“You may be right that Obama did not spend enough time educating the voters, but that is a difficult, if not impossible task, when you are being savaged by not only the opposition, but by the liberal organizations whose support you should be able to count on, not to speak of the media, whose job is to inform. How much space has been devoted in the press to the Democrats being blocked at every turn by an unprecedented use of obstruction, requiring unanimity on the Democratic part. As I pointed out, people like Krugman, actually lie (distort) in attacking Democrats, ignoring that compromises which they may disapprove of were unavoidable. MSNBC which is supposed to be a counterweight to Fox joins in the attack, distorting the realities of the political scene and demanding that the President undo acts of Congress by executive order - "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"; not defend acts of Congress though that is a duty of the Solicitor General, and take hopeless appeals where the law is settled. They demand that the previous Administration be prosecuted for war crimes in connection with torture.”

“It isn't the voters who infuriate me. It is the ‘liberal organizations, like moveon.org and the others mentioned…, as well as Krugman, Herbert, MSNBC, etc.”