We don't have a foreign policy crisis, we have a political crisis. We don't have a budget crisis, we have a political crisis. We don't have an environmental crisis, we have a political crisis.
All of the problems we're having stem from the same underlying problem - a political system that is broken. The mortgage meltdown, Iraq, budget deficits, climate change, and the oncoming recession all stem from this problem, but fixing only the crisis du jour, ignores the elephant in the room that ensures more shitpiles to clean up - the political crisis.
We have an Imperial President, the worst one in history, and a Congress that for the last eight years has thrown more power his way every year. The Republican Congress did it faster, but the Democratic Congress has continued the trend. Instead of acting as a check and balance on the Presidency, as designed by the Constitution, the Congress has simply abandoned its Constitutional role. They haven't ended the Iraq war, they've funded it. They haven't passed legislation aimed at fixing the budget deficit, they've passed budgets that have increased it. As for the current mortgage crisis, has there been some sort of awesome legislation that would've made everything better that was passed by the Congress that I somehow missed? Other than stopgap measures, has there been any leadership from the President or the Congress as the financial system melts down?
The Congress appears to be unable to play any meaningful policy role and that's been true for a decade. We no longer have three functioning branches of government and because of that, we have less and less Democracy. With less Democracy comes a government that's less responsive to its people - whether that's being tired of Iraq or worried about foreclosure. A government responsive to its people does not let a handful of them run off with millions while millions of them live hand to hand.
And while all of this goes on, we have a media discussing lipstick and email and candidates who seem perfectly happy with that arrangement.
But, to paraphrase Timbuk 3, it's all just another movie, it isn't going to fix our underlying problems. We have a political crisis in this country and until Americans see through the bullshit and realize that (and both parties and the media are dancing as fast as they can to try to hide it), we're going to keep having other "crises" even if we somehow manage to fix the current ones.
Happy Monday, Everyone!
NOTE - As for the argument that the Democrats can't get anything done with Bush in office and so have put all of their efforts into winning this year to fix everything next year, a dubious proposition given the lame campaign they're running, but if that's true, they are not only ineffective, they are immoral. Letting people die in Iraq or get thrown out of their house or lose their life savings in a failing financial institution because to stand up against any of that and try to stop it would put your election in danger is wrong. Members of Congress have every bit as much of an obligation to try to do what's right for this country as the President does. And there have been Congresses where a party was in the minority that managed to do more than this Congress has with Democrats in the majority. The same criticism applies to the Republicans in Congress who have been even more eager than the Democrats to ignore their responsibilities. The entire institution is broken, IMO.
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Do I hear a second?
Second!
I think the datapoint to look for is leapers like 29. If that doesn't happen, we'll probably weather this....
And see this post for the "shadow economy." Required reading.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Thanks for your thoughts
Interestingly different perspective...meanwhile the newspapers are selling "the economy is too hard for you to understand" and "there's nothing anyone can do about the mysterious markets."
The Problem Is The Lack of Political Accountability and Vision
not that all of this is too hard to understand. Because I'm not supposed to have to understand it. My job is not to regulate the financial industries. That's government's job. The problem is that government isn't doing its job and the folks who should be making sure it does seem to have no idea how to go about doing that and, what's worse, no inclination to hold anyone accountable for its failure.
Accountability for the executive branch comes primarily from Congress, which has abdicated that role. And not just with regard to Iraq or FISA or lawbreaking. It's been three years since Katrina, where's the big legislative package that would address the problems or designed to fix it in the future? This financial crisis has been coming on for years, where has the Congress been? Why hasn't there been public hearings and legislation and pressure on regulators through appropriations and otherwise? Sure, there has been a hearing here or there but no sustained effort to figure out the problems and fix them.
The lack of accountability, IMO, is tied to a lack of vision. The Democrats don't seem to have a vision for how they would govern this country beyond being 2% less shitty than Republicans. Ideally, how do they think our financial system should be structured and regulated? Ideally, how should our healthcare system work? What should our foreign policy principles be? Not just get out of Iraq, but what vision do they have for the United States' role in the world? They are not pushing a competing vision for what this country can and should be and how to get there.
One of the reasons why I think the evangelicals have so much political power in this country is that they have a vision for it. Now, it's a vision I disagree with and find inhumane and scary, but it is a vision. They know what they want this country to look like. Same thing with Dick Cheney. He has power, in part, because he has a vision. Again, scary and wrong, but he had an idea about how he wanted Government to work and he's gotten a lot of what he wanted. In part, I suspect because those who would oppose him don't really have a vision for this country other than "not his." That goes not only for Democrats, but also for Republicans in the Administration.
So if the GOP is scary and wrong, the Dems have no real theory of how to govern or goals they want to accomplish beyond be less shitty. That's not a powerful message and it's a weak way to govern. It's not enough to oppose the GOP, to be successful at governing, the Dems have to have their own vision and programs. I don't think they do. Some individuals within the party do, but the party overall seems directionless to me.
As Andrew Bacevich said, the Congress, which is the closest branch to the people, has come to exist almost solely for the reelection of its incumbents. It no longer serves its roles in holding the executive accountable or in developing its own theory and vision of governance. The people closest to the people have abandoned their Constitutional duties, which makes it easier for the government to abandon the people. It isn't so much a failure of one party or the other, as a failure of the institution.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Devil's advocatry
But it is not possible to produce these kinds of visionary reform packages when the President can veto them, so every attempt looks like recalcitrance and failure.
Not Buying It
First because passing legislation isn't the only power Congress has. They also have the power of persuasion and by not passing legislation for the President to veto, they are abandoning their half of the conversation. There isn't an argument coming from the Hill on what should be done. They sit silently because to put forth legislation is seen as a waste of time if the President won't sign it. Which is bullshit because it can play an important role in shaping the discussion and media coverage. Certainly, the media is not going to discuss alternate policies that the Democrats can't be bothered to even try to enact.
They also have the ability to impeach and not just the President. They voluntarily surrendered this power and by doing so signalled they were surrendering their constitutional role of holding the executive accountable.
They also have the power of the purse and can use appropriations to bully agencies and the executive into compromises or policy changes (admittedly some of the financial regulators are self-funding, but FEMA is not). For example, Clinton and Murray got Plan B out by holding up the FDA chief. There are ways to affect policy beyond just passing big reform packages, but too often these have not been used effectively.
It's true that the Congress can't do much without the President, but it's also true that the President can't do much without the Congress. That latter fact has been lost over the past decade (if not longer) and it's killing us. Because it means there is no check on the President's authority. Instead, they give the President more power, forgive his past sins, and abandon any pretense to using their own branch to develop competing ideas and policies. We no longer have three branches of Government, we have one (the executive) and two subservient branches (it's true the courts still strike down things the executive does, but Congress does not do anything to enforce the Court decisions or hold the executive accountable for failing to follow them). Which is why it seems so often the government isn't responsive to the people, the part that was supposed to be most responsive (the House of Representatives) has all but abandoned its Constitutional role.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
it's not broken at all for the powers-that-be--
it's working perfectly for big companies and big donors.
And for those who want hands-off govt when it comes to regulation and oversight and trade--and who want govt bailouts and subsidies when they mess up or shout loud enough.
It's what makes post-partisanship so infuriating
The system is broken in the exact opposite way from what both Obama and McCain are telling you.
They claim that two bickering parties are in gridlock, when in fact the two parties are in lockstep.
+10000000
That is the most succinct description of our current plight that I've seen.
Obviously, the time off does you good, VL, so keep at that ;-)
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Thanks. I guess I'll treat it to its own post.
And thanks, BDBlue, for yet another excellent post!
Thanks, VL
I'm still looking for a framework that describes the mess we're in. I don't think it's simply a matter of having this bad policy or that bad policy, as if bad policies happen in a vaccuum. How is it that we came to have so many crises at once? It isn't just that Bush sucks, we're supposed to have checks and balances to help off-set a bad president. It's not just that the Democrats are weak and/or incompetent. Stopping disaster isn't supposed to only be about the opposing party.
Andrew Bacevich made the point about Congress in talking about Iraq, but I think the crisis he identifies goes far beyond Iraq and even our foreign policy. We've always had some bad policies, corruption, and cronyism, but for some reason in the last decade it's reached epic proportions, why? What isn't working that was working? And I think it's, at least in part, the failure of Congress to play its important role. That failure has warped our political discourse by putting the President unchecked and at the center of it. Now, it's made worse by the lousy quality of this President, but I think it's a problem regardless of who is President. The system isn't functioning as designed, yet we all act like it is. That's a problem, IMO.
The other failure is the media. That they provide decision makers with bad information, preventing the media from providing any checks and balances on the executive branch and often discouraging checks and balances as somehow being bad or too partisan. When the system is designed for partisanship. In fact, it doesn't work without it.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
The formula is pretty simple
Conservative
movement + corrupted media + spinelessness or likemindedness of Dems
The ability and the desire and/or willingness to disseminate lies at lightspeed is doing us in.
Arthur's latest lays out the desire part of the equation.
Absolutely, VL
The danger in Obama, it seems to me, is that his election, in and of itself, will be seen as change and that our problems will have been fixed. When right now all that's being proposed even by Democrats are band-aids, not real fixes to our underlying structural problems. Now, maybe when he gets in he'll realize the need for those fixes, but the support he receives from hedge funds makes me uneasy. He is an establishment candidate and this system works for the establishment.
The danger in McCain, of course, is that we won't even get the band-aids.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
I haven't even heard the band-aids promised
All I'm hearing are promises of faith-healing.
You are on fire, VL (n/t)
!
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Follow the money
I know it is simplistic and trite but it is difficult to regulate the guys who pay your bills. Lehman was an early big contributor to the Obama campaign (and the Clinton campaign) - and to a much lesser extent to the McCain campaign. Until we have public financing of elections we will have candidates beholden to the folks with the money. Regardless of how "uncorrupt" a politician is, the constant focus on how to pay for the next election campaign has to effect their judgment and their votes.
Was talking about just this problem today
There's value to trying to get legislation passed, even if you expect a veto; in addition to the many benefits outlined here, it can serve to educate the public about what kinds of solutions to problems would work and rile up the support them so that when (if) the party ever gets the WH back, it's all a much easier political sell. And had any been put forth in the last 2 years, would have only highlighted where much of the fault for the mess lies.
That would have made the Democratic case against the Republicans on the economy much, much stronger, and given them a lot more cushion than they have now on economic issues.
Ugh.
You don’t know me, son. So let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.
-Malcolm Reynolds, “Serenity”