General Hillary
Thanks to those who posted and privately emailed me their responses to my mulling over the possible suspension of the blog.
No question that we restored a bit of order and with it an added degree of civility and, most importantly, readability. I am quite determined to keep it that way. No more Mister Nice Guy.
So if things begin to once again slide into the mud I will immediately and ruthlessly block the offenders. If that's not enough, I will close the comments. And I am prepared to take the big digital sleep if we really get to that point. Let's hope not.
That said, I'm keeping the blogging on the less strenuous side for the next few days. I continue to be rather subsumed by the work I'm doing at the Off The Bus reporting project for The Huffington Post. I'm happy to report that we've achieved some significant advances over there in the past few days and -- thanks to our contributors-- have seen daily traffic rise from 1500 or so unique viewers as recently as a three weeks ago to peaks nowadays of 30-40K daily.
Wednesday was also D-Day -- D as in Departure. The one and only Brilliant Daughter flew the coop, piled into the car with her honey and headed out east on I-10 to take up her new responsibilities at the DC headquarters of The Big Purple. By the time I hit the hay last night, they were already rolling toward Phoenix. I guess this means I'll soon be blowing through all my frequent flyer miles.
Down to business. Something to talk about. I refer you to my latest column in L.A. Weekly in which, predictably, I take yet a few more shots at poor, misunderstood HRC. A taste:
In case you haven’t noticed it already, let me fill you in. Senator Clinton has already jumped from a primary-election posture to a general-election strategy. She’s no longer bothering to run against Edwards or Obama. She’s already taking on Rudy. Which means, in turn, that if you consider yourself anywhere vaguely to the left of Clinton, she’s already taking your vote for granted. You’ve got nowhere to go, she figures, and now she’s free to shore up her right-wing flank.And, man, has she ever been busy shoring. I really can't fathom what her appeal is to Democratic voters. Surely she has some -- I don't believe her poll numbers are imaginary. I suppose the reason I so fiercely resist the very idea of a popular Hillary Clinton is that it shreds the few, already frayed threads of hope I have in people. You'd think they wouldn't be so ready to settle for so little. But, apparently, you'd be wrong.
October 18th, 2007 at 12:32 am
Hey, if I make this quick, maybe I’ll be commenter #1 on this thread! Time’s a wastin’ so ….
To the actual topic, see my mild snipe at Hillary in the second comment of the previous thread, about small vs. large campaign contributions. See also the SNL skit, here on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPUCVjCw_9o
Sorry, I just have nothing sweetly reasonable on this, right now. Hillary’s way out front. I secretly nurse hopes that she’ll be caught in some doping scandal: “She had too much moneybags cash in her bloodstream when she crossed the finish line!” (Yeah, I’ll probably vote for her anyway, but with nostrils stuffed with cotton and a clothespin over my nose.)
As for the ongoing meta-discussion of blog comments, let me suggest that committed comenters here spare a thought for Marc’s crushing work schedule recently (on top of some harrowing health scares), and your years-long appreciation of his contributions, and then ask yourselves: How can I help this guy?
The comment section is obviously at best non-peer after-the-fact review, occasionally the source of a hasty correction from Marc, at best. So any help we render Marc here will have to be *forward*-looking. My first comment on the last thread was made for a number of reasons, but not least among them was the hope of inspiring Marc (with some actual analysis, even if the interpretation was tongue-in-cheek) to keep blogging more about campaign finance, and its reform. This is an issue with significant attention on both sides of the aisle, and campain finance reform has champions as far to the right as Fred Thompson and John McCain. Why? Because it’s also got appeal at the grass roots. Heading the list when people are asked what groups get too much attention in Washington, you find, yes, Big Corporations (76%).
http://www.pollingreport.com/politics.htm
Admittedly, “Hollywood Executives” (74%), “Trial Lawyers” (55%), “Defense Contractors” (53%), “Religious Conservatives” (48%) and “Gays & Lesbians” (46%) show that we have no shortage of culture-wars-derived flak to fight through. But it’s still significant that even a generally business-positive culture like America’s would see big business as a little too sharp-elbowed at the public trough.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:17 am
“I suppose the reason I so fiercely resist the very idea of a popular Hillary Clinton is that it shreds the few, already frayed threads of hope I have in people. You’d think they wouldn’t be so ready to settle for so little. But, apparently, you’d be wrong.”
Part of the problem is that those of us who suggest that people should not settle for so little are regularly pilloried as aiding and abetting Republican victories. Once it becomes acceptable, indeed even mainstream, to question the two-party system, then there might be hope. Not before.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:19 am
“I really can’t fathom what her appeal is to Democratic voters. Surely she has some — I don’t believe her poll numbers are imaginary.”
I don’t believe her poll numbers are imaginary, but neither to I believe the polls are definitive. As noted in the Off The Bus Obama canvassing report – anecdotal and fragmentary, but a survey of far more Democratic voters, using voter lists, than an pollster would ever dream of – and from what I’ve experienced even more anecdotally and “fragmentarily”, it’s reasonable to susbect Hillary’s support is very, very soft and based more on her familiarity (and Bill’s) than any great love. Also the “HIllary inevitability” story that the press will likely need to revise and pick apart – out of boredom if nothing else. I’ve had a couple of instances of talking to people whose answer to a polling question by phone of who they would likely vote for in the Democratic primary might well have been “Hillary Clinton” simply because they haven’t been paying much attention (think of it – only a few months before primary elections and people aren’t consumed by the issues and candidates!) and I’ve walked away having gotten them to put up Obama window signs. But, more to the general point of the polls’ accuracy, I think there’s a chance that this Democratic primary might convince pollsters that they need a better approach than limiting their surveys to folks who happen to be at home and answering their hard-wired phone. Think of the people you know who rely primarily on their land line AND/OR who don’t screen calls at home with caller ID OR who don’t assume that anyone who needs to reach them calls their cell and perhaps lets their answering machine collect messages – because if they’re really old and not up to speed technologically they’re on the computer with a dial-up connection. Might that person who doesn’t fall into this group be your aunt who kinda likes HIllary ? The rest of them – the people you actually talk to – are probably either undecided or looking elsewhere. No hard evidence here, other than that pollsters seem to be increasingly behind the curve and in denial about how dated and demographically skewed their technique has become. Upshot – the country is having a steady stream of conversations about Hillary’s having a lock on a campaign outreach process that’s barely just begun on the ground in states like California and is really just getting rolling in terms of full-tilt organizing and media buys even in Iowa on the basis of less than a thousand phone calls nationwide that exclude the folks who rely mostly on their cell phones or who use caller ID for screening if the do answer their land line.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:21 am
You’re all still asleep. It’s 8pm here in Tokyo. I *rule* here, for the next couple hours. So let me address this bit of incredulity from Marc:
“I really can’t fathom what [Clinton's] appeal is to Democratic voters. Surely she has some — I don’t believe her poll numbers are imaginary.”
No doubt there are several factors, but I think we have to invent a concept for one of them: Virtual Incumbency. This notion came to me while studying Dem candidate poll numbers, and particularly the numbers for a NON-candidate, Al Gore.
http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08dem.htm
Gore is included in some of these polls. He beats the pants off … oh, God, what’s his name again? … oh yeah, EDWARDS, I remember now. He encroaches on Obama’s numbers in several polls. And that’s without Al even running — unless you call what he’s doing now “loping along the sidelines.”
Now, an interesting thing happens when they recalculate without Gore by using people’s second choice: Hillary gains the most, by 9 full percentage points in one poll. Except for the most die-hard DraftGore.org partisans, Al’s fans shift over to Hillary!
I see a Virtual Incumbency factor here. Hillary was sorta co-president for 8 years; Al was veep for that long; Bill’s not *allowed* to run again. Times were good, then. I think a lot of Dem voters would like to pretend that the last two squeaker elections didn’t happen, couldn’t have happened, oh please let Our Long National Nightmare be over!
There are many ways to look at Hillary and Al, but some of them overlap with how you might look at an old, tattered teddy bear unearthed from a trunk in the attic. Remember those rosy, carefree days when the economy was great and we only *lightly* bombed Iraq every now and then?
I’ve ripped Al in this forum, and I’ll do it again. But if one of my teeth fell out and I put it under my pillow just for laughs and old times sake, but then woke up next morning with a note from the Tooth Fairy saying, “Sorry, I ran out of quarters on this run, but I’ve appointed Al Gore as POTUS, I hope that’s enough” … Well, I’d break out into a nice big gap-toothed grin.
For a minute. Then I’d be ripping on him again, of course. I’m not sure I’d smile as wide if the Tooth Fairy gave me Hillary instead, but I’d at least breathe a sigh of relief.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Oh, I guess you’re NOT all asleep. Balter, he’s in France. But Reg, what are YOU doing up at this hour?
October 18th, 2007 at 4:34 am
Michael – campaign finance reform is, for the near term, pie in the sky. Ain’t gonna happen. Get used to it. No matter how long your posts on this get, it’s idle chatter. The best campaign finance reform at this point is helping to push grassroots donations over the internet to tilt the balance and, better yet, some time and energy spent on trying to feed candidates into the system who have some integrity on the issues that matter most. Despite being the “top answer” to pollers’ questions, this isn’t an issue that can possibly become politically central unless and until a whole bunch of other work is done first that can only happen by leveraging issues that are less complex and have more actual political traction.
MB – Nice thought. Maybe the responsiblity is on people who advocate a third party to actually make it seem viable to the “mainstream”. Because unless you get off your ass and spend years – decades, whatever – actually moving our political discourse to that point, you’re going to be constantly reminded of Nader 2000 and how well that worked out. Really sorry that happened. Even more than you. But it’s on the third party people to make a viable case and build viable organization. Self pity or blaming liberal Democrats who don’t find your arguments particularly compelling won’t do the trick. This is one of the lessons of adulthood – take responsibility and be proactive rather than whine about how you’re not taken seriously and everything would be different if the world wasn’t against you.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:43 am
“But Reg, what are YOU doing up at this hour?”
The Bush Derangement Syndrome has destroyed my ability to sleep soundly…
October 18th, 2007 at 4:50 am
“Clinton has haughtily cackled”
I agree with a lot of the article, Marc, but you pretty much hang yourself as a rational speculator to all but the rabid with that one.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:52 am
I’m assuming Edwards and Obama are holding fire until the last few weeks before Iowa. I picture (hopefully) a barrage of ads on the Clinton pardons and other ethics issue.
Her appeal? It’s still early, and name recognition plays a large roll.
October 18th, 2007 at 5:06 am
However dismissive we’d like to be about Hillary’s ascendency, we can’t ignore it as evidence that the anti-war movement remains ineffectual.
Before we autopsy the Democratic party, maybe we should spend more time discussing ways to revive the anti-war movement ASAP and make Hillary feel it’s sting.
Bill Clinton may be the best poll reader our generation has known and, obviously, he’s telling Hillary–or she’s getting the idea by osmosis (eewww!) that the anti-war movement can’t gin up the votes to threaten her.
Hillary will shift against the war faster than Bill downshifts to pull into a burger joint if an only if the movement starts to show some political punch. And if it can’t or won’t, it doesn’t matter all that much who the Democrats pick in the end.
October 18th, 2007 at 7:14 am
The Clinton column – why I read Marc Cooper.
As I have said before, defending that family, that of mentally retarded execution spectatorship, is just disgusting.
I have a standing bet that I’m offering anyone. This is that – as Krauthammer put it recently – seh continues to torture….
Any takers?
October 18th, 2007 at 7:19 am
BB – reviving a real antiwar movement should concentrate one extra-parliamentary, as we say, pressureo n government, not backing and attempting to (as the CPUSA/FPj does) have certain “good prog” sellout politicians in our pockets.
Rather it has to be concerted pressure and civil disobedience that raises the cost of remaining in Iraq.
With Hillary in power and the soft liberlas purged out of their newfound cult membership, perhaps the movement will be more effective.
October 18th, 2007 at 7:26 am
Since I live in the biggest city in the biggest electoral state, I’ve wondered if Hillary’s appeal, like election-time GW Bush, is more skewed to rural or less educated voters. It is not, I’ve found. Several urban professionals I speak with (and I talk with a bunch every week in the course of my job) tell me that Hillary is needed because she will be:
a) tough
b) strong
c) mean
d) hardened
e) politically adroit
g) a survivor
f) and “likes children”
ON that basis, we should have retiring UBF champ Randy Couture as president. Or maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And guess what? They are popular too,
My analogies to a decrepit, corrupt end of days Empire of the U.S. persist. I still think this country “is going down the tubes” even as George Carlin says, we “can’t find the tubes”. But that does negatively affect support for putative caudillo Hillary?
In fact I believe it strengthens it:
A local museums curator I know , an expert on cultures, supports Hillary for similar reasons enumerated above. I remarked to her that Hillary reminds me of Theodosius, the last Roman emperor maintaining a unified empire, a quixotic proposition in 400 AD.
She still supported Hillary, and continued eating her Ethiopian food.
October 18th, 2007 at 7:33 am
Whew. You’re still here, the comments are still available, and I’ll find out shortly if my IP has been banned. I’ve bookmarked your daughter’s website since I no longer feel like I can count on yours as a portal. She was good enough to add me to her neighborhood so I can keep track of her with you. Wishing her all the best in her DC adventures.
I believe your column about sums it up, Marc. I think Clinton’s candidacy has been bought and paid for by Big Money donors, and is being marketed for them by the M$M. Further, I no longer believe that Iowa and New Hampshire are reflective of the country as a whole. Finally, given the relative size of any formal political party to those unaffiliated, party primaries, as they are currently structured, ought to be an extinct species.
Like reg, I see little hope of substantially reforming campaign finance in the near term. I think corporate donors will spend their bucks to fight it tooth and nail. I suspect a more subversive campaign to reform the primary ‘season,’ or defeat the electoral college has a greater likelihood of success.
Also, like reg, I have a thin reed of hope that voters are more poorly polled than they have been in the past. And, I take a teeny-tiny bit of comfort in this post from FireDogLake: http://tinyurl.com/yotlhl
The author mused,
To be honest, I’ve mostly set aside the ’08 election in favor of beating my congressional representatives about the head and shoulders wrt to FISA, S-Chip, telecom immunity, and staying-the-&^@%-out-of-Iran, and campaigning for donations to EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and the ACLU.
Once I saw this: http://tinyurl.com/233quq I pretty much decided that IF there was a national election, and a Democrat were elected, it’d still be awhile before I saw my [snark] representative [/snark] government closer to me.
October 18th, 2007 at 7:39 am
correction: Randy Couture is UFC champ. But Hillary packs just as strong a punch.
Marc, I so agree that the the people get what they deserve, like General Hillary. This empty plate U.S. empire (relative to the salad days of the 1970s) also reminds me a Chilean analogy before our time, ex- wannabe caudilloGENERAL Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. He was supported by the right and center in the 1950s to the detriment of progressive reformers. Chile remained polarized and set on a destructive course.
Do you have any pisco?
October 18th, 2007 at 7:50 am
To jcummings: Of course Hillary will continue to torture. She’s giving me considerable pain at this very moment.
To bob williams: name recognition? Obama was at 84% back in August, Edwards at 85%.
http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28486
Not enough slack there to make up for their relatively sorry standing against Hillary at this point.
No, Hilllary’s courting voters rightward now for some very understandable strategic reasons. Giuliani trails her by only about 3 points, and less than a year ago, polls showed her losing against both Giuliani and McCain. She’s got the “anybody but a Republican” vote locked up and held hostage, at this point, but she’s still vulnerable to a low voter turnout or electoral college loss. Bush & Co are so lamed right now that they probably can’t make the GOP sink any lower in public regard. And there’s still a relatively solid core of people who’d never vote for her (though in polls I’ve seen, that’s been eroded down to 41% or so.) She’s still quite vulnerable on her right flank. Like it or not, this is what she has to do, and it’s what *any* Dem candidate would have to do, to be sure of election.
To bunkerbuster: the “anti-war movement”? What anti-war movement? The other day, I was reading about a major undergraduate thought leader holding forth on the major issue of the day: the criminalization of music file swapping, and the huge fines being levied against a handful of identified campus perps. He allowed that if there were a draft, students would would be up in arms about Iraq. But there isn’t one, is there? What’s an ambitious student radical to do!? And no GOP hopeful is going to go out on a limb and propose a draft, not at this point.
But surely the horrendous death toll among our troops would light a fire, wouldn’t it? Problem is, that death toll seems to be going down in recent months. And it was never dramatically high anyway — it’s actually more lethal to be an adult male civilian in some of our inner cities than it is to be sweatily humping gear in your body armor down the streets of Baghdad.
Really, I think the more strategic (rather than ideological) Dems would prefer to have Iraq disappear from front-page headlines, and for it to sink from sight as the #1 issue for voters. Because every day we progress toward the election is ALSO a day further toward a Dem taking the Oval Office, which only sharpens the question of what that President would do about Iraq. Better, they probably feel, to not have to deal with the question with audiences listening with full attention.
Americans are already somewhat reconciled to being in Iraq well after the election anyway. Asked in mid-September how long U.S. troops will have to remain in Iraq, 24% said “one to two years”, 31% said “two to five years”, and 27% said “longer than 5 years.” Not what they *want*, of course — 49% said they’d *like* to have them out within a year.
http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
October 18th, 2007 at 8:41 am
The notion that we get the leaders we deserve surely includes people who claim to take the issues seriously, assert their superior analytic skills, berate abstractions (“the people”, “the Empire”, “the voters”, etc.) but fail to get involved in the electoral process at some level – no matter how modest – and help to swing voters – a large and critical segment of whom are definitely “swingable” – toward the candidate they have most in common with and at the very least don’t believe poses a “danger”. I’d say it falls on them more – and if you use the the self-righteousness factor as a multiplier, far more – than it does on the average folks who don’t obsess on this stuff, don’t pay much attention to finer points of issues or – like those here who talk as though Hillary has run off with the nomination – mostly get swayed by polls, “inevitablity”, or some other form of buying-in to media conventional wisdom, passivity and fatalism.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Egregiously OT with apologies to Marc, et al:
As per Glenn Greenwald http://tinyurl.com/2dzax6 , Jane Hamsher (Firedoglake), Duncan Black (Eschaton), and others, Senator Chris Dodd is, for the moment, making a one man stand against the elements of FISA which would provide telecom immunity, and which would probably stop the lawsuit EFF and the ACLU are bringing against AT&T. If you’d like to encourage his position, Senator Dodd’s Campaign HQ phone number is 202.737.3633 and his Policy Director’s name is Amos Hochstein. My phone call was received graciously and appreciatively. I’m not fully ready to concede Hillary’s platform, even if I have no choice but to vote for her.
personal comment meter: 2/4
October 18th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Wait. Stop. While we’ve been nattering away on the last two threads, we’ve missed the most momentous change in the race: Stephen Colbert FINALLY (after 15 minutes) followed up on his announcement that he had “decided to officially consider whether or not I will announce,” and is actually exploring a bid.
This changes everything. He’s blown the race wide open.
http://tinyurl.com/3avpyb
I haven’t been this excited since Pat Paulsen’s run. Oh my god, am I *really* old enough to remember that? And now you all know that I’m that old. How mortifying.
But you know what? I don’t care! I’m going to get a girlfriend, a sports car, and a bumpersticker for that car that says “I am America (and so can you!)”. With Colbert, I’ll be able to vote Republican AND Democrat by punching out a chad for the same candidate, the best two-for-one special in this century so far. (I just have to find some guy a little more, um, “willowy” than I am, named “Chad”, to punch out. Could be a challenge.)
Who says you can’t have it all? Don’t buy in to media conventional wisdom, passivity or fatalism. Just think “Colbert ’08″. Say it, say it, say it: “Colbert ’08″. Doesn’t that sound just like the kind of gun you’ve wanted to own since you were 7 years old? With a gun like that, I wouldn’t have to worry about Chad.
I. AM. SO. STOKED. Bring it on!
October 18th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Well Barack had his chance and he didn’t make the sale. Edwards is dislike by the by the press so he gets the Gore “treatment” this year – see Evgenia Peretz in VF. That leaves Hil and whether or not Marc likes it the boys (and girls) on the bus are dazzled by her organization and “inevitability”. Will she win? Sure! The GOP is a spent vessel and will implode next year. But, again, I cannot repeat this enough, the crunch comes in ’09 and ’10 if major reforms don’t come down the pike.
Item, if we’re still in Iraq and if health care is still screwed the Dems can pack their bags and move. But action on these fronts means a permenant Democratic majority for a generation. And Republican strategists know it. Which is why they will do everything they can to gum up the works.
Its that simple. Everything else is scenery.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:39 am
MT Colbert is a poseur. I’m for Goldwater (CeCe) – Miller (Stepanie) ’08!
October 18th, 2007 at 9:58 am
I’m stunned by the fatalism…
This is part of the problem. Probably more so than the perfidy of the masses and their “false consciousness.”
Let the media and the pollsters hand you your ass. Talk about just desserts.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Re my comments above see the following:
http://www.dailykos/storyonly/2007/10/18/64316/488
The author is a physician in Danbury, CT
October 18th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Sorry:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/18/64316/488
October 18th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Michael Turner: I stand corrected on name recognition. I guess I’m back with Marc, wondering about HRC’s appeal to Democrats.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Okay. Here’s something I’d like to pose to the powers that be – namely thee.
I have never voted for a Repulican or a Democrat in any presidential election – although I would – if I felt aligned with a person who I deemed in cocncert with my philosophy, shared similiar values, and had what I deemed to be a character of integrity and intelligence (although these things are hard to ascertain because I never get a chance to actually “meet” these people – only hear and see them after they’ve been filtered through so many layers of media and bias).
So I have always voted for a third party – usually Libertarian – as they come as close as possible to where I stand politically.
This time around I am wide open – definitely veering towards a Democract because of the desperate need for a change and for a desire to see the real “conservatives” be spanked (not Republicans mind you – don’t even know who they are anymore) so that they might “rediscover” themselves . Except when it comes to Hillary. I can’t vote for her.
Obama strikes me as a person who might be able to unite and who seems genuinely trying to work independent of a system that Hilary so readily embraces. I also Like Ron Paul for similar reasons – although some of his ideas are far too radical for my taste – but I feel a strong Congress would be able to hold those notions in check. So at the moment – those are my two best choices – I’m open to the idea that my affections may change over the next year.
Here is my challenge. Convince me. I am that “swing” voter. I am that Independent who could not in good conscience vote for John Kerry – though I desperately wanted to vote for a Democrat – because I found him to be such an appalling candidate. I voted Libertarian last election.
But I’m telling your right now – I will not vote for Hillary. I don’t trust her, I don’t believe her, I don’t want the next American Royal Family back in the Whitehouse – and I don’t want “business as usual”.
There are more people like me out there than you think. And we desperately want a change. We don’t see Hillary as a change.
So here I am. Come and get me.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Anybody remember back during the 2000 presidential race, when Michael Moore opined “You can’t have a third party when you don’t even have a SECOND party!”? Yep, I think he was backing Nader, then…
MT: don’t feel so down; I remember when The Monkees debuted on tv–yeeesh.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Look let us grant that our political system is broken. How can anyone deny that? And Hillary ain’t perfect. But anyone here who would not vote for her in a second over Guiliani simply has not been paying attention to the last seven years and is a nihilist. Do you people really want Norman Podhorotz making foreign policy? Do you really think there is no difference? I’m sorry but you have lost me there.
October 18th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Well the SC HIPS bill failed to o0veride the veto. It lost by thireteen votes and actually lost one GOP vote this time around. So the Repubs will stick to the bitter end with mr. 24%.
No compromise at all! Any attempt to do anything but reintroduce the bill and ram it down their throats is a farce. How about it harry and nancy? Got balls?
(oh so sorry, forgot that we’re “civil” here now!)
October 18th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Virtual Incumbency.
Very ‘William Gibson’, MT. Appologies to WG: The coming ‘electorial dynasty’ is the color of money, tuned to a spent democracy.
…agree with reg that one oughta do what one can to try to get something better.
We’re all Case now.
October 18th, 2007 at 11:29 am
But Richard – that’s assuming that there are only TWO choices available. I’m sorry, but I don’t see it that way – no matter how impractical and anti-pragmatic that may sound – that is not how I make decisions – be they politcial or personal.
And yes, of course, there is a difference between the two ideologies of Giulliani and Hillary – but not in HOW they do things. It’s the same approach, the same style – I don’t trust or believe either of them!
And before you call me a simple contrarian or nihilist or anarchist or any other “ist” understand – there are morre people out there like me than you think. Decent, intelligent, but entirely fed up with it. Which is why I am sincerely leaving myself open to be convinced, one way or the other – maybe you think – screw you you’re a tiny whisper of a minority and don’t matter in the grand scheme – maybe you’re right – but I think it would be ill advised to dismiss people such as myself during these trouble times.
We are the ones who would like to see a “none of the above” box on the ballot – if that box gets the majority vote – all those on the ballot are tossed out and we start all over again with fresh candidates, we do it again and again and again until we wear ‘em down and there’s nothin’ left but regular, honest, intelligent, decent fed-up folks like us.
Yeah, I know…one can dream.
October 18th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Colin, as a fellow independent, I think I can fairly say to you, the luxury days of “unaffiliated” are over. Gone. Dead. Done. Until such time as independents are free to register for a primary vote in all states, we have tacitly agreed that we’ll chose among whomever the political parties care to nominate. You are free to stay home and not vote. You are also free to place your vote for a candidate who doesn’t stand a chance of winning. While you aren’t alone in your feelings, Michael Balter and Reg have done the yeoman’s back-and-forth argument about the current/immediate futility of a viable third party. Note. It will always be true that someone will be elected and sworn into office. You may like that someone, or loathe that someone. On January 20th 2009 it will not matter what your personal feelings are.
After Bush took 2000, I was ready to sit back and say, “Okay, out voted, better luck next time.” In 2004, I thought, “Okay, four more years and we’re free of this sorry-excuse-for-a-president.” In 2006, I was hopeful our foreign policy would begin to turn the corner. As of today, I am reading some very smart people speculate that the plans for engaging Iran are already written and ready to go. Within the next 15 months we will be in a war with yet *another* middle east country.
There was a time that I believed it mattered little who the President was. I trusted in the balance of power among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The past near 7 years have convinced me otherwise. I was wrong. Dead wrong. 3,000+ dead American soldiers, probably near 1 million dead Iraqis, god knows how many displaced Iraqis, and billions of dollars in debt wrong. That’s wrong enough for me. If you wait for someone to “come and get you,” you’re going to be waiting a very long time. It’s simply not going to happen.
See, the thing I don’t think you understand is that piece behind your words strong Congress. Witness the past year for a refutation of that belief. Take a tour around the internet to see what Congress has given away. If you look up just *one* thing, look up Kyl-Liberman, and the implications of the same. Congress has willingly abdicated a great deal of its so-called strength (that very same strength you claim you’re using as a bulwark against radical ideas) to the executive office. And, that same Congress is allowing the executive office to gut the first and fourth amendments. Shall we look to the Roberts’ court for relief? If you’ve been following the recent SCOTUS decisions, you know the answer.
Come and get you? They’ll cheerfully walk right past you, and smile as they go by.
3/4
October 18th, 2007 at 11:38 am
What richard said at 10:50.
Colin, I’ll take you up on the Obama challenge but right now I’m off to set up a campaign table at my local rapid transit station (and Thursday farmer’s market.)
October 18th, 2007 at 11:52 am
But Listener – with all due respect and acknowleding the price that has been paid in the last six years – you make my point for me.
We saw the president’s power careen out of control so we did what we’re supposed to do -vote – put in a counter weight – a Democratic Congress – to pull him back and get out of Iraq. What has happened? Nothing. Business as usual.
So I suppose my question to you is: then what are you asking me to do? Vote for all Democrats so we can…what? I just did that in 2006. My reward. Nothing. Business as usual.
I’m sorry. That doesn’t work for me.
I suppose my challenge “Come and get me.” Is really a rhetorical one in the end – the powers that be don’t want anything to do with me. It’s like having Ron Paul on the stage for the GOP “debates” – everyone winces, pretends like he didn’t “just say that”, and hopes that he’ll eventually go away.
October 18th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Okay, Colin. I’ll give up my last comment on this thread by making a recommendation. If you want to sit out this national election, I can certainly understand. If you want to remain an Independent (and maybe where you live that has some meaning – it doesn’t where I live, as I sadly discovered), that’s fine, too.
However, a story. My mother is a card carrying, petition schlepping, Republican committee woman. She has been voting a straight Democratic ticket for the past two national elections. When I asked her why (in the *hell*) she was still a registered Republican, she answered, “Because they need me.” Let that sink in for a moment. What’s she’s saying is, the Republicans are so damned wrong, they need her, and people like her to help pull their heads out of their butt.
There are some fairly enormous efforts underway to make a dent in the damage Congress has done by giving away its legislative authority. Join one of them. Donate to EFF or the ACLU. Call your legislator regarding FISA, S-Chip, or some other bit of legislation you feel you can get behind. You don’t have to belong to a particular party to make you voice heard. Chris Dodd’s website (if you can even get near it today) is offering updates on his his “hold” on the bill which would grant telecom immunity. Toss him some change if you can afford to.
What I’ve told myself is, “Sweetie, your days of sitting on the sidelines are so over. If you don’t get involved and work for the changes that matter to you, you got no warrant to complain when things don’t go your way.” Colin, you’ll have to decide what your legacy will be. Chances are you are a good deal younger than I am, so presumably, you have more time to make a difference than I. You get to decide on a contribution that is meaningful for you. And, you’re going to have to chase it. Sadly, it’s not coming to you.
A metaphor I think you can appreciate. Getting back what’s been lost over the past 7 years is going to be a marathon. It ain’t a 5K.
*ding! 4/4
October 18th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Wait. You call yourself “sweetie”?
October 18th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Interesting discussion. I see two questions, one, can Hillary get the nomination and two can she win the general election. Right now the answer has to be Yes, no doubt about it.
From one point of view, 4 years of Hillary ought to be enough to insure a republican administration for one heck of a long time, and maybe a republican congress. So, how do Thinking Democrats take out Hillary and put in someone who seemingly if elected can govern without it costing the Dems future elections. As much as I dislike The Plug, Biden? Probably! Dodd? Nope! Obama? More than likely! Richardson? Perhaps! Gravel? No way! Kucinich? You gotta be kidding me! Edwards? Maybe, I don’t think he would administer as a populist though he would always talk like one.
Hillary has multiple ethics problems right now, Hsu, Paul, refunds not being refunded etc. If she looks more and more certain, will Edwards or Obama loose that MOAB on her lil ole head? I think they might. If they do, that might damage her enough to lose the general election. Then what for the Dems? Hope that the Republican nominee isn’t as smart? That the Republican nominee get elected and then get wasted too after 4 years?
Hillary will be a disaster for the Dems, I’m almost looking forward to it. On the other hand, if you think Tricky Dick had an Imperial Presidency, wait till you see a President HRC!
October 18th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Wait. You call yourself “sweetie�
Colin don’t be so suprised there are females who read political blogs. The more confusing name is Mavis Beacon, who uses the fictional name of a typing tutor program, who is a male.
*******************
I see the congress could not muster the votes to overide the Presidential veto on a heath care plan for the kids.
The Dems need to coin a a clever phrase “against the kids” just like the Reps. over used phrase “against the troops” or “Anti-American”.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
What? Mavis is male? Holy cow.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Beacon_Teaches_Typing
October 18th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I’m not surprised that there are females who read political blogs…I’m just surprised anyone refers to themselves as “sweetie”.
Hey, whatever works.
I’m actually not Colin Mitchell. I’m “Colin Mitchell”.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Ah, the tsk tsking of the Clinton Haters of old. Want to get really depressed? You might want to look into what your standard barer is up to over at City Journal. “An Anglosphere Future.”
Into the dust bin of history goes the U.N., the ties to bind a great white future must be tied anew!
Williams, I’m afaid a fresh review of the Clinton pardons might reveil an modestly embarrassing fact to those round these parts: some of them were pretty great. Avert your eyes, Cummings!
That said, the Clinton’s big sin here is obvious: She’s winning. If She was in fact treating the nomination as a done deal; something it would take a very foolish candidate to do at this time; wouldn’t one be happy She was leaving herself vunerable? Wasn’t Howard Dean the expected winner at this point last time. The miserable experience has not materialized because, in the face of all conventional wisdom, it turns out that…opps, people like her.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Come on my long in the face world shakers. Put it down as a learning experience. The next time it seems expedient to form common cause with Ann Coulter and get behind the efforts of a Ken Starr…. consider the law of unexpected consequence.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Richard Locicero writes:
“And Hillary ain’t perfect. But anyone here who would not vote for her in a second over Guiliani simply has not been paying attention to the last seven years and is a nihilist. Do you people really want Norman Podhorotz making foreign policy?”
The number one reason to OPPOSE Hillary is fear that Podhoretz would end up making foreign policy.
Hillary is not electable. She’s got John Kerry’s position on the war! How are Democrats missing that point???
What on earth is making people forget that the “I voted for the war before I voted against it” position is lethal for Democrats.
Triangulation worked for Bill because the Cold War was over. He–unlike Carter, Mondale and Dukakis–didn’t have to compete against Republicans whose main campaign thrust was to signal in every way that they were completely devoid of empathy and therefore the best bet to incinerate millions of Russians when the time came to do so–or to gun down any uppity brown-skinned dictators who might think about playing nice with the Russians.
Hillary is competing against Republicans who are playing the carefully coded Hate Card for all its worth. Listen up to Rudy’s latest tirade against Muslims. They are cranking the fear and coded bigotry up to 11.
In the face of the this, the Democrats will never win with a “I’m just as cruel to foreigners as the Republicans, but I’m a cuddly teddy bear to children without health care, downsized auto workers and Mother Earth.
When people say Democrats “don’t have any ideas” what they really mean is that the Democrats don’t have a consistent underlying narrative.
Democrats who talk tough on foreign policy look disingenuous in subtle, but defining ways because they talk so “soft” on domestic issues.
The Republican’s underlying narrative is “we have zero empathy for weakness of any kind whatsoever.” So when they deny children health insurance, it actually supports their credibility as the ones most willing to kill every Muslim on the planet.
It’s clear that Hillary and her advisers do not understand this. They think it’s 1992, or they don’t understand how a campaign of hate like the one now on against Muslims (just stop by LGF, Michelle Malkin or search “hate Islam” at Youtube) changes everything.
You want to keep Blackwater’s bag men from another tour of duty in the White House? Oppose Hillary with everything you’ve got!
October 18th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Bunk, the sort of silly “flip flop” nonsense, was only effective against Kerry because A) the media parroted this silly talking point to no end, and B) Kerry himself was too milque toast bland to fight back. That doesn’t seem to be a big problem for Hillary Clinton.
Look, if you want to pretend Iraq wasn’t and isn’t Bush’s war; then yes, you ARE playing into the hands of the Republicans. No doubt; this sort of thing will be effective to a degree. If Clinton takes the nomination; we will be on new ground in a lot of ways, I wouldn’t count her in or out. Will a state like Lousiana still be easy pickings for Republicans after Katrina?
But stinking her with Blackwater is a simply a low blow. This idiot and his ship of fools has screwed up and awful lot of our country. Should She win, some of us will be willing to give her a fair chance.
Not for HER sake, but for ours.
October 18th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
A broken clock is right once a day. Clinton deserves credit indeed for pardoning Puerto Rican nationalists, among others. that said, he didn’t pardon Peltier.
I’m glad Nardy is happy about Clinton flying back to Arkansas to preside over the execution of a developmentally disabled person.
October 18th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
In fact Iraq is Bush sr.’s war, Clinton’s war and Bush jr’s war. America has been at war by various means, from near-genocidal sanctions to constant (daily, even) bombings between gulf war 1 and 2. I’d bet big money that HRC continues torture, privatizing military functions and other disgusting activites pioneered by her husband.
Last post I promise..its just too easy to pick fights with those who defend pioneers of the rendition programme.
October 18th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Bunkerbuster said it well.
What is it that Harry S. Truman said?
Something like “If you give the people a choice between a Republican and Democrat who acts like a Republican, they’ll vote Republican every time.”
Uhuh.
October 18th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Then why’d they vote for Mr. loyalty oath/start the cold war/mediocrity/nuker of Japan/redbaiter/corrupt scion of macine politiics?
October 18th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Um … because those things had broad bi-partisan appeal at the time?
October 18th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
But Marc, you always liked Bill Clinton and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore so much! I don’t understand why you hate Hillary …
October 19th, 2007 at 12:53 am
Cummings, it’s Ricky Rector, don’t lose his name to the talking points memory hole. Since the “dime worth of diference” crowd has said nothing about Bush installing two hard right Justices to the SP, making Capital Punishment pretty much a done deal for our lifetime… I’ll try not to feel too bad. Clinton did commute ONE death sentance as Gov. of Ark, a story that leads in some interesting directions, if you ever check it out…
October 19th, 2007 at 2:51 am
“Kerry himself was too milque toast bland to fight back. That doesn’t seem to be a big problem for Hillary Clinton.”
Sorry, but it wasn’t blandness that prevented Kerry from fighting back. It was his unwillingness to challenge the conventional wisdom that Saddam Hussein had to be removed by military means.
And please. How has Hillary “fought back” so far against charges that she has no policy whatsoever on Iraq, other than to stick her finger into the wind every day and say which direction it’s blowing?
How do you expect Hillary to “fight back” against charges she has switched positions on Iraq? I’ve yet to hear a single word from her on that subject.
Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Gore–all of these candidates have spelled out where they are on the war and why. The only one that hasn’t is Hillary. What would make anyone take that as a sign she’ll “fight back” against charges she’s nothing more than a poll reader?
October 19th, 2007 at 3:33 am
Bunkerbuster, you have it right, Hillary is one hell of a poll reader and she learned it from Bill.
October 19th, 2007 at 7:34 am
I’m sure if we looked through the dates when those justices were confirmed, we’d find plenty – from Nader, Joanne Mariner, P C Roberts, on Counterpunch.
But its not about that. We’re talking about Clinton, and your defense of him. The fact that its admirable that he commuted “one” death sentence is nothing so much as finding a godfather admirable cause he gives away turkeys oin thanksgiving.
October 19th, 2007 at 7:53 am
How ironic President Truman is quoted to substantiate Bunker’s class struggle anti-defense nonsense.
If we had a choice of a Truman today, the Republicans would raise the white flag and gladly surrender the election. If we had a choice of a Truman today, the Bunker Democrats would still refuse to put down the white flag to radical Islamists.
October 19th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Jim R – No need for a white flag when you’ve got utter incompetents like BushCo leading the charge.
October 19th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
I believe the conventional wisdom at the time, and poll numbers to go with it, were the same for Truman and His War reg. His is still being fought because we never finished off the crazy bastards that started it.
Those who don’t know history are……
October 20th, 2007 at 12:55 am
Krugman has yet another brilliant column in today’s NYT about how Bushco has even managed to cut off the GOP’s cash umbilical cord to corporate America.
He writes:
“The truth is that while the administration has lavished favors on some powerful, established corporations, the biggest scandals have involved companies that were small or didn’t exist at all until they started getting huge contracts thanks to their political connections. Thus, Blackwater USA was a tiny business until it somehow became the leading supplier of mercenaries for the War on Terrorâ„¢.
“And the lethal amateurishness of these loyal Bushies on the make horrifies the corporate elite almost as much as it horrifies ordinary Americans.”
So it’s not just that the biggest money would prefer to bet on the Democrats just because they think they have a better chance of winning this time. It’s because Bush and company turned what was a reasonably balanced quid pro quo with corporate America into a neverending shakedown on K street.
When you can’t even keep the lobbyists on your gold-plated payroll happy, it’s hard to see how you’re going to scare suicidal religious fanatics into becoming boy scouts.
October 20th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Jim – Those who don’t know history…got us into this unbelievably fucked up mess in Iraq.
I believe it was Truman – who you’d hand the reins to with no qualms – who fired MacArthur and, of course, a Republican president who ended the war. The notion that the Korean war is “still being fought” (implying the necessity of a military solution to the current set of problems on the penninsula) or that we’d have been better off just pushing to the Chinese border (and, perhaps, nuking Peking when the going got rough ?) is the kind of stuff that sounds great from the barstool, but hardly serious historical analysis.
The “Good News From Iraq” crowd are yesterday’s “Mission Accomplished” gang and then the “Purple Finger Democracy” blatherers. Curently the Zero Credibility crowd offer us “The Surge” (which your genius leaders have put an end date on because they’re too politically cowardly to put on the table what it would take to “win” – thus using our troops as fodder on a long-shot bet at best or human sacrifices to stave off defeat while a GOPer’s in the White House at worst – both of which are reprehensible) !
October 20th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Damn. I can’t slip anything by reg.
Yes I forgot to mention that little China caveat. And no, I think Truman did the only thing he could, and showed great will and leadership, in attempting to fire a general way more popular than he, in a war that wasn’t going well. He stared him down eye-ball to eye-ball until MacArthur blinked. It’s called hard-nosed will, courage, and demonstrated leadership. I think Bush has it. You don’t.
My point was Presidents during long wars are not popular with the people, beginning with Lincoln. But history has been kind to them all, after re-viewing the circumstances in retrospect.
We can agree Bush handled Iraq wrongly. We will disagree on the need to handle it at all as well as whether it can and should be ‘finished’ to a civil democracy….of sorts. Thanks for the dialogue.
October 20th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Oh, and no there is no military solution for Korea for the same reasons as the original one. But, yes it is still being fought coldly after 50 years with a much more ominous world destroying nuclear capability….and spreading it, Syria anyone, even as they are blackmailing us on a promise to only ‘mothball’ theirs.
My point again, is wars need to be won to prevent bigger problems/disasters in the future. We will disagree on whether Iraq can be, or even needs to be.
October 20th, 2007 at 9:29 am
I think Bush has it. You don’t.
Actually had the “courage” to fire the wrong general for having the courage to call things as he (it tunrs out correctly) saw them: Eric Shinseki.
October 20th, 2007 at 9:53 am
The Iraq war has been won
http://lrb.co.uk/v29/n20/holt01_.html
October 20th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
“It’s called hard-nosed will, courage, and demonstrated leadership. I think Bush has it.”
Jim R – have you ever considered applying as a writer for Stephen Colbert ?
October 20th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I think the nose is hard because of peforated membranes due to years over a pile of jajo, esp. those late nights with Lee Atwater.
The courage is to stick it to his dad’s realists, no matter what the consequence, to declare indepedence from daddy.
The leadership has been demonstrated, to the ruling class which benefits from Bush – though they now see him as a liability and want HRCto continue the dynastic smooth functioning of American capitalism, and its ultimate role as the enforcer-state of capitalist world order.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
I know I should hate you bastards, but it’s funny. I think I’m getting slightly aroused by the abuse instead. Don’t stop ‘K?
October 20th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
I really enjoy the dying US Empire emulate other moribund polities and recruit foreign troops into its armies (in addition to the mercenaries of Blackwater et al) because they don’t really complain much.
Yet.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-512384,00.html
I do not think General Hillary/Theodosius will change this
October 21st, 2007 at 1:07 am
Jim R makes an excellent point in noting that we’re still fighting the Korean war.
Indeed, wherever the Cold Warriors most aggressively had their way: Vietnam, Korea and Cuba, i.e. the war was lost.
Wherever the Cold Warriors were forced to temper their aggression, East Germany, Poland, Romania and so on, the communist regimes collapsed the quickest.
China is an exception that elegantly proves the rule. It remains communist politically, yet it has found a formula for maintaining control without gulags. That came about precisely because Nixon–for his own cynical domestic political reasons–denied the Cold Warriors the chance to exercise aggression against China.
The pattern is as simple as it is clear: military aggression entrenches despotism, rather than eliminates it
The best bet is that the same pattern will hold in the Middle East.
For decades or more, Iraq will have an entrenched faction of radical Islamists either vying for control or maintaining it. In other words, like in Korea, we’ll still be fighting it when Jenna Bush wins the 2030 GOP nomination.
By then, countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or, even Iran, where the new Terror Warriors haven’t had the opportunity to try military aggression, have a very coog chance of having shaken out the totalitarians.
How many conversations did Jim R have in his lifetime wherein he assured some liberal whom he dismissed as “naive” that the Russians would never be defeated short of a full-scale military destruction of their country?
How many times did he insist the Soviets “only understand force.”
Yet when that regime fell without a shot fired, how many times did he say. “Guess what? I was wrong.”
I’m guessing none.
October 21st, 2007 at 2:18 am
jcummings writes:
—
The Iraq war has been won
http://lrb.co.uk/v29/n20/holt01_.html
—
Pretty good piece, though I don’t know if I’d go with that estimate of $30 trillion for Iraq’s oil wealth. Probably closer to $10-$20 trillion. But basically this guy argues from the numbers, and I always like that. We’ve had Colin Powell admit that it was basically about oil, Alan Greenspan say much the same thing in his memoirs, and more recently Gen. Abizaid (ret) echoing this sentiment, though in that case initial reports put many of Thomas Friedman’s words into the general’s mouth. Why would it be so much about the oil? Because there’s a hell of a lot of it in Iraq, and as bad as Iraq is, it’s nothing compared to trying to get an islamically radicalized, post-Saud Arabian Peninsula under control.
There’s not much to like about a long-term commitment to Iraq, it is what it is: not Korea, not Vietnam, but a big gas tank whose oil production we could probably control a lot more easily than some Al Qaeda Arabia, with some unfortunate but compelling motivations for wanting to control it. Can we? To a degree, and I think the smarter Dem candidates know this. As Juan Cole wrote quite recently:
“… I believe that the only reason that the various players don’t form brigade-sized units and fight set piece battles with one another is US air power, which would take them out if they tried it.”
And before that, but still very recently:
“…. in all likelihood, when [perhaps he should write 'IF'?] the Democratic president pulls US troops out in summer of 2009, all hell is going to break loose. The consequences may include even higher petroleum prices than we have seen recently, which at some point could bring back stagflation or very high rates of inflation.
“In other words, the Democratic president risks being Fordized when s/he withdraws from Iraq, by the aftermath. A one-term president associated with humiliation abroad and high inflation at home? Maybe I should say, Carterized. The Republican Party could come back strong in 2012 and then dominate politics for decades, if that happened.”
So, there it is. Just in case you were wondering why the front-running Dems all hem and haw when asked whether they’ll have all our troops out by 2013. They know the score as well as anyone. Not that anyone can know the score with any real precision at this point. Just when you think you do, the dice start tumbling again …. but leaving the game isn’t a very good option, it would seem.
October 21st, 2007 at 2:48 am
Oh, and before the invective starts flying, I should emphasize that this sate of affairs is not as I would wish. Still, it’s a sad fact about most Americans: you’re gonna pry their car keys from them only from their cold, dead fingers. In some ways, middle-class wage stagnation and narrowing entry-level income opportunities — except in the “gold collar” professions — only makes them clutch the car keys more tightly. Having a car gives you a lot more job choices in America. Many younger people are “boomerang babies” or never even leave home in their twenties because, at their wage levels, it’s a choice between having their own apartment and having their own car, and they choose the car.
I live in Tokyo, with its dense throngs of pedestrians on the streets and strap-hangers on the trains, and where you can even find double-decker pay-to-park for *bicycles*. It would take a minimum of two generations, I believe, for a flat-out effort to retrofit America’s infrastructure to support anything like Japan’s relative parsimony in fossil fuel consumption — which is about 25% of ours in per capita terms. (Not to mention that Japan has a lot more nuclear power in its mix.) And, unlike here in Japan, which was a textbook-case Developmental State until about 1990, any such two-generation transition would mostly be felt in America as a downward lurch in living standards, and probably for another generation or two *after* achieving Japan’s level. Fond memories of the open road will die hard.
America’s heavy fossil fuel dependence, and particularly its foreign oil dependence, is truly the Issue from Hell, politically. I don’t expect it to go away in our lifetimes. Under Carter, there was the faintest glimmer of light beckoning us onto another path. But then we got Reagan, Morning in America and all that. In some ways, the Clinton years were no better, with the Economic Growth Uber Alles position of the Dems.
October 21st, 2007 at 5:47 am
“a big gas tank whose oil production we could probably control a lot more easily than some Al Qaeda Arabia, with some unfortunate but compelling motivations for wanting to control it.”
What does Michael Turner mean by “control” oil production?
No one is going to give it away, or even hold the price down below a market level for any length of time.
Is he suggesting that if Exxon “controls” the oil in Iraq, prices will fall? Or that it will be more available to Americans than if, say, Aramco, controlled it? Or PetroChina?
Oil cartels never last. History shows beyond doubt that the buyer of oil has as much leverage as the seller, long-term.
Michael writes of “controlling” Saudi oil as if the shieks would for even half a second contemplate refusing to sell it to the United States.
Perhaps they would, for a time, but any resulting increase in price would be met with higher production in Nigeria, or Russia or Venezuala or Mexico or Alaska.
Oil is plentiful for the foreseeable future. Demand isn’t limitless and, in fact, may well peak.
By far the greater danger in the Middle East is that whatever stability oil wealth buys in places like Saudi Arabia will start to evaporate should oil prices start to fall for any reason.
You can fool some Americans all the time. But the idea that the shieks have the ability to hold America hostage for oil is too plainly false for most Americans to believe.
October 21st, 2007 at 7:48 am
MT –
Good response to a provocative piece. As the writer himself states at the end, he is merely postulating…
And you are right about hemming and hawwing. The root is capitalism. In that context, I fear you may be right about more than I wish to admit.
BB – MT is responding to a very good piece from the London Review of Books that I linked above. And the US does “control” Saudi oil, because every Arab elite knows, esp. the saudis that without US sponsorship, they’d fall. As the rulign state of capital, the US controls the region.
October 21st, 2007 at 8:24 am
bankerbaster writes: “Oil cartels never last.”
Um, really? I know of only one. OPEC. Which is still around after … how many years? Tell me why you know we won’t have OPEC 30 years from now.
“No one is going to give it away, or even hold the price down below a market level for any length of time.”
Not even some Kurds who are expressing their gratitude for the amount of air support we give to their efforts to defend a newly-clamed Kirkuk as everything south of them goes to hell?
You seem to assume a completely free and open global oil market, where people don’t care where their oil comes from as long as they get it. I don’t. I don’t think Americans would buy oil from an Al Qaeda Arabia providing safe harbor for bin Laden et al. I think the Chinese (and maybe even the Japanese) would.
“Oil is plentiful for the foreseeable future. Demand isn’t limitless and, in fact, may well peak.”
“Lots of oil” doesn’t equate to “lots of access to that oil.” Returns on exploration outside the trouble zones (and the whole Middle East is a trouble zone) have plummeted, despite record investments on exploration in recent years. If oil tends to lead to vicious petrostates and wars, oil supply will self-limit. There is no fundamental supply-based reason why we see oil currently heading toward economic shock prices — it’s all in fears of risk to access. Oil didn’t tick $5/bbl upward in the last week because of a supply/demand fluctuation. It went up because everybody’s suddenly worried about a destabilizing invasion of Kurdistan by Turkey.
As for demand “peaking” in the near future — yes, it could, but not for very desirable reasons. It might peak and decline because of a global recession triggered by price spikes. Over the long term, well, you’ve got China and India and a pretty healthy rate of economic growth in a few other LDCs. They’ve got two or three generations before they approach our standard of living, at current growth rates.
“By far the greater danger in the Middle East is that whatever stability oil wealth buys in places like Saudi Arabia will start to evaporate should oil prices start to fall for any reason.”
At last, a statement that makes some geopolitical sense. Yes, high oil prices help prop up the Saudi regime. And war and perceived instability in the region help prop up high oil prices. And, howdy-howdy, who do we got in the White House? A political coterie from the oil industry, with close ties to the House of Saud. Invading Iraq was in part Bush riding to America’s rescue (preemptively) by trying to secure the oil in that nation in case the House of Saud were to fall any time soon, while also throwing a lifeline to Saudis: higher oil prices to reverse their declining GDP per capita, which was breeding revolutionary conditions. Or that’s how I connect the dots, anyway.
October 21st, 2007 at 3:03 pm
JimR:
Just another point about claims of Bush’s “hard-nosed will, courage, and demonstrated leadership”: he didn’t even have the courage to submit Ricardo Sanchez to the senate for his fourth star for fear that he would have to deal with answering for Abu Ghraib and the mess that Iraq has become.
It shouldn’t take a lot of courage to stand up to the senate.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:30 pm
“It remains communist politicially”
I didn’t catch that laugh-a-minute line from Bunkerbuster. China is no more communist than Republicans are republican.
Even by the ossified sectarian principles, China’s not even a “Degenerated workers’ state” as arguably it once was. It is a one-party state of whose vanguard truly believes and/or cynically appropriates from Marx the notion that if the surplus is invested in China, then capitalism is the way towards the future!
One should keep in mind as well that the workers and students in Tianenman Square were the ones singing the Internationale.
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:07 am
“I don’t think Americans would buy oil from an Al Qaeda Arabia providing safe harbor for bin Laden et al. I think the Chinese (and maybe even the Japanese) would.”
Indeed, I should hope Americans would boycott Saudi oil and instead buy more of it from Venezuela, Nigeria, Russia, Norway and Mexico.
Interesting that you mention Chinese and Japanese. They seem to have secured very wide access to energy resources WITHOUT invading Iraq etc. Unless you want to count the sewer construction team Japan sent to Iraq as part of the invasion.
At the moment, it looks like China and Japan are doing a far better job of securing access to Middle Eastern oil than the U.S. is.
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:02 am
China is doing an all around good job securing everything it wants, through use of soft power. See a review in the current Nation, or the economic writings of Henry CK Liu
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:17 am
“Interesting that you mention Chinese and Japanese. They seem to have secured very wide access to energy resources WITHOUT invading Iraq etc.”
It’s a matter of greater need, greater pragmatism, and perhaps fewer scruples about dealing with nasty governments.
Japan has no oil to speak of, in fact very little fossil fuel at all. The last coal mine closed a few years ago; it had been on government life support for a while. It’s in an EEZ squabble with China over ocean-bed natural gas fields that might not even exist. It spars with Russia over islands just off the coast of Hokkaido that it used to own, but works hand in glove on oil projects on Sakhalin, just north of those disputed islands.
Japan had a PLO representative office in Tokyo back when we wouldn’t even give the PLO the time of day. In the very early 90s, it cut easy guest-worker visas for Iranian laborers coming to Japan in exchange for more access to Iranian oil field development. In Iraq, its troops were guarded by Dutch troops being guarded by British troops, to make *sure* it didn’t get cornered into anything like a combat role. There were domestic political reasons for this, but there was also a less openly articulated policy easily summarized as “don’t piss off the guys with the juice.” The Japanese will be welcome back in the Shi’ite south, if they bring in oil field development money — even in a Shi’ite south that has been virtually annexed by an Iran that appears to be on the verge of having nuclear weapons.
Remember (if you ever knew): Japan decided to bomb Pearl Harbor and take Singapore after a blockade that amounted to an oil embargo. Their economy features far less fossil fuel consumption, but much more foreign fossil fuel dependency than ours.
The U.S still meets about 50% of its oil needs from domestic sources; a young friend of mine tells me her brother, who has been in debt since he left home a few years ago, is now making out nicely in Oklahoma these days, working oil fields that suddenly became profitable again with higher oil prices.
China? Lots of coal, but they need oil. I think they now import more than the U.S. does. And they aren’t squeamish about the human rights situations around the world. They just love Sudan, for example. For its oil. Not for its islamist government, of course — in fact, China has a lot of problems in Xinjiang, an historically islamic region of its western frontier. But they’ll deal with the devil where it matters, and with fewer scruples than the Japanese.
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:29 am
“[China] is a one-party state of whose vanguard truly believes and/or cynically appropriates from Marx the notion that if the surplus is invested in China, then capitalism is the way towards the future!”
I can’t speak for what’s in their hearts, but Marx did say that capitalism was a necessary historical stage. And it’s probably never going to be “late capitalism” until there really is persistently declining investment opportunity, globally. I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
As for China having previously been a “worker’s state” (“degenerated” or not), that sounds ridiculous to me. It was solidly agrarian, economically, until the 70s. There’s nothing very democratic about a “dictatorship of the proletariat” if the proletariat is 2% of the workforce.
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Brenner among others disproved the stagist reading of Marxism near thirty years ago. Much as I like the Frankfurt crowd, I think that late capitalism is a misnomer. In fact, the people with whom I find myself agreeing with – Brenner, Wood, etc. – believe that capitalism is only NOW starting to mature to the point that Marx synoptically predicted. Its no surprise that with the development of capitalism in China, there are fierce class struggles barely reported in the West.
Back to stages- Marx was mistaken in the Manifesto and other texts when he referred to the stagist concept. Using his own historical materialist method, one can see that “Bourgeois Revolution” is a mythical, nonsensical concept. MArx was simply reflecting the prevailing historical wisdom. What I take from Marx is method, not so much specific analysis that has been shown – by Marx’s own method – to be incorrect. There needs surely to be development of productive forces to create the social ground for economic change, but socialism in one country, as we know, cannot exist. Neither can any form of economy. The basis for international socialism is being laid as we speak with the internationalization or globalization of capital markets. The only state to wither away will be the global state. Workers have no country after all.
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Brenner among others disproved the stagist reading of Marxism near thirty years ago. Much as I like the Frankfurt crowd, I think that late capitalism is a misnomer. In fact, the people with whom I find myself agreeing with – Brenner, Wood, etc. – believe that capitalism is only NOW starting to mature to the point that Marx synoptically predicted. Its no surprise that with the development of capitalism in China, there are fierce class struggles barely reported in the West…..
Back to stages- Marx was mistaken in the Manifesto and other texts when he referred to the stagist concept. Using his own historical materialist method, one can see that “Bourgeois Revolution” is a mythical, nonsensical concept. MArx was simply reflecting the prevailing historical wisdom. What I take from Marx is method, not so much specific analysis that has been shown – by Marx’s own method – to be incorrect. There needs surely to be development of productive forces to create the social ground for economic change, but socialism in one country, as we know, cannot exist. Neither can any form of economy. The basis for international socialism is being laid as we speak with the internationalization or globalization of capital markets. The only state to wither away will be the global state. Workers have no country after all.
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Oh, whatever — how much attention do you think the Chinese Communist Party pays to Brenner and Woods anyway? The CCP pantheon still seems to be Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao. Wake me when they feature anyone else. Perhaps at that historical moment, I’ll still have a few minutes to gulp down my morning coffee just before the “global state” commences its inexorable process of “withering away.” Yeah, I’ll want a front row seat for that. Can you get me tickets? With your connections, I’m sure you must be on the inside track for them, and I sure don’t want to pay scalper’s prices.
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:13 am
The CCP gets at least the first two of them wrong, and possibly the third.
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:14 am
Capitalism probably won’t end in our lifetimes, but when it does ,it will globally. That stands to any form of reason, marxist or otherwise.
October 24th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
As do all tautologies.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
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