Hope. Not Faith.
First of all tonight, for the many of you who emailed me during the day, yes the rumors are correct. After next week I will depart my position as a columnist for L.A. Weekly.
This has been a long time in the brewing as there are some fundamental gaps in journalistic philosophy between those who own the paper (and its chain) and yours truly. This is something that we call, in our business, “creative differences.”
It’s all good, however. I have had diminishing time for that piece of my life and I will be a happier person to be able to concentrate on the rest of my work. After the election dust settles, I will be happy to spell out more details for those who care. In the meantime, I’m heading for Nevada for these final days of the campaign.
For those of you sticking it out in California, here are my recommendations on how to vote on state ballot propositions.
And here’s my entire essay for the pre-election edition of the Weekly:
It’s Going to Take a Whole Lot More Than a Democratic Majority to Save Us
Hope, not faith
By Marc Cooper
published: October 30, 2008
I’m clinging to hope. Not about who’s going to win next Tuesday. I am absolutely certain that by the time we meet again in print a week from now, Barack Obama will be the president-elect of the United States.
Hope, says the dictionary, is about our desires. Faith, on the other hand, is about confidence. I’ve got tons of the former. And damn near none of the latter. So if Obama offers hope, I’ll take what I can get.
When Obama is sworn into office, it will officially mark much more than just the election of America’s first black president (a minor miracle in itself). More than one more peaceful transition of power between the parties (something we take all too much for granted). And much more than what is shaping up to be an electoral landslide (a much-deserved comeuppance). Obama’s hand on the Bible will jump-start an entire new historical epoch, one that is already under way. We just don’t know what it is, or what we will call it, much less what it will bring.
That’s where I start to run a little short on faith.
The spectacular, thunderous and humiliating collapse of the McCain-Palin campaign should come as no surprise. At a time when our very livelihoods and those of our children seem to hang in the balance, it should not shock us that we were offered up such sad gimmicks as a tax-evading Joe the Plumber and an almost pre-verbal Caribou Barbie. That the Republican campaign is ending with what Chris Matthews called a “Seinfeld strategy” — it’s all about nothing — should leave us equally nonplussed.
McCain made no mistakes. He made no strategic fumbles. No more than the U.S. made a “mistake” in Vietnam — or in invading Iraq. The McCain debacle was but the logical, I would say inevitable, conclusion of a political movement that after three decades of dominance has completely exhausted itself. The policy pantry of the Reagan majority had already been looted and left bare by the time McCain declared his candidacy. The Republicans simply had nothing else to offer other than the bogeymen of race, terrorism and taxes. What possible, plausible policy remedy could Johnny Mac have pulled out of his rear pockets that hadn’t already been rather disastrously foisted on the American people since Ronnie Reagan came beaming into office 28 years ago, with a slightly orangish halo overhead?
Indeed, there’s a great parallel between this election and that of 1980. The conservative Long March, initiated by Barry Goldwater two decades previous, triumphed precisely because the Democrats of 1980 found themselves in the same fix Republicans do today. Bereft of any fresh ideas. More precisely, bereft of any ideas whatsoever. The stirring promise — and tangible success — of FDR’s New Deal had stagnated and atrophied into the rather enfeebled candidacies of Carter, Mondale and Dukakis. Can anyone remember any shred of hope that trio inspired?
Enter Reagan and his conservative confederates, who had nothing but ideas, almost all of them toxic. But the Reaganites won fair and square. At least they had something to fill the void left by the shattered New Deal coalition.
First and foremost, there was the conservative celebration of empire. America would no longer be a pitiable giant. Hundreds of billions would be pumped into the Pentagon. The Soviets — and the rest of the world for that matter — would be confronted directly by a bristling new array of troops, armor and nukes.
Next came deregulation. The ruthless smashing of the air-traffic-controllers union got that ball rolling.
Then there was the celebration of the private over the public. The grotesque reworking of American values, with the guy in the White House confirming that greed was good. And if the public sphere was, as we were told, dominated by welfare queens, poverty pimps and “failed government programs,” why not accelerate an obscene transfer of wealth upward? American ideals resided in the steely-eyed resolve of corporate CEOs and venture capitalists and certainly no longer in the mushy-headed fuzziness of some idealistic, liberal social worker or, God forbid, in an overpaid, underperforming and sinister public-school teacher. The word “liberal” itself became stigmatized by a cigar-chomping, pill-addicted ditto head, who, in a different time and place, would have been celebrating the anschluss of Austria or the occupation of Poland.
And, finally, let us not forget the resurrection and glorification of the Moral Majority. For the first time in modern American political life, the Bible-thumpers and televangelist hucksters were ushered into the backrooms of government policymaking, while Pat Buchanan brought the 1992 Republican Convention to an ecstatic blood boil as he promised that kulturkampf would be waged neighborhood by neighborhood, door-to-door, and that no infidel would be spared.
Fast-forward 25 years, and the whole concoction overflows the bowl under the reign of George W. Bush. All that Reagan-esque nationalism and hubris winds up dead-ended in the deserts of central Iraq and stymied by a ragtag group of fanatics in Afghanistan. The pre-eminence of the private sphere culminates in busted-out levees and an impotent FEMA. The culture war ends in a smoking defeat, as a new generation of Americans and their suburban parents tire of scoldings from those who openly refute the science of evolution and of impending climate change (a repulsion only doubled or tripled when one of the right’s most lunatic exponents is chosen as McCain’s running mate). And all that spreading the wealth around, mostly upward and toward the ultra-elite, coupled with ideologically driven extremes of deregulation, land us in the midst of the worst global economic crisis of our lifetime. And someone was still wondering why McCain didn’t move off the Bill Ayers issue to campaign, instead, on investing Social Security in the stock market? If you prefer simple outlines, then note the four-step process of the death of the Reagan era: Iraq, Katrina, Palin, the economic meltdown. Game over. Turn the page.
Here, however, the comparisons with 1980 perilously begin to diverge. When the New Deal era collapsed, the Reaganites were fully loaded and ready to boldly step in. But who’s ready this time to fill the void? Did I miss something, or have Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid quietly, patiently and methodically been building a movement over the last 20 years that is ready — from Day One, as has become the cliché — to reinvent and resurrect American politics on the ashes of the failed conservative movement? Let’s face it, the Democrats performed shamefully at the onset of the Bush administration, its congressional leadership more or less meekly folding itself into the president’s war cabinet. The 2004 Kerry campaign was a political shambles. And as late as 2006, the Democrats won back Congress almost exclusively because they were not the Republicans. That victory had sweet little to do with any proactive moves by the Dems.
Does anyone seriously think the Democratic establishment is really prepared to govern effectively, as the global economic crisis deepens (as it surely will)? Have we forgotten that it was Democratic president Bill Clinton who signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which obliterated the financial regulatory framework built by FDR? These were the special babies of former-maestro-turned-stumblebum Alan Greenspan, which were backed by the same Robert Rubin and Larry Summers still held in great esteem on the Democratic economics bench. From where will the Democrats summon the courage, in fact, to spread the wealth back downward, offering not only tangible relief but also real opportunity to millions who will have no health care, perhaps no job and no longer a home of their own the same day the new president is sworn in? How much faith — not hope — do you have that four years from now, that there still won’t be 50 million Americans enjoying the basic right to minimal medical coverage?
Just hours away from this election, that’s what I’m worried about. Not about swing voters in Missouri or the Bradley effect in Ohio. I’m worried about the lack of a forward-looking governing vision by the party now coming to dominate all three branches of the government at a time when history demands, excuse the term, some very radical rethinking.
Much of Barack Obama’s appeal derives directly from his willingness to directly confront his own party apparatus, embodied in the ruthless and extralubricated Clinton machine. The determination, the steadiness, the intelligence, the sheer will he and his campaign demonstrated in defeating Billary and winning the nomination was nothing short of exhilarating. The first time I met Obama, in early 2007 at a little-noticed campaign event in Las Vegas, I immediately sensed the sort of cool, charismatic magic that has subsequently moved tens of millions into his ranks.
No, as he noted in jest a few weeks ago, Obama wasn’t born in a manger. He’s not the messiah. He does rely, for sure, on many of the same party hacks who have misled the Democratic Party during its sojourn in the political wilderness. Yet, he not only will inherit a historic opportunity to bring the sort of dramatic change he has promised, but he will also be faced with an awesome and powerful demand to do so if he values his political survival. Obama will not leave his mark on history by simply “reaching across the aisle” and empaneling a bipartisan study commission. For one, there won’t be much of a Republican Party left to connect with. More important, millions of rank-and-file Republicans — and Democrats and Independents and just as many other millions who rarely think of themselves in any political terms — will be anxiously waiting for someone to offer a sort of once-in-a-century leadership. Obama will achieve greatness, and he might even salvage this nation, if he fulfills his potential and becomes a transformative and transcendental president. Four years from now, the less significant it is to be identified as a Republican or a Democrat, the more significant a leader Obama will be. That is my hope.
October 30th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Marc – Hope you are having an amazing tour of duty in Nevada. I’m in the trenches in North Carolina where, tonight, we say CNN give Nevada to Obama and showed NC likely turning Blue, too. It is amazing the number of Obama signs here. Very exciting times.
October 30th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I always looked forward to your LA WEEKLY columns and have been meaning to ask if it was your column right after Katrina that had a wickedly funny remark–something about if——we’d still be in the stone age or something to that effect. I kept it.
I’ve read of the icky take over of city “weekly” papers going back a year or two ago–and James Ridgeway’s exit from the V Voice so it seems you are in good company.
Great moment in Obama interview with Rachel Maddow. She was needling him about his needing to draw distinctions about how conservatism has been disastrous for the country. He just laughed and said “he’s winning”…cause people are wanting something different. It was a very sly way of not being boring, cliche and didactic and at the same time really sticking it to the c’s.
BUT…still much evidence of voter supression and dodgy machines.
I read that Florida has a 5000 strong posse of lawyers on tap for tuesday to rescue any challenged voters. CREDO also doing a texting network to rally people to protest when a problem is noted.
October 30th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
You were honestly the only thing left worth reading in that paper. Sad to see how the New Times literally destroyed that fine paper. 3-4 years ago I actually gave up reading The Nation cause I thought the weekly was good enough.
You did fine work for the paper and a service to the city.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:12 am
I learned SO much from you in the Weekly through the years – beginning, 1980 something. Thanks so much for all of it. I’ll keep reading you elsewhere.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:04 am
There goes my last reason for reading the Weekly.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:20 am
Excellent analysis, Marc, ending on a “hope”ful note and the implied call to action to all Americans of good faith to make the Obama presidency worthy of this historic campaign.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:15 am
Marc, I think it’s a real shame you were let go. Those of us who read you here will still get our fix, but I know the compensation isn’t quite the same.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:39 am
Our course, indeed, is set on hope:
http://www.amazon.com/Victor-Serge-Course-Set-Hope/dp/1859849873
(An early iteration of your website featured this book as one of your favorites…)
October 31st, 2008 at 6:47 am
Sorry to hear about this, Marc. The New Times guys have been wrecking the Village Voice as well; first Jim Ridgeway, then Robert Christgau.
It’s their loss.
October 31st, 2008 at 6:49 am
Have you heard that Obama is leaning toward Larry Summers as Secretary of the Treasury? That says more than Marc Cooper’s 500 words of liberal blather.
October 31st, 2008 at 7:29 am
Larry Summers?
Well I guess this will mean no gender neutrality, since girls suck at math according to Larry.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:03 am
For many years, Wednesdays signaled the ‘heads up’ for the weekend in L.A. Pick up the LA Weekly to find out which bands were playing where and find out what Marc was going to opine about. Always a good read. Just can’t imagine that little rag without Marc’s wit and insight.
—
There was this USC Annenberg School dude on Larry Mantle’s Air Talk (KPCC 89.3fm) yesterday morning. Along with, I think it was some dude from, was it the Wall Street Journal?, talking up the election. The WSJ guy seemed a bit flat. That Annenberg guy had a pretty good bead on this election. Gotta find a link or a transcript thingy….
October 31st, 2008 at 8:48 am
Marc, a brilliant commentary and a sad farewell to the LA Weekly–with the loss of Alan Rich and you, I’m gonna have to let them go. Just know that there are a lot of us out there, trying to build a positive vision for the Left in this country, whatever the outcome of this election. Thanks for continuing to be a big part of it.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:38 am
No fear.
No more magic. Its the time of “men” now.
When Edwards was still in play and his great interactive website up I wrote in urging that he start networking with progressive groups to start building a grass roots juggernaut–take advantage of his candidacy to do so. He seemed to have the fire. Of course, well, he blew that, but the point was it was obvious to me that progressive groups needed to consolidate and create an action plan rather than remain fragmented and constantly trawling for money from the same people.
Rather then lament its time to be dynamic.
Its going to have to be a region by region action. Schumacher’s principles will now finally come into play.
And there are visionary blueprints already in play such as the Transition Town Movement and others that mean within each community people can implement sustainable reforms.
Its so much more sensible than expecting some sweeping legislative reform to ride in like a knight and save the say.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:39 am
I mean save the “day”. But, hey, maybe the “say”, too.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:31 am
What a stunning column. Marc nailed it.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:36 am
Wear it as a badge of honor, Marc.
Great column. I’m pulling for Obama’s success, however, the ‘rumor mill’ has indicated that Rahm Emanuel has a shot of Chief of Staff. I fear I’m in for cascading disappointments; each one more disappointing than the last. Still, the alternative is too grim to contemplate for more than minutes at a time.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:37 am
A modern political history lesson in 5 minutes… brilliant.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:40 am
The Weekly has been less and less interesting for a couple of years now, as their editorial staff/philosophy has been changing.
I don’t know why the publisher thinks anyone with a brain will keep paying attention to the relatively trivial gotcha stories about local politics that they emphasize now. It used to be that the compendium of “massage” ads were in service of a worthwhile agenda…clearly from the left, but also interesting, thoughtful, and sometimes surprising.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:59 am
What are “creative differences?” I’m not familiar with the term. “Creative sameness” seems to be the real problem facing the media today.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Great article — Marc Cooper at his best.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Well I guess this will mean no gender neutrality, since girls suck at math according to Larry.
Much as I am critical of the assumptions behind Summers’ presentation that resulted a number of academic women walking out, your claim is highly inaccurate.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I googled Summers…he sounds a right somewhat of a neo con and intellectually hermetic–he’s probably a hermaphrodite, too.
Can anyone talk me down? He sounds gag making.
Frontline did a profile of each candidate the other night.
They hilighted O’s carefully calculated move up the ladder and into the US senate and his calculated moves once there–initially to stay under the radar, not make waves, not take strong positions.
So he gets in and he is still being “calculating” . No. He is just being who he always was. Someone more interested in just BEING THERE (rather than DOING there). Oh god, I just came full circle to my original perception of him as Chauncey Gardner.
Oh shit.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:17 pm
“Can anyone talk me down?”
Well, you can try chilling out and not getting ahead yourself. In case you’ve forgotten, the election is next Tuesday, and either Barack Obama or John McCain will be our next president. Once we get that out of the way, then we can worry about how well/poorly McCain or Obama is doing.
Of course, if you need something to keep you busy, you can be like Marc and actually do some final campaigning. You know, useful stuff, as opposed to hyperventilating on a blog comment board.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
“Can anyone talk me down?”
Probably not…
I can’t stand Larry Summers but he’s hardly the scariest guy I could imagine for Treasury Secretary. It’s a “competence” position, and frankly Summers’ shitty personality means he might actually be less successful than a slicker Bob Rubin-type lobbying for his priorities as the money guy in an Obama cabinet. Here’s a recent talk by Summers that actually focuses on the most important broad economic issue – inequality and wealth distribution – from essentially the correct perspective:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/16/potential-obama-treasury_n_135233.html
Also, when he was President of Harvard he pissed a lot of liberals off for his dumb comments on women and his butting egos with Cornel West, but one of his biggest issues was actually attempting to get full professors to teach undergraduates more and not spend so much time focused on career-boosting projects. It would have meant fewer courses taught by assistants, which is IMHO much more fulfilling of the academic spirit that draws students to quality universities.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Thanks, reg, I did see that article and it was in direct contrast to the other stuff I found on him.
The Huff article did suggest he could be on the side of the angels but its his hermetic, inhuman sensibility that suggests he will never think outside the box and that he only uses already established cold blooded formulas–THAT NO LONGER BLOODY WORK. He is still making his calculations within the same hermetic loop of what were once “ideas”.
Samuel: Have you ever heard of irony? Literalism is what is killing this country. Please don’t add to the problem.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Also to Samuel: There is a great big ol’ website that gives a great big ol rundown on Obama’s current advisors. I think it was the one I stumbled on after calling a major enviro group to find someone to clarify Obama’s environmental stands.
The very detailed rundown on his group of Mandarins was not “hopeful”.
You would think for someone who is pretending to suggest —-arrrrgh–that we are going to route the scoundrels and special interests out that they might consider an advisory or when in office–cabinet post for Ralph Nader. Sneer if you like but the man walks the talk and NO one is more savvy.
Obama was disgustingly dismissive of him–on air–.
I have no illusions about what can and can’t be done in the next 4 years. Its going to be a bloody battle and he may begin to turn things around to some degree by the time of the next election.
Sisyphus’ troubles will seem like a carnival ride compared to what Obama’s next 4 years will be.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:13 pm
So Marc’s leaving the Weekly, the LA Times is choosing between being a second or third rate paper, and the kids at kcal can’t decide whether to cover a car chase in Riverside or evidence of a wildcat in a Malibu backyard. Good thing we’ve got those intertubes.
Great final column. I wonder what the score is in terms of anticipating tranformational presidents. Seems like a tough thing to predict.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Yeah, great time for a paper to turn crypto-Reaganite.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Huffington Reports that Studs Terkel died at 96. A great shame he could not live to see a southside Chicago, Alinsky-styled community organizer take the oath of office.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:21 pm
[...] man. This week has been the ultimate fuck-a-monkey shit show of media collapse. I am even related to a laid-off media refugee (authenticity secured!)! MY DAD! In the cases of Radar and LA Weekly [...]
October 31st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Re: Nadar – “NO one is more savvy”
Really? Maybe you meant snazzy? No, that’s not right either. I know: crabby. No one is more crabby. That’s it.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Terkel wrote his own epitaph:
“Curiosity did not kill this cat.”
October 31st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Sad news about Studs Terkel – but he did get to see the writing on the wall. Some journalist who’s been following this election should do a Terkel-style oral history on the 2007-2008 campaign, including lots of ground level voices along with enough interesting campaign insiders to give it a broad perspective. I’d rather read that than some Annamarie Cox-turned-Teddy White deal – bitching about food on the plane and the moment that Johnny Mac closed the curtain on his “base”. Marc ?????
I’m betting Obama’s cabinet
October 31st, 2008 at 4:32 pm
ooops – I was going to add
I’m betting Obama’s cabinet will be a mix of usual suspects and enough interesting people to keep it…uh…interesting. I also have a gut feeling he’s going to be keeping his cabinet on their toes and demanding that they deal with their portfolios creatively (which may or may not appeal to the party left to varying degrees) – although Treasury, not so much. The biggest issue facing Treasury is oversight on how the “bailout” gets spent. David Corn suggested that if they don’t want to get hammered after it’s a done deal, they should do it with maximum transparency and input – so that it is, in fact, a broad-guaged “rescue” rather than a bailout of undeserving Wall Street Assholes. Corn suggested that they actually put a couple of investigative reporter types in place to track the thing, so that there’s a minimum of corruption and insider dealing.
October 31st, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I also have to say I was somewhat heartened by Summers’ raising the income inequality issue as a “crisis of legitimacy.” If that’s become conventional wisdom even among elite jerks like Summers, maybe there is indeed a measure of hope.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:02 pm
RIP Studs – good stuff from him here:
http://www.studsterkel.org/index.html
October 31st, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Good link, Reg. He was quite the champion of the common man, and he could skewer Bush like no other.
Though Mort Sahl is pretty great, too.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Mavis: I don’t think Ralph was trying to make it to the cover of Photoplay or win a Miss Congeniality contest. What he did do is save people’s lives. Obama, Edwards…NO ONE would be talking routing entrenched interests if it werent for him.
Obama and Hillary’s message tacked left as a result of Edward’s populist message per Nader.
So fuck you.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Anna’s her usual cheerful self…
October 31st, 2008 at 5:15 pm
This is going out from a Florida GOP county Chairman. Remind you of anybody ?
HERE IN TEMPLE TERRACE, FL OUR REPUBLICAN HQ IS ONE BLOCK AWAY FROM OUR LIBRARY, WHICH IS AN EARLY VOTING SITE. ?
I SEE CARLOADS OF BLACK OBAMA SUPPORTERS COMING FROM THE INNER CITY TO CAST THEIR VOTES FOR OBAMA. THIS IS THEIR CHANCE TO GET A BLACK PRESIDENT AND THEY SEEM TO CARE LITTLE THAT HE IS AT MINIMUM, SOCIALIST, AND PROBABLY MARXIST IN HIS CORE BELIEFS. AFTER ALL, HE IS BLACK–NO EXPERIENCE OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS–BUT HE IS BLACK. ?
I ALSO SEE YOUNG COLLEGE STUDENTS AND THEIR PROFESSORS FROM USF PARKING THEIR CARS WITH THE PROMINENT ‘OBAMA’ BUMPER STICKERS. THE STUDENTS ARE ENTHUSIASTIC TO BE VOTING IN A HISTORIC ELECTION WHERE THERE MAY BE THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:16 pm
jim hitchcock said: and he could skewer Bush like no other.
OOOOOOOh I think you missed Hunter Thompson. As in a chapter in his worst book, Kingdom of Fear, called ‘Jesus Loves Bald Pussy’.
I would say he skewered Bush like “not other” and Nixon like no other and god only knows what he would have done to McCain and Palin. One of the great tragedies to have not had had those two on his kabob stick. But then one could also argue that the reason he blew his brains out was he anticipated them.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:18 pm
“Though Mort Sahl is pretty great, too.”
“No one would be talking about routing entrenched interests if it weren’t for him.”
Oh, wait a minute…
October 31st, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Thanks, Anna, I’ll check it out. My brain could use a little HT right now.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I’m always cheerful Jim R, when someone posts something that they pulled out of their ass as reg once described the place of origin of Woody’s world view.
To call Nader “crabby” is so utterly shallow and stupid and pitiful a remark. Maybe Mavis would like to protest his not having his happy face on by UNBUCKLING her seatbelt, the kids seatbelt and no doubt the dog’s.
Maybe she would like NEVER to have had recourse for that tainted product that might have killed her child.
Maybe Mavis just prefers to be a cypher with a lifestyle–except, of course, when it kills her. And there is no redress.
Her remark was stupid and pointless.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Jim R WE ALL COULD USE A LITTLE HST!
Recommended for right now: Better Than Sex about the 92 campaign. It has his unmatchable obit of Nixon.
Then go back and read Songs of the Doomed and Generation of Swine.
Leaves you drooling.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Then read his two volumes of letters. They are phenomenal. Last volume has been delayed. Out, I would think, this coming year.
Reading Hunter now should be required reading before being allowed to vote.
And don;’t forget to read Outlaw Journalist, my pal McKeen’s bio on HST. Even Hitchens liked it. ( For those of you that care what he thinks)
October 31st, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I ran into a hedge fund manager the other day who insisted that all the brains on Wall Street left the building about 5 years ago to join — wait for it — hedge funds.
Therefore, he reasoned, Obama should be looking at the best and brightest from the hedge fund world to come up with fresh, realistic policy ideas to take on the credit collapse.
Instead, it looks like he’ll select from a menu of old Wall Street war-horses who stayed on at the higher levels of investment banks just long enough to reap the massive bonuses that came from gorging on yields from securitized mortgage bonds and from a global stocks rally that, we now can see, was fueled by consumers buying stuff with money they got from refinancing their mortgage, taking out a second mortgage or maxing out their credit card.
Hedge funds got a bad name, mostly because their operators made so much money a few years back. But really, their model is inherently capable of greater honesty than the broader Wall Street money game of investment banks and brokerages.
Hedge funds live or die by the gains or losses on their investments. Investment banks can much more easily bury year after year of losses by attracting more new investors.
Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson spent less than half their time at Goldman Sachs on buying and selling at the right price and more than half on sales — bringing in new money.
So Obama would do well to take advice from the top of the heap in the hedge fund world — George Soros, Jim Simons, Ken Griffin — when comes to money matters.
Some people talk about Wall Street like its a monolithic representative of greed and corner-cutting. There is plenty of that there, but there are also important distinctions between the various models and players in the industry.
The Treasury shouldn’t be run like a hedge fund, and it certainly can’t be run like an investment bank. But the people who’ve been behind the wheel at hedge funds at least have had to wake up every morning and know that if their strategies failed, they would pay an immediate price. You can’t say that for most investment banks — the executives had been too insulated from the consequences of bad decisions and only know, post collapse, are finding their comeuppance, when it’s far too late to matter.
October 31st, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Nice column Marc.
This is amusing and well done: http://thisfuckingelection.com/
October 31st, 2008 at 7:53 pm
George Soros’s Democracy Alliance
October 31st, 2008 at 8:02 pm
John Cleese on Olbermann. Cleese hysterical over McCain addressing an audience as “my fellow prisoners”.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:07 pm
The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld
http://www.slate.com/id/2081042/
Another link takes you to the audio–set to music.
This was brilliant came out a few months ago.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:23 pm
“I think you missed Hunter Thompson. As in a chapter in his worst book, Kingdom of Fear, called ‘Jesus Loves Bald Pussy’.”
HT has returned as Anna, and right off promoting his books. I’ve got to buy it just to read this one chapter. Capitalist bastard.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Priorities…
http://www.beautifulhorizons.net/weblog/2008/10/mad-men.html
November 1st, 2008 at 4:22 am
And sad to see Marc get the boot at L.A. Weekly, though I’m sure he’s more secure career-wise than many of the others.
I’d guess it’s only a matter of time till the whole paper goes under. The free weekly model may be viable in the Internet age, but certainly not through a recession and absolutely not through a recession like many are expecting us to have. Not unless the owners have very deep pockets.
Good thing there are so many fresh, well-done Web sites and blogs to take the Weekly’s place.
November 1st, 2008 at 7:50 am
Did you pack your tennis shoes, Marc?
Great looking day here in Las Vegas.
Perfect day for some precinct walking.
November 1st, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Until Anna said it I hadn’t even thought what Hunter T would have written about this campaign. Especially McCain. He never wrote much about women…not sure what his take would have been on Palin. But McCain….”My fellow prisoners….?!” That Hungry Cannibal grin? Dearie me…
November 1st, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I miss Mort Sahl, too, though big Keith has had him on. Thats where I heard the line where he compared McCain to Mr Magoo.
HST would have disembowled Palin. The night before he blew his own brains out–in despair over having taken on a ridiculous wife he couldn’t get rid of ( Juan, his son, begged her to leave)–he took a pot shot at her across the kitchen table. Next day he took one at himself, but didn’t miss.
It would have been nice if he had held on long enough to crack McCain and Palin. I think he could have maybe supassed his obit on Nixon.
November 1st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Anna, are you thinking of voting for Nader? My state’s EC outcome is foregone conclusion, and I’m seriously thinking of voting Nader, given my disgust over Obama’s likely multiculti leftist domestic and soft neocon foreign policy appointments. Justin Raimondo and some other paleocons/paleolibs at Takimag and VDARE plan to vote for Nader as well, but what would really seal the deal for me is to know what your vote will be. Given our mutual respect, I’d like to know that we voted the same way.
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/ralph_nader_for_president/
November 1st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Marc writes:
“Indeed, there’s a great parallel between this election and that of 1980.”
Yes, in several ways:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/tedkennedy1980dnc.htm
“The tax cut of our Republican opponents takes the name of tax reform in vain. It is a wonderfully Republican idea that would redistribute income in the wrong direction. It’s good news for any of you with incomes over 200,000 dollars a year. For the few of you, it offers a pot of gold worth 14,000 dollars. But the Republican tax cut is bad news for the middle income families. For the many of you, they plan a pittance of 200 dollars a year, and that is not what the Democratic Party means when we say tax reform.
The vast majority of Americans cannot afford this panacea from a Republican nominee who has denounced the progressive income tax as the invention of Karl Marx. I am afraid he has confused Karl Marx with Theodore Roosevelt — that obscure Republican president who sought and fought for a tax system based on ability to pay. Theodore Roosevelt was not Karl Marx, and the Republican tax scheme is not tax reform.”
Marc continues:
“The stirring promise — and tangible success — of FDR’s New Deal had stagnated and atrophied into the rather enfeebled candidacies of Carter, Mondale and Dukakis. Can anyone remember any shred of hope that trio inspired?”
Not from that trio, but there was this stirring highlight from that election season:
“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”
…which was echoed again this summer:
http://www.demconvention.com/senator-edward-kennedy/
“And so with Barack Obama — for you and for me, for our country and for our cause – the work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on.”
July 6th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
The most accurate baby predictor is http://bit.ly/9C5rgd