Year: 2009

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Pete Seeger at the Lincoln Memorial

The concert at the Lincoln Memorial was a wonderful start to the festivities.  My favorites were Garth Brooks (who knew he could do gospel?) and Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen leading everyone in Woody Guthrie’s This Land is My Land . 

I grew up with Pete Seeger both with the Weavers and as a solo.  He used to come and perform at the annual Bucks County PA Peace Fair and I recall selling him Italian Ice at least once.  John Pareles wrote in his review of the concert in the New York Times

Its penultimate song had the 89-year-old folk singer Pete Seeger, who survived being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, leading a singalong on a full-length version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” with one of his admirers, Mr. Springsteen, by his side.

And Joanna Weiss  in the Boston Globe

But the penultimate act seemed to suit the day best: Pete Seeger, 89, standing by Springsteen and the youth choir, feeding the crowd the lines to “This Land Is Your Land.” In his multicolored cap, gazing out on the scene, he wore an expression that veered toward glee.

But the most important piece was posted today in The Nation by Peter Rothberg.  Rothberg is promoting Seeger for a Nobel Peace prize for his decades of work.

Seeger has been an inimitable ambassador for peace, social justice and the best kind of patriotism over the course of a remarkable lifetime. As a prominent musician his songs have engaged people, particularly the youth, to question the value of war, to ban nuclear weapons, to work for international solidarity and against racism wherever it is practiced, and to assume ecological responsibility.

A particular hero to the civil rights movement on whose behalf he worked so tirelessly, Seeger made his first trip south at the invitation of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1956, and returned in ’65, again at King’s personal invitation, to join the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Amid the tension and heat, Seeger went from campfire to campfire when the march stopped for the night, raising people’s morale with rollicking sing-alongs of new freedom songs.

 Check out  nobelprize4pete.org and ask the American Friends Service Committee to nominate him.

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Marking the End of Bushisms

Bushisms are the one thing I will probably missed when George W. leaves on Tuesday.  Yes, it was embarassing to have a President who couldn’t really speak English, but they were also funny.   Maybe funny sad sometimes, but always worth a chuckle.  Doonesbury created whole Sunday comics of them framed and displayed as in a museum.  Calendars quoted them.  Bushisms became a cottage industry.  It was a way those of us on the left could use his own words to mock him when we seems powerless to change his policies.

Jacob Weisberg has now collected W’s Greatest Hits for Slate. Weisburg writes

People often assume that because I’ve spent the past nine years collecting Bushisms, I must despise George W. Bush. To the contrary, Bushisms fill me with affection for the man—and not just because of the income stream they’ve generated. I find the Bush who flails with words, unlike the Bush who flails with policy, to be an endearing character. Instead of a villain, he makes himself into an irresistible buffoon, like Mrs. Malaprop, Archie Bunker, or Homer Simpson. Bush treats words the way he treated recalcitrant European leaders: When they won’t do what he wants them to, he tries to bully them into submission. Through his willful, improvisational, and incompetent use of language, he tempers (very slightly) his willful, improvisational, and incompetent use of government. You can’t, in the end, despise someone who regrets that, because of the rising cost of malpractice insurance, “[t]oo many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country.”

Weisberg’s favorite is “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” from August 5, 2004.  Mine is “And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq.”—meeting with Army Gen. Ray Odierno, Washington, D.C., March 3, 2008.

What ever your favorite Bushism is as Weisberg says, “Unfortunately, as we bid farewell to Bushisms, we must conclude that the joke was mainly on us.”

 

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Jim Rice makes the Hall

Jim Rice was finally elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  He is the first African American player who spent his career in Boston playing for the Red Sox to be elected.  He played here for 16 years.  I never really saw him play being a National League Atlanta Braves fan during much of his career and i was not living in Boston.  But I often watch him on pre-game shows now and have learned that he does more than repeat cliches.

Tony Massarotti writes in his Boston Globe blog

Now Rice is in the Hall of Fame, after 16 years of playing, five years of waiting, and 15 years of voting. During that time, only Ralph Nader may have run a longer campaign. Rice finally will walk into the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown Sunday, July 26, and maybe it is only fitting that he will do so offering nary a glimpse into a soul that has been tortured for more than a decade.

I’m not going to get into whether he really deserves to be a Hall of Famer or not as that debate is over.  But I will comment that I think Rice’s character have been maligned over the years.  Massarotti again

So just who is the real Jim Rice? That is a difficult question to answer. On the one hand, Rice was a longtime terror in the batter’s box; on the other, his career ended too early and abruptly. He was the kind of man who literally would rip the shirt off a reporter’s back and then buy him a new one — he did this to onetime Globe beat reporter Steve Fainaru — and he was the kind who would carry a fallen teammate (Jerry Remy) off the field following a serious injury. Once, when a small child was hit by a line drive behind the Red Sox dugout, Rice hoisted the boy out of the seats and carried him down the dugout runway, where the child could most quickly receive medical assistance.

Jim Rice and Rickey Henderson are the two electees this year.  I did see Rickey play once on my only visit to Yankee Stadium.  I was in a field level box and got a glimpse of Henderson and Reggie Jackson chatting.  I’m not sure who was doing the most talking but I’m sure that Rickey will out talk Rice on July 26.  And so does Jim Rice.

Rice mused today that his induction speech would be short and sweet, that he would leave all of the talking to Henderson. As many laughs as the comment drew, it also happened to be true.

Congratulations, Jim Rice.

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Calvin Trillin Toasts Obama

NPR has started a series in which poets write an inaugural poem.  Here is Calvin Trillin’s:

Anticipating The Inauguration Of Barack Obama

Inauguration is the day
The nation’s hopes go on display —
When through one man we all convey
Our dream that things will go our way.
His résumé we can’t gainsay.
In politics, it’s clear, his play
Is worthy of the N. B. A.
He proved that in the recent fray,
Though he had help from Tina Fey.
And now this solemn matinee
Awards his country’s top bouquet.

First, Pastor Warren’s going to pray
For everyone who isn’t gay.
Obama then will stand and say,
“I take this oath that I’ll obey
The statutes of the U. S. A.”
In his address, he might portray
The dragons he intends to slay:
How Wall Street’s sky will turn from gray
To blue as blues are chased away,
How workers will collect good pay
For turning out a Chevrolet,
How in Iraq we’ll end our stay
With shortest possible delay,
How pay-to-play will be passé
So K Street suits will not hold sway.
Yes, how we’ll triumph, come what may:
And rise up like a good soufflé
‘Til life’s just like a caberet.

Obamacans will shout hooray
And toast their man with Chardonnay,
As commentators all make hay
Comparing him to JFK.
The Beltway types, those still blasé,
Might think that soon, with some dismay,
We’ll wonder if his feet are clay.
But that’s all for another day

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Recovery and Reinvestment

Dean K Baker has posted an interesting story on Alternet about Republican motivations for blocking Obama ‘s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.  Baker’s theory?  The Republican fear of 20 years out of power.  Baker argues that despite evidence that the New Deal helped millions Republicans now think no intervention would have been better policy.

At least some Republicans are starting to muster an anti-stimulus drive, claiming that President-elect Obama’s package will not help the economy. Their drive is centered on what they claim is a careful rereading of the history of the New Deal. According to their account, President Roosevelt’s policies actually lengthened the Great Depression.

In their story, we would have been better off if we just left the market to adjust by itself. New Deal programs that directly employed people, or in other ways supported living standards, created an uncertain investment climate. They claim that this uncertainty slowed the process of market adjustment that was necessary for returning to high levels of employment.

The Wagner Act, which created the legal framework for the union organizing drives of the era, stands out as being especially pernicious in their story. The Fair Labor Standards Act, which created the 40-hour workweek and established the first national minimum wage, also gets singled out for criticism. In this new reading of history, what most people consider the great successes of the New Deal simply worsened the Great Depression.

We are hearing Republicans (and some Blue Dog Democrats) worrying about the size of the deficit.  Even though Many economists, including Paul Krugman, argue that the proposed Recovery and Reinvestment dollars are still too little.  Krugman explains what he calls the output gap.

Bear in mind just how big the U.S. economy is. Given sufficient demand for its output, America would produce more than $30 trillion worth of goods and services over the next two years. But with both consumer spending and business investment plunging, a huge gap is opening up between what the American economy can produce and what it’s able to sell.

And the Obama plan is nowhere near big enough to fill this “output gap.”

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To close a gap of more than $2 trillion — possibly a lot more, if the budget office projections turn out to be too optimistic — Mr. Obama offers a $775 billion plan. And that’s not enough.

Now, fiscal stimulus can sometimes have a “multiplier” effect: In addition to the direct effects of, say, investment in infrastructure on demand, there can be a further indirect effect as higher incomes lead to higher consumer spending. Standard estimates suggest that a dollar of public spending raises G.D.P. by around $1.50.

Both Baker and Krugman worry that we are not planning enough public spending.  Baker again

Roosevelt was too worried about the whining of the anti-stimulus crowd that he confronted. He remained concerned about balancing the budget when the proper goal of fiscal policy should have been large deficits to stimulate the economy. Roosevelt’s policies substantially reduced the unemployment rate from the 25 percent peak when he first took office, but they did not get the unemployment rate back into single digits.

It took the enormous public spending associated with World War II to fully lift the economy out of the depression. The lesson that economists take away from this experience is that we should be prepared to run very large deficits in order to give the economy a sufficient boost to generate self-sustaining growth.

The bottom line is that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress need to get over worrying about deficits and get on with the business of closing the output gap.  As Dean Baker explains, part of the Republican objection is that is the Democats are sucessful is turning around the economy, the Republicans could spent the next 20 years out of power.

However, from the standpoint of Republicans, the more ominous lesson of the New Deal policies is that it left the Democrats firmly in power for more than 20 years. The Republicans did not regain the White House until 1952, 20 years after President Roosevelt was first elected.

Imagine how terrifying the prospect of 20 years of Democratic presidencies must be for the current generation of Republican leaders. This would mean that they would not retake the White House until 2028, just 20 years before the Social Security trust fund is first projected to face a shortfall.

In 2028, Newt Gingrich will be 85 years old; Mitt Romney will be 81; Mike Huckabee will be 73 and Senator McCain will be 98. Even Sarah Palin will be a less than youthful 64. In short, if President-elect Obama is allowed to carry through with his stimulus package and the rest of his ambitious domestic agenda, most of current leadership of the Republican Party can expect to spend the rest of their political career in the political wilderness, far removed from the centers of power

Krugman’s bottom line

… is that the Obama plan is unlikely to close more than half of the looming output gap, and could easily end up doing less than a third of the job.

Krugman suggests that spending on items like health care can help if there are not enough “shovel ready” projects to spend on right away.  Is the current Obama plan really only the first installment?

Obama’s reaction to Krugman’s column was telling:  He’s probably going to end up meeting with Krugman and listen to his ideas.  What a refreshing change from George W.  who didn’t need to talk to anyone or to consult with others because he knew what they thought.  Obama said he had “no pride of authorship”, just didn’t want the debate to hold up action.

President Elect Obama, don’t worry about the deficit.  Get us out of this mess, close the output gap and over the next twenty years we will have another Bill Clinton come and reduce the deficit.  You don’t have to do it all – and you certainly don’t have to do it all right away.

 

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President Obama’s Style

A lot has been written about the President Elect’s style:  his cool, his dress, his parenting skills.  And he has talked a lot about wanting to change the tone in Washington.  Today on Politico.com’s The Arena blog, there was a very insightful entry I want to share.

It was written by Jeffrey C. Stewart, a professor of Black Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, in response to a question about Leon Panetta’s qualifications to be CIA director. 

I think the selection of Panetta to run the CIA is a great choice for Obama.

Aside from the complaints of insiders and their allies, who merely want more of the same, the main push back is from politicians who want to keep their validity index high during “Obama change.” But make no mistake, Panetta’s selection signals that “change is coming” to the CIA.

Panetta’s selection shows something important about Obama that is revealed through most of his cabinet-level appointments so far–beyond the obviously political ones like Richardson and Clinton. It has taken me awhile to get it, but my sense now is that Obama is a ex-radical Leftist who has absorbed neo-liberal management strategies. Think about it: The Left has taken power in several European countries in the past, Italy and France to name only two, but failed to hold power because it could not deliver benefits to the people at a consistent, i.e., corporate level of efficiency. Never enamored of ’60s strategies toward power, Obama absorbed through law school the corporatist approach to state power, that is, that management and outcomes are the keys to success.

Panetta is a manager. He’s a quick study. In selecting him, Obama is saying to the CIA: You are going to have to come into the 21st century in terms of how your operations are managed, and part of that operations management is improving your image and more effectively negotiating the tension between getting results from terrorists and respecting the ideals of a republic that needs to win the hearts and minds of the rest of the world to succeed against terrorists. Abuses that are well known and publicly associated with the CIA are part of the management inefficiency of the Agency from Obama’s perspective. Obama is saying, “yes, you are doing a good job in some areas. Let’s keep that. But you are going to have to do more to be a really successful agency for me and for the country’s long term benefit.” Inefficiencies, in other words, have to be eliminated, and Panetta is the kind of manager who can absorb all that the Agency does well and begin to cut out what it doesn’t do well. That is, of course, a corporatist, market-oriented philosophy of what successful management should do.

An interesting notion of the new President as an “ex-radical Leftist” with “neo-liberal” management skills.   The descriptions of Obama running community meetings as an organizer as well as descriptions of how he has run staff meetings as a Senator and candidate remind me of the meetings I attended in the 1960’s – everyone had their say – endlessly – as we tried to reach consensus.  The difference, however, is that Obama will listen to everyone and then make a decision.  He is appointing managers who can then implement the decisions.  It will be interesting to see if he and the men and women he has nominated for cabinet and staff appointments will be able to further translate that vision into a transformation of government.

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Becoming President

President Elect Barack Obama’s transition to becoming President is really in full gear now. Yes, I know he had named his entire Cabinet already, but the real sign of power had to do with travel:  His flight from Chicago to D.C. was on an official Presidential plane.  The New York Times had an interesting piece about the flight.

Aides who boarded the plane in Chicago before Mr. Obama’s motorcade arrived, including David Axelrod, a senior adviser, and Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, were plainly excited at being aboard one of the presidential planes for the first time. Several said the experience drove home the realization that Mr. Obama had won the presidency.

“It’s a little clearer now,” Mr. Gibbs said. “Nice digs.”

The Boeing 757-200, part of the Air Force’s Special Air Mission fleet, bore the distinctive blue and white colors and the words United States of America. But only a plane ferrying the president is designated Air Force One, and, as Mr. Obama and his team repeatedly note, George W. Bush is still the president.

Jackie Calmes went on to describe Obama’s introduction to the crew

On board he met Col. Scott Turner, who will pilot Air Force One when Mr. Obama becomes president, and Reggie Dickson, who will be his chief flight attendant. From Mr. Dickson, he ordered a cheeseburger, fries and water.

And then there are the serious matters like meeting with Pelosi and Reid about the economic recovery plan, finding a new Secretary of Commerce, and naming a new DNC head.

I was not happy to hear that Bill Richardson was being investigated for possible contract irregularities.  I’ve always liked Richardson – I voted for him during the primary.  I have to believe that everything is on the up and up.  But I was happy to hear about my friend, Tim Kaine.  I think Tim will be the right person to take over what Howard Dean started and get to the next stage.  He is no less forceful, but less abrasive.  Now if only Howard can find a new job.  Surgeon General?