Friday, December 23, 2011

2011: A Liberal Looks Back With Hope


With Christmas upon us and the New Year celebrations just around the corner, today seems as good a time as any to take stock of 2011. Sifting through all the crazy stuff that happens over the course of any one year in search of a few gold nuggets is a tried-and-true endeavor for correspondents through the ages. What's a liberal's perspective? Here's a few 2011 outcomes worth toasting as we ring in the New Year.

Occupy Wall Street: Power to the 99%
Let's raise our glasses to the courage and perseverance of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who are making the Occupy movement a change mechanism for working people around the world. Though the establishment has used raw power to temporarily evict the occupancy's encampments, the Occupy army's fortitude enduring the hard concrete of Zucotti Park and the hot anger of our entitled Wall Street welfare queens — not to mention our newly militarized, pepper-spray spewing city police forces — during late summer through late fall cannot be underestimated. Occupy has reframed the conversation about the vicissitudes of our global economic fortunes in a profound way. Occupy puts a human face on the growing disparity between the extremely rich 1% and the rest of us. By its use of nonviolence within its provocatively unapologetic mission, Occupy is sharpening public understanding of the high stakes of the economic policy battles to come. The anti-labor, pro-corporate elitist, billionaire-funded far-right Republican Party may have sapped the life from our middle class and deepened the pain for those least fortunate citizens over the last 30 years. But because of Occupy, the battle lines are being redrawn, giving moderates and liberals alike a fighting chance against the greed merchants aligned against us. We truly are the 99%, whose only real demand of our elected leaders is protection from the immoral exercise of wealth and power that, more than anytime perhaps in recorded history, threatens anyone who earns a paycheck. Thanks, Occupy.

Osama, Libya, and Iraq: Who's Tough on Terror?
What a difference a presidency makes. Let's give thanks for having a president who made good on his promise to end a godforsaken eight-plus-year occupation of Iraq that ended with 4,486 U.S. soldiers killed, 32,226 seriously wounded, according to U.S. Liberal Politics — casualties set in motion by one of the most immoral presidential administrations in this nation's history. In stark contrast, here's a toast to the Navy Seal assault team's bravery in bringing the al Qaida leader to justice with a Obama-approved surgical strike and without a single American loss. And, let's not forget one more "Hail to the Chief" for ending another reign of terror, that of Muammar Qaddafi with a truly united NATO military assist for Libya's ragtag rebels. Why we went to war in Iraq may never make sense in hindsight, but the message from the Obama administration in putting an end to the occupation this month, aiding Libya's freedom fighters over the summer, and taking out Islamic extremists throughout the year is clear — a progressive president is no slouch when it comes to protecting Americans from terrorist threats, no matter where they try to hide. Can you imagine where we might be under a President McCain? Yikes!

The Arab Spring: Where Credit Is Due
There are many reasons for the outburst of protests that broke out at the start of 2011 in Tunisia and spread to Egypt, Barain, Syria and elsewhere among the dictatorships of the Arab world. But certainly one key element has been President Obama's clearly articulated call for peaceful progress among Arab nations in 2009, and his words of support for Egyptian citizens who faced armed thugs in Tahrir Square following the downfall of Hosni Mubarak in February. Here's what the president said on Feb. 11 in underlining his admiration for that honorable overthrow: 
"For in Egypt it was the moral force of nonviolence, not terrorism, not mindless killing, but nonviolence, moral force that bent the arc of history toward justice once more."
Again, what would a belligerent President McCain be saying in such circumstances? More than likely, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!"

The New Obama: Major Mojo Man
Nobody ever said being president of the United States would be easy, least of all for this country's first African-American president. But the "Hope" appeal that won him that honor also has set up Obama to be held to a different, higher set of expectations — those of conciliator, consensus-builder, and cool customer in chief. Faced with his formidable natural appeal and post-election popularity, Republicans quickly figured out how to take political advantage of the young, optimistic leader: disparage him, call him a liar in front of millions of Americans, question his birth certificate, his love of this country, his management skills, even his blackness. Obama himself abetted them, at first seeming to acquiescence on too many liberal causes. His approval numbers, by the mid-summer showdown with Congressional Republicans over the budget continuing resolution, slid into the low 40% in some polls. Then, remarkably, Obama caught a break in the overwhelming attention paid to Occupy Wall Street protests. The Main Stream Media could no longer ignore the true origins of our economic maelstrom: right-wing, trickle-down economics and tax breaks for the rich hadn't delivered the promised jobs or prosperity, and calls for more of the same began sounding hollow. Facts on Obama's own success in job-creation began countering the right's blatant lies about those successes. By September, Obama wisely put together his broadly popular American Jobs Act and took it to voters to explain its benefits. It fit the new positive economic narrative nicely, while Congressional Tea Party types led Republicans in rejecting Obama's job-creating effort in its entirety, leaving little doubt who is supporting the middle class and wage earners at all incomes. The battle lines have been drawn for 2012. I like our chances.

Happy holidays, one and all! See ya next year.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

A Liberal's Class Warfare Call to Arms


"When a regular person has to deal with financial problems in his day-to-day life… he doesn't remember the massive problems" of the past. "The indignation that person has is usually turned against the current authority." 
– Vladimir V. Putin, speaking at his United Russia Party Congress, Nov. 28 from the New York Times

"Just remember, the higher a monkey climbs on a pole, the more you can see his butt."
– David Axelrod, President Obama's chief campaign strategist, referring to Newt Gingrich's rising poll numbers, 
Dec. 14 from the New York Times

Both opinions cited above carry important lessons President Obama should heed as he formulates a strategy for the 2012 election. The Putin Principle, let us call it, is a blunt reminder that voters often penalize whoever is in office for their current situation, regardless of where the blame ultimately should rest. Axelrod's flip remark on Tuesday about a potential opponent's exposure to public scrutiny should be pasted on the Obama-Biden Chicago campaign headquarters wall in giant type as a reminder of how ridiculous such comments sound, and how off-putting, uncouth and counterproductive they are in this challenging economic and political environment.

"Obama + Dems: Fighting for the middle class" should be the only campaign bumper sticker and commentary coming out of the Democrats' re-election headquarters. Every effort should be made to focus voter attention on the big picture. Because, believe it or not, long-term economic trends favor progressive Democrats even at a time when joblessness remains high. Nothing should get in the way of a Democratic message supporting a resurgent middle class. But let me be clear: That campaign will require a long, hard, well-thought-out concerted effort by all to gain favor in the coming months, without distraction, without apology and without monkey-butt gazing.

To understand why, let me revisit the Putin Principle. For the truth in his statement about voter sentiment in Russia is, alas, undoubtedly true in America as well. It's only human nature. In spite of the majority of thoughtful, reasonable, well-educated people among the U.S. voting population, the election of a president likely could be turned into a plebiscite on the sitting executive. If Republicans have their way, here's how simply they will frame this next general election: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" If that oversimplification takes hold, Obama-Biden can kiss their second term goodbye, based on polls today indicating that about 70 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Democrats up for re-election or running for a first term both should embrace this voter sentiment of disgust rather than run away from it, as might seem to be the logical response. The single question Obama-Biden and all Democrats need to hammer home to voters this year is: "How is that trickle down, tax-breaks-for-the-rich Republican government working out for ya?" That counteracts the previously cited Putin Principle, and also frames the election with a long-term perspective by homing in on decades of destructive conservative Republican policy that somehow seems to get swept under the rug while the decades-old "tax-and-spend liberal" attacks remain as fresh as the day they were concocted.

The difficulty in this approach, I will concede, can't be underestimated. For one thing, 70 percent disapproval of our country's direction encompasses a variety of complaints among people from all walks of life. For another, the two-party system remains evenly split  over how our economic difficulties should be addressed. For every Tea Party whiner who wants to end health care reform and drown a shrunken federal government in the bathtub, there's a committed liberal fighting big money's, big corporate's and big oil's incursions on the American Dream.

Sure, Obama-Biden could tout their successes hunting down al Qaida terrorists and bringing the Iraq war to an end. But our longest war isn't in the Middle East or Afghanistan. Our longest war is stateside — class war. It's a war Democrats have avoided to their detriment. It's a war of ideas largely lost to the plutocracy's purchase and takeover of financial policy and mass media punditry, defining tax cuts and privatization as simple, painless fixes for the middle class and so-called job creators. The policies have been abject failures, yet live to fight another term.

It is high time for a Democratic counterattack on the class war front and a willingness to engage for the long haul. What we must explain to all voters this year, no matter whether from the Blue or Red states, is that their votes next November to "throw the rascals out" endanger a repeat of  the results of the 2010 elections, where reasonable incumbency was replaced with Koch brothers funded, far-right-wing extremism (witness Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Florida). While we can appreciate our differences on such topics as gun control and immigration, Democrats must challenge all voters who remain openminded to put aside those concerns in order to save our country from a doubling down on the trickle-down economics programs that continue to dominate Republican talking points and would certainly take us further into insolvency should Republicans take control of both houses of Congress and the White House. 

We must enlist all Democratic activists squarely into an army of class war warriors, and invite all Americans to join our economic and moral struggle for equal opportunity and a continuation of job creation already started by Obama-Biden, which has been vastly successful at turning around the eight of the weakest years in job creation history of Bush-Cheney administration. We must do battle on offense against the party of aristocratic wealth, while promoting the Democratic party's longstanding historic role as a friend of wage earners and anyone who believes in upward mobility. The cherished values of liberals and progressives — fairness, opportunity, investment in people, responsible stewardship of  our precious resources — transcend party. These weapons need to be the ones with which Democrats fight with laser focus in 2012. These represent our moral high ground as well as our fundamental identity. These goals will reflect our optimism about the future. And they will help counteract the Putin Principle.

Finally, forget opponents who appear to invite a little monkey-butt gazing. Come November 2012, only the fate of the American Dream hangs in the balance. We need never lose sight of those stakes, nor our role in making the dream real for millions of real Americans.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Obama's Israel Policy Hiding in Plain Sight (Just Not on Google)



If you ever wonder what Republicans want to make the American voter aware of on any particular day, just Google it. Today I typed in "obama israel policy" and found page after page of links to coverage of Republican presidential candidates commenting at the Republican Jewish Coalition Forum on Wednesday. Here's some of what the right's echo chamber on steroids looks like on Google's search results following the forum: SFChronicle.com, BusinessWeek.com, abcnews.com, foxnews.com, cbn.com. realclearpolitics.com, dailycaller.com, observer.com, bachmann.house.gov, gopusa.com, usnews.com, weeklystandard.com, etc. Mixed in are links to videos by the likes of Rep. Peter King (on the Don Imus radio show), as well as tape of Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Christopher Hitchens, the conservative author. Even Gene Simmons, the Kiss rocker who was born in Israel (under the name Chaim Witz), gets into the act. All in the name of disparaging President Obama's Israel policy.


This is what we get in today's all-you-can-eat media universe. Bloviating Republicans making nice to supporters of Israel while denigrating Mr. Obama's nuanced handling of Middle East issues in his first term. It was not what I had expected from the Google search "obama israel policy." What I had hoped for, but never did find, was a link to any document stating the president's actual Israel policy (a paid link to the generic Obama presidential website notwithstanding). Without context, you can be sure Republicans today are once again happy warriors, doing their best to discredit Obama's foreign policy achievements in the Middle East, distorting or lying about his strategy for bringing about resumption of peace talks between Israel and Palestinians, and taking unbridled pleasure in saber rattling with regard to the nuclear threat posed by Iran's potential development of a nuclear bomb.


It's all talk, and especially for this crop of Republican presidential wannabes, it's all crap.


Republicans seem more than gleeful about taking aim at Mr. Obama's somewhat tougher stance on Israeli settlements in Gaza and the subsequent cool reception by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Washington last spring. Basically, Republicans want Jews to believe that the GOP is going to be tougher on Arabs and Iran, while also implying they would put less pressure on Israel than the Obama administration, which is clearly frustrated by Netanyahu's reluctance to go back to peace talks and has stated so, both privately and in some public pronouncements by administration officials.


Republican frontrunner Newt Gingrich argues, with virtually no evidence, that the United States is undermining Israeli security by pressuring Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians and to negotiate with Turkey and Egypt without putting equal pressure for reforms on those nations. He further charges that Mr. Obama's policies are weakening Israel by interfering in its internal affairs in criticizing the building of Israeli settlements within Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. Republicans also slam the administration's efforts to keep Iran from going nuclear, calling them "weak." Even the Obama administration's tough new sanctions on Iran, with most allies' support,  haven't impressed the Republicans, who accuse Mr. Obama of taking military action against Iran off the table. To that charge, I say, "Bravo, Mr. Obama."


But let's face facts: Republicans see the current situation in the Middle East as just one more political opening, like Christian orthodoxy about abortion. In this case, they're more than willing to exploit Israel's fear of a nuclear holocaust at the hands of Arabs for its potential to split off the 70 percent support Jews gave the president in 2008. Basically, they want Jews to believe that Republicans are going to be tougher on Arabs and Iran while also implying they will apply less pressure on Israel than Democrats to return to the bargaining table. "Gingrich: He'll go easy on Israel!" This is what passes for Republican policy talk these days: A bumper sticker in favor of appeasing an old friend, with no strings attached. But even history professors like Gingrich have short memories. For it was after all a Republican, no less than Iraq invader-in-chief President George W. Bush, who in 2003 made the Gaza settlements an issue and threatened to pull U.S. funding back unless Israel ended those questionable developments inside what are assumed to be Palestinian territory once an agreement were signed. So who's kidding whom?


Make no mistake: Israel is our one true friend in the Middle East, and we need their support and cooperation. But they owe us, too. We gave Israel about $3.1 billion in foreign aid in 2010, which is comparable to the combined total for Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, Israel is an extremely important strategic ally, with the strongest military force in the region. Supporting Israel lets us protect our interests (including access to oil) without committing our own troops. The Israelis themselves are standing strong against Iran’s nuclear threat. They also provide us with intelligence gleaned from their network of agents all over the Arab world. In short, we need them as much as they need us.


But, I do agree with the Obama administration's attempts to move the needle on peace talk. They won't come about through any Republican effort to make nice with Benjamin Netanyahu or his successors. Someone has to get tough with both sides, and if you agree, Mr. Obama is the only person running for president qualified for that job. That is Obama's policy and commitment. To peace. With all apologies to Google, of course.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Anti-Intellectualism: A Republican Winning Strategy?

Charles, a Liberal Outposts reader from Virginia, wants to know why Michelle Bachman this week denigrated President Obama, as well as her fellow Republican primary opponent Newt Gingrich, by calling them "professorial." When did being a professor become a liability in this country, he asks, and why is anti-intellectualism such a hot-button political score?

Thanks, Charles. As the spouse of a popular professor at the second largest public university in the nation, University of Central Florida, I've often pondered this issue. I and my lovely wife, a professor of social work, witnessed the 2008 Republican presidential campaign attacks on Mr. Obama's community organizing credentials with great dismay. Now, as your questions suggest, it appears the 2012 Republican presidential candidates are doubling down on their blatant tactic of discrediting credentials by vilifying the most scholarly among us as being dangerously smart.

Charles, let me pose a question: Why is anyone surprised by this anti-intellectual attack mode? Whenever a series of unfortunate events in America has tested our faith in our country's cherished institutions, Republicans have used the emotional bludgeons of religion, fear, and bigotry to exploit voter uncertainty and prejudices for their own power-grabbing gain. Anti-intellectualism is just one more effective arrow in their political quiver being used to target an increasingly bifurcated voting public.

With the exception of Mr. Gingrich's scholarly past, the Republicans running to replace Mr. Obama --  who was editor of the Harvard Law Review and taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago -- have decided to redefine the word "intellectual" into a generic slur. That's why it was okay for Hermann Cain to boast of not knowing the name of the leader of Uzbekistan. Why it was not unexpected when Rick Perry's idea of criticizing Mr. Obama's diplomacy abroad was to accuse him of trying to outsmart everyone else in the room. Why no one was surprised when Sarah Palin laughed off her erroneous description of the midnight ride of Paul Revere and made up the word "repudiate." Why, despite our current stubborn unemployment figures, not a single Republican candidate for president could raise his or her hand during one debate in support of a proposed $10 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases to address our long-term budget deficit.

Why do Republicans run away from smart public policy in favor of dumb-and-dumber rhetoric? Ironically, it has to do with intellectual and political dishonesty. The GOP discredits and mocks intellectual thought as a matter of political expediency. They do it because it has worked in the past and they believe it can work again.

For one depiction of this strategy, allow me to introduce the observations of my liberal and favorite intellectual hero, the Nobel Laureate economist and The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. In August 2008 he wrote:

"… Know-nothingism -- the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there's something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise -- has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party's de facto slogan has become: 'Real men don't think things through.'"

This tendency by the GOP to promote emotive, black-and-white pronouncements in leu of the nuanced proposals of our more thoughtful Democrats works because enough voters buy into it. It's uncomplicated. Unlike intellectuals, who ask questions and examine issues to discover facts hidden below the surface, today's anti-intellectual conservatives actually mock such rigor. By defining today's complex problems in the simplest terms, Republicans are taking advantage of today's polarized populous by interpreting any evidence contradicting their version of reality as bogus and by attacking the Democratic messengers, many of whom happen to hold advanced degrees from America's premier seats of higher learning.

Of course, many Republicans in pursuit of Mr. Obama's job are no dummies. They, in fact, sometimes are the products of those same Ivy League universities (George W. Bush was a Yalie, after all). So the tactic of identity politics -- "aw, shucks, I'm just as undereducated as you" -- by conservatives is a ruse meant to play on the anti-elitist, anti-intellectual attitude among certain voting blocks. It's the politics of resentment, allowing Republicans who favor tax breaks for the wealthiest 1 percent to curry favor with lower and middle-class voters whose tendency is to distrust their better-educated brethren.

The dishonesty in the Republican approach today and their reasons for pursuing it has never been clearer. Contempt for elites and thoughtful policy discussions in the 2012 election cycle is allowing Republicans to avoid being blamed for the 2008 recession, and, in fact, shift the blame onto the Obama administration. Never mind that their past policies failures (Taft-Hartley, trickle-down, job-killing NAFTA, tax breaks for the wealthy) promoted the vast and growing divide between economic haves and have-nots that is powering the Occupy movement. Never mind that their campaigns are backed by billionaire oil companies like the elitist, opera-loving Koch brothers, all the major banks that were bailed out to the tune of $700 billion by the Bush/Cheney administration, and well-connected pro-corporate business organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce. Never mind that if elected president, a Republican in the White House will join a Tea Party putsch on the federal programs most cherished by the very Americans whose support they seek -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits -- not to mention the departments of Commerce, Education, and, uh, that other one Mr. Perry wants to kill if he can remember it.

Republicans, then, are acting totally in character by marshaling an anti-intellectual stance for their 2012 campaigns. They are depending on the electorate's growing frustration with power elites -- Obama, Congress, banks, corporations -- to make a case for their election that is simplistic (flat tax, 9-9-9, double electrified fence on the Mexican boarder), emotion-driven, and often at odds with provable facts.

Over the course of five decades, Republican policies have led America into what can rightly be called a cul-de-sac of despair. Today, their Fox News and Limbaugh-driven mantra has made the politics of resentment a house guest who never leaves. Their deceitful campaigns' success a year from now depends almost entirely on a crass manipulation of reality, an ability to rationalize their party's sordid policy record, and their ability to bilk votes from citizens who, for reason left for another post, regard knowledge with suspicion and liberals as "not like us." It is no wonder they've gone anti-intellectual. Their political lives depend upon it.