Last Thoughts Before the Election

There really isn't much left anyone can say about this election that hasn't already be said. Signs look very positive for an Obama victory, and we just need to pray they hold up. I'll leave you with an unpublished piece I wrote several years ago, ranting about the unholy alliance between religion and the Right. Let's hope this is the year that alliance breaks down:

There seems to be a lot of talk in the news lately of a culture war. There is increased polarization in America between religious conservatives and secularist liberals. The Democratic Party, it is said, is out of touch with the values of middle America, and that is why it has trouble winning in the south and Midwest. They say the Democratic Party is made up of godless, amoral, liberal elitists from the northeast, who cannot connect with the simple churchgoer of Kansas or Alabama. As someone whose religious views constitute fundamentalism by most definitions you will find, but who is also a political liberal, I don’t think there needs be such a divide. Religion does not necessarily imply conservatism, and fundamentalism and moderation do not have to be inimical to each other.

I must confess, whenever I hear the expression, “good southern values,” the same few images always come to my mind. The first is of southern slave-owning plantation owners of the 1850’s, who I am certain attended church regularly, and feel themselves the bearers of these good southern values. The second is George Wallace on the steps of the Alabama statehouse, preaching his good southern values, like “segregation forever.” The last image that comes to my mind is Jesse Helms talking about representing good Christian values as he fought against civil rights in the 1960’s. These images, while they may not represent precisely what conservatives today mean by values, do a good deal to discount the importance of the term, seeing the kinds of things it has been used for in the past.

Furthermore, far from being “godless” and “amoral,” the causes championed by liberals throughout the years have often been deeply moral and very religiously significant. What could be a more moral cause that civil rights? As a religious individual, what could be more important than fighting for the basic equality of all human beings? After all, are we not all created in the image of G-d, and all equal in His eyes. Religious leaders championed this cause. Martin Luther King Jr. was a protestant minister, and standing just to his right in the great civil rights march in Alabama, was Jewish leader Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. What could be a more moral or religious cause than fighting poverty and hunger, making sure all of G-d’s children are protected from harm? What could be a more moral or religious cause than protecting the environment, so that this earth should remain the way G-d intended it to be? Adam, the Bible tells us, was put in the Garden in Eden in order to protect it (Genesis 2:15). Conservatives, when they forsake the poor and neglect the earth in order to give big tax breaks to the rich, are the ones who deserve the title of “godless and amoral.” The Left really is where religious people belong politically, not the Right.

The Religious Right, in its great fervor to force its individual religious worldviews on those who do not agree with them, is all too quick to forget about the more universal aspect of religion; the causes, like those I have already discussed, that religious people ought to be championing, which are beneficial to everybody. I do not mean to say the individual aspect of religion is unimportant. Quite the contrary, I have many very strong convictions in this arena, and wouldn’t give them up for the world. However, it is important to recognize that the federal government is not my own personal religious outreach organization. I would be happy to argue with people and try to convince them that my particular religious views are the correct ones, but I would never think that my particular religious views ought to be legislated as federal policy in a secular government, and forced on people who disagree with me.

I personally find abortion to be an abhorrent practice, and in most cases immoral (though not murder), yet I was willing to attend a massive pro-choice rally in Washington two years ago for the purpose of keeping abortion legal. I did this because it is the principle of the separation of church and state that has made America such a great country and given so many people here opportunities that would not be available to them elsewhere. As a member of a minority religion, particularly as an observant member of a minority religion, this is something that must not be forgotten. It is because of liberals that Jews have such freedom to practice their religion in America today, not because of Christian conservatives. And let us be clear about one thing. There are no such things as Judeo-Christian values. There are Jewish values, and there are Christian Values. Now and then they overlap, but once the precedent is set of allowing Christian values to be legislated, they will eventually be legislated in ways where it is not in line with Jewish values. Having Christian values as the law of the land has been tried previously in history. It was known as the Spanish Inquisition. If we want to remain free to practice our religion as we see fit, we need to fight for the rights of other people to practice their religions as they see fit, even if it might sometimes involve doing things we find abhorrent and disgusting.

It may well be true that the Democratic Party is out of touch with the values of mainstream America, but that is only because they are so far ahead. It really gets me that southern traitors, many of whom still proudly display the sign of their treason, the confederate flag, think they can tell northern liberals who fought and died to keep America together, that their views today mean they hate America. And yes, call it elitist, patronizing, or condescending, but I do think the people in the north are generally more moral than that the people in the south. (By this I mean even northern conservatives, who due to lack of exposure often forget just how liberal they really are when compared with the south.) Middle America will catch up eventually. The so-called culture war will end. Eventually, religious folk will realize the common ground they have with liberalism. They always do, just as they did with slavery, and then with civil rights. For now, though, what people consider to be “mainstream American values,” are not values good people of religion ought to have.


Almost all of what I wrote, I still feel is true. My only caveat is that, judging by some of the polling numbers, Obama just may be that transformational figure who's able to make enough religious folk realize they have more in common with the Left that the Right. We won't know for sure until tomorrow, when we see if he can win in any of the traditional Republican strongholds, but the culture war may be ending and Middle America may be moving on just as I predicted they eventually would.

Economic Meltdown, Bailout and Why You Shouldn't Blame Wall Street

The economic situation we're currently in is arguably the worst it's been since the Great Depression. Let's examine the causes of this crisis. First, who isn't responsible?

1) Liberals. It's become popular in right-wing circles to spread the notion that liberals are actually the ones responsible for the mortgage-crisis because of their policies forcing banks to make loans to lower-income and minority families. An interesting argument. Unfortunately, for them, it isn't true. Presumably the legislation they're referring to is the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). As this article makes clear, there is no connection between the CRA and the current crisis. For those of you who don't want to read the whole article, let me summarize the main points. a) Only 25% of sub prime mortgages were made by banks that were even subject the the CRA. b) Even among those 25%, there's no evidence that the CRA loans have a higher default rate than the rest of their loans. c) The investment instruments that spread this bad mortgage debt around the whole economy had absolutely nothing to do with the CRA. d) The first sub prime mortgage was made 25 years after the CRA was first passed. Blaming the CRA is such a ridiculous argument that neither John McCain nor any bank executive has tried to make it, but never underestimate the power of the right-wing chatterboxes in convincing people that liberals are really responsible for all of their problems.

2) Wall Street Executives. This may seem counter intuitive to anyone listening to any politician talk about the meltdown lately, but Wall Street is not to blame. They were just doing what the rules of the game expected them to do. It's a classic prisoner's dilemma. For those of you not familiar, I'll fill you in. Two people are arrested. They each have to decide whether to stay silent or rat the other one out. If they both stay silent, they'll each get 6 months in prison. If they both rat each other out, they'll each get 30 years in prison. If one stays silent and the other rats him out, the ratter will go free, and the rattee will get life in prison. Assuming we are dealing with rational people who prefer less jail time to more, the only outcome we will ever get is that they'll both rat each other out and spend 30 years in jail. Even though they'd both be happier if they both stayed silent, absent any way to bind the other person to an agreement, there's no incentive for either one to remain silent. If I think you're going to remain silent, I should rat you out because free is better than 6 months. If I think you're going to rat me out, I should still rat you out, because 30 years is better than life. This is essentially how wall street works on a much bigger scale. It's the paradox of the free market. If you allow everyone maximum liberty to make the decision that most benefits him or her, you will almost inevitably wind up with an outcome where everyone winds up suffering. It's not fair to blame the people involved. True, they all would have been better off if they didn't make these risky investments, but if I choose unilaterally not to make these investments while everyone else still is, I'm just going to wind up in even worse shape. Another one of my favorite examples of this is the minimum wage. Every time congress raises the minimum wage, conservative economists start screaming about how it's going to put companies out of business and lead to huge unemployment, and yet this has never panned out. Why? Because even though minimum wages might drive up short term costs, in the long run they are good for the economy. When the people at the bottom, the people for whom every extra dollar translates to an increase in their quality of life, have more money, they spend more. They create more demand in the economy. Businesses sell more. Everyone benefits. However, one firm raising wages will never be sufficient to create that stimulus. Without the government mandating it, no company is going to unilaterally volunteer to increase their payroll costs. However, when the situation is required of everyone, everyone is better off.

So who is responsible for the current economic crisis? It should be obvious by now. It's not Wall Street and it's not liberal government policy. It's conservative government policy. I stress conservative and not Republican, because many of these conservative policies were passed with the full support of a large number of Democrats as well. It's the policies of deregulation that caused this mess. The false belief that the market will perform best if the government would just leave it alone. Adam Smith's contention that a completely unregulated market will work at maximum efficiency is true only in the highly idealized situation where competition is perfect, and no firm is large enough for their decisions to have an impact on any other firm. No real market actually works this way (and besides, efficiency doesn't necessarily equal fairness). If I had to put the blame on one person for the current economic mess, it would be Ronald Reagan. Not that I can point to any specific policy of his that caused it. However, he was the one who set the conservative trend in American economics in motion. He was the one who made deregulation the politically popular thing to do. If it weren't for Reagan, Bill Clinton never would have felt compelled to go along with deregulation to the extent he did, and George W. Bush never would have been able to muster the political will to push deregulation to new extremes.

So what's the solution to the crisis? Well, in the long run, the solution is liberalism. We need to reregulate the markets in a way that makes sense for the 21st century economy. Now, I'm not a socialist. I don't want to government running the entire economy. In general, I view competition as a good thing. It motivates innovation and can be of tremendous benefit to the consumer. In order for competition to work, companies do need the opportunity to make bad decisions and fail on account of them. However, the government needs to have an active role in preventing situations where the markets motivate everyone involved to act in destructive ways as it does now. I find it funny when Larry Kudlow on CNBC asks things like "Can the market survive the regulatory state of an Obama presidency?" He doesn't seem to get that the market can't survive without the regulatory state of an Obama presidency. A successful capitalist economy depends on liberal government policy. It shouldn't surprise anyone that historically, the market has performed considerably better under Democrats than Republicans. The Republicans like to frame it as class warfare, business versus the middle class. But the truth is when the middle class is doing well, businesses fare better also. Economic success percolates up, it doesn't trickle down.

What about in the short term? I think we have no choice but to go along with this bailout. It's not perfect, but we don't have time to work out something better. If we want capitalism to survive, the government needs to do something now to preventing the market from collapsing on itself. We should do it in a way that protects the investments of ordinary people and not just big business, but if we completely ignore business interests, ultimately the people will wind up suffering as well. The idea the House Republicans proposed of a government-run insurance company that banks could buy into to insure their mortgage debt, is not a bad idea in the long run. In fact, it's similar to the original function of Fannie Mae, in the days when it was a pure public utility, created as part of the New Deal. I hope they continue pushing the idea after the immediate crisis has subsided, because it's something I think we should very seriously consider. However, it's not a short term solution. Telling the banks to buy mortgage insurance after the debts have already gone bad is like telling the residents of New Orleans to buy flood insurance after Katrina has already hit. Insurance is a good way to prevent crisis, but not a good way to alleviate one already in progress. However, if we only remedy the short-term crisis, and not the long-term problems, that's a good recipe for another crisis in the not too distance future. The best hope we have left is to elect Barack Obama president with strong Democratic majorities in congress and pray that they live up to their mandate.

Personality Cults and Double Standards

In my post on the Democratic Convention, I complained that it was too much of a Barack Obama personality cult and not enough about the issues. I should have held my fire. In comparison to the Republican Convention, the Democratic Convention was a veritable think tank. The Republican Convention was entirely personality cult. John McCain, war hero, maverick, reformer, country first. At least Obama's personal speech was heavy on policy details, even if the rest of the convention wasn't. Even McCain's own speech didn't talk a whole lot about policy. When he did, it was the same old, tired, worn-out conservative catch-phrases and platitudes that have gotten us into the mess we're in now. "Cut taxes", "smaller government". McCain promises to reform Washington, but can't cite a single example of how he will do so. He talks about government working for people, but the fact is that in order for government to work for people, it needs to be bigger and have a larger tax base to work from. The Republican myth that cutting taxes for the wealthy will someone help grow the economy and benefit everyone has never been put to the test better than in the last few years. The bottom has not benefited from this giveaway to the top, not even in a small trickle. Corporate profits are at record highs, while average wages are down, unemployment is up, inflation is up, and the dollar is weaker. The exact opposite of what Republicans predicted has happened, and yet they still try to cling to their notions.

It is true McCain has taken a handful of positions at odd with his party's base in the past (though most of his attempts have been unsuccessful), but he can't mention those now, because neither he nor the audience to which he was speaking currently supports any of those ideas. Absent any real meaning, "reform" has become just another empty word from politicians, just like they have accused Barack Obama of doing with "change." Obama responded to his critics with a convention speech heavy on the details of the kind of change he wants to bring, which you can agree or disagree with. McCain responded by playing up the personality cult even further.

It's not surprising that a party bereft of issues would play up personality. What is surprising is the double standard. After spending the summer derisively mocking Obama's so-called "celebrity" as if it were a sin to be popular they built out of their candidate exactly the kind of mythical figure they accuse the Democrats of doing with Obama. Could you imagine if speakers at the Democratic Convention had said things like, "Barack Obama's whole life has been leading up to the presidency," of "God created only one Barack Obama"? The McCain campaign and the media would have been all over their supposed messiah-complex. John McCain is the biggest political media celebrity there ever was. Without the press helping to disseminate his maverick image, John McCain never would be in the position he's in now. The press has been complicit in letting him grab the spotlight and use them to his advantage. His whole career has been a public relations stunt with no real substance. He gets his name on big, important bills, but won't take the steps necessary to ensure their passage. The media has bought into his self-crafted image wholeheartedly. And then he has his surrogates get up there and rail against the so-called "liberal media?" How dare he? The Republican Party clearly has nothing left but to lie about and distort their opponent's agenda, out of a desperate hope to somehow convince the voters that someone other than the Republicans are responsible for the disasters of the last eight years. After all, what could be a worse sin than standing in the way of the entitlement of their Chosen One?

Unconventional Convention Thoughts

Sorry, it's been a while since I last posted, but news can get rather boring over the summer, and there just isn't much to say. I thought I should devote at least one post to my thoughts on the democratic convention. Overall, I think it was a fairly successful convention, but it could have been better. My critiques basically fall into 2 categories:

1) Too much talking about Obama. I felt they spent too much time praising Obama, and what a great guy he is, and not enough actually talking about issues, and the plans the Democratic platform has to offer for the country. I do think Barack Obama did this well in his own speech, but, in contrast, at the Kerry convention, there were a lot more speakers who really gave detailed policy addresses. I understand that since Obama is still a relatively unknown figure nationally, they needed who define him before the Republicans did, yet I think this could have been done in a way that seemed like less of a personality cult.

2) Not enough attacking McCain. Of course, every speaker said McCain is "more of the same." And how many times did we hear "votes like Bush 90% of the time?" But they should have been more personal in the attacks. None of the criticism for being like Bush will stick if they don't first tear down the image people still have of him as a maverick that he built up in the 2000 campaign. They needed to go after McCain as just another pandering politician, whose views drift with the winds of political convenience. The only speakers, who, I thought, really hammered this point were John Kerry and Bill Richardson. They should have done one of those biopics for John McCain, but highlight everything negative in his career. They should have brought up how he cheated on his wife while she was recovering from injuries after she waited for him patiently the 7 years he was a prisoner of war. The public needs to know that this guy's not only wrong on the issues, he's a real dirtbag. Another point is that in order not just to win this election but to help cement permanent Democratic majorities, they should have spent more time connecting Bush's failures, not just with personal incompetence, but with the failure of conservatism as an ideology. Bill Clinton brought this up, and so did Barack Obama, but they should have had everyone hammer this point home. Everyone talks about wanting to make this a respectful campaign, and reaching out to work with the other party to solve our problems. You can't work with the other party to solve our problems when the other party is the problem. Everything wrong with America today really can be summed up in one word: "conservatism." The only way we're going to fix it is by beating the Republicans into submission. And we're not going to do that by playing nice.

July 4 and True American Patriotism

In honor of our nation's Independence day I wanted to reflect on what it really means to be an American patriot. It seems that in the political arena, most of the time we hear talk about patriotism, it's coming from the right, specifically in the form of questioning the patriotism of those on the left. Ever since 9/11 (really ever since Viet Nam, but in a particularly intensified form since 9/11) the Republican party has tried (often successfully) to portray anyone who does not throw their full support behind their president in whatever he decides to do, as somehow unpatriotic, disloyal or siding with the terrorists. But while Republicans may talk about patriotism a lot, I often wonder if they have any idea what really means. For them, it seems to be about wrapping yourself in the flag, being prepared to die for you country good or bad, and having unquestioning trust that George Bush can keep us safe. I don't think John McCain is lying when he says he loves America, but what does loving America mean when you are preaching the same blind jingoism that runs counter to everything America was founded on? What does in mean to say you love America, when at the same time are preaching that the president should violate and shred the Constitution of the United States with impunity? Faith in one's country without any logical reason has been seen before in history, and typically bears the name fascism. Real patriotism is about a love of the values this country was founded on, and a desire to constantly force the country to be even truer to its own values. This of course, includes criticizing America when it deviates from them. Under President Clinton, America used its army with moral purpose. We were a respected leader in the world. Since Bush took office, America is seen as greedy and imperialist, with only its narrow self-interests in mind. The Republican party has stripped America of its moral standing and moral authority, and McCain preaches nothing but more of the same. How would we plausibly be believed to be promoting freedom and liberty abroad when we're actively trying to undermine it back home? How can we tell other countries about government being accountable to the people when our own government has done everything it can to avoid accountability? Yes, I think the crimes of our current government amount to no less than treason, and John McCain, for supporting them, is an aider and abettor. It's about time Democrats stop responding to attacks on their patriotism, with meek "We're patriotic too," defenses. We should go out on the offense, tell people what the flag really stands for, and remind people just how unpatriotic the Republicans have been. Is Barack Obama the perfect candidate? Of course not. But at least he knows what it means to be a patriot.

Post-partisanship and a New Kind of Politics

There seems to be a lot of talk lately about a new kind of politics; of moving to a post-partisan era where we don't think about what party we belong to, only about what is best for America. On the surface, this naturally seems like a wonderful idea. Of course politicians should focus on doing what is best for America. The problem is, more often than not, trying to push for a new kind of politics before you're in office means ensuring you will lose. Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry all lost for this reason. They insisted on taking the high road; on sticking to talking about issues and not responding to personal attacks. You can't change the system if you're not in office, and you can't get in office if you won't play the game as it works now. Taking the high road when you're still a candidate amounts to unilateral disarmament against your opponent. The great irony is Barack Obama, the candidate who talks the most overtly about a new kind of politics is probably a more conventional politician than most Democratic candidates we've seen in quite a while, with the exception of Bill Clinton. And from what I can tell so far, he's a damn good one. He's been effectively hitting back, and hitting back hard every time he's attacked. He made the right decision in forgoing the public funding. Taking it would be a good way to ensure he will lose. The overwhelming advantage he'll get in the fall from all the extra money will more than outweigh getting a few days of bad press for the decision now. And of course, one has to admire the way he played the race card during the primaries and managed to blame the Clintons for it. As a Clinton supporter, I really feel no animosity towards him for this. He played the same game we were and he beat us at it. He earned the right to be our party's nominee, and hopefully he'll run as strong a campaign against McCain as he did against us.

The other major problem with post-partisanship (what we used to call bipartisanship) is what exactly does it mean? Obviously, I want a candidate who puts America first, and if the Democratic party does something wrong is not afraid to stand up and say it. However, I hear a lot of conservative pundits saying that he needs to break with the mainstream of the Democratic party on some issue to show that he's post-partisan. This is absurd. If the Democratic party platform has the right ideas for America, why should a candidate take a stand against it, just to show their post-partisanship? That would be just as bad and not taking a stand against the platform if it is wrong. I'm all for bipartisanship if it means working together with Republicans who decide they want to do what's right and join the Democratic party on any one of its issues. However, if it means having to put together a compromise agenda where each party gets half of what they want, why should I agree to that? The Republican party, as a whole, has been on the wrong side of every issue for the last 60 years. Let's just look at what the Republican ideas are at the present. A never-ending war in Iraq, giving the executive branch unlimited power to ignore the constitution during wartime, cutting taxes even more for the people who need it least, leaving tens of millions of men, women and children without health care, offering fewer veterans' benefits. Not one of these is a good idea. Right now the best way for Democratic politicians to do what's best for America isn't to reach out to compromise with Republicans, it's to beat them into submission. As a friend of mine's father once put it, "I never understood the point of moderation. Who wants to be half way between right and wrong?"

I find it mildly comical that we have two candidates who both appear committed to this "new kind of politics" and are both clearly poised to run one of the most conventional dirty campaigns we've seen. John McCain, I don't think, ever believed in the new kind of politics. For him, and the rest of the Republicans, it's just a tool to bludgeon the Democrats with and make sure the Republicans can continue to win elections ensuring the change to the political system never happens. Barack Obama, I think, deep down does believe we need to fix the way politics works in Washington. However, he realizes that nothing will get fixed if he loses, and so he's not going to make the mistakes of his predecessors and unilaterally disarm against the Republican attack machine. And thank God for that.