YAPC (Yet Another Policy Wonk)

To synopsize this quickly  Mr Obama was elevated to national status before he had the time to build a national organization - eg people who are beholden to him and will follow him in rough times. His liberal support therefore is collapsing because at the end of the day policies matter  -
the antipiracy rubbish is costing in the net crowd, the refusal to enforce privacy laws is hitting the libertarian crowd,  the continuation of the Afghan war is hitting the peace crowd and just about everybody is pissed off because they want the bankers punished  - have I missed anything?

 I still support him - still think he's better then Clinton still think he's got potential  but he's been seduced by the bitch goddess and that is a no no.


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                       I don’t know how far I should take this. What follows is speculation. I’m usually pretty good at ascertaining where and why political actions are taken. There’s the part of me that would like the ideal to happen and then the realist. I grew up amid politics as well. As me mum used to say, “The world is run by bunches of men sitting in rooms.” That’s pretty much it. Plato of course saw this tendency to oligarchy and was appalled by it, especially when a group of men for political reasons had Socrates kkiill himself.

I also try not to get too involved when my guy loses the race. Adolf Coors and Walter Annenburg, people who are not well known changed American politics forever when they stood by and supported Ronald Reagan for twenty years prior to his ascent to power. For the record, like many northeastern business people, I am registered Republican and like many of the old liners, (including the Bushes), recognized early on that classic Republican notions of fiscal responsibility were not in the Reagan playbook. There’s a very heavy ideological slant to modern conservatism which is rarely mentioned but at it’s core is the concern that the white race is losing it’s privileged position. To be specific the racist element is the trigger mechanism, but the goal is the transfer of wealth into as few hands as possible as soon as possible

                      And FWIW, considering Prescot Bush, former Senator, much of his work after the second world war was classified but he was the guy who essentially designed, as it were, our side of the iron curtain. It was a tremendous task in logistical terms alone. His partnerships with the third reich have been reviewed many times and basically were within the realm of what you could expect. The US went through a radical change in entering the second world war. As part of our heritage of freedom of speech, Nazi, ideas were initially propagated, but once the war started that stuff stopped cold.

                           I say this because at times I've been accused of seeing Nazi's under the beds and I wish it known that I recognize that these things are best judge in terms of degree and not kind. Also what I see lurking about is not limited to Fascism but also appears in Socialism as well, it is, for lack of a better term, “the technostate.” A telling sentence in this regards is that Germany and Japan were the first two technostates and the USA had to emulate many of their procedures in order to defeat them. It would not be the first time victory was achieved at the cost of becoming one's enemy.

                              What happened in 1980, (and this is not my interpretation alone) is the combination of enough support money and the newly integrated media networks allowed a charismatic leader to circumvent the traditional party structures. Nowadays for instance political conventions are afterthoughts but as late as 1960 they were critical parts of the electoral process.

                           As I just said this should not be news to anyone. I don’t know which I like less libertarians or fascists. Fascists are sentimental favorites and libertarians tend to let people die, but such is only part of the picture. In any case the practical concerns of controlling crime and picking up the garbage don’t really need ideological contexts of any complexity.

                      Having prefaced things such I will begin with the present instance. It’s a nagging though I have and I kinda hope that I am wrong.

                    The long standing joke about the NY Times, is that they are looking for the perfect transsexual black, Muslim, lesbian to write a daily column. They would do this to give us an idea of what the average American was thinking about. Plus with credentials like that you’d get into any University in the country and you could take them to court for a denial of affirmative action rights, unless, (and this would be really funny) the institution already had a surfeit of such people.

                        The point being several fold, one is no one cares about ability – what matters is personality.

                       This is incidentally an offshoot of the Macdonalds Principle. This is a real idea familiar to businessmen which states that rather then make a hamburger that is delicious to a few it is a better idea to make one that is offensive to as few as possible. In politics its called controlling the negatives and suffice to say the actuality is that most modern campaigns are run not in favor of anything but in opposition to many things.

                         The last thing a politician wants to do is say anything of substance. You may get cheers at the podium but you won’t be elected. What do the presidential candidates of today stand for? Nothing. And it’s not because they are stupid it’s because of the dynamics of the MacDonald Principle.

I defy anyone reading this to say one thing that a candidate of today says they will do if elected.

I voted for Clinton the first time he ran and soon was diss enchanted. “Little Abner” shore did smial a lot mostly, but the arm waving and jive talking never moved me. When Gore ran I liked hi sort of buy I had by then chosen exile to the UK because I was just so bored with the USA. Plus on th democratic conventions instead of referring to great Democrats of the past, or even people with good ideas, the walls were covered with the new ideology of selling out to big business.

                         My own intuition, shared by virtually no one, was that I wanted “Joe Palooka” to run for president, in other words someone had been around, someone who would reunite the democratic party with it’s Union heritage. As indicated the hard sell had been in for years that Unions were passé”. Actually my belief is that the Unions played a role similar to that of the Jews in the National Socialist ideology – namely secret organizations that had too much control and were draining the precious magical blood from the American body politic.

In any case my belief was further informed by simple organizational needs. Jack Kennedy would occasionally relate “My father told me all businessmen were son of a bitchs” and a little of that awareness comes in handy. Joe Kennedy was no saint himself.

                              The times did not call for a genius, what they called for is someone who could take a hit and get up again. The term post civil rights era is a little ambiguous. It’s a sensitive subject – one I have little luck expressing, but for instance if I try to convey to Jewish people that there remains a legacy of anti-Semitism they don’t always want to hear it. Likewise with those who have been fortunate enough to have all doors opened to them as a result of affirmative action they run the risk of actually believing that the whole world works that way; that in fact they would have succeeded without the help.

There’s also a sort of bizarre blowback. Take a man and say, we are giving you special treatment because the guy next to you has an unfair advantage, being white. What the person being told this may believe is that the white guy next to him is his enemy. In fact to the black man, as to mostly anyone else, having a weak enemy is worth much more then having a strong friend.

                          Let me, for a moment, speak aside to the issue of the civil war It was one, like all wars because one side was in a position to keep fighting while the other was not. We love to suggest wars are moral judgments but that’s going too far.

The great and terrible fact of love is we want someone we can control and we only love those whom we can’t control.

                         Simply then, in the year 2004, for whatever reason, it was decided that Barack Obama would be given a prominent role in the Democratic national convention. Prior to that no one had ever heard of him. He spoke beautifully, with great conviction, but did not attack known enemies. It was like going to a party and seeing the girl you are interested in showing up with a new man. You ask who he is and she says “This is my new friend.” And what else is the case it’s bad news for you.

                            When Obama spoke I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. In old Europe, in the aristocratic houses it was common to have priest “on call.” Often the reverend or Padre would be invited to
Sunday dinner, especially when one was receiving guests that one did not wish to become too close to. The presense of the man of God would preclude the use of off color language, or the telling of offencive stories or discussion of any truths that the hosts wished avoided.

                            That’s what Obama represented. Oh, Jesus Fucking Christ we can’t oppose Obama because he’s a black man and you know how they have suffered so. So much for Joe Palooka.

The fact is there’s a lot of things l personally like about Mr Obama. I wouldn’t even mind him being President, but at the moment I’m not sure he’s the right man. He’s cutting it close. Unfortunately the reason the working man in America was so badly treated is because both parties knew that only the democrats were viable.

                     There are questions being raised and facts that need some explanation. The continued support of the media cartels is seemingly contrary both to the spirit and to the fact of free speech in America. It is not enough that TimeWarner has good intentions. Just like it is not enough if a bad man means well – what matters are his actions. Secondly you would think that with his background Mr Obama would understand the issues of privacy that are raised by the internet. Thirdly issues of full disclosure and transparency are increasingly coming forward. We are discovering that while the legislature appeared to be doing nothing in fact laws were being passed and rules rewritten unknown to the public.

And finally and most importantly the nation has withstood seemingly endless cycles of economic boom and bust, every seven or eight years and these seem to be originated by the lack of oversight that the government is supposed to provide but has not. There have be no prosecutions even as huge sums of money have disappeared.

My intuition tells me the should Mr Obama go to those people who supported him when he was an unknown those people would, as the expression goes, “read him the riot act.”

For him to display the necessary independent he would have to bite the hand that fed him.

I can imagine him being in a very lonely place. Clinton was a sell out but obviously his personality was not of the sort to notice such things. He’s like the criminal at trial who sorrows not for having done the crime but for getting caught, but Barack Obama is different. Clintons dirty little secret was that he was a wolf in sheeps clothing a Republicrat who’s policies did not match his rhetoric.

The people who placed Obama in power hoped for a continuation of the same process but I am not sure Barack has the same ability to delude himself. In criminal justice we used to say that the biggest enemy the organized crime boss faced was his tendency to believe his own lies, eg, that he was a legitimate businessman. You get a guy who’s a mobster and knows he’s a mobster and he will be much more difficult to bring down.

The people who put Obama in place knew what they were doing and their gamble may yet continue to pay off. Obama’s problem simply is he has no one who owes him favors. He has no people, or not enough people, who are dedicated to him and him alone, who will do the firewalk.

Traditionally vice presidents are chosen to be the “killers” – the one’s who present extreme views and thereby allow the President to be the conciliator. But as Will Rogers said seventy years ago, ”I’m not a member of any organized party – I’m a democrat.”

               It is somewhat ironic that the fundraising has gone so well for the democrats. The disadvantage the Dems have long labored under is that, being a coalition of groups on the “outs” they view it as an employment service.

                 In any case I wish him well. I suppose that I, and perhaps you, are fortunate in that our jobs are not on the line, but the essentials are not going to go away.

               As I said a few months back, part of me, the strategic thinker, the Lenin, wants Romney to win, because he is such a bad choice that an economic collapse would have a far greater chance of happening sooner rather then later. Although what we are speaking about, widespread hunger, rioting in the streets and the use of military units against the civilian population, would be wanted by no one the sooner the economic system is fixed the less traumatic the cure.

                          When one looks at the rest of the world it almost appears like the US is a victim of it’s own success, and partly that is so. Our very substantial wealth keeps us from expeditious action, but unfortunately the delay begins with first thousands and then eventually millions paying the price that we would otherwise gladly pay.

To conclude this I’d like to come up with a new idea. Thinking outside the box is easier said then done. It has been said of the global leaders of the first world war that they they did what they did because they were afraid of being perceived as doing nothing. In other words they didn’t have much choice in their actions. The same can be said of the previous generation of European leaders, of Bismark and Tallyrand, but in that case the results were of mixed benefit. (While their respective nations benefited from the new nationalism conditions were established that can be said to have lead the competitive urges of the first world war.)

The fish cannot perceive the ocean in which it swims and likewise if you believe that your first instinct is to think outside of logical parameters then your not doing it right. One of the reasons so many great artists and writers are near madmen is because they do not think in ordinary patterns.

However there is a trick that can be used to break the contextual tautology of neurotic conclusions inevitably resulting from a finite amount of knowledge. Change something about a condition outside the context of the question and then assign a parallel causality. I’ll explain.

The American civil war in the south is called the War of Succession and in the north is called the war to free the slaves, but what if it were neither? Instead we could call it the war to establish industrial production as the primary business of America. I’m not saying this is true. The assignation of truth or falseness is something that must not occur until it is needed and it is not needed as of yet in this hypothesis, but let’s say it could be so.

I am reminded of the psychological adage that every argument in a marriage about money is actually about sex. In politics every argument about morality tends to actually be about money.

Much like the civil war, which was an issue that had never been resolved dating back to the war for independence, the economic functioning of the US has been an issue for many years and it is now one that will not go away of it’s own accord. The compromises are growing more bitter with each new recession.

It is not an issue, ultimately of left and right. It is a case where the status quo simply grew too big and too far beyond the bounds of reason and law. The legal system in the US has become oddly twisted in that it now seems to consist of new legislation, the sole purpose of which is to remove from corporations the application of old laws and principles.

                    Another curious aspect of their new “Presence” in society is that rather then increase public awareness of their existence, via trade shows, worlds fairs and the like, they find it expeditious to retreat into a shadow world of international finance.

                         The ancient powers that be apparently are onto a good thing and they wish to keep it that way-bt it cannot remain. Ultimately it is a question of value. Would we deny a child the use of the road because they have no car? Were we to deny them an education, or even make the degree of education we give to people contingent on their ability to pay for it? That would be a bad idea; indeed it would be the continuation of a horrible idea that has held sway for too long and which denies the notion of human capitol or ability.

                      Besides which we come to the question that confronted Carnegie and still confronts men like Gates and Buffet. What exactly do you do with all that money after the first billion or so? You can only eat so many meals, see so many ball games, have so many girl friends before the limits of time begin to apply.