Plumping for a Reason

I know there haven't been any new posts around here (In ages! Jesus.) on the Days, but in the twilight of this electoral season my mother wanted to know how it is I'm leaning.  More than just a 'who you vote for' question, I guess it gives me pause to think more deeply about what it is I believe in, a 'why' sort of thing.  A good think for any of us to ask of ourselves, from time to time.


I guess I'd have to preface all this by saying that I can't believe in immutable rights, beyond those that are agreed upon as societal norms (which for better and for worse, do change with time). I trust that there are certain values that are almost universally held, which may seem self-evident when thought about objectively. But as there isn't any compelling evidence for a god (or gods), there really isn't anything proscribed or impossible except that which society will crush one for in reprisal. Moral values are then a product of human coexistence and the changing dynamics therein, rather than being a simple given. The nature, means, and measure of power - which to my mind is a thing of inevitability in any social grouping, the implementation of who gets what, how and when - isn't just innate; one can argue it to be beholden to a number of factors, like technology, economy, and even geography.

From that viewpoint then, I'd say our current, past-century set of circumstances make government the arm of the common good, ostensibly there to protect and better society in ways individuals can't or are unwilling to do, modern society being large, complex, and as a unit fairly unwieldy. The tumultuous nature of the free market system upon which we base our daily existence lends itself to conflict, inequality, and discord - conditions that the nature of said system cannot thrive in. This isn't medieval Europe, where power is measured by the crops you grow and your ability to wrest what you will by force. Force is still a potent means of control, but is by no means the end-all appropriation.

In terms of governance, the problems I have with the private sector are absolutely borne from a personal cynicism held that a for-profit motivation is inherently going to be selfish; when one tries to apply free market principles (which are great, from a business perspective) to what one might call the 'social good', you necessarily find gaps where there's no profit to be had. Worse yet, conflict of interest dictates that a money-making approach to government invites corruption and further solidifies the placement of 'haves' and 'have-nots', simply because people who can afford to invest and turn a profit (call them 'producers') will become the focus and primary beneficiaries of any such government. 

Conversely, one can make the same argument that governments are poor at running businesses. This is generally true because the motivations and goals of government are intrinsically different from those needed to successfully maintain a business. In a successful economic system such as ours, it wouldn't be too insane to suggest the existence of a symbiotic relationship between the two, the one being the engine powering the other, which maintains the stability the former requires to do its thing.  Kind of the essence of Keynesianism, really.

So I voted Democratic because I believe in people, and in society. There's a disparity that has been widening in America over the past forty years, and I believe our democratic virtue requires us as a society to redress them. That's my problem with the Tea Party, in that they are actively working to redefine those values that make us 'American'. Not that there's any problem inherent in evolving public interest, or with debating policy. But it's the cheap political tactics and fairly transparent self-interest that I disagree with the most strongly.  No system is perfect, just as our very bodies - while standing the tests of time and selection - are neither perfect nor even well-suited for all contingencies. But at some point we need ask what best serves the greatest common denominator.

What's New, Pussycat?

Dear, but how time flies!  March to May in what seems like a week; of mold, of shit, of utter decrepitude.  My life finally feels consumed by the job, that most dreadful of all nouns.  Up at six, fix a to-go salad and eat my yoghurt.  The daily walk to 4610 26th Avenue - I've calculated that as of last Wednesday I've walked five-hundred miles exclusively to and from work since starting in October.  It's two miles each way, so I suppose it adds up.  But my god!  I could have (very slowly) walked to San Francisco from here, rather than the punch-in and early morning meeting that begins each and every weekday with unflinching regularity.

I dream about work now, so far gone are my free time aspirations.  Sometimes I'll wake up and think up a way to go about a particular job that hadn't occurred to me before.  I'll return those two miles, feeling utterly efficient and utilitarianally clever.  Meanwhile my writing notes grow into a small stack of of yellowing paper.  My blog (poor blog), untouched for nearly two months that felt as a week.  Before I know it I'll be in my mid-thirties, wondering where it all went, dreaming my workaday dreams (if I dream at all, by then) and crawling into a bottle after every second set of two miles in the evening.

Whole lives are sometimes used this way, and it frightens me. 

Decline and Fall of the Demure Right

            Obviously it has been happening for years, as steadily as a runaway glacier: the polarisation of American politics and the rightward thrust of the current Republican Party.  Nothing by way of news, though some stories from the past couple of weeks bode ill for a perfect union.

Super Tuesday Fizzle  Super Tuesday - called such because it generally concludes the primary stage of any opposition party’s election run-up in an explosive fashion - has fallen flatter than a tired metaphor, as Romney wins in a disappointingly lacklustre fashion and rival Santorum loses in such a way as to come out a slightly stronger candidate.  Not only does this underline that there’s money to be made in drawing out a foregone conclusion, but it is painfully indicative of a split among Republican voters.  Viz, that there are about as many conservative, bland, yet somewhat responsible primary voters that support (reprehensibly oily as he may appear to be) at least a plausible presidential candidate who has leadership and (reprehensibly as it may also be) successful business experience and a history of compromise to his credit, (deep breath) as there are voters of the vehemently Tea Party, post-Moral Majority set that (ever increasing in dictating party lines) have already shattered the efficacy of the House of Representatives, and now seem intent on crashing the gates on the Senate and Presidency.

Snowe Moves On   Senator Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican representing Maine, announced a week before Super Tuesday that she would not seek reëlection, citing “an atmosphere of polarization and 'my way or the highway' ideologies [that have] become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.”  What this does to limit congressional bargaining (and ultimately large-scale bipartisan projects, such as the debt reduction supercommittee) and the ensuing gridlock that follows would, in her opinion, make another term in the Senate personally unproductive.  She closes her announcement with a bittersweet flourish,

“As I enter a new chapter, I see a vital need for the political center in order for our democracy to flourish and to find solutions that unite rather than divide us. It is time for change in the way we govern, and I believe there are unique opportunities to build support for that change from outside the United States Senate. I intend to help give voice to my fellow citizens who believe, as I do, that we must return to an era of civility in government driven by a common purpose to fulfill the promise that is unique to America.”

Unfortunately, as she hangs up her legislative hat another potential intransigent may usurp her rare position as an aisle-reacher, further exacerbating the already static cling to party unity (over coöperation).

Pledge Drives  And the one that really gets me are the ill-fatedly indefinite pledges (read my lips) that have been getting the pass-round among Republican congresspersons.  The first is Grover Norquist’s pledge to never under any circumstances increase the marginal tax rate of either person or business (living or dead), signed by all but six Republican representatives and most of their senators.  No wonder Snowe (who did not sign the pledge) has decided to leave; if maintained the pledge effectively eliminates all possibility of compromise over the reduction of America’s debt.  The other pledge (because bad news comes in pairs) is the brainchild of the right-wing Susan B. Anthony List, directed at Republican presidential candidates and maintains a strict policy of appointing only demonstrably pro-life judges and appointees if elected.  Mitt Romney (again, the only thing by way of a plausible GOP candidate this fall) is the only of his rivals to not sign, arguing that it would be a limitation of his abilities as president.  Yes, the future of America’s Right seems to lie in the unmovable foundations of uncompromising ideology.  

So what then might anybody expect to be the Democratic reaction?  Eventually, trenches shall be dug, and the American moderate will indeed be a thing of the past.

Hunting the Hunter Within

            So maybe the art of debate is dead in America.  Lord knows it’s been missing in action so far in the presidential debates, has perhaps never seen any air time on talk radio, and suffers insurmountable stupidity on the forums and comment swathes of the internet.  Reminds me of a recent conversation I had about the deficit, tax loopholes, and a budget slash.  Try as I might to employ logic, reason, and ( yawn ) sourced facts against what I consider broad generalizations and gut instincts, we just couldn’t come to any suitable conclusion on the matter.

            Maybe that’s the problem with American politics – or possibly politics in general, or even humanity today – that the overload of noxious talking heads and the seemingly endless supply of information available to anyone with internet access suddenly makes everybody feel knowledge-empowered.  Masters of various subjects.  Intelligent, I suppose one could say.  But rather than actually trying to answer questions, a terrifying many people seem to go about picking out fact blurbs and twisting figures (and the very question) to suit their predispositions.

            And I wonder, has it always been this way?  I can recall the bitter (at time acidic) arguments of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists two-hundred and twenty-some years ago (eleven score, by Lincoln’s reckoning).  Yellow journalism, caricatures, inquisitions, libel and name calling and Elijah Lovejoy.  McCarthyism and countless panics.  Are people generally stupid?  Or is there more to debate than knowing your stuff and presenting it in a straightforward fashion?  Many tools in the arsenal, maybe...

            So if the art of debate is alive and thriving, I wonder if there was ever a real spirit of acquiescence and grace.  It could be those were just bullshit ideals too, Jesus preaching meekness sort of thing so that basilicas could be built and empires forged.  The information revolution has not only freed the people to boundless porn, but has given them the tools to be obtuse experts of most everything.  It’s the end of empires, the harbinger to the end of human progress.  It’s alive in politics on the floor of the House, on the angrily-lettered or else overly-worded pickets carried by protesters and occupiers and tea partiers.  It’s soon to be an end to bipartisanship and compromise.  Just wait – we’ll be living in an overbearingly effective dictatorship by the decade’s end, democratic principles having died the previous winter. 

            Not as bad as all that, perhaps, but it makes me wonder.  An example of things to come, conversing with a future leader in the world of business:

[Guy 1]  Ok, so I have $100 debt and will decrease spending by 50 ($50) and will increase spending by $50 ($100). So we are left with a grand total of $100! That is a Democrats idea of cutting the budget.

[Guy 2]  Hold up, Mr. Specious Reasoning; you'd lower your spending by $50 (freeing up $50 that you normally throw away - say on designer socks) and you'd be bringing in an additional $50 (Christmas card from your grandma). $100 debt would be paid in that scenario.

[Guy 1]  100-50+50=100???  [eyes boggling facetiously]

[Guy 2 shakes head, fist at God]

            

Call Me a Communist, But...

So another weekend skiffles along full-pat, a stomach full of shepherd's pie and a mug of wimpy tea to salve a crampy cold I've succumbed to.  Uncharacteristically of me, for the first time in perhaps a week I've finally looked at the online news stories - Times Square and various city spaces around the world have been occupied by protesters decrying wealth disparity and a perceived lack of representation in government direction, Steve Jobs has suddenly passed on, Sonic Youth fronts Moore and Gordon separate (marriage now, band soon?), and the Treasury has delayed its final ruling on the fairness of China's currency valuation.

And then in lighter news, there's an interview with presidential-candidacy-hopeful Herman Cain on the NPR.  When asked by interviewer Scott Simon about the economic ramifications of Cain's proposed 9-9-9 tax scheme - in this case, instancing the proposed nine-percent sales tax on the price of bread paid by both prince and pauper - the Godfather's Pizza magnate responded:

On a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread, Bill Gates and every rich person is going to pay the same tax as someone who's on the lower end of the spectrum. But Scott, I'm not going to play the class warfare card. You have to compare the taxes they pay today. If you pick a certain income level — and I'll pick one and walk you through it, OK?  (Simon: "Sure.")  I'm going to use $50,000 a year, since that's approximately what the median income is for a family in this country. [For a] family of four, $50,000 a year. Under the current system, based upon standard deductions and standard exemptions, they're going to pay $10,200 in taxes. Under the 9-9-9 plan, the middle 9, they're going to pay $4,500. That leaves $5,700 to apply to that milk and bread in terms of the taxes. You have to go through the numbers of each individual situation.

Golf clap, Mr. Cain.  As suggested, going through the numbers every rich person will pay the same tax, in dollar amounts rather than proportionally.  The $5,700 that average family may save still has to go towards the mundane (and now more expensive) task of paying for the groceries, the wares, the thingamajigs.  That average American family spends nearly all its cash on (you guessed it) these expenditures, with little by way of money to save.  An overall raising of the levy on purchased goods will really do little by way of a tax break for the Jones', and in many cases will end up being a tax hike.

Believe it or not, but beyond the investment of assets and grandiose luxury purchases, the very wealthy consume roughly the same by way of living necessities as their less-than-wealthy peers.  Check out this informative graph.  The top fifth of American earners spend roughly $65K a year of their average $145K income, proportionally less than the middle fifth's $35K/$45K or the bottom fifth's deficitous $18K/<$10K.  There's only so much money a family can really spend on consumer goods before the rest of that money simply piles up to multiple zeros on a banking ledger.  Rather than further improving the affluent's quality of life any, beyond a certain point the money apparently makes no difference.

Not that I'm a commie!  But I'm simply saying that a consumptive-based tax plan is a bad shake for the majority of Americans.  9-9-9 - basically a flat tax scheme - is just another thinly veiled proposal to make the wealthy wealthier at the spending class' heavy expense.  You (dearest reader) and I are essentially indentured servants in this life, scraping together the dough (by serving the proverbial Man) to buy the essentials, enjoy/discard/replace the baubles, and live in the apartments of (or pay the mortgages to, if You are a home-owner) said loosely-defined and still very metaphorical Man.  Mind you, that's just one way to look at it.  Negative lens, mayhap.

But that's largely what the Occupy Your-City-Here movements are so miffed about, for those who've until now not 'got it'.

Misplacing My Ire?

So the other (week, was it?) I furrowed a single brow at news that a CIA drone had successfully found and killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the charismatic talking head of al-Qaeda.  Not because of who he was or what he stood for, but because of his American citizenship.  I'd been similarly nonplussed back in May when another drone strike targeting al-Awlaki instead killed a couple of others (reputedly al-Qaeda operatives themselves).  I'm not the only one ruffled by this incident:  the ACLU and CCR have launched lawsuits against the United States government, and a slew of literary ire has been pulled from the quivers of bloggers and op/edders.

Citizenship bears with it certain obligations, but it also yields certain unalienable rights- although then I have to second-guess myself when I remember the rationale of Rousseau's Social Contract, that those bonds can be broken.  But then bearing in mind al-Awlaki's location (questionably neutral but neutral Yemen), the lack of due process, the mode of execution-  I don't know!  My opinions are all in a bally muddle in this somewhat singular set of circumstances.  Because the man was undeniably inflammatory and rather possibly linked to the operational doings of al-Qaeda.  But is that worthy of targeting him for assassination?  Is it assassination, in this instance?  Again, a muddle.  Is this a precedent for wantonly targeting American citizens for courtless death, or is al-Awlaki's citizenship merely a side-note in a larger campaign?

In any case, I posed the question on the Facebook (while generally an open invitation for vitriol and disappointment, I have faith enough in the friends I keep that the conversations will be insightful and interesting) for a bit of discussion, citing the instances of Kaczynski and McVeigh as examples of home-spun terrorists caught and tried.  Perhaps a more apt comparison might have been David Karesh, but I received some good responses from a variety of sources, including a professor from my old college days.  Most notable among these was the lengthy and I'd say well thought out series of arguments posed by my friend Nate:

It's a tough call. Kaczynski and McVeigh were caught alone in the U.S., not hiding in a foreign country with a lot of protection. If it is true he was waging war against the U.S., he becomes a combatant. This doesn't forgo his citizenship, but open war against the U.S. does put you a bit beyond normal due process. And as compared to Osama, Al-Awlaki moved around a lot more, preventing a planned raid of the same scope. Unfortunately in the current global threat scenario some information simply won't be fit for public consumption. There is certainly a line in which government can and cannot infringe on a person's rights. It is my opinion that those rights may be infringed upon when that person makes war upon the people that government represents. To try and make a point of paramilitary ignores the forest for the trees. Surely lives are being diddled with on both sides, in the end it mostly washes out. I would agree as a concept a bombing should be avoided when civilians are at risk, but there are things to consider beyond that one angle. There are equally many scenarios in which more civilian lives are lost in other ways of dealing with Al-Awlaki. Take for instance the infamous Blackhawk Down, in which a raid meant to reduce civilian casualties ended up creating tenfold. In a perfect situation Al-Awlaki would have been arrested and brought to trial with full due process. It is not a perfect situation, and I believe the situation warranted the loss of that privilege. I will say that I would have supported the same tactic used were McVeigh hiding in Generic Lawless Christian nation attempting further attacks against the U.S. Or Generic Liberal terrorist in Lawless Socialist state. Unfortunately, many of the people who agreed with the death of Al-Awlaki would have disagreed were he White/Christian. There is definitely an anti-Muslim undercurrent in the public support of the War on Terror.

While I can't argue with many of his points- well, precisely because I cannot fully argue with many of his points without that vague sense of doubt, I wonder if this may be a waste of time on my part.  Another panic worth abandoning, like so many others cast aside in this decade-old War on Terror being waged.  Besides, there may well be more important things afoot, like the Occupy (Your City Here) movement sweeping the nation or the impending reelection of Vladimir Putin.  Or ending the death penalty.  Yet as I move on I cannot help but wonder in what ways this undermines the value of citizenship, or if (like patriotic buzzspeak 'liberty' and 'freedom' and 'democracy') it really hasn't any intrinsic value at all.

What strange and odious things does this abandoned panic portend?

The Graphic Analyst In Me Cometh

      So my good friend Adam Luebke (creator of the gonzo-alarmist blog Dear Dirty America) shared with me an article on wired.com exposing recent instructional material used by FBI counter-terrorism trainers identifying Islam and its adherents as inherently violent.  It makes for several pages of interesting (and somewhat appalling) reading, so be sure to check it out!
      However, as I was reading through the sordid account of home-spun extremists within the Bureau using their positions to spread slanderous generalizations, an example graph made the old political science student in me wince.

      Yes, this graph makes no analytical sense.  I see an x-axis timeline, I see a y-axis 'violence quotient', I see stars and moons and pots of gold; what I fail to see (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is anything actually being quantified.  The graphic indicates that Islam reached a certain level of violence and (like a pituitary-deficient teenager) ceased to develop beyond that point.  Ignoring a slew of historical counterexamples of religious violence that persists to this day and the misleading time scale, and the apparent failure to define what 'pious and devout' indicate, there's really no scale or sense of proportion.  It's a badly-made graph.
      And one of the things I've learned from Statistics 101 (and life, subsequently) is that a bad graph tends to indicate an underlying bad logic.  Whenever a person needs to twist the truth, skew the numbers (or avoid using any altogether), or outright lie to sell a point, the point's very validity comes into question.  Which makes this a perfect graph for the curriculum.  It's a bad math that helps quantify the logic involved, the egregious misinterpretation of one of the world's major faiths that (as the wired article plainly states) serves no other purpose than to play into the philosophical ends of Al Qaeda.  Not to be alarmist about it, of course.  But I do agree that we (collectively, via our various agencies) get nothing done by building such distinctions.

Little By Little, A Diatribe Brewing

      After writing this morning's little spiel "Federalize It Or Let It Go... Ten Years On" it occurs to me that I've been succumbing bit-by-bit to partisanism over the last year or so.  Granted, since my teenage years I've borne political opinions of one sort or another.  Hell, I'm human!  But I've generally been able to keep my opinions to myself, and even those fairly moderate and obligingly vague.  Politics held an interest for me as an operating system, and I felt rather liberated from its more emotional wiles.
      And then came the 2010 midterms, and the national rumblings of a sweeping new movement.  Not that it's much of a new thing, this latter-day populism.  Proponents of Ross Perot, Southern Democrats, the Know-Nothings and Bull Moosers; America has a long, colorful history of political sub-groups that raise furious hub-bubbery and don stupid names.  The Tea Party is no exception in this regard.  Neither new nor in fact widely popular in the grand scheme of American politics, Populism is inherently energetic and thus the fairly unstable, poorly-organized yang to the dual party system's more sedate yin.  It takes issue, it rages, and it wanes; perhaps leaving behind some small legacy, but always survived by the the powers that be.
      Given the charged nature of the rhetoric employed and at times melodramatic (and occasionally ludicrous) aims of such movements, it is little wonder the nation's founding fathers sought to marginalize the impact of popular politicking on such crucial entities as the Senate and Presidency, and keep people altogether removed from choosing our highest judges.  In touting the merits of the creators of American democracy, many people forget the Adamses and Madisons and even Jeffersons were wary of the unbred masses.  Utilizing them from time time, surely, but after the elections try and keep them as far away from decision-making as humanly possible.  It is a system that even to this day largely operates on the notion that most people don't care about politics, and that those who really do are too far-out to matter.
      So why be bothered?  If it's merely another political El Niño, why get so up in a huff?  I suppose I can't really say why, but I feel irritated by this somewhat badly-timed uproar coming so soon on the heels of what I'd supposed had been a national triumph.  America had elected its first black president, and a charismatic and outspokenly progressive one at that.  It was a change I thought people had finally come to recognize was needed, still coming down from the cataclysmic crest of our questionably low-regulated bank and trade policies, from a drawn out and again questionable war against something as marginally frightening as 'terror'.  From dinosaur technologies that keep Americans tethered to the gas pump and living beyond the sustainably feasible.  
      We'd won, I thought at the time, and it was our turn to begin setting things right (better late than never, eh?).  Right for the environment, right for our infrastructure and our tax base.  Right for our spending priorities and domestic initiatives.  Restoring our image in the world's eye, vital in this global era of ours.  We were apparently moving onwards and ever upwards.  It would be a slow thing, perhaps spanning over ten or twenty years, but it was a work set in motion and I was excited by it.
      Sour grapes, maybe.  And while I can't quite divine where the nation is headed now I can safely say I disagree wholeheartedly with the direction people are trying to finagle it into.  Less a direction even, and more like an anchoring in place.  A stopping of the cart and slaughtering of the ox, if only to believe we are protecting the American quality of life.  But I dunno... at the end of the day I want to have an opinion, but not at the risk of sounding like any number of angry folk who take the art of argument and turn it into a name-calling match.  To wit...  I don't want to be that guy (or gal).  We have enough of those about already.

The Winederlust

Just sitting about, listening to records (isn't it grand!!!?) and swilling several bottles of wine.  A song hisses on, and I find myself enthralled by a line...

I wish that I was born a thousand years ago

I wish that I'd sailed the darkened seas

On a great big clipper ship

Going from this land here to that

Such an odd little ditty, yet so succinct.  Fits me just fine, because lord knows I love the sea.  Yet looking back I suppose it's all a pipe dream; hell, looking at the now it's all a pipe dream, eh?  Wish-wash-megosh and the like...


The now is the now.  There is no future perfect, though Autolux has a great album by the same name.  And though life may leave a person cast about the whims of fate, and though a person may likewise cast themselves upon the fates of whim; here is the now is the now, and never the twain should part like.  


I suppose I'm thinking about inane promises to drop the price of gas to pre-Family Matters levels, or maybe proposed drone strikes across and along the Mexican border.  But what I'm saying is more or less echoing the things Jon Huntsman cannot fully come out with; that a vote for the Republican Party is a vote against all reason.  It's a vote against the present, to the very physical damnation of the future.


And that, lads and ladies, is what happens when one dumps two litres of wine down a Dan Rudy.  You get a semi-sensical, non-abrasive rant.  Would that the O'Reilly tipple a bottle before air time!

Raising the Price of Tea?

It positively burned my bollocks yesterday to see a headline highlighting fresh complaints that members of Congress aren’t paid enough.  As I was following the link I thought to myself that they better not be newly-elected members of the Tea Party circuit, who so egregiously dickered up this month’s mammoth budget slashings while maintaining the tax loopholes unnecessarily protecting America’s wealthiest.  I suppose it shouldn’t have been such a great surprise to find that three of the article’s four citations came from Rep. Steve Southerland (R-FL), Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), and Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC), all three indeed recently elected in the 2010 midterms as self-styled Tea Party juniors.

The comments the article cites speak pretty poorly of Southerland in particular; somewhat in Duffy's defense Talking Points Memo shows him to be among Congress' poorest peers, though his family's wealth is still considerably greater than those of his average constituents.  (Although in an act of informational whitewash, Duffy and the GOP attempted to strike all evidence of his comments from the internet.)  It is also important to note that comments made by Ellmers and by Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-CA) were both in the context of forgoing their salaries completely in the event of the potential government shutdown earlier this year.

But Steve Southerland, what gall!  Complaining publicly that he ought to return to the private sector, and this after striving his hardest to drive the near-ruin (well... tarnishing might be a less loaded, more accurate phrasing) of America's economic standing, and the decimating of its fiscal obligations and social programming.  I suppose all I can say is "Go, sir!"  Your ilk is not what America needs now, or ever.

Of Gods and Central Planners

So an interesting thought occurred to me as I slurp my morning cuppa, perusing Governor Rick Perry's website as I always do on Sunday mornings.  In the top banner there're blurbs of inspiration and facial likeness splashing across the screen, memorable quotes and so forth.  He keeps them simple:  "Don't spend all the money.  Keep taxes low.  Make regulations fair and predictable.  And stop the frivolous lawsuits that paralyze job creators."  "Getting America back to work starts with laying off our current president."

But the one that really made me sit up and smile this morning went along the lines of:

"It is up to this generation of Americans to take our future back from the grips of central planners who would control our healthcare, spend our treasure, downgrade our future, and micromanage our lives."

It strikes me that there's a wealth of information to be gleaned from this statement.  At first glance I'm scoffing at a man painfully out of touch with 'this generation,' though perhaps the Texan Young Republicans aren't such a hep set themselves...  Perry's use of terms like "central planners" and "treasure" seem taken straight out of McCarthy's* red scare lexicon and biblical parables, respectively.

Even in prayer, the governor has his eye on the presidency.

Particularly though, there's a glowing ire emanating from the statement's tone, a prickling of ego that at first glance seems out of place from such an outspokenly god-fearing man.  'How dare anyone control me,' all the while publicly (and arguably unconstitutionally) throwing himself and the fate of his constituents "in[to] God's hands,**" prayer circles and all.

It's a paradox, the god-and-caesar power shenanigans people play at; on the one hand professing to be in the wholesale throes of the whim of an omnipotently fearsome thing, yet all up in arms that a mere bureaucrat would dare to control what is rightfully God's sort-of-like.

Y'all get the picture, even if I don't really feel the need to paint out every last stroke.  At length I'd contend it's indicative of another political sociopath at work, a potentially opportunistic millionaire shamelessly shirking our social responsibilities while shielding himself and the poor feebs who vote for him by vague obligations to an at most distant superauthority.

A superauthority who clearly hates Texas, heart seemingly still unhardened by Perry's impressive prayer gathering earlier this month.

---

* On a side rant, fuck the Cold War; our pyrrhic victory forever besmirched the idea of a national health care program. 

** For all my online scouring, I couldn’t find an actual link to cite.  It’s ‘common knowledge,’ apparently.

And Then Along Comes Perry

For what it's worth, I'm glad longtime Texas governor Rick Perry has thrown his ten-gallon hat into the national ring.  Because now that he's in (and rather popular, according to the most recent polls) Perry's no-nonsense, candid-by-the-grace-of-God approach helps clarify the crossroad America again finds itself at in this upcoming election.

Now call me young and foolish, but the proverbial crossroad I'm referring to looks an awful lot like the one the country found itself at in 2008.  And 2004.  2000.... 1980....  Every election since 1820, and a few before.  In terms of direction, American voters have been grappling for quite a while over the roles of government and the private sector.

More than that, there is the vision of America voters will have to (again, try to) choose next November.  The electoral hiccup of last year's midterms notwithstanding, America had largely voted for Change and Hope (and that sort of thing) in 2008.  People voted for more accessible health care, for a more stable foreign and economic policy, for tightened regulation and market oversight; for bigger government, basically.

Feeling a bit young and foolish after the somewhat dismally slow (and at times, recidivist) executive movements churned out since '08, I nonetheless feel certain that despite the recent upsurge of Tea Partyist activism the majority of Americans remain moderate at the least, and at best are still hoping for something more out of their government.  Getting back to Rick Perry, I'd say as a candidate he epitomizes what America is really voting for or against:  a Christ-makes-White, apple pie, saccharine-neighborly and judiciously vindictive, bootstraps NIMBY amalgam of xenophobia and foreign tax shelters, of marginalized infrastructure and codified indifference.  A Dawn of the Working Poor sort of scape, where wide-o corporations do as they will with the privileges of unjailable people and the circus act of state legislatures, laughable state constitutions, and introverted local politics have free reign to rule the day.

Not quite that maybe, but in no uncertain terms the Tea Party banner is an anti-system movement, the monkeys wrenching up the apparatus (as so wonderfully put by NY Times columnist Charles M. Blow) so to speak.  But no critics can put the message better than candidate Perry himself, who recently promised (among other things) that "I'll work every day to make Washington, DC as inconsequential in your life as I can."  And that's the platform embraced by nearly all of his Republican peers currently vying for the presidency.  In 2012, a Republican vote will very likely be a vote cast for an idyllic non-president running a non-government.  

Serious changes are afoot, rumblings within the Grand Old Party that - if nothing else - will make the choice next November a lot more clearly defined.

Straw Dogs in the Political Manger

So in an admittedly underwhelming bit of news, Michele Bachmann won the first of many symbolic rites of passage for Republican presidential hopefuls, an ever-expanding array of candidates including Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, libertarian pillar Ron Paul, gourmand and restaurateur Herman Cain, and the recently-added Texas governor and Bush sound-alike, Rick Perry.

Bachmann celebrates her hard-won triumph as 
Ames locals prepare their autumnal wicker man.
(photo from http://images.politico.com/global/news/110813_bachmann6_reut_328.jpg) 

At the risk of chiming in with the rest of the online world, I wonder aloud what's so damned fascinating about today's Iowa straw poll.  Boiling it down, it's essentially been a glad-handing affair involving a dozen thousand of the GOP's staunchest fans, more than half of whom singled out Tea Party frontispiece Bachmann and fringe-politician Ron Paul as their top choice.  Comparing this to national poll ratings, it places this majority of straw poll voters proportionally into a much narrower subgroup of actual, national voters.  Also taking into consideration Bachmann calls Iowa home, it's little wonder she took the victory ('narrowly' at that, says CNN).

Anyway, all I'm saying is that the media romance with Iowa (and yes, New Hampshire) should come to an end.  Not only are the states woefully unreflective of the nation as a voting whole (and relatively unimportant electorally), but using this flawed mechanism to weed out the candidates (adieu, Tim Pawlenty) in this day and age of instant telecommunication is our Old Sarum of the American political edifice.  It's a goddamn bit of misinformation and a colorful one at that, and like all misleading flashes of color it's the thing latently interested people look to first.

No Offence to Squirrels...

Thanks to my friend Adam (via the Facebook) I had the extraordinary opportunity to see this little blurb of a speech.  Ordinarily I wouldn't think twice about anything said on the Hill, but I enjoyed Rep. Weiner's candor.

It almost makes me want to watch C-Span more often.  Almost.