Sometimes a cartoon is worth a thousand words.
From the excellent work of Wiley Miller on his comic strip, Non Sequitar. http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2012/06/04
In Honor of the California Primary
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Category Archives: Politics
Andy Grove on How to Create American Jobs
In the wake of this week’s jobs report, here is a Businessweek article from the July 1, 2010 in which Andy Grove, lays out a path to American economic renewal. If anyone has the chops for this, it’s Grove. One of the three founders of Intel, he helped light the fire that gave us Silicon Valley and changed the world.
(l-r), Andy Grove, Robert Noyce, and Gordon Moore in 1978, on the 10th anniversary of Intel. Photo courtesy of Intel
The bad news is that Grove’s formula depends on intelligent and focused government action. In 2010, that didn’t seem as hopeless as it does now. Yet perhaps ideas are like seeds; the good ones grow, even though they may take a while to germinate.
One key problem, according to Grove, is our loss of hi-tech manufacturing jobs, not only because of the human cost, but because of our loss of the expertise that production brings. He says the US has already fallen too far behind to ever catch up in technologies like solar panels and batteries for fuel efficient cars. “Not only [do] we lose an untold number of jobs, we [break] the chain of experience that is so important in technological evolution. As happened with batteries, abandoning today’s “commodity” manufacturing can lock you out of tomorrow’s emerging industry.”
Grove suggests we need an employment-centered economy and political leadership. He cites the performance of several Asian economies, including China, the source of so much hand-wringing in the face of perceived U.S. decline.
Andy Grove, 2010
Grove recommends government incentives to aid the growth of key industries and keep the manufacturing base at home. He ends the article with a chilling bit of history:
Most Americans probably aren’t aware that there was a time in this country when tanks and cavalry were massed on Pennsylvania Avenue to chase away the unemployed. It was 1932; thousands of jobless veterans were demonstrating outside the White House. Soldiers with fixed bayonets and live ammunition moved in on them, and herded them away from the White House. In America! Unemployment is corrosive. If what I’m suggesting sounds protectionist, so be it.
I suggest everyone concerned with employment and US technical expertise take a moment to read what Grove has to say: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_28/b4186048358596.htm
Regulating Bloggers?
Disclaimer: I certify that I have received no financial renumeration, goods, or services for the content of this post.
I know you’re all shocked that the superPacs have yet to contact me, but under a proposal before the California Fair Political Practices Commission, bloggers expressing political opinions might have to insert such a disclaimer. Last Thursday, FPPC chairwoman, Ann Ravel, announced plans to make such disclosure “suggested” for this November’s elections, and mandatory thereafter. http://tinyurl.com/773olq2
This stirs up many questions, the first and foremost being, why? Why focus on bloggers when we all know victory in this election will cost hundreds of millions of SuperPac dollars? For attack adds on TV, not a few hundred blog posts.
The current FCC push to force TV stations to post the sponsors of political adds is news. A district court decision to allow superPacs to solicit political add time on PBS stations is news. The fact that bloggers post their opinions is not.
I believe some politicians cannot abide a medium that is beyond their control, and political blogging is a macguffin as defined in Neal Gabler’s marvelous book, Life, the Movie (look under Book Reviews here for more info). Gabler writes:
“It was with Kennedy in mind that Norman Mailer in 1960 prophesied that ‘America’s politics would now be also America’s favorite movie’…Candidates were the putative stars, the primaries open costing calls, the campaign was an audition, and the election itself the selection of the lead, while the handlers served as drama coaches, scriptwriters, and directors. As for substantive issues, though they couldn’t be purged entirely, they largely became what film director Alfred Hitchcock…once called macguffins-that is, they were the excuse for setting the whole process in motion though they have virtually no intrinsic value.”
That helps me understand why Ms Ravel would float such a silly proposal. How would the California FPPC try to regulate bloggers living out of state? How much money would I have to rake in to be required to disclose? Five dollars? Fifty? Five-hundred (I wish)? Will twitter or Facebook users have to disclose as well? What about book reviews? Will I have to disclose which publishers are buying my pearls of wisdom? What about lucrative Hollywood kickbacks for my movie reviews?
I think this proposal is a bluff intended to float the notion that bloggers need to be regulated, a move toward the slippery slope of controlling what we can and cannot say. This being America, the pols still have to tie such actions to some concept of “fairness,” although here it’s pretty thin. To go after bloggers who might somehow make a buck when Citizens United rules the day is like meeting a Martian invasion with mosquito spray.
But now it’s time for a quick commercial break:
Come on, SuperPacs, make me an offer! Show me the money! This space for sale! Get it while you can! Bargain prices! Show me the money! Will write for loot. Everyone has their price. Show me the money! Did I say that already? Try me out!
Call me….
What is Social Darwinism?
No, I am not playing Jeopardy, I’m considering the phrase Barack Obama used to characterize the recent House budget proposal. I thought I had a good idea of what he meant: survival of the fittest, applied to human endeavors.
I learned a lot more from an article in a New York Times opinionater blog post written by Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia. In his article, “The Taint of ‘Social Darwinism,'” Kitcher credits the birth of the concept to 19th century philosopher, Herbert Spencer, who first talked of “survival of the fittest.” The phrase was never used to describe evolution but survival in the human jungle. Kitcher characterizes the Social Darwinist view:
“Provided that policymakers do not take foolish steps to protect the weak, those people and those human achievements that are fittest — most beautiful, noble, wise, creative, virtuous, and so forth — will succeed in a fierce competition, so that, over time, humanity and its accomplishments will continually improve. Late 19th-century dynastic capitalists, especially the American “robber barons,” found this vision profoundly congenial. Their contemporary successors like it for much the same reasons.” http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/the-taint-of-social-darwinism/?src=me&ref=genera
I can’t help thinking of Charles Dickens’ London, where “the fittest” is the pre-repentant Ebenezer Scrooge.
One not so grand irony is that many of our latter day Social Darwinists were born into wealth and opportunity, while truly self-made men and women, like Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, understand the value and necessity of supportive social structures. In Kitcher’s words, “Horatio Alger needs lots of help, and a large thrust of contemporary Republican policy is dedicated to making sure he doesn’t get it.”
I urge everyone who has a stake in this debate – meaning all of us – to give Philip Kitcher’s article a read.
Bill Moyers Interviews Andrew Bacevich on the Middle East
On January 4, I published a post called, “Sabre Rattling Over Oil: Better Get Used to It.” http://wp.me/pYql4-1AT
I quoted from a 2008 interview between Bill Moyers and Col. Andrew Bacevich in which Moyers says, “Our finest warriors are often our most reluctant warmongers.” Now we the privilege of hearing these two in a new discussion on Moyers & Company as we seem to drift helplessly toward our third war in a decade, and voices of reason and restraint are drowned out in the hysterical ranting of politicians.
Please be sure to look for the show on PBS this weekend, or watch it on billmoyers.com http://billmoyers.com/episode/moving-beyond-war/
Andrew Bacevich on Moyers & Company
This week, on an all-new Moyers & Company, Bill Moyers and Bacevich explore the futility of “endless” wars, and provide a reality check on the rhetoric of American exceptionalism.
“Are we so unimaginative, so wedded to the reliance on military means that we cannot conceive of any way to reconcile our differences with groups and nations in the Islamic world, and therefore bring this conflict to an end?” Bacevich tells Moyers.
Bacevich also answers the question of whether Iran is a direct threat to America with a definitive no. “Whatever threat Iran poses is very, very limited,” he tells Moyers, “and certainly does not constitute any kind of justification for yet another experiment with preventive war.”
Andrew Bacevich is a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran who retired as a colonel after 23 years in the military, to teach history and international relations at Boston University.
Doh! Now we (guys) are in for it!
NPR reports that in response to you know what, Democratic women legislators in six states have proposed new limits to male access to reproductive health care. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/15/148695307/in-protest-democrats-zero-in-on-mens-reproductive-health. Consider:
House Bill 116 in Georgia states that: “Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation over vasectomies.”
An Oklahoma state senator proposed new legislation to regulate sexual acts: “Any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.”
In Ohio, a female state senator sponsored a bill requiring men seeking drugs like viagra to:
- Have a cardiac stress test to ensure they are ready for sexual activity.
- Obtain written certification from a recent sexual partner that they are indeed experiencing erectile dysfunction.
- See a sexual therapist who would explain certain nonprescription lifestyle choices, such as celibacy, as alternate treatments for the problem.
***
It’s the very passion that people bring to these issues make them such effective smokescreens. If “they” can get us asking the wrong questions…
We slide toward a third war in a decade with no hint of a national debate. Recent news on Citigroup and Goldman Sachs reveal that the players who brought us the last financial meltdown are on track to do it again. People know about Rush Limbaugh. How many have heard of Greg Smith?
It used to be that “Nero fiddling while Rome burned” was the ultimate paradigm of irresponsible leadership. Now it’s the 2012 presidential election.
And We Have A Winner!
That’s right, a winner in the: Caption the Condom Cartoon Contest (announced here last week http://wp.me/pYql4-1MT).
There were at least a few positive outcomes after Rush Limbaugh’s slur of law student, Sandra Fluke, which inspired the contest.
1) One positive result: I got to use some great alliteration in the contest name.
2) Another bit of good news: eleven sponsors bailed on Rush after his outburst. Unfortunately, a Republican Super-Pac stepped in with bailout money. Apparently some consider Limbaugh’s mouth too big to fail.
3) And best of all, at least for this blog, Camille w1ns a $10 Amazon gift card with her caption:
If only Rush’s parents had known how to use me properly…
Please stop by Camilles blog and see what other clever things she is up to: http://poppycockandsomesuchnonsense.wordpress.com/
And thank you all for your entries and for stopping by to share a laugh!
Quiz: Who Said These Words on the Senate Floor?
No prize for the answer to this one, but in today’s climate, it is an eye-opener to realize these words were spoken by an earlier generation’s, “severe conservative.” Unlike today’s crop, this man was always respected for his integrity and the strength of his convictions:
“I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C’, and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism.’” – Sen. Barry Goldwater, Sept. 16. 1981.
From Richard Brenneman’s blog, eats shoots ‘n leaves: http://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/
The First Gates 