“It’s a dog’s breakfast,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which has done extensive polling on public attitudes toward the war. “The reason that Democrats aren’t talking about specific plans to end the war is because it’s hard to figure out what to say without alienating a broad swath of the electorate.”Is it too much to ask that our politicians talk about what they think is right even if it might alienate some voters? If it wasn't for Joe Biden, I would have no faith in the Democratic Party at all.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
What I Hate About Politics
This is the side of politics that I hate - deciding on your message based on what plays well in the public.
Being Hateful Usually Works
A little while ago, when the debate over border security was raging, Republicans were saying that increased enforcement wouldn't affect our economy. Maybe they are right in the big picture, but it seems like a lot of small farmers are very upset. It is sad when Republicans upset their own supporters.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
No (Time)tables Available
This is why I find a lot of the talk about timetables for withdrawal to be so uninformed. With this kind of outlook from people on the ground, those who think we can plan for a withdrawal (including the Bush administration of course, which has hinted about decreasing troop levels) in the near future are saying it for partisan purposes and do not have the best interests of the Iraqi people in mind.
My favorite claim from people who favor a timetable is that we need to show the Iraqi people that we are leaving so they start to take their own security seriously. This is as delusional as when the Bush administration said that Iraqis should have stopped the looting themselves. Something tells me that the reason there is so much violence isn't because the Iraqis are being lazy about defending themselves. Instead, it is that they still are not capable of it. I agree that we made a mistake going into Iraq, but to paraphrase Colon Powell, "You break it, you own it."
My favorite claim from people who favor a timetable is that we need to show the Iraqi people that we are leaving so they start to take their own security seriously. This is as delusional as when the Bush administration said that Iraqis should have stopped the looting themselves. Something tells me that the reason there is so much violence isn't because the Iraqis are being lazy about defending themselves. Instead, it is that they still are not capable of it. I agree that we made a mistake going into Iraq, but to paraphrase Colon Powell, "You break it, you own it."
The Never Ending Half-full Glass
It seems that I am sucker for good news; I all too often grab hold of any reason to remain optimistic. Well, there is another one from Iraq. Apparently most Sunni tribes are finally so sick of the foreign insurgents that they are willing to fight them. I can only hope they really mean it.
Republic of Incumbistan
I wanted to talk about this article because I think it is touching on something a little unique, although also a fairly common phenomenon in political studies. What is unique is the level of animosity towards Congress right now. I think there is definitely a feeling that Congress (not just Republicans mind you) haven't done anything useful during this, the 109th Congress. Sure, they have bickered over some very hot topics, but most of those were meaningless to improving the quality of life for most Americans.
Unfortunately, this will probably not lead to a significant change in Congress during this year's mid-term elections. One of the biggest problems in modern politics, in my opinion, is the power of incumbents. It is nearly impossible to unseat an incumbent. Since that is the case, politicians don't need to be as in tune to the voters and instead can pay attention to the special interests that fill their war chests (I should note that I am writing this after getting some relatively depressing news - Charles Rangel is my Congressman - and might have more animosity towards incumbents than on a normal day).
Friends of mine might be surprised by my disdain for incumbents. After all, I was very much opposed to Ned Lamont's candidacy. But the truth is that I don't mind seeing Lieberman go, if it is for the right reasons and he loses to the right candidate. I didn't like Lamont because I found his anti-war message to be shallow (not all anti-war messages are, but his certainly seemed like it). As it turns out, it seems that most of his positions are shallow as well, which is why I continue to oppose him despite finding positions where I strongly disagree with Lieberman. If someone in the Howard Dean mold were running against Lieberman, I wouldn't be quite so mad.
The problem is that it is so hard to unseat an incumbent that you have to latch onto anyone who has a chance. As I said above, I find out more and more things I disagree with Lieberman on and so I can understand all the problems liberals have with him (Terry Shiavo and gay marriage to name two issues). But the left had to choose between a moderate who would finance some of the campaign on his own, or a moderate incumbent who seemed unbeatable just a while ago.
In the end though, part of the problem is the voters themselves (although campaign laws certainly help incumbents too). If you read the article, you will see that although voters are sick of Congress, most people think their Congressman is doing a great job. This has been a very common phenomenon that political scientists have known about for a while. And it is this seemingly illogical thinking that helps too many incumbents stay in office even when people know Congress isn't really working for them.
Unfortunately, this will probably not lead to a significant change in Congress during this year's mid-term elections. One of the biggest problems in modern politics, in my opinion, is the power of incumbents. It is nearly impossible to unseat an incumbent. Since that is the case, politicians don't need to be as in tune to the voters and instead can pay attention to the special interests that fill their war chests (I should note that I am writing this after getting some relatively depressing news - Charles Rangel is my Congressman - and might have more animosity towards incumbents than on a normal day).
Friends of mine might be surprised by my disdain for incumbents. After all, I was very much opposed to Ned Lamont's candidacy. But the truth is that I don't mind seeing Lieberman go, if it is for the right reasons and he loses to the right candidate. I didn't like Lamont because I found his anti-war message to be shallow (not all anti-war messages are, but his certainly seemed like it). As it turns out, it seems that most of his positions are shallow as well, which is why I continue to oppose him despite finding positions where I strongly disagree with Lieberman. If someone in the Howard Dean mold were running against Lieberman, I wouldn't be quite so mad.
The problem is that it is so hard to unseat an incumbent that you have to latch onto anyone who has a chance. As I said above, I find out more and more things I disagree with Lieberman on and so I can understand all the problems liberals have with him (Terry Shiavo and gay marriage to name two issues). But the left had to choose between a moderate who would finance some of the campaign on his own, or a moderate incumbent who seemed unbeatable just a while ago.
In the end though, part of the problem is the voters themselves (although campaign laws certainly help incumbents too). If you read the article, you will see that although voters are sick of Congress, most people think their Congressman is doing a great job. This has been a very common phenomenon that political scientists have known about for a while. And it is this seemingly illogical thinking that helps too many incumbents stay in office even when people know Congress isn't really working for them.
More on the Ag lobby
I couldn't help but add to my previous post on US and European agriculture subsidies. It seems that the agriculture lobby will even sacrifice the environment as long as it gives them an advantage over better international products. From Thomas Friedman ($):
I asked Dr. José Goldemberg, secretary for the environment for São Paulo State and a pioneer of Brazil’s ethanol industry, the obvious question: Is the fact that the U.S. has imposed a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff to prevent Americans from importing sugar ethanol from Brazil “just stupid or really stupid.”Obviously, I am not the first to think that the agriculture lobby is out of control. Whether it is battling global poverty or the evironment / foreign oil dependency, we would be much further along if we could find a way to ease our farmers off of government welfare.
Thanks to pressure from Midwest farmers and agribusinesses, who want to protect the U.S. corn ethanol industry from competition from Brazilian sugar ethanol, we have imposed a stiff tariff to keep it out. We do this even though Brazilian sugar ethanol provides eight times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make it, while American corn ethanol provides only 1.3 times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make it. We do this even though sugar ethanol reduces greenhouses gases more than corn ethanol. And we do this even though sugar cane ethanol can easily be grown in poor tropical countries in Africa or the Caribbean, and could actually help alleviate their poverty.
Yes, you read all this right. We tax imported sugar ethanol, which could finance our poor friends, but we don’t tax imported crude oil, which definitely finances our rich enemies. We’d rather power anti-Americans with our energy purchases than promote antipoverty.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
What College Kids Should Really Protest: Farms
In honor of the fact that my good friends Liz and The Beard (I am not entirely sure why I keep up the charade of screen names, but I guess it works for now) will be visiting me in the Big Apple this weekend, I feel that I should egg them on a little so we have something to argue about. Beard, this one's for you.
On my old stomping grounds, I linked to a column by Nicholas Kristof that suggested promoting sweat shops was in the best interests of developing countries. Craziness ensued as we all debated this shocking statement by someone with strong credentials advocating for the most in danger in developing countries. Now, while I can understand hatred for sweat shops and the large international companies that support them, what I don't understand is how a much greater evil often goes unnoticed and unprotested. That evil is American and European agriculture subsidies.
Instead of rehashing the sweat shop argument at all, I want to start by making a statement I think we can all agree with; there are economic factors in developing countries that help to keep wages low. Basically, that means that the manufacturing firms that come into these countries are paying a market wage. The last debate revolved around whether that was fair and whether anything could be done about it. But I don't think anyone can argue about whether there are economic conditions keeping wages down in developing countries overall. So if our goal is to eliminate jobs that offer terrible working conditions for unfair wages, one way to approach that would be to try to attack these conditions that push wages down. (Please don't think that I am suggesting this should be done instead of the types of advocacy and boycotting that go on now. I am only arguing for another, equally important, front in the war on sweat shops.)
The problems is that there are many factors keeping wages down; an oversupply of labor due to stagnant economies, corruption, underdevelopment and mismanagement of resources all have an impact - but are also a lot harder to combat that the one I didn't mention. Agriculture subsidies in the west would be easy to get rid of (in the sense that we control them - we cannot stop corruption for example) if the political will was there. And the harm they cause to developing countries is very real. The fact that agriculture in developing countries has to compete with agriculture in Europe and America that is supported by the government robs them of the opportunity to use one of the few resources they have in a global economy. These subsidies keep profits and wages extremely low as farms in developing countries struggle to have a product that will actually sell on a global market. Without the supports, farms in the West would have trouble competing and farms in developing countries might grow and help the economies in their countries expand.
The reason few talk about this is because American farmers are not as easy a target as international manufacturing companies. We love to hate big corporations - they are evil and greedy and exploit the worker whenever they can. Farmers though are a metaphor for the best things about our country. Farmers are thought to be the hardest workers, people who don't have the luxury of taking days off. They make their living from their own hard work; they are the rugged individuals that exist today to remind us of how our country began.
So it is understandably hard to try to pass legislation that could very well bankrupt our hardest-working citizens. But if we are to be serious about improving the lives of everyone around the world and ending labor practices we wouldn't tolerate in our own country, we need to abandon these practices fast. We cannot fall into the trap of only attacking symbols that we don't like. If we are going to make real changes, we need to be willing to advocate for the right policy even if, in the short run, it hurts the symbols we do like.
On my old stomping grounds, I linked to a column by Nicholas Kristof that suggested promoting sweat shops was in the best interests of developing countries. Craziness ensued as we all debated this shocking statement by someone with strong credentials advocating for the most in danger in developing countries. Now, while I can understand hatred for sweat shops and the large international companies that support them, what I don't understand is how a much greater evil often goes unnoticed and unprotested. That evil is American and European agriculture subsidies.
Instead of rehashing the sweat shop argument at all, I want to start by making a statement I think we can all agree with; there are economic factors in developing countries that help to keep wages low. Basically, that means that the manufacturing firms that come into these countries are paying a market wage. The last debate revolved around whether that was fair and whether anything could be done about it. But I don't think anyone can argue about whether there are economic conditions keeping wages down in developing countries overall. So if our goal is to eliminate jobs that offer terrible working conditions for unfair wages, one way to approach that would be to try to attack these conditions that push wages down. (Please don't think that I am suggesting this should be done instead of the types of advocacy and boycotting that go on now. I am only arguing for another, equally important, front in the war on sweat shops.)
The problems is that there are many factors keeping wages down; an oversupply of labor due to stagnant economies, corruption, underdevelopment and mismanagement of resources all have an impact - but are also a lot harder to combat that the one I didn't mention. Agriculture subsidies in the west would be easy to get rid of (in the sense that we control them - we cannot stop corruption for example) if the political will was there. And the harm they cause to developing countries is very real. The fact that agriculture in developing countries has to compete with agriculture in Europe and America that is supported by the government robs them of the opportunity to use one of the few resources they have in a global economy. These subsidies keep profits and wages extremely low as farms in developing countries struggle to have a product that will actually sell on a global market. Without the supports, farms in the West would have trouble competing and farms in developing countries might grow and help the economies in their countries expand.
The reason few talk about this is because American farmers are not as easy a target as international manufacturing companies. We love to hate big corporations - they are evil and greedy and exploit the worker whenever they can. Farmers though are a metaphor for the best things about our country. Farmers are thought to be the hardest workers, people who don't have the luxury of taking days off. They make their living from their own hard work; they are the rugged individuals that exist today to remind us of how our country began.
So it is understandably hard to try to pass legislation that could very well bankrupt our hardest-working citizens. But if we are to be serious about improving the lives of everyone around the world and ending labor practices we wouldn't tolerate in our own country, we need to abandon these practices fast. We cannot fall into the trap of only attacking symbols that we don't like. If we are going to make real changes, we need to be willing to advocate for the right policy even if, in the short run, it hurts the symbols we do like.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Challenge
I have long held, and am now more convinced than ever, that liberals have no coherent foreign policy position. I finally finished reading Peter Beinart's book, The Good Fight, which was well-researched, exhaustive, and informative. I wish I could make every liberal read this book. And it's not because I think every liberal should agree with him, even though I found that I do. What I want more than anything is for liberals to actually give serious thought to foreign policy. I long for a day when the Democratic Party can be more than the Anti-Republican party in international affairs.
The fact is that the Democratic Party, although there are differences in it (which some would like to eliminate), has strong positions and vision on most domestic issues. For the most part, liberals are supportive of more restrictions on gun rights, favor basic levels of assistance to the poor and elderly, and believe homosexuals should have the same marriage rights as straight people do. They are also pro-choice and anti-death penalty. In the past and the present they have sought to protect civil liberties, voting rights, racial equality and fair treatment in the workforce. I know it isn't quite this clear; there are many shades of gray here.
The point though is that there are consistent and clear policy positions on the left for most domestic issues. When it comes to foreign affairs though, we are left supporting the invasion of Iraq, but then calling for an early exit. Many members of Congress knew so little about Iraq that they could be fooled into supporting a war because the president was apparently their only source of information. In previous posts on my old blog, I asked my friends to find me liberal writings or speeches by Democratic leaders on foreign policy. Most of what I came across was hawkish and not really supported by the most vocal in the party.
I realize now though that was the wrong question; I was trying to prove that liberals were not thinking objectively about foreign policy. What I really want to know is what my more liberal friends think about foreign policy. In my next post I will lay out my vision for American foreign policy, which is very similar to the one laid out by Beinart. But I also want to hear what everyone else thinks. In our future there will be more situations outside this country that will require decisions. There will be more Darfurs, Somalias, and Haitis. We should know now what we are and are not willing to do. We are in a war with jihadists (although that shouldn't necessarily be the only lense through which we see the world) and if we are going to win, liberals need to think critically about how we can accomplish that while maintaining our basic principles.
The fact is that the Democratic Party, although there are differences in it (which some would like to eliminate), has strong positions and vision on most domestic issues. For the most part, liberals are supportive of more restrictions on gun rights, favor basic levels of assistance to the poor and elderly, and believe homosexuals should have the same marriage rights as straight people do. They are also pro-choice and anti-death penalty. In the past and the present they have sought to protect civil liberties, voting rights, racial equality and fair treatment in the workforce. I know it isn't quite this clear; there are many shades of gray here.
The point though is that there are consistent and clear policy positions on the left for most domestic issues. When it comes to foreign affairs though, we are left supporting the invasion of Iraq, but then calling for an early exit. Many members of Congress knew so little about Iraq that they could be fooled into supporting a war because the president was apparently their only source of information. In previous posts on my old blog, I asked my friends to find me liberal writings or speeches by Democratic leaders on foreign policy. Most of what I came across was hawkish and not really supported by the most vocal in the party.
I realize now though that was the wrong question; I was trying to prove that liberals were not thinking objectively about foreign policy. What I really want to know is what my more liberal friends think about foreign policy. In my next post I will lay out my vision for American foreign policy, which is very similar to the one laid out by Beinart. But I also want to hear what everyone else thinks. In our future there will be more situations outside this country that will require decisions. There will be more Darfurs, Somalias, and Haitis. We should know now what we are and are not willing to do. We are in a war with jihadists (although that shouldn't necessarily be the only lense through which we see the world) and if we are going to win, liberals need to think critically about how we can accomplish that while maintaining our basic principles.
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