PICKING A SUCCESSOR TO GATES
The basic premise of my previous blog and this one is that "excitement" matters in electoral politics.
One has only to consider what the various so-called "grassroots" demonstrations of the Tea Party movement has done for the Republicans. The movement has, to the despair of party moderates, moved the GOP center of gravity farther to the right. But it also played an important role in the mobilization of party/movement adherents and fellow travelers. Also, as noted in the previous blog on the "excitement factor" in this year's congressional elections, the re-energizing of the right has not been offset by an equal and opposite re-energizing of the left. To the contrary, the left wing of the Democratic party has vocalized its unhappiness with President Obama and congressional leaders for what is seen as serious backsliding from campaign promises and policy expectations.
The bottom line is that Democrats will suffer this fall not only because they will be blamed for the economic woes of the country, but also because voter and party enthusiasm is clearly tilted toward the advantage of the GOP. Now, moving right along to the 2012 presidential election.
Re-election prospects for President Obama, at least at this point, are clearly tied to a significant economic turnaround, although a major unforseeable event may radically alter the outlook in either a positive or negative direction. There is, however, in the opinion of this blogger, something significant that can be done to inject some excitement into Obama's 2012 prospects.
Next spring Obama must pick a replacement for Defense Secretary Robert Gates. It will not be an easy choice. Gates has taken some strong initiatives to change how the defense establishment is organized and fulfills its mission--with less money. It will take a strong-willed successor with a firm political base beyond just the President to continue what Gates has started. Think Hillary Clinton. And then think of her as a replacement for Joe Biden as Obama's running mate.
This is not intended as a template for a "Joe Must Go" bumper sticker. Biden has served well. He is politically savvy, loyal, respected, and likeable. He is a person who speaks frankly and has been willing to tell the President what he thinks, not what he thinks Obama wants to hear. He was a good man-of-experience choice who also gave some religious and geographic balance to the ticket in 2008 when Obama himself provided both the necessary and sufficient excitement factors. Thus, it is not a question of his job being in jeopardy in that Obama would drop him for nonperformance of duties or because they are not compatible in politics or policy. It is more a question of whether Biden would "throw himself on the sword" if he thinks a replacement will make the difference between winning and losing. Such a decision would be a very delicate undertaking since it might not be self-evident that he jumped ship by choice and was not thrown overboard. If viewed as the latter, it would work against Obama.
From this vantage point in time, it is not evident that a significant economic turnaround will occur in time to move disenchanted Democrats and independents back toward Obama, but it seems clear that a new excitement factor will be needed for 2012. Clinton would bring both experience and new energy to the ticket. She would not be the first woman to be on a major party ticket for Vice President. Geraldine Ferraro holds that honor running with Walter Mondale in l984, but any excitement she might have added was far outweighed by the landslide re-election of President Ronald Reagan. And regardless how much pain it causes me to say this, Sarah Palin certainly added much needed excitement to the lackluster campaign of John McCain. While Palin, the quitter Governor of Alaska, claimed she could see Russia from her front porch (or something like that), Clinton's credentials would be impeccable--twice elected Senator from New York, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, topped off with the varied experience gained as First Lady to the very political/policy wonk Bill Clinton.
In a recent piece in the Washington Post (August 28), Professor Joel K. Goldstein from St. Louis University and a student of the vice presidency said that the history of replacing incumbent Vice Presidents shows that "Biden is here to stay". He also rejected the possibility of Clinton's being selected by Obama, among the reasons being that this would be viewed unfavorably as Clinton's return to partisan politics, meaning presumably that as Secretary of State she has taken a nonpartisan job and thus taken herself above the rough and tumble world of political partisanship. But it is hard to imagine that Clinton is not still perceived as being a very partisan person despite her position in the State Department. She has been at the center of too many campaigns and policy disputes to have shed her partisan image. It should be added that naming Clinton Secretary of Defense would also be a half-way house in any perceived need to shift from supposedly nonpartisan to partisan.
So while the "excitement factor" clearly lies with the Republicans this year, Democrats need to regain that factor for 2012. Meanwhile, the Republicans may be riding the wave of a big comeback in the midterm elections and only need to avoid picking another over-the-hill pol to head their ticket. Perhaps we'll get a clue in the spring of 2011 as to whether or not Obama thinks he needs to lay the groundwork for a new element of excitement in 2012. Or, maybe he thinks he is still the excitement factor.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
The "Excitement Factor": 2010 Elections
It's hardly a surprise that the Democrats have their backs to the wall in this year's congressional elections. Not only do they have the strong headwinds of a struggling economy highlighted by continuing high unemployment and charges of fiscal irresponsibility, but they also have the problem that the "excitement factor" is on the Republican side.
The primary races getting the most attention seem to be the Republican contests in which large numbers of candidates, sensing a good year for the GOP, are trying their luck. For example, there were 10 GOP candidates for a U.S. House seat in Arizona vacated by a retiring member. Arizona was also a media focus in the Republican Senate primary where former presidential candidate and one time so-called "maverick" John McCain (now turned saber-tooth rabbit or toothless lion) was initially seen as running for his political survival, but turned out to be an easy winner. Considerable media attention and voter excitement also went to GOP Senate races in Florida and Alaska (as yet undecided).
That doesn't mean that Democratic contests have been completely drowned out in the GOP excitement wave. One major Democratic primary which captured national attention was in Pennsylvania where party switching, five-term Senator Arlen Specter was defeated by Joe Sestak, a two term Congressman and retired 3-star navy admiral. Far less attention was given to most other Democratic primaries.
Added to the "smell of victory" incentive in the Republican primaries was the added sound and fury from the far right via the Tea Party movement and endorsements by Sarah Palin. For the Democrats the sound and fury has come mostly from the party's most progressive, or left, supporters. Unfortunately, the vocalizing from the left is not that of excited cheerleaders, but voices of discontent that feel President Obama and the Democratic controlled Congress have abandoned them by not making quick exits from Iraq and Afghanistan and by those who think such major achievements as health care reform and regulation of Wall Street fell short of campaign and policy promises. Now, with the current murmuring that to save the seats of some conservative Democrats, party leaders in Congress may settle for simple extension of President George W. Bush's tax cuts with no tax hikes for those in the upper income brackets, one can expect further groans of despair from the party's progressive wing.
Two years ago, Obama himself was the excitement factor and, combined with a national weariness with eight years of Bush, Democrats won not only the presidency but also added significantly to their majority in the House and almost gained the magic 60-seat majority in the Senate. But it is clear at this point in late August that the real excitement for November lies with a re-invigorated GOP. Meanwhile, the Democrats just cling to the hope that they will be able to at least retain control of both the House and Senate, however slim the margin.
Next: The "Excitement Factor": 2012 Election
The primary races getting the most attention seem to be the Republican contests in which large numbers of candidates, sensing a good year for the GOP, are trying their luck. For example, there were 10 GOP candidates for a U.S. House seat in Arizona vacated by a retiring member. Arizona was also a media focus in the Republican Senate primary where former presidential candidate and one time so-called "maverick" John McCain (now turned saber-tooth rabbit or toothless lion) was initially seen as running for his political survival, but turned out to be an easy winner. Considerable media attention and voter excitement also went to GOP Senate races in Florida and Alaska (as yet undecided).
That doesn't mean that Democratic contests have been completely drowned out in the GOP excitement wave. One major Democratic primary which captured national attention was in Pennsylvania where party switching, five-term Senator Arlen Specter was defeated by Joe Sestak, a two term Congressman and retired 3-star navy admiral. Far less attention was given to most other Democratic primaries.
Added to the "smell of victory" incentive in the Republican primaries was the added sound and fury from the far right via the Tea Party movement and endorsements by Sarah Palin. For the Democrats the sound and fury has come mostly from the party's most progressive, or left, supporters. Unfortunately, the vocalizing from the left is not that of excited cheerleaders, but voices of discontent that feel President Obama and the Democratic controlled Congress have abandoned them by not making quick exits from Iraq and Afghanistan and by those who think such major achievements as health care reform and regulation of Wall Street fell short of campaign and policy promises. Now, with the current murmuring that to save the seats of some conservative Democrats, party leaders in Congress may settle for simple extension of President George W. Bush's tax cuts with no tax hikes for those in the upper income brackets, one can expect further groans of despair from the party's progressive wing.
Two years ago, Obama himself was the excitement factor and, combined with a national weariness with eight years of Bush, Democrats won not only the presidency but also added significantly to their majority in the House and almost gained the magic 60-seat majority in the Senate. But it is clear at this point in late August that the real excitement for November lies with a re-invigorated GOP. Meanwhile, the Democrats just cling to the hope that they will be able to at least retain control of both the House and Senate, however slim the margin.
Next: The "Excitement Factor": 2012 Election
Sunday, August 22, 2010
A Tale of One City--Two Eras
"WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO . . . ?"
This Sunday, August 29, will be the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans and a large area of the Gulf coast. And, as noted in several previous blogs, this fall is the 50th anniversary of Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck's journey of personal re-discovery of America, as told in his book TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY. The Katrina anniversary is an opportunity to link both in a half-century-later tale of "Whatever happened to . . .?" in New Orleans.
The blog on racism (July 17), related the story of Steinbeck's visit to New Orleans in l960, where he witnessed ugly demonstrations against the integration of the William Frantz Elementary School by Ruby Bridges, a six-year old African-American who became the first of her race to integrate an all-white southern elementary school. Steinbeck was appalled by the racism he found not only at the school, but also in some of the people he met just before and after the experience. The very volatile issue of public school integration in l960 has long since disappeared. To the extent that it remains an issue, it is now a muted national one within the context of re-segregation resulting from housing patterns combined with the virtual end of school bussing to achieve and maintain racial integration.A 50-year later look at the Frantz school represents a snapshot view of such changes, punctuated by the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
The neighborhood surrounding the Frantz school went through two significant changes since Steinbeck's visit. (It was the neighborhood where Lee Harvey Oswald, President Kennedy's assassin, was born in l939.) What had been a lower income white neighborhood in l960 is now a low income African-American neighborhood. And what had been a neighborhood of small viable businesses and homes has been hollowed out by the devastation of Katrina. In visiting the neighborhood about two years ago, it appeared that most of the physical structures were still there, but the area had been severely flooded and was pock marked by damaged, empty buildings. The Frantz school was one of those empty buildings.
Because of flood damage from Katrina, Frantz was boarded up and surrounded by a chain link fence. The city has the problem of repairing this and other closed schools, while also having to decide which ones will be permanently closed because of declining student population. The Frantz school has a brighter future than some of the other hurricane-damaged schools. In a master plan for renovating and reopening schools, Frantz Elementary has been spared and is scheduled to undergo major rehabilitation. At one time it was proposed that it be renamed Ruby Bridges Elementary School, but apparently it is not possible to name a school after a living person. The name has fared better in Alameda, California, where a new elementary school was dedicated to her in 2006.
Ruby Bridges herself, now Ruby Bridges Hall and mother of four sons, still lives in New Orleans where she worked for 15 years as a travel agent and now chairs the Ruby Bridges Foundation to promote racial understanding. In 2001, she was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Clinton and was honored by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League in 2006. In THROUGH MY EYES, Bridges tells what it was like going to a previously all white school and realizing at age six that "everything had happened because I was black." Her story was also presented in a made-for-television movie.
While Steinbeck might find a return visit to New Orleans to be laced with unpleasant memories of the demonstrations, those thoughts might now be leavened by the historic changes in racial attitudes in that city since l960. While racial issues have not disappeared from the city and resurfaced with Katrina, they are found within a context radically altered by a half century of civil rights laws accompanied by changes in the political, economic, and social culture of the city.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Looking for an SOB
PART II OF THE CONTINUING SAGA
There seems to be no end to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's willingness to poke a stick in the eye of those who are his chief military props--the United States and its NATO allies.
An earlier blog "Looking for a Son of a Bitch" (July 29) said the United States is looking for an SOB (or plural) who will help us to extricate ourselves from an increasingly unpopular war both in that country and this. Ideally, the search for such will lead to a person or group(s) who will be "our son of a bitch" as President Franklin Roosevelt once described our relationship with one time Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. By now the Obama administration must surely have concluded that Karzai is indeed an SOB, but unfortunately not "ours".
For some time we have had sharp disagreements with Karzai over political, military, and corruption issues. But within the last two weeks or so he has gone out of his way to further aggravate an already strained relationship.
First, in early August he further enhanced his reputation for tolerating gross corruption within his government by directly interfering with American attempts to track down what has happened to large sums of U.S. aid to that country. A top aide to Karzai was arrested on bribery charges by a U.S.-financed Afghan anti-corruption unit, but was released later the same day by, according to reports, persons inside the Karzai palace. More recently Karzai told visiting Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that the anti-corruption units would not be interfered with, but we shall see how that works out.
Next, in mid-August Karzai said he was halting the activities of all private security firms operating in Afghanistan. Private security firms, such as Blackwater in Iraq, have certainly cast doubt on our reliance on private contractors to carry out what normally should be done by our military and/or intelligence services. But apparently without any prior consultation with the United States, Karzai set a year-end deadline for ending all contractor services, well before Afghan security forces are prepared to take over the duty of protecting a wide array of foreign firms and diplomatic missions.
It seems apparent, however, that we are stuck with the SOB. We have been making efforts to attract other sob's (lower case) as allies by putting them on the payroll and/or arming them to help pacify the countryside. For example, in late July the Washington Post reported that we had recruited Haji Ghani who was described as a "hashish-growing former warlord" with a semiofficial police force "who is known to show his anger through beatings." Thus, we hired a local strongman to clean up his neighborhood. This is similar to the approach we used in Iraq on a larger scale. There we funded and armed the Awakening Movement made up of Sunnis (the sectarian power base of former dictator Saddam Hussein) who had initially allied themselves with or were friendly toward al-Qaida terrorists, particularly in Anbar province. We bought them out. The problem in Iraq now is that a large part of the Awakening forces is being shunted aside by the Shiite controlled government which fears the Movement will become an independent armed force opposing the government; a smaller part may be absorbed into the Baghdad- controlled security service or military.
In Afghanistan, however, recruiting or contracting lower case sob's to help pacify hostile neighborhoods may end up as repeating what we did to get the Russians out of the country. That is, we armed a variety of warlords/tribal groups to battle the Russians. When the Russians gave up and left, the warlords fought among themselves with the Taliban emerging as the last man standing. We may be in the process of repeating the same mistakes when we recruit local warlords and militias to help us in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida. This dilemma was pointed out in a recent staff report of the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. The report concerned the problem of protection payments to local warlords to safeguard the transportation of U.S. military supplies. Much of the transportation work is done through a private contractor who in turn has to pay local warlords to secure safe passage for the convoys going through their territory. The payments are a form of "extortion and corruption" and it is even possible that some of the money finds its way to the Taliban for another layer of protection payments, according to the report.
What it seems to come down to is that Afghanistan is a country populated by a lot of upper and lower case SOB's/sob's, but none of them can really be called "ours". More likely they are short term rentals. As we tunnel our way out of Afghanistan the final victors may be the rural warlords (who have historically been the country's power base), Karzai the Kabul warlord, and the Taliban. In the end, whenever that may be, collectively they will be looking at the United States as they looked earlier at the Russians, as another upper case SOB they finally got rid of.
There seems to be no end to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's willingness to poke a stick in the eye of those who are his chief military props--the United States and its NATO allies.
An earlier blog "Looking for a Son of a Bitch" (July 29) said the United States is looking for an SOB (or plural) who will help us to extricate ourselves from an increasingly unpopular war both in that country and this. Ideally, the search for such will lead to a person or group(s) who will be "our son of a bitch" as President Franklin Roosevelt once described our relationship with one time Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. By now the Obama administration must surely have concluded that Karzai is indeed an SOB, but unfortunately not "ours".
For some time we have had sharp disagreements with Karzai over political, military, and corruption issues. But within the last two weeks or so he has gone out of his way to further aggravate an already strained relationship.
First, in early August he further enhanced his reputation for tolerating gross corruption within his government by directly interfering with American attempts to track down what has happened to large sums of U.S. aid to that country. A top aide to Karzai was arrested on bribery charges by a U.S.-financed Afghan anti-corruption unit, but was released later the same day by, according to reports, persons inside the Karzai palace. More recently Karzai told visiting Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that the anti-corruption units would not be interfered with, but we shall see how that works out.
Next, in mid-August Karzai said he was halting the activities of all private security firms operating in Afghanistan. Private security firms, such as Blackwater in Iraq, have certainly cast doubt on our reliance on private contractors to carry out what normally should be done by our military and/or intelligence services. But apparently without any prior consultation with the United States, Karzai set a year-end deadline for ending all contractor services, well before Afghan security forces are prepared to take over the duty of protecting a wide array of foreign firms and diplomatic missions.
It seems apparent, however, that we are stuck with the SOB. We have been making efforts to attract other sob's (lower case) as allies by putting them on the payroll and/or arming them to help pacify the countryside. For example, in late July the Washington Post reported that we had recruited Haji Ghani who was described as a "hashish-growing former warlord" with a semiofficial police force "who is known to show his anger through beatings." Thus, we hired a local strongman to clean up his neighborhood. This is similar to the approach we used in Iraq on a larger scale. There we funded and armed the Awakening Movement made up of Sunnis (the sectarian power base of former dictator Saddam Hussein) who had initially allied themselves with or were friendly toward al-Qaida terrorists, particularly in Anbar province. We bought them out. The problem in Iraq now is that a large part of the Awakening forces is being shunted aside by the Shiite controlled government which fears the Movement will become an independent armed force opposing the government; a smaller part may be absorbed into the Baghdad- controlled security service or military.
In Afghanistan, however, recruiting or contracting lower case sob's to help pacify hostile neighborhoods may end up as repeating what we did to get the Russians out of the country. That is, we armed a variety of warlords/tribal groups to battle the Russians. When the Russians gave up and left, the warlords fought among themselves with the Taliban emerging as the last man standing. We may be in the process of repeating the same mistakes when we recruit local warlords and militias to help us in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida. This dilemma was pointed out in a recent staff report of the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. The report concerned the problem of protection payments to local warlords to safeguard the transportation of U.S. military supplies. Much of the transportation work is done through a private contractor who in turn has to pay local warlords to secure safe passage for the convoys going through their territory. The payments are a form of "extortion and corruption" and it is even possible that some of the money finds its way to the Taliban for another layer of protection payments, according to the report.
What it seems to come down to is that Afghanistan is a country populated by a lot of upper and lower case SOB's/sob's, but none of them can really be called "ours". More likely they are short term rentals. As we tunnel our way out of Afghanistan the final victors may be the rural warlords (who have historically been the country's power base), Karzai the Kabul warlord, and the Taliban. In the end, whenever that may be, collectively they will be looking at the United States as they looked earlier at the Russians, as another upper case SOB they finally got rid of.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Would You Believe?
Two of the top stories in today's news really stretch the limits of credibility.
1. The Last Patrol. The headline is the withdrawal of the last combat troops from Iraq. We are leaving 50,000 behind to train the Iraqis in everything from paper shuffling to fighting terrorists.
Question: Why are 50,000 troops needed to train the Iraqis? How long will it be before we hear of some of the 50,000 getting killed or wounded on their bases, in the Green Zone, or on so-called "training exercises"?
2. There was a recall of 380,000,000 eggs because of a salmonella threat. The recall is for eggs packaged between May 16 and August 13 by a company in Iowa.
Question: Don't know anything about egg packaging/consumption cycle but who still has eggs in their refrigerator from mid-May?
1. The Last Patrol. The headline is the withdrawal of the last combat troops from Iraq. We are leaving 50,000 behind to train the Iraqis in everything from paper shuffling to fighting terrorists.
Question: Why are 50,000 troops needed to train the Iraqis? How long will it be before we hear of some of the 50,000 getting killed or wounded on their bases, in the Green Zone, or on so-called "training exercises"?
2. There was a recall of 380,000,000 eggs because of a salmonella threat. The recall is for eggs packaged between May 16 and August 13 by a company in Iowa.
Question: Don't know anything about egg packaging/consumption cycle but who still has eggs in their refrigerator from mid-May?
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Charley and the Redwoods
FROM SAVE THE REDWOODS TO SAVE THE PLANET
This blog started last month with an inspiration from John Steinbeck's book TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY, based on a trip the Nobel Prize winner made 50 years ago. He said he had been writing about the country but had lost touch with it, so he and his French poodle Charley set off on a three-month journey around the country to personally rediscover America. In his book, published in l962, he made observations about many things. Previous blogs had tapped some of his observations to take a 50-years-later look at the emergence of today's toxic political atmosphere (July 13), and the evolution of racism (July 17) and immigration (July 24) issues and policies. This blog takes a similar half-century perspective on environmental policy, using Steinbeck's tree hugging experience on the west coast as a starting point.
About halfway through his circumnavigation of the country Steinbeck visited a grove of redwood trees in southern Oregon and commented, "The vainest, most slap-happy and irreverent of men, in the presence of redwoods, goes under the spell of wonder and respect." He recalled that a number of years earlier a newcomer to his home country near Monterey, California, cut down a grove of redwoods. "This was not only a murder but a sacrilege. We looked on that man with loathing and he was marked to the day of his death."
His stop among the redwoods in l960 came on the threshold of major expansions in environmental issues and policies. At the time of his TRAVELS preservation was the core of environmental policy with its early beginnings in the creation of the first national park, Yellowstone in l872. This was followed by the efforts of many in government and private groups to create more parks, establish national forests to protect them against encroaching lumber interests, and preserve various threatened wildlife species such as the bison and the whooping crane.
Preservation policy remains a major part of the environmental agenda but was joined in the early l960s by a pressing set of new issues--anti-pollution. In l962, the same year that TRAVELS was published, Rachel Carson's SILENT SPRING hit the bookstores relating the devastating effects of DDT and other pesticides on the environment. The book contributed importantly to a subsequent ban on DDT and some other chemicals widely used to kill bugs and weeds.
Soon Congress was dealing with other parts of an anti-pollution agenda with enactment of the Clean Air Act (CAA). In l970, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established, the same year that the CAA was extended and strengthened. Major federal legislation to deal with water pollution came a few years later with further amendments in later years. Preservation was not forgotten. In l973, the Endangered Species Act was passed protecting numerous species of wildlife and fish that were in danger of extinction.
While there were and remain sharp disagreements over particular parts of these laws as they were enacted, implemented, and amended, there was a national consensus that the problems were both real and sometimes disastrous. The severity of the problem was particularly dramatized in chemical pollution of waterways and drinking water, illustrated by the poisoning of the Love Canal in New York, and the movie ERIN BROCKOVICH about industrial pollution of drinking water and cancer-caused deaths in an area of southern California. Less dramatic but no less intense has been the long running battle over auto exhaust emissions and increasing gasoline mileage in gas guzzling cars.
The initiation and evolution of such policies over 50 years would probably have been seen by Steinbeck as the inevitable result of a doubling of the population, the increasing industrialization of the economy, growing demands for more energy, and the accompanying increased threat to air and water quality. Within a political context, he would probably see policies to resolve issues evolving out of what in his time was the civility of a traditional political process--negotiation and compromise between a multitude of diverse political, economic, and environmental interests. Indeed that is generally the process through which these policies have emerged over the past half century.
But what would be unexpected and troubling to Steinbeck would be the hostility surrounding the foremost environmental issue today--climate change aka global warming. This issue has not emerged within that customary process of conflict resolution, but as part of a great and growing ideological and increasingly partisan political confrontation. As such, the issue defies consensus building as left-of-center adherents (including this blogger) on one side argue the coming of a global apocalypse while opponents from the right charge the scientific case for global warming is underwritten by scientific fraud.
Proponents say global warming threatens the long term survival of earth's population and the need to greatly cut back on man-made greenhouse emissions must be solved now before it is too late. Opponents, beyond citing counter findings of some scientists that global warming isn't even occurring, say the remedies being proposed, such as cap and trade policy, endanger the economy and will lead to further job losses. The job loss argument hits on a particularly sensitive point in an economy where job loss/creation is a central political issue.
So for now the global warming issue is stalemated. The battle is certain to be renewed next year with a new Congress and as President Obama seeks an administrative solution through new EPA regulations to control greenhouse gas emissions factory by factory, power plant by power plant. But for those making the case for global warming and its cataclysmic consequences, the issue has probably become too ideological and political to produce a satisfactory policy outcome. If this fall's elections shows that voters are shifting toward the more conservative right (think Tea Party), resolution of the conflict will be even more difficult. So for proponents, a depressing quote used in previous blogs on other issues may also apply here, "the existence of a problem does not presume the existence of a solution."
This blog started last month with an inspiration from John Steinbeck's book TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY, based on a trip the Nobel Prize winner made 50 years ago. He said he had been writing about the country but had lost touch with it, so he and his French poodle Charley set off on a three-month journey around the country to personally rediscover America. In his book, published in l962, he made observations about many things. Previous blogs had tapped some of his observations to take a 50-years-later look at the emergence of today's toxic political atmosphere (July 13), and the evolution of racism (July 17) and immigration (July 24) issues and policies. This blog takes a similar half-century perspective on environmental policy, using Steinbeck's tree hugging experience on the west coast as a starting point.
About halfway through his circumnavigation of the country Steinbeck visited a grove of redwood trees in southern Oregon and commented, "The vainest, most slap-happy and irreverent of men, in the presence of redwoods, goes under the spell of wonder and respect." He recalled that a number of years earlier a newcomer to his home country near Monterey, California, cut down a grove of redwoods. "This was not only a murder but a sacrilege. We looked on that man with loathing and he was marked to the day of his death."
His stop among the redwoods in l960 came on the threshold of major expansions in environmental issues and policies. At the time of his TRAVELS preservation was the core of environmental policy with its early beginnings in the creation of the first national park, Yellowstone in l872. This was followed by the efforts of many in government and private groups to create more parks, establish national forests to protect them against encroaching lumber interests, and preserve various threatened wildlife species such as the bison and the whooping crane.
Preservation policy remains a major part of the environmental agenda but was joined in the early l960s by a pressing set of new issues--anti-pollution. In l962, the same year that TRAVELS was published, Rachel Carson's SILENT SPRING hit the bookstores relating the devastating effects of DDT and other pesticides on the environment. The book contributed importantly to a subsequent ban on DDT and some other chemicals widely used to kill bugs and weeds.
Soon Congress was dealing with other parts of an anti-pollution agenda with enactment of the Clean Air Act (CAA). In l970, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established, the same year that the CAA was extended and strengthened. Major federal legislation to deal with water pollution came a few years later with further amendments in later years. Preservation was not forgotten. In l973, the Endangered Species Act was passed protecting numerous species of wildlife and fish that were in danger of extinction.
While there were and remain sharp disagreements over particular parts of these laws as they were enacted, implemented, and amended, there was a national consensus that the problems were both real and sometimes disastrous. The severity of the problem was particularly dramatized in chemical pollution of waterways and drinking water, illustrated by the poisoning of the Love Canal in New York, and the movie ERIN BROCKOVICH about industrial pollution of drinking water and cancer-caused deaths in an area of southern California. Less dramatic but no less intense has been the long running battle over auto exhaust emissions and increasing gasoline mileage in gas guzzling cars.
The initiation and evolution of such policies over 50 years would probably have been seen by Steinbeck as the inevitable result of a doubling of the population, the increasing industrialization of the economy, growing demands for more energy, and the accompanying increased threat to air and water quality. Within a political context, he would probably see policies to resolve issues evolving out of what in his time was the civility of a traditional political process--negotiation and compromise between a multitude of diverse political, economic, and environmental interests. Indeed that is generally the process through which these policies have emerged over the past half century.
But what would be unexpected and troubling to Steinbeck would be the hostility surrounding the foremost environmental issue today--climate change aka global warming. This issue has not emerged within that customary process of conflict resolution, but as part of a great and growing ideological and increasingly partisan political confrontation. As such, the issue defies consensus building as left-of-center adherents (including this blogger) on one side argue the coming of a global apocalypse while opponents from the right charge the scientific case for global warming is underwritten by scientific fraud.
Proponents say global warming threatens the long term survival of earth's population and the need to greatly cut back on man-made greenhouse emissions must be solved now before it is too late. Opponents, beyond citing counter findings of some scientists that global warming isn't even occurring, say the remedies being proposed, such as cap and trade policy, endanger the economy and will lead to further job losses. The job loss argument hits on a particularly sensitive point in an economy where job loss/creation is a central political issue.
So for now the global warming issue is stalemated. The battle is certain to be renewed next year with a new Congress and as President Obama seeks an administrative solution through new EPA regulations to control greenhouse gas emissions factory by factory, power plant by power plant. But for those making the case for global warming and its cataclysmic consequences, the issue has probably become too ideological and political to produce a satisfactory policy outcome. If this fall's elections shows that voters are shifting toward the more conservative right (think Tea Party), resolution of the conflict will be even more difficult. So for proponents, a depressing quote used in previous blogs on other issues may also apply here, "the existence of a problem does not presume the existence of a solution."
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Scanning the Headlines: Part II
ANTI-INCUMBENCY HUMBUG
The media early on latched on to the anti-incumbency theme to explain voter discontent. By mid-August that theme had morphed into "inexperience" to explain what voters were looking for in this year's primary elections for Congress. And on August 13 The New York Times suggested anti-pork barrel sentiment may have contributed to some members of the powerful Appropriation Committees in the House and Senate losing their races. Bringing home the bacon wasn't enough to win and may have worked against them. But it should be noted that the Times article offered an anti-pork barrel vote as only one of several possible explanations for those defeats.
In the early days of the primary election season, anti-incumbency sentiment was spotlighted by both the electronic and print media to explain voting results, sometimes stretched to be an anti-Washington vote. One Associated Press (AP) reporter held to the anti-incumbency theme as late as early August to explain the Michigan primary results. In the lead in to the story the reporter said, "Incumbents beware. Another lawmaker just bit the dust." In that election, Representative Carolyn Kilpatrick lost her bid for an 8th term to the U.S. House of Representatives. But a more likely explanation was that Kilpatrick was the mother of the ousted and jailed Detroit Mayor who got himself involved in a number of highly publicized scandals, including, of course, sex. The sins of the son were visited upon the mother.
To further support the anti-incumbency theme the AP reporter cited the election losses of some other incumbents,. including Representatives Alan Mollohan (D.-W. Va.) and Parker Griffith (R.-Ala.), and Senators Arlen Spector (D.Pa.) and Robert Bennett (R.-Ut.). Not mentioned was the fact that Mollohan was involved in a scandal involving the misuse of hundreds of millions in federal funds with substantial amounts going to benefit family and friends. Griffith and Spector were both party switchers, in opposite directions, and thus were seen as just "opportunists" and not trusted by voters in their new party home. And Senator Bennett was not ousted by the voters but by the state GOP convention which picks its candidates and such gatherings are customarily dominated by party activists who, in this case, thought Bennett was too moderate. Bennett, a conservative himself, was simply outflanked by those activists farther to the right.
But lost in all of the cause-and-effect analyses is the fact that the next Congress will continue to be dominated by long-term incumbents with lots of experience in Washington and who will still be looking for ways to send pork back home, perhaps with more finesse. That is, regardless of how much voter discontent may be abroad in the land, the pattern has long been and will continue to be that a great majority of House and Senate members, Republicans and Democrats, are those whom voters keep sending back election after election. This is particularly true in the House where a large majority of members of both parties come from safe districts where some incumbents are not even challenged in the election. So, regardless of what the polls may show about voter unhappiness with Congress as a whole or media explanations of election results, voters make exceptions for their own Representatives.
The really vulnerable incumbents are those in the House who come from districts normally represented by the other party. This year that means those Democrats who rode to office on the "change" theme coattails of Barack Obama in 2008, ousting Republicans who normally represent those districts. This doesn't mean a conservative will be replacing a liberal. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi discovered on a number of occasions, often a conservative Democrat had replaced a conservative Republican two years ago and these members were difficult to bring into line with the more liberal party majority. The difference this year will be that the Republican winners probably will be even more conservative, reflecting the direction of the party ideology as evidenced by the impact of the Tea Party movement. Or some first-term Democrats who have had to move in a more conservative direction to save their seats.
So all media cause-and-effect analyses aside, even if control of one or both chambers changes, experienced incumbents will continue to dominate Congress and control its power structure, and the access of powerful interest groups will remain undiminished although who has better access may change.
This is not in any way meant to say that the electiion is only a choice between tweedledum and tweedledee incumbents. As said in my previous blog, there are great differences between the parties and what they stand for. While incumbents will continue to be by far the largest share of Congress, a significant shift (5 to 8 percent) in a more Republican direction, even with continued Democratic control, will mean a significant shift in what gets done--or not done.
The media early on latched on to the anti-incumbency theme to explain voter discontent. By mid-August that theme had morphed into "inexperience" to explain what voters were looking for in this year's primary elections for Congress. And on August 13 The New York Times suggested anti-pork barrel sentiment may have contributed to some members of the powerful Appropriation Committees in the House and Senate losing their races. Bringing home the bacon wasn't enough to win and may have worked against them. But it should be noted that the Times article offered an anti-pork barrel vote as only one of several possible explanations for those defeats.
In the early days of the primary election season, anti-incumbency sentiment was spotlighted by both the electronic and print media to explain voting results, sometimes stretched to be an anti-Washington vote. One Associated Press (AP) reporter held to the anti-incumbency theme as late as early August to explain the Michigan primary results. In the lead in to the story the reporter said, "Incumbents beware. Another lawmaker just bit the dust." In that election, Representative Carolyn Kilpatrick lost her bid for an 8th term to the U.S. House of Representatives. But a more likely explanation was that Kilpatrick was the mother of the ousted and jailed Detroit Mayor who got himself involved in a number of highly publicized scandals, including, of course, sex. The sins of the son were visited upon the mother.
To further support the anti-incumbency theme the AP reporter cited the election losses of some other incumbents,. including Representatives Alan Mollohan (D.-W. Va.) and Parker Griffith (R.-Ala.), and Senators Arlen Spector (D.Pa.) and Robert Bennett (R.-Ut.). Not mentioned was the fact that Mollohan was involved in a scandal involving the misuse of hundreds of millions in federal funds with substantial amounts going to benefit family and friends. Griffith and Spector were both party switchers, in opposite directions, and thus were seen as just "opportunists" and not trusted by voters in their new party home. And Senator Bennett was not ousted by the voters but by the state GOP convention which picks its candidates and such gatherings are customarily dominated by party activists who, in this case, thought Bennett was too moderate. Bennett, a conservative himself, was simply outflanked by those activists farther to the right.
But lost in all of the cause-and-effect analyses is the fact that the next Congress will continue to be dominated by long-term incumbents with lots of experience in Washington and who will still be looking for ways to send pork back home, perhaps with more finesse. That is, regardless of how much voter discontent may be abroad in the land, the pattern has long been and will continue to be that a great majority of House and Senate members, Republicans and Democrats, are those whom voters keep sending back election after election. This is particularly true in the House where a large majority of members of both parties come from safe districts where some incumbents are not even challenged in the election. So, regardless of what the polls may show about voter unhappiness with Congress as a whole or media explanations of election results, voters make exceptions for their own Representatives.
The really vulnerable incumbents are those in the House who come from districts normally represented by the other party. This year that means those Democrats who rode to office on the "change" theme coattails of Barack Obama in 2008, ousting Republicans who normally represent those districts. This doesn't mean a conservative will be replacing a liberal. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi discovered on a number of occasions, often a conservative Democrat had replaced a conservative Republican two years ago and these members were difficult to bring into line with the more liberal party majority. The difference this year will be that the Republican winners probably will be even more conservative, reflecting the direction of the party ideology as evidenced by the impact of the Tea Party movement. Or some first-term Democrats who have had to move in a more conservative direction to save their seats.
So all media cause-and-effect analyses aside, even if control of one or both chambers changes, experienced incumbents will continue to dominate Congress and control its power structure, and the access of powerful interest groups will remain undiminished although who has better access may change.
This is not in any way meant to say that the electiion is only a choice between tweedledum and tweedledee incumbents. As said in my previous blog, there are great differences between the parties and what they stand for. While incumbents will continue to be by far the largest share of Congress, a significant shift (5 to 8 percent) in a more Republican direction, even with continued Democratic control, will mean a significant shift in what gets done--or not done.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Scanning the Headlines: Part I
THE TWEEDLES
The two big political stories today (August 11) are final congressional approval of a $26 billion aid package to the states and the primary elections in four states. Since brevity is the soul of more than wit, today's comments will just focus on the aid package and a brief look at times gone by.
Final approval of the money served as a reminder of the old adage about choosing between Democrats and Republicans. The adage says it was a choice between "tweedledum" and "tweedledee". One dictionary defines the two tweedles as, "Two people or two groups resembling each other so closely that they are practically indistinguishable." Obviously that is not true in our current political world, but it has never really been true. There has always been different centers of gravity, ideologically and in policy choices. But what is so alarming today is the height and thickness of the partisan wall that separates the two parties, whether in Washington or Peoria. (The latter referring to an old vaudeville adage, "Will it play in Peoria", meaning will it be a winner or a flop.)
Passage of the aid bill in both the House and Senate was basically along party lines, squeaking through the Senate with the help of just two Republicans. That extreme partisanship has also been evident in passage of other major legislation such as health care reform and greater regulation of Wall Street. We also see it in legislative proposals that won't get passed such as immigration reform.
As said at the outset, it has never been a tweedledum-tweedledee conundrum in reality. Republicans have always had a clear bias against expansion of federal involvement in economic and social issues, whether it involves health care reform, regulation of business, taxing and spending, and a bias for constitutional amendments such as requiring a balanced budget, prohibiting flag burning, and repealing part of the 14th amendment to stop granting automatic citizenship to the children of illegals born in this country. They are social and economic pacifists (better yet, regressionists) and constitutional activists.
In l965, when the medicare/medicaid legislation was enacted, Republicans, while not reform enthusiasts, had more bipartisan leanings. In both the House and Senate, GOP lawmakers were almost evenly split between the "yeas" and "nays", while the Democrats were overwhelmingly for the legislation. In 2010, health care reform got just enough Republican votes, after a lot of Democratic compromising, to meet the 60-vote Senate test, and didn't do much better in the House. In the l965 major immigration reform legislation ending more than 40 years of ethnic bias embedded in the national origins quota system (biased toward northern and western European immigrants), Senate passage received support from 14 Republican crossovers (nearly half of the Republicans in the Senate). But today, immigration reform, which has passed the House, can't attract enough Republican support to even make it to the Senate floor for debate. In fact, some former Republican supporters of reform (Lindsey Graham and John McCain come to mind) have now become outspoken opponents and both are helping to boost the case for repeal of part of the 14th amendment.
What has changed is our political atmosphere. It has become far more toxic than it was 50 years ago, or even two years ago thanks to the most recent push from the far right by the Tea Party movement, its supporters among talk show hosts, and traditional conservative office holders and office seekers who are afraid of being outflanked at election time by the extreme right. Add to this those who want to see the first black President become a one-term President. As said in my first blog on July 13, over the past 50 years "our politics has morphed from a system of low decibel, pluralistic politics characterized by civility in discussing opposing views, to one of high decibel "to the barricades' confrontation."
In the mid-l960s liberal sentiment held the high ground and made possible the enactment of two historic pieces of civil rights legislation as well as a host of laws included within President Johnson's so-called Great Society program. That brief window of liberal opportunity ended with the l966 mid-term elections and a big Democratic loss of seats, stemming from an emerging discontent with the Vietnam war and a white, anti-black backlash brought on by the urban riots of l964-68.
Today, the liberal sentiments and support of the l960s is a distant memory replaced by a conservatism which gained a new voice with Ronald Reagan and has now been pushed farther to the right by more extremist views, including some would-be GOP presidential hopefuls who should know better. And what makes this even sadder is that while the far right is gaining momentum, a voice comes from the White House attacking the party's left wing.
Stay tuned for Part II in a few days, taking a look at the primary elections and the anti-incumbency and "experienced help not wanted" moods that the media say explains how the voters are making their choices.
The two big political stories today (August 11) are final congressional approval of a $26 billion aid package to the states and the primary elections in four states. Since brevity is the soul of more than wit, today's comments will just focus on the aid package and a brief look at times gone by.
Final approval of the money served as a reminder of the old adage about choosing between Democrats and Republicans. The adage says it was a choice between "tweedledum" and "tweedledee". One dictionary defines the two tweedles as, "Two people or two groups resembling each other so closely that they are practically indistinguishable." Obviously that is not true in our current political world, but it has never really been true. There has always been different centers of gravity, ideologically and in policy choices. But what is so alarming today is the height and thickness of the partisan wall that separates the two parties, whether in Washington or Peoria. (The latter referring to an old vaudeville adage, "Will it play in Peoria", meaning will it be a winner or a flop.)
Passage of the aid bill in both the House and Senate was basically along party lines, squeaking through the Senate with the help of just two Republicans. That extreme partisanship has also been evident in passage of other major legislation such as health care reform and greater regulation of Wall Street. We also see it in legislative proposals that won't get passed such as immigration reform.
As said at the outset, it has never been a tweedledum-tweedledee conundrum in reality. Republicans have always had a clear bias against expansion of federal involvement in economic and social issues, whether it involves health care reform, regulation of business, taxing and spending, and a bias for constitutional amendments such as requiring a balanced budget, prohibiting flag burning, and repealing part of the 14th amendment to stop granting automatic citizenship to the children of illegals born in this country. They are social and economic pacifists (better yet, regressionists) and constitutional activists.
In l965, when the medicare/medicaid legislation was enacted, Republicans, while not reform enthusiasts, had more bipartisan leanings. In both the House and Senate, GOP lawmakers were almost evenly split between the "yeas" and "nays", while the Democrats were overwhelmingly for the legislation. In 2010, health care reform got just enough Republican votes, after a lot of Democratic compromising, to meet the 60-vote Senate test, and didn't do much better in the House. In the l965 major immigration reform legislation ending more than 40 years of ethnic bias embedded in the national origins quota system (biased toward northern and western European immigrants), Senate passage received support from 14 Republican crossovers (nearly half of the Republicans in the Senate). But today, immigration reform, which has passed the House, can't attract enough Republican support to even make it to the Senate floor for debate. In fact, some former Republican supporters of reform (Lindsey Graham and John McCain come to mind) have now become outspoken opponents and both are helping to boost the case for repeal of part of the 14th amendment.
What has changed is our political atmosphere. It has become far more toxic than it was 50 years ago, or even two years ago thanks to the most recent push from the far right by the Tea Party movement, its supporters among talk show hosts, and traditional conservative office holders and office seekers who are afraid of being outflanked at election time by the extreme right. Add to this those who want to see the first black President become a one-term President. As said in my first blog on July 13, over the past 50 years "our politics has morphed from a system of low decibel, pluralistic politics characterized by civility in discussing opposing views, to one of high decibel "to the barricades' confrontation."
In the mid-l960s liberal sentiment held the high ground and made possible the enactment of two historic pieces of civil rights legislation as well as a host of laws included within President Johnson's so-called Great Society program. That brief window of liberal opportunity ended with the l966 mid-term elections and a big Democratic loss of seats, stemming from an emerging discontent with the Vietnam war and a white, anti-black backlash brought on by the urban riots of l964-68.
Today, the liberal sentiments and support of the l960s is a distant memory replaced by a conservatism which gained a new voice with Ronald Reagan and has now been pushed farther to the right by more extremist views, including some would-be GOP presidential hopefuls who should know better. And what makes this even sadder is that while the far right is gaining momentum, a voice comes from the White House attacking the party's left wing.
Stay tuned for Part II in a few days, taking a look at the primary elections and the anti-incumbency and "experienced help not wanted" moods that the media say explains how the voters are making their choices.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Shirley Sherrod Revisited
THE FLIP SIDE OF THE SHERROD STORY
Remember Shirley Sherrod, the black woman forced just three weeks ago to resign her position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture when the media, the NAACP, and the Obama administration rushed to judgment about her supposed racist past. The issue got media "legs" when a right wing blogger , quickly followed by Fox News and other media, edited her remarks before an NAACP gathering supposedly showing that she was guilty of reverse racism by not helping a white farmer who was losing his farm almost 25 years ago. (At the time she was working for a private advocacy group.) When the unedited version of her remarks were heard, it was clear that she was not a black racist. To the contrary, it was an uplifting story of a woman who had exorcised her personal feelings and helped the white farmer save his farm.
Now, just three weeks later, we get a look at the flip side of the issue-- federal government discrimination against black farmers. This more familiar form of racial discrimination, white against black, came up last week as part of legislation before the Senate to compensate both Native Indians and black farmers for past injustices.
The proposal included $3.4 billion to go to Indians to compensate them for being cheated by the U.S. Department of Interior out of royalties on gas, oil, timber, and grazing rights on Indian lands. The money was to settle a 1999 class action lawsuit involving shorted funds owed them by the government since l887.
Another part of the same legislation would have provided $1 billion to compensate a group of black farmers for past discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the same Department that forced Shirley Sherrod to resign because of supposed reverse discrimination on her part. The government had already paid out about $1 billion to about 16,000 black farmers who had been denied various forms of assistance over the period l983 to 1997. The new funds were to compensate another group of black farmers who for various reasons, including claims of inadequate government notice and legal misrepresentation, had failed to file their claims before the deadline.
What stood out to this blogger was the frenzied rush to judgment in the Sherrod case by people who should have known better and checked the full facts, and their silence on the Indian and black farmers compensation payments. I guess the problem is that the media has become immunized on the problem of Republican partisanship on "to the barricades" issues of federal deficits and spending. It was just another case of GOP partisanship in blocking action on spending, as well as other legislation, regardless of the merits of what is involved. In the case of the Indians, Sen. John Barrasso (R.-Wy.), who has the Wind River Indian Reservation in his state, added that perhaps the Senate should also consider getting involved in a round of new settlement negotiations. As though the Senate needed still more hurdles on the legislative path.
But in addition to their continuous playing to the deficit hawks, including the Tea Party movement, it is also evident that the Republicans were making evident one more time (as though they needed more evidence) that their rhetoric about reaching out to make the party more diverse is just that, rhetoric. Ask the Hispanics. Or perhaps, some in the the party believe that having Michael Steele as party chairman is already more diversity than they want.
Remember Shirley Sherrod, the black woman forced just three weeks ago to resign her position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture when the media, the NAACP, and the Obama administration rushed to judgment about her supposed racist past. The issue got media "legs" when a right wing blogger , quickly followed by Fox News and other media, edited her remarks before an NAACP gathering supposedly showing that she was guilty of reverse racism by not helping a white farmer who was losing his farm almost 25 years ago. (At the time she was working for a private advocacy group.) When the unedited version of her remarks were heard, it was clear that she was not a black racist. To the contrary, it was an uplifting story of a woman who had exorcised her personal feelings and helped the white farmer save his farm.
Now, just three weeks later, we get a look at the flip side of the issue-- federal government discrimination against black farmers. This more familiar form of racial discrimination, white against black, came up last week as part of legislation before the Senate to compensate both Native Indians and black farmers for past injustices.
The proposal included $3.4 billion to go to Indians to compensate them for being cheated by the U.S. Department of Interior out of royalties on gas, oil, timber, and grazing rights on Indian lands. The money was to settle a 1999 class action lawsuit involving shorted funds owed them by the government since l887.
Another part of the same legislation would have provided $1 billion to compensate a group of black farmers for past discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the same Department that forced Shirley Sherrod to resign because of supposed reverse discrimination on her part. The government had already paid out about $1 billion to about 16,000 black farmers who had been denied various forms of assistance over the period l983 to 1997. The new funds were to compensate another group of black farmers who for various reasons, including claims of inadequate government notice and legal misrepresentation, had failed to file their claims before the deadline.
What stood out to this blogger was the frenzied rush to judgment in the Sherrod case by people who should have known better and checked the full facts, and their silence on the Indian and black farmers compensation payments. I guess the problem is that the media has become immunized on the problem of Republican partisanship on "to the barricades" issues of federal deficits and spending. It was just another case of GOP partisanship in blocking action on spending, as well as other legislation, regardless of the merits of what is involved. In the case of the Indians, Sen. John Barrasso (R.-Wy.), who has the Wind River Indian Reservation in his state, added that perhaps the Senate should also consider getting involved in a round of new settlement negotiations. As though the Senate needed still more hurdles on the legislative path.
But in addition to their continuous playing to the deficit hawks, including the Tea Party movement, it is also evident that the Republicans were making evident one more time (as though they needed more evidence) that their rhetoric about reaching out to make the party more diverse is just that, rhetoric. Ask the Hispanics. Or perhaps, some in the the party believe that having Michael Steele as party chairman is already more diversity than they want.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Repealing the 14th Amendment
ANOTHER SAD CHAPTER FOR THE GOP
It seems that the Tea Party movement can't help winning even as it loses.
The Tea Party lost two big ones very recently. A federal judge in Arizona ruled that those parts of the state's law to track down illegal immigrants violated federal policy and were therefore unconstitutional. That was followed this week by another federal judge, this time in California, ruling that Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in the state was also unconstitutional. In both cases, the legal process will likely be continued up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and therein lies the rub for the Tea Party whose activists have no desire to let the issues drop while waiting for higher courts to act.
Their major vehicle for activism is street demonstrations and the two decisions have created the opportunity for making a lot of new signs and new slogans to be vetted at the next outing. So for the Tea Party, the beat goes on even in the face of two important court judgments against two of their favorite causes--illegal immigration and gay rights.
But things have gotten even better for the Tea Party, and again it's immigration. This time it involves that part of the 14th amendment of the Constitution granting citizenship to anyone born in this country. There has been a right wing mumbling for some time about the need to amend the Constitution to get rid of that provision so children of illegal immigrants won't be automatically granted citizenship. The emphasis is on illegals and their children as though legal immigrants and voters have walled themselves off from their countrymen.
What was a low keyed issue from the right has now reached a higher decibel level with leading Republicans in the Senate taking up the cause. These include Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Senators John Kyl and John McCain of Arizona. Both Graham and McCain were previously supporters of comprehensive immigration reform that included a pathway for illegals to become legals. Outright repeal has little near or medium term prospects because of the difficult process for amending the Constitution. Hearings also are unlikely because of Democratic control of Congress, although GOP calls for such hearings, aided by right wing talk shows, can be loud and continuous, thus appealing to the Tea Party and its adherents.
But for the GOP, as pointed out by E. J. Dionne, Jr., in his column today (August 5) in the Washington Post, Republican underwriting of calls for repeal of or hearings on the 14th amendment is particularly sad because it was the Republican Party that put the amendment into the Constitution after the Civil War as a way to protect the rights of newly freed slaves. Dionne said it this way: "Dear Republicans, do you really want to endanger your party's greatest political legacy by turning the 14th Amendment to our Constitution into an excuse for election-year ugliness?"
However Dionne only taps into the beginning of the sad story. There's more to it and it is even uglier.
The blacks of this country gained their political toehold under Republican Party sponsorship starting with President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, followed by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments added to the Constitution by Republicans who controlled the post-Civil War Congresses. More than that, it was the national Republican Party through the use of federal troops and a partnership of "carpetbaggers" (northerners going into the south to help the freed blacks or to make a profit) and "scalawags" (pro-federal reconstruction southerners, a definite minority) that secured the vote for the newly freed slaves and guaranteed Republican control of the government in nearly all southern states.
Unfortunately for the blacks of the south, as it became evident to the Republican Party that continued sponsorship of the black vote meant the loss of long term GOP survival in the south, the blacks were progressively abandoned by their sponsors. To try to maintain its position in the politics of the south, the Republican Party allowed the slow choking off of the black vote through fraud and corruption by southern Democrats who were slowly regaining control of local and state offices. Such fraud and corruption were not prevented by the federal Constitution which only established the rights, but allowed the specifics of election laws and practices to remain in the hands of state and local governments. (That was finally changed by various post-World War II laws, court rulings, and the 24th amendment abolishing the poll tax. The Voting Rights Act of l965 became the final and crucial piece of law, giving the federal government the last word over state and local voting procedures in states with a history of voting discrimination.It was the l965 law which finally gave blacks great political clout in the south.)
The l870s saw the final abandonment by the Republican Party of the southern black vote. First, it was evident that the Republican Party was hated by most of the white conservative south (an overwhelming majority of whites) because it was indeed perceived as the patron of the former slaves. Thus there was little chance that the GOP could maintain any kind of political viability in the south. Second, the financial panic of l873 re-directed the Republican Party to its primary orientation, the financial and business interests. And finally, to break an electoral deadlock in the election of l876, Republicans made a deal with conservative southern Democrats now back in Congress, that in exchange for Democratic support to seal the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes as President, the new administration would pull the last federal troops out of the south.
The withdrawal of these troops led to the final spectacle of the political disenfrancisement of the blacks and enactment of a variety of Jim Crow laws to segregate the political, cultural, economic,and social life of the south. Layered on top of this was outright physical intimidation of blacks seeking to cast their vote and lynchings of blacks who were seen crossing strict racial segregation lines.
So witnessing today the Republican disregard for Hispanic interests should come as no shock since the GOP has a previous history of similar action with blacks when it comes to political self-interest. And it is another example of how the Tea Party has driven the Republican Party farther to the right.
It seems that the Tea Party movement can't help winning even as it loses.
The Tea Party lost two big ones very recently. A federal judge in Arizona ruled that those parts of the state's law to track down illegal immigrants violated federal policy and were therefore unconstitutional. That was followed this week by another federal judge, this time in California, ruling that Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in the state was also unconstitutional. In both cases, the legal process will likely be continued up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and therein lies the rub for the Tea Party whose activists have no desire to let the issues drop while waiting for higher courts to act.
Their major vehicle for activism is street demonstrations and the two decisions have created the opportunity for making a lot of new signs and new slogans to be vetted at the next outing. So for the Tea Party, the beat goes on even in the face of two important court judgments against two of their favorite causes--illegal immigration and gay rights.
But things have gotten even better for the Tea Party, and again it's immigration. This time it involves that part of the 14th amendment of the Constitution granting citizenship to anyone born in this country. There has been a right wing mumbling for some time about the need to amend the Constitution to get rid of that provision so children of illegal immigrants won't be automatically granted citizenship. The emphasis is on illegals and their children as though legal immigrants and voters have walled themselves off from their countrymen.
What was a low keyed issue from the right has now reached a higher decibel level with leading Republicans in the Senate taking up the cause. These include Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Senators John Kyl and John McCain of Arizona. Both Graham and McCain were previously supporters of comprehensive immigration reform that included a pathway for illegals to become legals. Outright repeal has little near or medium term prospects because of the difficult process for amending the Constitution. Hearings also are unlikely because of Democratic control of Congress, although GOP calls for such hearings, aided by right wing talk shows, can be loud and continuous, thus appealing to the Tea Party and its adherents.
But for the GOP, as pointed out by E. J. Dionne, Jr., in his column today (August 5) in the Washington Post, Republican underwriting of calls for repeal of or hearings on the 14th amendment is particularly sad because it was the Republican Party that put the amendment into the Constitution after the Civil War as a way to protect the rights of newly freed slaves. Dionne said it this way: "Dear Republicans, do you really want to endanger your party's greatest political legacy by turning the 14th Amendment to our Constitution into an excuse for election-year ugliness?"
However Dionne only taps into the beginning of the sad story. There's more to it and it is even uglier.
The blacks of this country gained their political toehold under Republican Party sponsorship starting with President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, followed by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments added to the Constitution by Republicans who controlled the post-Civil War Congresses. More than that, it was the national Republican Party through the use of federal troops and a partnership of "carpetbaggers" (northerners going into the south to help the freed blacks or to make a profit) and "scalawags" (pro-federal reconstruction southerners, a definite minority) that secured the vote for the newly freed slaves and guaranteed Republican control of the government in nearly all southern states.
Unfortunately for the blacks of the south, as it became evident to the Republican Party that continued sponsorship of the black vote meant the loss of long term GOP survival in the south, the blacks were progressively abandoned by their sponsors. To try to maintain its position in the politics of the south, the Republican Party allowed the slow choking off of the black vote through fraud and corruption by southern Democrats who were slowly regaining control of local and state offices. Such fraud and corruption were not prevented by the federal Constitution which only established the rights, but allowed the specifics of election laws and practices to remain in the hands of state and local governments. (That was finally changed by various post-World War II laws, court rulings, and the 24th amendment abolishing the poll tax. The Voting Rights Act of l965 became the final and crucial piece of law, giving the federal government the last word over state and local voting procedures in states with a history of voting discrimination.It was the l965 law which finally gave blacks great political clout in the south.)
The l870s saw the final abandonment by the Republican Party of the southern black vote. First, it was evident that the Republican Party was hated by most of the white conservative south (an overwhelming majority of whites) because it was indeed perceived as the patron of the former slaves. Thus there was little chance that the GOP could maintain any kind of political viability in the south. Second, the financial panic of l873 re-directed the Republican Party to its primary orientation, the financial and business interests. And finally, to break an electoral deadlock in the election of l876, Republicans made a deal with conservative southern Democrats now back in Congress, that in exchange for Democratic support to seal the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes as President, the new administration would pull the last federal troops out of the south.
The withdrawal of these troops led to the final spectacle of the political disenfrancisement of the blacks and enactment of a variety of Jim Crow laws to segregate the political, cultural, economic,and social life of the south. Layered on top of this was outright physical intimidation of blacks seeking to cast their vote and lynchings of blacks who were seen crossing strict racial segregation lines.
So witnessing today the Republican disregard for Hispanic interests should come as no shock since the GOP has a previous history of similar action with blacks when it comes to political self-interest. And it is another example of how the Tea Party has driven the Republican Party farther to the right.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
MIRROR, MIRROR, ON THE WALL
A MEANINGFUL REMINDER
In a few of my earlier postings, I made the point that this blog was inspired by this year being the 50th anniversary of John Steinbeck's three month journey around the United States to gain new perspectives on how the country had changed. The trip resulted in his best selling book TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY, his French poodle who made the journey with him. There is something about the 50th anniversary of anything that makes one want to take stock of what happened over the half century that has passed. My first blog on political discussion and two later ones on race and immigration took a look at where we were according to TRAVELS and how we got to where we are on those topics. This 50-years-later approach has a new subject, one not contemplated by Steinbeck.
CNN has picked this month to note the 50th anniversary for 17 African nations freeing themselves from colonialism. The history of colonialism is a long one, but not a pretty one. CNN's report focused on the l884-85 Berlin Conference when Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and Germany divided up much of the African continent. "They believed they were bringing civilization to 'savage' people' ", according to Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society in Britain.
World War I put an end to Germany as a colonial power. World War II sounded the death knell for all of the European colonialists with the Japanese conquests of British, Dutch, French, and American territories in Asia and the Pacific basin. (It should be noted that President Franklin Roosevelt believed that colonialism should end, a position that put him at odds with Winston Churchill who was determined to restore the empire at the end of the war.) The Japanese victories put an end to the myth of white supremacy over non-whites, a view which was extended to Africa. Ending colonialism did not come easy. For the Philippines it was a peaceful transition to independence in l946. But in places like French Indo-China, British Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies, it took armed conflicts to make the change, even though the European powers could no longer afford their colonial empires.
While colonialism has virtually disappeared, it has a significant hold on memories and has been resurrected as a charge by some against American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. (And some like Presidents Ahmadinejad of Iran and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela have labeled it imperialism.) We are perceived by some important elements in Iraq and Afghanistan as trying to impose a new colonialism through military invasion and under the guise of nation building--featuring democracy. Nation building as a goal, most clearly pronounced by former President George W. Bush as one of the reasons for invading Iraq, has failed and been abandoned as U.S. policy, but it is not easy to shed the charge of colonialism.
In winding down (present and future) our role and commitments in the two countries, we will be leaving behind thousands of American troops to carry out multiple tasks. (Under an agreement between Bush and the Iraqi government, we are to have all troops out by the end of 2011.) Meanwhile, we stress that troops left in Iraq are to have non-combatant roles, but if one of the remaining tasks to be performed is counterterrorism operations, then combat in some form seems likely to occur. And it is not difficult to imagine in our defining who the terrorists are, we could be accused of battling with persons or groups legitimately seeking to throw out a government which we support. And in carrying out the task to train and equip security forces, we may be perceived as propping up a governance structure and particular office holders that are rejected by other segments of the population.
Thus, in noting CNN's commemoration of the end of colonialism in Africa a half century ago, we must consider the issue of colonialism within the newer context of our roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. To view colonialism this way means not how WE see our goals and commitments to pursue these goals (it's certainly not to bring civilization to savage people), but how we are perceived by diverse, important elements in these countries, in the region, and worldwide. I'm not sure that officials in this country forming and implementing our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan are good at taking this view. We often having difficulty in accepting that our national interests are not the only interests at stake; other nations have their own interests to be served and those interests may run directly counter to ours. We only have to think about sanctioning Iran for pursuing its nuclear ambitions to see the array of other national interests on that issue. And in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we have seen and will continue to see the falling off of troop support from our allies who are feeling the political pressure at home as their body counts increase.
To close on a quote by Robert Burns, "O wad some power the giftie gie us to see oursel's as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us."
In a few of my earlier postings, I made the point that this blog was inspired by this year being the 50th anniversary of John Steinbeck's three month journey around the United States to gain new perspectives on how the country had changed. The trip resulted in his best selling book TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY, his French poodle who made the journey with him. There is something about the 50th anniversary of anything that makes one want to take stock of what happened over the half century that has passed. My first blog on political discussion and two later ones on race and immigration took a look at where we were according to TRAVELS and how we got to where we are on those topics. This 50-years-later approach has a new subject, one not contemplated by Steinbeck.
CNN has picked this month to note the 50th anniversary for 17 African nations freeing themselves from colonialism. The history of colonialism is a long one, but not a pretty one. CNN's report focused on the l884-85 Berlin Conference when Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and Germany divided up much of the African continent. "They believed they were bringing civilization to 'savage' people' ", according to Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society in Britain.
World War I put an end to Germany as a colonial power. World War II sounded the death knell for all of the European colonialists with the Japanese conquests of British, Dutch, French, and American territories in Asia and the Pacific basin. (It should be noted that President Franklin Roosevelt believed that colonialism should end, a position that put him at odds with Winston Churchill who was determined to restore the empire at the end of the war.) The Japanese victories put an end to the myth of white supremacy over non-whites, a view which was extended to Africa. Ending colonialism did not come easy. For the Philippines it was a peaceful transition to independence in l946. But in places like French Indo-China, British Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies, it took armed conflicts to make the change, even though the European powers could no longer afford their colonial empires.
While colonialism has virtually disappeared, it has a significant hold on memories and has been resurrected as a charge by some against American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. (And some like Presidents Ahmadinejad of Iran and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela have labeled it imperialism.) We are perceived by some important elements in Iraq and Afghanistan as trying to impose a new colonialism through military invasion and under the guise of nation building--featuring democracy. Nation building as a goal, most clearly pronounced by former President George W. Bush as one of the reasons for invading Iraq, has failed and been abandoned as U.S. policy, but it is not easy to shed the charge of colonialism.
In winding down (present and future) our role and commitments in the two countries, we will be leaving behind thousands of American troops to carry out multiple tasks. (Under an agreement between Bush and the Iraqi government, we are to have all troops out by the end of 2011.) Meanwhile, we stress that troops left in Iraq are to have non-combatant roles, but if one of the remaining tasks to be performed is counterterrorism operations, then combat in some form seems likely to occur. And it is not difficult to imagine in our defining who the terrorists are, we could be accused of battling with persons or groups legitimately seeking to throw out a government which we support. And in carrying out the task to train and equip security forces, we may be perceived as propping up a governance structure and particular office holders that are rejected by other segments of the population.
Thus, in noting CNN's commemoration of the end of colonialism in Africa a half century ago, we must consider the issue of colonialism within the newer context of our roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. To view colonialism this way means not how WE see our goals and commitments to pursue these goals (it's certainly not to bring civilization to savage people), but how we are perceived by diverse, important elements in these countries, in the region, and worldwide. I'm not sure that officials in this country forming and implementing our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan are good at taking this view. We often having difficulty in accepting that our national interests are not the only interests at stake; other nations have their own interests to be served and those interests may run directly counter to ours. We only have to think about sanctioning Iran for pursuing its nuclear ambitions to see the array of other national interests on that issue. And in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we have seen and will continue to see the falling off of troop support from our allies who are feeling the political pressure at home as their body counts increase.
To close on a quote by Robert Burns, "O wad some power the giftie gie us to see oursel's as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us."
Sunday, August 1, 2010
BEYOND NATION BUILDING?
BEYOND NATION BUILDING?
Vice President Joe Biden recently stated, or re-stated, that nation building is no longer an objective of American foreign/military policy. Nation building as a national policy reached its apogee with the invasion of Iraq to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein and, as one goal, to implant a democracy in the middle of the Muslim Mideast. A similar impulse accompanied the invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the repressive Taliban regime which was also hosting the al-Qaida terrorists who conceived and executed the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.
The unending political and military frustrations of both Iraq and Afghanistan have forced the abandonment of nation building as a policy package for export. But we still hope to leave behind a viable political entity backed by security forces trained and equipped, up to a point, by the United States and its allies. The question is: can even this reduced goal be successfully accomplished?
There are many reasons to believe that our departure as military guarantors of regimes in these two countries will end up as the status quo ante our intervention. That is, in Iraq, there is a considerable likelihood that there will be a return to the old Sunni-Shia warfare, with the Kurds standing on the sidelines hoping just to be in control of their region and oil in the north. In Afghanistan, return to the status quo ante means a country divided up among warlords who reject any central control. Into this mix may be added the possible return of the Taliban and its record of brutalizing the population, particularly women.
National Security Advisor General James Jones was recently quoted as saying, "The Taliban generally as a group has never signed on to the global jihad business and doesn't seem to have ambitions beyond its region." If that is the one dimensional measure of acceptability for getting a segment of the Taliban to the bargaining table and having it participate in governing as a prelude to our exit, then we may indeed see a return to some horrific previous times. A very recent TIME magazine article serves to remind us of what that pre-2001 time was like with Taliban rule.
If this is an approximation of what may well lie ahead in Afghanistan, then perhaps a quote from Confucius may be in order: "Study the past, if you would divine the future". The use of analogies is always hazardous, but to gain a shadowy image of possible future scenarios in Afghanistan, an illustration might be useful.
The idea of finding an agreeable segment of the Taliban to share in governance has echoes from l933 Germany. The Weimar Republic was in a shambles with former Chancellors Kurt von Schleicher and Franz von Papen intriguing, against each other, to return to power. The Nazi party was the single largest party in the Reichstag but it was unable to get its thuggery accepted by the electorate to give it a parliamentary majority and the Chancellorship. Von Papen, a long time political schemer and manipulator, had the idea of bringing Adolf Hitler into the government as Chancellor, with von Papen as Vice Chancellor, and surrounding Hitler with a cabinet and the major ministries dominated by anti-Nazis. In that way Hitler could be controlled while von Papen exercised the real power. President Hindenburg, who referred to Hitler as "that Austrian corporal" (Hitler's rank in World War I), reluctantly went along with the plan and appointed Hitler as Chancellor. Today no one has gotten so far as to define the nature of Taliban participation in any future Afghan governance, but it is not too difficult to imagine that in the back of some minds lurks a Hitler/von Papen model. And we all know how that turned out.
Unfortunately, the United States and its western allies have a "can do" engineering mentality and believe there is a solution to every problem, in political terms a solution based on western experience with democracy and values. All we have to do, like von Papen, is to engineer the right political architecture for a settlement. Then we can create and leave behind a government in which we have influence for guiding the future, but not responsibility for governance and/or military security. But it may turn out that we will have an opposite result. We will be perceived as responsible for whatever goes wrong but have little or no influence in the correcting the problems. The Taliban is part of the central problem, but even with proper manipulation, can it be a part of the engineered kind of solution we desire? It may indeed be part of a solution for shedding our burdens and getting out of Afghanistan, but if it is true that "what's past is prologue", it is not a long-term solution to the problem of western-defined stability in that country. Are we the von Papen and Hindenburg for Afghanistan? Going back to an earlier blog (July 19), "the existence of a problem does not presume the existence of a solution", or at least the kind of solution we have in mind.
Vice President Joe Biden recently stated, or re-stated, that nation building is no longer an objective of American foreign/military policy. Nation building as a national policy reached its apogee with the invasion of Iraq to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein and, as one goal, to implant a democracy in the middle of the Muslim Mideast. A similar impulse accompanied the invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the repressive Taliban regime which was also hosting the al-Qaida terrorists who conceived and executed the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.
The unending political and military frustrations of both Iraq and Afghanistan have forced the abandonment of nation building as a policy package for export. But we still hope to leave behind a viable political entity backed by security forces trained and equipped, up to a point, by the United States and its allies. The question is: can even this reduced goal be successfully accomplished?
There are many reasons to believe that our departure as military guarantors of regimes in these two countries will end up as the status quo ante our intervention. That is, in Iraq, there is a considerable likelihood that there will be a return to the old Sunni-Shia warfare, with the Kurds standing on the sidelines hoping just to be in control of their region and oil in the north. In Afghanistan, return to the status quo ante means a country divided up among warlords who reject any central control. Into this mix may be added the possible return of the Taliban and its record of brutalizing the population, particularly women.
National Security Advisor General James Jones was recently quoted as saying, "The Taliban generally as a group has never signed on to the global jihad business and doesn't seem to have ambitions beyond its region." If that is the one dimensional measure of acceptability for getting a segment of the Taliban to the bargaining table and having it participate in governing as a prelude to our exit, then we may indeed see a return to some horrific previous times. A very recent TIME magazine article serves to remind us of what that pre-2001 time was like with Taliban rule.
If this is an approximation of what may well lie ahead in Afghanistan, then perhaps a quote from Confucius may be in order: "Study the past, if you would divine the future". The use of analogies is always hazardous, but to gain a shadowy image of possible future scenarios in Afghanistan, an illustration might be useful.
The idea of finding an agreeable segment of the Taliban to share in governance has echoes from l933 Germany. The Weimar Republic was in a shambles with former Chancellors Kurt von Schleicher and Franz von Papen intriguing, against each other, to return to power. The Nazi party was the single largest party in the Reichstag but it was unable to get its thuggery accepted by the electorate to give it a parliamentary majority and the Chancellorship. Von Papen, a long time political schemer and manipulator, had the idea of bringing Adolf Hitler into the government as Chancellor, with von Papen as Vice Chancellor, and surrounding Hitler with a cabinet and the major ministries dominated by anti-Nazis. In that way Hitler could be controlled while von Papen exercised the real power. President Hindenburg, who referred to Hitler as "that Austrian corporal" (Hitler's rank in World War I), reluctantly went along with the plan and appointed Hitler as Chancellor. Today no one has gotten so far as to define the nature of Taliban participation in any future Afghan governance, but it is not too difficult to imagine that in the back of some minds lurks a Hitler/von Papen model. And we all know how that turned out.
Unfortunately, the United States and its western allies have a "can do" engineering mentality and believe there is a solution to every problem, in political terms a solution based on western experience with democracy and values. All we have to do, like von Papen, is to engineer the right political architecture for a settlement. Then we can create and leave behind a government in which we have influence for guiding the future, but not responsibility for governance and/or military security. But it may turn out that we will have an opposite result. We will be perceived as responsible for whatever goes wrong but have little or no influence in the correcting the problems. The Taliban is part of the central problem, but even with proper manipulation, can it be a part of the engineered kind of solution we desire? It may indeed be part of a solution for shedding our burdens and getting out of Afghanistan, but if it is true that "what's past is prologue", it is not a long-term solution to the problem of western-defined stability in that country. Are we the von Papen and Hindenburg for Afghanistan? Going back to an earlier blog (July 19), "the existence of a problem does not presume the existence of a solution", or at least the kind of solution we have in mind.
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