Tom and Joe Are Cranky Neighbors

Ten Rooms and a Beach Chair

by Joseph E. Thompson

I don’t want a ten-room house in Richmond or anywhere else in the Berkshires. In fact, I can’t understand why anyone would. The very idea of driving two or three hours each way to spend a weekend strikes me as just dumb. On the other hand, if someone offered me a ten-room house on my own harbor island with my own boat or helicopter, I certainly wouldn’t turn him down. So what’s the kerfuffle about Deval Patrick’s vacation home in Richmond?

It started when the Boston Globe, with active assistance from the Reilly campaign, apparently thinking ten rooms was too modest to serve its transparent purpose, increased its size to twenty-four rooms. (Even Jesus was humble enough to stick to loaves and fishes.) The Globe retracted, of course, but it took six weeks and a lot of interim damage before they did. Being of limited intelligence, I couldn’t figure it out. (The Globe's retraction did nothing do slow down Reilly: he's taken to calling Patrick's summer house "the Taj Deval.")

Kerry Healey retreats to her lavish estate in Beverly Farms; Chris Gabrieli, when not ensconced in his Louisburg Square Mansion, relaxes on his own comfortable spread in Beverly Farms. Even Tom Reilly, the self-touted commonest of common men, owns a quiet, tasteful little home in Wellfleet. Perhaps the splashing from private beaches and the purr of Mercedes from gated driveways are sounds too subtle to reach our plebeian ears, but beyond the aforementioned grueling commute, why should Mr. Patrick’s vacation home be the only one worthy of comment?

I think it is because Mr. Patrick is different from other wealthy candidates in ways that Reilly and the Globe do not want to talk about. Patrick came by his resources honestly;he got where he is playing by the rules he not make. He did not inherit his money.  He did not marry it. He worked for it. His seat at Milton Academy was not a legacy conferred upon him by a father whose father donated a bronze-plated skating rink so his progeny could flourish. Harvard owed neither Patrick nor his forebears, but it admitted him, and he acquitted himself well enough to go on to Harvard Law and to fulfill the American dream of making enough money to be able to afford to give a bit back. Yet, he is singled out for doing neither more nor less than we would do and hope our children would do after us.

So why is Patrick’s wealth being raised as a potential liability, while Gabrieli’s is seen as an asset? How is it that Patrick’s vacation home is a topic but not Healey’s? Is there an elephant in the room that has escaped me? Is it possible that his having gone to Harvard permanently excludes him from the Suffolk–Boston College club that has ruled State House bars for a century? Is Patrick’s money just too new?  Does it make him, alone among the four well-heeled candidates seeking the governor's office, unable to connect with "people like us?"

The fact is that this vacation home thing is a non-issue consistently raised by an opponent and a newspaper with nothing else to talk about. It does not appear to have much gotten much traction accept among those Reilly supporters who think it will catch their guy before his candidacy finally and mercifully hits the pavement.

But Tom Reilly cannot leave the issue alone, any more than he can stop Swift-boating Patrick by charging that his efforts to reform Ameriquest amount to condoning their past behavior.  Reilly can only go (falsely) negative in this race because his only basis for running is entitlement. Otherwise, all he has is old-boy credentials and his firm belief that those and his modest Watertown apartment, entitle him to the governorship. His only other substantive issue positions, aside from his tax-cutting mantra, have been lifted almost verbatim from his opponents.  In league with his allies at the Globe, he seems to have made the calculation that the only road to victory in September is to exploit the feelings of some voters that one man’s success is another’s diminution.

But, like Patrick, I think better of the voters than Mr. Reilly does. I suspect that the reason Mr. Patrick’s message is resonating across the state is because the citizens of Massachusetts are smarter than Reilly thinks they are. They want to leave the old tired politics of the past and embrace the hope of the future.

Clearly, that hope doesn’t reside in who’s got how much, or who would prefer the Berkshires to Beverly Farms or the Cape. (Frankly, I'd pick Winthrop for the commute.) It doesn’t hinge upon who has been around the longest or how much scotch he can hoist with the old boys. Hope, by any practical measure relies on our capacity to understand our problems and to come together to solve them. It’s time for the old boys to do what old boys do: sit in their beach chairs and wait for the tide to come in. Perhaps Reilly should winterize Wellfleet.

Galbraith, Cambridge and the Salesman

by Joseph E. Thompson

As I understand the underlying principles of  John Kenneth Galbraith’s economic philosophy, it is necessary for the government to intervene in the economic affairs of the nation to promote the common good. He also felt strongly that, that having been said, the system achiefes that goal through contravening forces that balance each other – again for the general benefit. Economically, the three basic power centers, always in tension, are: unions, industry and the government.

As I have laid it out, Galbraith’s theory is missing a key element. In order for any of these institutions to work to the common good, it must have the confidence of the people it seeks to benefit. If we have no faith in government, for example, we can hardly be expected to trust it to look after our interests, and certainly should resist putting our hard-earned money into its coffers.

It could be said that industry can be trusted to perform its mission, becasue the mission seesm so straightforward and easily measured: to amass profits for its stockholders. But that turns out not be true. Beyond the Enron scandal, what is becoming clear is that industry is becoming little more than a paycheck for its titans – much at the expense of the American worker. CEO compensation has moved from a total of 35 times the salary of the average paid employee in 1978 to 500 times that margin currently. Much of this is reward for “off-shoring” jobs, skilled and other. By and large, the federal government has actively reinforced this assault on the worker. Not only has it promulgated tax cuts for the very rich, but it has entrenched wealth by further cutting estate taxes and allowing obscene CEO compensation to go largely untaxed.   The impetus for this shift has come primarily from Republicans, but a number of Democrats, both in the Clinton administration and in Congress, have been active collaborators.      But if the economy is growing at a healthy pace, there should be plenty of money to go around, right?

Not if you talk to one of my customers. He is a successful, college-educated salesman for a radio conglomerate. He told me that immediately after his company was sold, his new CEO waltzed on in to announce that their commissions were to be immediately halved. He said, “I have here a stable of Porches; but for every one of you, I can buy three Mustangs.” When my young friend finished telling me his story, he became rather reflective and said, “You know, the American dream used to be that you worked hard, got paid and lived happy. Now it is: you work twice as hard, make half as much, and make the boss really rich.” Sound familiar?

In the past – and certainly in the Galbraith model, one of the forces that kept corporate excesses in check was a vigorous trade union movement.  It’s certainly true that organized labor has been unfairly pummeled by hostile forces – but it’s undeniable that unions have played a significant role in their own decline.  They, too, are losing the confidence of the larger society, in part because of their excesses both in strangling their companies and intimidating their members. From the time I was sixteen in the grocery store to my final days as an executive, I have either been a member of, or a business opponent of, unions. As a boy I watched as a vocal opponent of a strike was beaten by union thugs. As a man I saw how Teamster bosses were either paid off, or closed any company that refused to bribe them. I know how some unions, infiltrated and corrupted by organized crime, actually murdered people. I saw that their corruption grew with their rising institutional importance for their membership and for the society at large – and I saw how badly government bungled the tricky but essential mission of cleaning up the unions without breaking them.

As for the bond of trust between ordinary Americans and their government, we have only to look at New Orleans to see what the government thinks of its people, and heaven knows that Tom has outlined Republican corruption and distaste for the poor and middle classes. But he has, good liberal that he is, left out the People’s Republic of Cambridge. Only this week the city council made Cambridge a “sanctuary city.” That means that police cannot approach a person with the intent of discovering his legal status in the country. They broke the law getting here, but who cares? They are poor and hard working and deserve a break – a law break to be precise.  More about that in my next post.

So working people rightly or wrongly assume that rich people like O.J. can get away with murder, illegals can march on in and take our jobs, and government and business can export both our jobs and capital to make a quick hundred million for their children to spend on illegal nannies.

What is to be expected when virtually every institutional segment of society appears to have aligned against the middle and lower classes in an effort to promote the interests of the very rich? A siege mentality, selfishness, and resentment. If government, unions and business are failing me, who can I look to beyond myself? If I must look to myself, why shouldn’t you? If no one is helping me, why should I or anyone else help you?

The pity of it is, of course, that, in the absence of real leadership from any part of the political spectrum, resentment is directed toward the weakest, and as the middle classes spiral downward, they think their only hope is to become as obscenely rich as those who hold them back.

Galbraith then becomes an anachronism – quaint in some views – Cambridge continues to give liberalism a bad name, and my friend the salesman? He probably is rethinking the American Dream. He is telling himself that the only way to get ahead is for the screwed to do the screwing.

Olla Podrida

By Thomas P. Champion

Some of you may be asking yourselves, “Olla Podrida?” I didn’t encounter the term myself until I was working at MIT in the late ‘90s: my Institute colleague Michael Baenen preferred it to such near-synonyms as “potpourri,” “this’n’that” or the earthier but quite serviceable “pig’s breakfast.” The phrase is Spanish for “rotten pot,” and here’s how it’s defined by Webster’s Online:

1. A rich highly seasoned stew of meat and vegetables usually including sausage and chick-peas that is slowly simmered and is a traditional Spanish and Latin-American dish
2. HODGEPODGE

Okay, enough with the pedantry.  All I’m trying to say is that any post entitled “olla podrida” is going to be a collection of items with no particular connection to one another.  (I can hear Joe now, telling me to get to the goddamn point.)

When the Media Misses the Point, Part 3,474 – Enthusiastic followers of Josh Marshall and other progressive bloggers know that the continuing, spreading underlying corruption scandals in Washington include not only the Republican Congress but also large swathes of the Bush administration.  I’m not talking here about the Valerie Plame outing, or the cooked WMD intelligence, or the secret torture prisons, or the unconstitutional wiretapping.  I’m talking about M-O-N-E-Y.  I’m talking about bribes, and fraud and cronyism and the looting of the government for personal gain and influence.

There is good evidence that some of the same people involved in bribing GOP congressmen and senators to earmark money for favored contractors are directly connected to the awarding of huge no-bid contracts to politically connected firms – most notably Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton– for work to be done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Louisiana, Mississippi and other places that the Bush administration has been spending big money.  Some of the work done under those contracts was mismanaged, fraudulent or substandard – billions (with a “b”) of dollars have simply disappeared.

Word has been circulating for months that the scandal might well include figures in the Defense Department, the White House and the intelligence community – but when former GOP Congressman Porter Goss resigned abruptly and without explanation from his post as CIA director – and on a Friday afternoon, too – the cable TV news operations had great difficulty acknowledging the well-sourced allegations that some of Goss’ staff (both in Congress and at Langley – because it’s pretty much the same bunch of folks) were deeply implicated in what is now semi-officially known as “hookergate.”

Of course, now that prostitutes are involved, we can expect more interest from the knights of the fourth estate – sex sells – but their reluctance to make an immediate connection between Goss’ resignation and the “rotten pot” of the Mitchell Wade-MZM-BrentWilkes scandals is itself pretty scandalous.  As the weekend has worn on, more and more media outlets have been ready to write or talk about the obvious role that scandal seems to be playing in the unraveling of the Goss Era at the CIA – but much of the talk still seems to be revolving around policy differences and jockeying for position rather than revelations of bribery, fraud, theft and insider dealing on an unprecedented scale.  Whatever happened to "follow the money?".

Timid little creatures, the media giants: they’ve dug far more deeply into the Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway tragedies than into the great national corruption scandal that has engulfed us all.

Wanted:  A Hard-Edged Happy Warrior – Democrats may yet regain the subpoena power by taking back the House and/or Senate in 2006.  If they do, they will be faced with such a huge backlog of investigative priorities that it will be hard to know where to begin.  (War profiteering alone could keep them busy for months.)  Their chances of winning big in 2006 would be immeasurably enhanced, however, by finding a cheerful, focused leader who could give voice to the increasingly militant mood of the nation’s progressives.  The closest we have to such a voice these days is Al Gore – yes, I’m serious, Al Gore – but he’s not running and he carries heavy baggage.  As my father recently pointed out to me over lunch,  what the Democrats need is someone who can say the following words without slipping into a high-pitched tone of righteous indignation:

“In terms of dead and injured, in terms of dollars wasted, in terms of our national prestige and our armed might, in terms of our economy and our overall fiscal health, the Iraq War has been far more damaging to the United States, physically and psychically, than the 9/11 attacks.  George W. Bush has done more harm to this nation than Osama bin Laden could ever achieve in his wildest dreams.  When it comes to eliminating the threat of global terrorism and creating a safer, more stable world, we're worse off now than we were after 9/11. If we’re a nation at war, then George Bush is on the wrong side.”

It’s a hard truth, but it’s the truth.  It’s the patriotic thing to say.  It’s the best way to support our troops in the field and fight the global war on terror.   Now we need someone to say it.  Think we’ll ever hear those words from a Democratic presidential hopeful or from the senior Democratic leadership in Congress?  Me neither.

One More Reason I Work for Joe Curtatone – As I’ve mentioned in the past, I now work as communications director for the City of Somerville.  It’s a job that eats up nearly every waking hour, and is the reason that I so seldom post these days.  But here’s the deal: public leaders with vision, guts and compassion are hard to find (see above), and we have a moral obligation to support them when we can.

Somerville is a city of immigrants – about one third of our city’s roughly 78,000 residents (many of them now citizens and quite a few of them elderly) were born outside the U.S.  It should, therefore, come as no surprise that Mayor Curtatone has been drawn into the great national debate over immigration policy.

In strictly operational terms, his policy is intensely practical: a city like Somerville can’t work unless its immigrant population feels that it can trust and collaborate with city officials.  A mayor can’t fight drugs and crime, maintain public health, or improve public education if his city’s immigrant residents are afraid that they’ll be hassled over documentation by local officials.  Besides, Somerville doesn’t have the law enforcement manpower to crack down on illegal immigrants: unless immigrants commit a crime against persons or property, or break some other local law, the police can’t afford to devote time to their possible violations of national immigration regulations.

But that’s not why Joe Curtatone won’t join in the immigrant-bashing that’s sweeping the country (cynically fomented by Republicans looking for another gay-marriage-style social issue that will help distract voters from the GOP’s morally and financially bankrupt – and manifestly failed – record of governance).

No, what the mayor tells people is that his parents came from Gaeta, Italy and he’s proud of his immigrant heritage.  He doesn’t think it’s fair that the current system makes it so easy to get into the country illegally but almost impossible to get in legally. He says that, just as they were in his parents’ day, the overwhelming majority of immigrants today are decent, hardworking people who help the city flourish.  He says Somerville is a city of hope, and he wants it to stay that way.

The local radio talk merchants and rabble-rousers have taken note of the mayor’s position.  As a result, we’ve had to cope over the last week with a steady stream of hate-mail and angry phone calls.   And you know what?  It’s an honor.

Tom Reilly: Republican for Governor

Joseph E. Thompson

Tom Reilly said in the first gubernatorial debate that Bush and Cheney were hardly politicians to emulate. So why is he doing it with such gusto himself?

The modus operendi of the Republicans runs something like this: When you have nothing to say on the issues, attach the person who does. Not  his positions, but his character. When your ideas bordor on lunacy, attack the other guy with buzzwords, catch phrases and clichés. The Reilly/ Boston Globe team of assassins has taken a chapter directly from Karl Rove’s playbook.

It became clear from listening to Reilly, that whatever he wants for the citizens of the Commonwealth, which seems  very little, indeed, is to take a back seat to what he wants for himself.  While the other two candidates were talking about education, energy independence, and economic development, Reilly piped in with tax return releases. While the other two candidates wanted to discuss how to move the state forward, Reilly wanted to know how much money Deval Patrick made from Ameriquest. It speaks of conflict, he said.

You gotta hand to him; that’s a smoke screen even Bush would have been proud of. Reilly has served two terms as the state’s attorney general. In charge of prosecuting, or not prosecuting, anyone from a minor thief to a corporate executive. Yet he has never released his own tax records. He has a house on the Cape – his only real estate – and he opposes Cape Wind. Sounds like a conflict to me. His coffers are full of contributions from rich donors, many of whom have real estate on Nantucket or the Vineyard. Conflict anyone? The elderly on the Cape can pay through their dripping noses to heat their homes, or they can freeze, but who cares so long as Reilly’s buddies have a clear view Nantucket Sound. The state could lead the way in alternative energy technology, but that’s not as important as Reilly’s property value or fair sailing for his friends. But, according to him, we should be more concerned with Gabrieli and Patrick’s incomes. Shouldn’t we be equally concerned about an attorney general who intervenes in a criminal investigation to help out a friend? That shows what a man does when there really is a conflict. We can talk about judgment and Marie St. Fleur, but why bother? Reilly – the man who would be king – has already admitted he is not really good at the political stuff.

Typical of the Bush, Cheney, Rove troika, Reilly wants to cut taxes. Three tenths of one percent. He knows that means nothing in real numbers, but in case you don’t:

Income:      Current Tax   Reilly plan Net Gain
$500.000 $26500            $25000      $1500
$100,000  $5300               $5000        $300
$60,000    $3180               $3000        $180
$40,000    $2120               $2000        $120 
 
So the central issue of Reilly’s campaign is to save a person earning 60,000 dollars per year three dollars and forty six cents per week. Of course, if you are reporting a half a million-dollar income, you get 28.85. And, let’s face it, those people really need it.

How does this jive with Reilly’s poor boy line of crap? Cities like the one he grew up in are starving. Springfield and Holyoke are basket cases, and so are many other cities – languishing from cuts in state aid. Reilly knows very well that cites and towns compensated for those cuts by cutting services and or raising taxes. What are those services? Schools, police, trash pick up. Athletics, after school programs, elderly services. The things directly related to the health, protection and future of our people, our poorest people. But Reilly cares far less about them than paying for his rich friends’ latte every morning. Actually, he doesn’t give a tinker’s dam about any of it, as long as he can latch onto the Bush/Cheney/Romney buzz word of tax cuts - even if it’s only substantive meaning is to dig a deeper hole for people with no ladder.

But not to worry. The Reilly “who cares about the Commonwealth; I want to be governor” brand of Republican cynicism probably will change even his position on that. If the other candidates can change the direction of the political wind, Reilly will set his thumb south and go right with it. He has on gay marriage, illegal immigration, and, yes, even the tax cut.

I have voted for Republicans in the past, and I might again in the future. But if I do, it will be for one who is honest enough to admit it.

Housekeeping Notes

by Thomas P. Champion

Joe recently asked me to post a semi-permanent link to the new Deval Patrick streaming video ad that's showing up on CNN.com, NECN.com and other news-related websites.

While doing so, I thought I'd try to make another minor modification to the site by making it searchable by Google.  I've done my best to follow the instructions on how to do this, but it looks like Google requires a few days to "crawl" a newly-registered site, so don't be surprised if it doesn't work properly the first time you try it.

Or maybe I'm just not doing it right . . . 

Obscuradura

by Joseph E. Thompson

Tom's catalogue of Republican malfeasance was impressive. I just can't figure out why he is so upset about it; no one else is. As to Outrage Fatigue: there has to be Outrage in order to tire of it, and, frankly, I am having trouble recognizing much in the American public.

I would point out to my esteemed friend and interlocutor that only one year and five months ago we went to the polls and returned a Republican president, house and senate. In fact, the GOP actually made gains.  Not exactly a sign of outrage – except maybe against tepid, lackluster Democratic challengers.  Oh, it's true that the polls are telling us that the American electorate seems to have concluded that the country is headed in the wrong direction (duh), and is babbling about a growing preference for a Democratic Congress. The public even appears to have taken the blinders off and seen the Idiot Prince for what he really is.  But Outrage?  Sorry, Tom.

Outraged about what? We can't get the real story about anything from anyone – liberal or conservative – unless we listen very carefully and intuit the facts behind the drivel. Politicians and pundits have made an art of obfuscating the most relevant information, and they are not alone.  It’s the new game show: Obscuradura. A few examples:

• Iran's nuclear program.  If you were a country who with some reason viewed us as hostile, watched us invade a neighbor for reasons flimsy at best, understood far better than we that the United States will install permanent bases right next door, wouldn’t you want a nuke? I would. If you even casually noticed that our closest ally in the region has for decades oppressed Arabs and, despite overwhelming conventional power, has had nuclear weapons for at least 30 years, wouldn’t you want one? I would. Has the United States insisted that Israel give up their nukes? You can bet your electoral votes in New York and Florida that ain’t happenin' too soon. And you can bank your Medicare check that no liberal is going to take it on. And what would happen if they got “the bomb?” Nothing at all. Iran knows very well that it would be a softly glowing parking lot roughly fifteen minutes after it used it. But let’s sell Bush’s world vision by using WMD’s and the fear factor. Sorry, wrong game.
• Illegal aliens – oops, sorry, I mean undocumented aliens – no, wait, just plain aliens – no, maybe taxpaying hardworking family folks . . . no, hold it – potential voters.  (Sorry.)  Anyway, you know who they are: the ones who are demonstrating by the hundreds of thousands because they think they should be here by right rather than sufferance (and marching complete with the flags of many nations. Oh sorry, they got the politics of that one right pronto and suddenly switched to the red white and blue.) But first impressions, as they say . . . Well, whatever the label or the packaging, my bleeding heart has almost burst, and I suspect that we have to do something. But let's not solve the problem by passing a law that has no penalty for the people who engrave the invitations for illegals – the business and agricultural interests who hire them. Both liberals and conservatives are deliberately obscuring the reality of both the problem and their own so-called “solutions.” Does anyone actually think that illegal aliens are going to travel to their point of entry for temporary deportation? You think Senator Kennedy does? Not on your poorly paid nanny's plinny.
• Bush's leak of classified information: Nothing illegal here. The president can declassify whatever he wishes. Even Mark Shields says so. But what the lumbering liberal never mentioned is that there are procedures the President is bound to follow – and he didn't. And that is the legal issue. But the only thing we will hear from liberals is how delicious the political problem is, and from conservatives how the liberals are interested only in making political hay.
• Abramoff-gate: Everyone does it, just not as well. Right? Tom DeLay be damned. The difficulty with corruption is systemic, and everyone who has ever made a joke about politicians knows it. But the press, liberal and conservative, is interested only in the scandal, who is getting indicted, and the political ramifications. Their assumption is that we are either disinterested or too stupid to grasp the implications. And it’s not only the press . . .  Congress and the President feel exactly the same way.  Guess what? They’re right.

The one thing we know – Tom’s opinion not withstanding – is that the media is market driven. If they spend hours – days – on who murdered whom and only minutes on corruption, it is because they know that that’s what people want to watch. If Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlson (does he shave yet?) are on the air, it is because they have an audience.

And us? Surely it must have dawned on us by now that, in a democracy, it isn’t so easy to claim eternal victimization by oppressive forces. In a fundamental and enduring sense, we’re doing this to ourselves.  Before long, playing the blame game turns itself into just another version of Obscuradura.

I might get on my high horse about Mexican flags on the Mall in Washington, but I’ll be damned before I pay another ten cents for a tomato. It upsets me that Wal-mart is paying nothing to foreign workers and hitting the taxpayers with the cost of healthcare for their “associates,” but I find myself far less exercised about the nanny I pay 7.00 an hour under the table and benefit-free. Politicians spend money like it’s water – except when it comes to basic infrastructure like roads, rail, seaports, bridges, sewers, transit, etc. – the stuff on which our economy runs.  (But when they do invest in something like the Big Dig, heaven forbid it should cost more than a buck and a quarter.)  It seems almost treasonous that pols are allowing our jobs to be exported wholesale to China, but I really, really, really need my third DVD player, and I am not paying more than fifty bucks for it. And, as I climb on board my SUV and summon the tugboats to ease it from its berth, I bemoan our dead in Iraq and suspect that this cynical president did it all for oil. I am a devout environmentalist; I say so each time I depart my 3,500 square foot home and drive forty-five minutes to work.

Obscuradura. Great game. We all watch it; we all play it; we all have a part in its success. Ain’t it fun?

Outrage Fatigue

By Thomas P. Champion

Everything – and I mean everything – about the Bush administration and the GOP-dominated Congress has become so self-evidently immoral, hypocritical, corrupt and/or scary that we’re all starting to suffer from “outrage fatigue.”

We’re just too tired to get up and fix the mess.  The fact that it’s finally too big for even the mainstream media to ignore doesn’t mean we’re going to do anything about it.  We’re simply exhausted by the accumulating weight of evidence that this regime is:

• Pretty good at doing really bad stuff (secret prisons, torturing, spying on its own citizens, bullying and bribing the media, starting wars, waging smear campaigns, rigging elections, funneling contracts to corporate supporters, despoiling the environment, giving away federal lands and resources, setting up vast political slush funds with which to reward allies and punish foes, etc.) but, at the same time,
• Really bad at doing anything important (waging wars, fighting terrorism, building a community of allies, coping with natural disasters, balancing the budget, providing a decent and cost-effective health care system, etc.).

Our expectations have sunk so low and our hopes have been so thoroughly dashed that we’re just can’t summon real anger anymore.  John McCain cozies up to Jerry Falwell?  Bush authorizes the very leaks he claims to despise?  King George keeps right on saying he doesn’t need to pay attention to the law – even the ones he signs?  The post-Katrina rebuild continues to be short-changed and mismanaged?  The GOP demands more tax cuts for the rich at the same time they tell us we’re a nation at war – a nation that just happens to be running record deficits? As the Abramoff-DeLay-Norquist-Rove corruption scandals broaden, DeLay resigns but goes right on raising political money for himself and his cronies?

Tell us something we don’t know . . .

In the past few months, we’ve quietly slipped into completely uncharted terrain. Can anyone recall a time in American history when we faced record deficits, a grindingly unsuccessful little war, a constitutional crisis (in which the President repeatedly and publicly flouts the law), soaring energy costs AND an immense corruption scandal – all at the same time?  (I’ve intentionally left out our profound environmental challenges – despite all the evidence, not enough people believe in them yet.)

Just think what the country would like if a Democratic administration had even half as much bad stuff happening simultaneously: impeachment, riots in the streets and apoplexy on the airwaves would be only the beginning.

But in our strange new reality, this is all just business as usual.  In fact, and despite Tom DeLay’s claims to the contrary, the question of impeachment hasn’t even come up – and isn’t likely to, either.  Why bother to impeach Bush when the alternative is “Shotgun” Dick Cheney, or Denny “the Bear” Hastert, or Ted “Bridge to Nowhere” Stevens?

Of course, there’s certainly plenty of polling data to suggest that the Democrats could win one or both houses of Congress in 2006 and then spend the next two years systemically uncovering the height, breadth and depth of GOP malfeasance in preparation for the next presidential election – and that would be a wonderful thing.

But don’t count on it. DeLay-style redistricting has enshrined incumbency, which currently gives the GOP a significant edge.  Conservative western and central states like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, etc. are short on population but long on political clout – their agribusiness and extraction interests (mining, forestry, etc.) have a disproportionately loud voice in the Senate compared to the diverse and teeming millions of New York or California.  (One-man-one-vote is a pleasant and fading fiction in America – and our GOP-dominated courts aren’t going to do anything about it.)  And, of course, there’s the evangelical right (now, with added strength from culture-war Catholics and hard-line Greater-Israel Jews) and the well-oiled, well-funded Republican Noise Machine, in which Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are merely two cogs among many.

With all these forces protecting the status quo, it’s quite possible for a significant majority of Americans to vote Democratic – in retaliation if not out of real conviction – and yet to see the GOP hegemony limp on, wounded but undeterred, to wreak havoc on the nation for years to come.

But we just don’t know what’s going to happen because we’ve never been here before: both politically and socially, it’s terra incognita.

In a parliamentary system, the Bush regime would be under pressure to call for new elections, and a short, sharp political campaign would, for good or ill, convincingly reset the balance of power. It’s not clear, however, whether our constitutional system can guide us through this strange new landscape.

When our elections finally arrive, will we have a meaningful and substantive debate about our shared future?  Will we have confidence in the legitimacy of the results?  Will we care enough to take remedial action in the months and years to come?

Or is our outrage fatigue so deep and paralyzing that we’ll just keep on shopping, consuming, reading Us Weekly and watching American Idol until our turn at the global helm is finally over, and some other nation becomes the hope – or bane – of whatever’s left of the world?

The Problem With the Democrats

Joseph E. Thompson

You have heard from virtually every pundit that the problem with the Democrats is that they don’t have a message. They don’t, but that’s not the problem. Here’s a hint: no Democrat or liberal spokesperson has had the guts to say that they are not supposed to have a message, at least not at this particular moment. Let them save that for November.

The people went to the polls in two successive presidential and six congressional elections and have placed the Democrats in opposition. Their job is, therefore, to oppose. A job they have left largely undone. They have been spineless on virtually every front and complicit with the Republicans on almost every issue. Only now when they smell the strong cheese of Republican decay have they been willing to extend their snouts beyond their mouseholes and chirp, and they waited until the vast majority of the country was retching from the same stench to do even that. Democrats don’t lack a message so much as they lack courage, and almost everyone knows it. But courage to do what?

First off, it seems to me that they are obligated to remind the American electorate that it committed the monumental error of electing these mocks. Heaven knows they had ample assistance from the Democratic Party, but it was neither the Democrats nor the Republicans who damaged the country; the voters did. While it was one thing to teach the Democrats an urgently needed lesson in 1998 and even in 2000, returning Republicans to power in 2004 was an unconscionable error in judgment, and one that their grandchildren will pay for in spades. It falls to the Democrats to remind the voters that they are responsible for their government and, to that extent, their destinies. Somewhere between pandering sessions, they must stop up their bowels and find the guts to do it. 

The second thing they must address is the religious right.

Every so often I have to feed my addiction for The West Wing, so I put on the DVD of the first season and wonder where Jed Bartlett is now that we need him. Last night I watched an episode in which the president tossed a group of strident religious right ministers out of his White House because they failed to denounce a group of whacos who sent a doll with knife in its throat to his twelve-year-old granddaughter. She had voiced her opinion that women should have a “right to choose.”

Only a highly imaginative mind could envision a Democrat calling Christians to task for not roundly condemning Fred Phelps and his band of Christian fascists both for insisting that our men and women in Iraq are being killed as divine revenge for harboring homosexuals, and for voicing their position at soldier’s funerals – complete with signs. http://www.startribune.com/462/story/266514.html, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0829-05.htm

I am no fan of Roe v. Wade, but instead of running to the right to kiss the ample behinds of the so-called pro lifers, the Democrats should remind the Christians that the right to life should extend beyond birth.  There is an itsy bitsy inconsistency when they vote for Republicans who cut taxes for the rich and programs for the poor, compromise the environment, deny global warming, and torture and execute prisoners. They might, for once, forthrightly tell the right that they are wrong. 

While they are at it, Democrats might also mention that these religious right Christians have about as much mental energy as it takes to pass gas. Who but imbeciles could be so easily and obviously manipulated by people who view the Ten Commandments not as guides for living but as dogs to keep the sheep in the pasture so they can be more easily caught and slaughtered? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to wonder how it is that the middle and lower classes are spiraling downward while religious leaders live like Turkish pashas selling Starbuck’s coffee in their temples.

Were these normal times, the Democrats should feel free to get themselves elected just for the power, or the money or the fun of it. But these times are not normal. Regardless of their electoral chances, the Democrats must have the courage to stop trying to get themselves elected. Oh they should run and run hard, but for the sake of the country not themselves. In order to do that, they must put aside their Macheavellian political tactics and their electoral abacus and run on what they see as the truth – plainly spoken. They must have faith both in their message and in the wisdom of the electorate. In short, they must risk defeat.  My guess is that is only way to victory, but that’s a guess.

Was it a Democrat who told us that “We have nothing to fear but fear itself?” If he is somewhere beholding the party he lead and served, I bet he’s glad he’s dead.   

Shoot Raymond!

by Joseph E. Thompson

Two things: First, at the moment national politics are so bizarre that I can’t make enough sense of them to write a coherent column. Second, I have a pet peeve that seems to have caused more than a minor itch, so I am going to ask you to indulge me while I scratch it.

I think white men are being degraded, marginalized, intentionally undereducated, and, dare I say it, emasculated.

Let’s start with television:  On “Grey’s Anatomy”– my favorite show – there are four attending surgeons: two blacks, one woman, and Dr. McDreamy – the talented but forlorn brain surgeon whose eyes are so sorrowful they make me weep. The only resident we see is a black woman who is tough, funny and generally endearing. Of the interns who form the core of the program there are three strong competitive women, one pudgy weak man, and an idiot whoremonger who passed his clinicals only on the second attempt. (By the way, if my recent stint at Mass General is any indication, those numbers hold up in real life.)

Can anyone name a current situation comedy whose basis is not the dumb, weak, frightened and thoroughly unattractive little man in the control of the smart, pretty, bitchy and long-suffering wife? And what about the ads – wives rolling their eyes as their moronic husbands race off in their expensive new driving machines; children lecturing their fathers on how to insert a frozen waffle into a toaster? Fatherhood is generally demeaned – actually, fathers are left with the impossible task of being mothers and reduced to buffoon status when they inevitably fail.   

The problem is that men appear to be yielding the field with serious consequences to both sexes. Dare we look at higher education? 1949 was the high water mark of male domination in college enrollment at 69.7%. It declined steadily until in 2002 the percentage had dropped to 43.1%. Men hold only a small margin over women in most professional degrees including medicine, law and dentistry, and now women surpass males in both math and science in secondary education. Male to female suicide rates exceed six to one for ages 15 to 24.

Some recent studies suggest that public education and teacher training is now so weighted to favor girls that boys are suffering as a direct result. (You might want to peruse some of these arguments in The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers, or – from the other end of the political spectrum – Stiffed : The Betrayal of the American Man by Susan Faludi.)

But no matter. Women and girls somehow remain an oppressed mass. While they stoically bear the burdens imposed upon them by the professions, their male counterparts joyfully defend the nation and collect the garbage. (Let’s not kid ourselves; the ratio of men to women in the military in no way smacks of equality, and I have yet to see a female garbage collector.)

Of course, if I were reading this little piece of political incorrectness instead of writing it, I would say that the arguments made so far are gross exaggerations. When was the last time you saw a male hotel maid? How about the plight of divorced mothers who can’t afford to feed the kids? How about shelters filled to the gills with abused women? And I would, as always, be absolutely right. (On the other hand, I have yet to see an American-born hotel maid of any sex.)

But these very real situations are hardly being helped by the marginalization of men. Recent reports have indicated that educated women are experiencing difficulties securing similarly educated partners. The divorce rate continues at about fifty percent; women are as likely as men to have an extra-marital affair, and male sexual dysfunction appears to be on the rise (sorry): the old “I have a headache” line is now as frequently used by men as women.

Mind you, I am not arguing that there are not issues peculiar to women that remain to be addressed by society. But I am saying that we have before us an instance of the assistance of one class at the direct and unnecessary expense of another. I would be the last to argue against equality in the workplace, schools and, in so much as biology will allow, in the home. But addressing those issues should not mean that men should be objects of humiliation.

So when you see a man looking like an idiot in his Volkswagen, don’t buy a Volkswagen. When “Everybody Loves Raymond” comes on, switch stations. You should still watch “Grey’s Anatomy,” though. That’s too good to miss.

Tom Reilly is a Democrat - NOT

by Joseph E. Thompson

The Democratic race for governor is fast becoming a metaphor for the strife within the party as a whole – and a test case for what may turn out to be its best hope for redemption and renewal.

A week ago, Tom Reilly tried to secure more money, as well as his so-far nonexistent progressive credentials, by recruiting Chris Gabrieli as his running mate. Gabrieli demurred. Why? One theory is that he refused to do what Reilly is doing – running against the Democratic Party.

Now before I finish this thought I hasten to remind you that I am no fan of entrenched politicians and ancient loyalties or, for that matter of the Democratic Party in general. I have long wanted the party to rid itself of its political triangulators, state its positions with clarity and let the chips fall where they may. I have argued – in this blog and elsewhere – that, at least on a national level, this would require a major change in leadership.  Even here in the Commonwealth, the Democratic Party’s apparatchiki have consistently nominated candidates based on their longevity, or their “electability” or as a result of a fratricidal primary fight. In few instances have they chosen a candidate based on what he or she actually stands for.

But in Massachusetts, Democrats do stand for something. The fact is that the party, as a party, is liberal and proud of it. Reilly has calculated that the only way he can win is to move to the right of his party and ever so slightly to the left of Kerry Healey. In order to do that, he must concede the caucuses and thus the convention’s endorsement, and hope that he can persuade conservative Democrats and independents to vote for him and against his party’s platform – not to mention its chosen candidate (which seems increasingly likely to be the forthright and charismatic Deval Patrick – a true political “outsider” of a type the Democrats haven’t produced in decades).

It appears that Gabrieli, bless his heart, will have none of it. He seems to think that caucuses and conventions have the meaning they are intended to have: the party offers its message and its candidates to the voters and allows them to make a decision. The fact that it has been wrong in the past is no reason for a candidate to marginalize it, or avoid it. Gabrieli hasn’t fared very well in his prior bids for office, but he has remained loyal to the party, its rules and its platforms.  To become Reilly’s running mate would mean that he would have to run against all those things.

Reilly gives every indication that he intends to do precisely that. He has issued no policy initiatives beyond a tax cut and increased funding for higher education. His cholesterol count is sky high from the eggs he has swallowed as they dripped down his face from his stances on gay marriage, his intervention in local investigations on the behalf of friends and contributors, his failure to suborn Gabrieli, and the unmitigated arrogance of his choosing anyone to be his running mate. (Remember, the convention nominates its choice for L.G. and the people vote separately for the office. This is already a crowded field, and, while he is not the first gubernatorial candidate to try to create a pre-primary “ticket,” he has managed to drive a wedge into the party when none was necessary.)

All of this nonsense, combined with his considerable war chest, have left him little choice but to bury his obvious deficits in a negative campaign against Deval Patrick. He will almost assuredly try to position himself as Healey Lite and spend heavily on media messages that try to convince primary voters that Mr. Patrick is inexperienced, a phony and – worst of all – a free-spending student of Das Kapital. Of course nothing could be further from the truth – well, not about Mr. Patrick anyway.

Briefly put, Reilly is employing the same tired tactics that have lost us election upon election, while Mr. Patrick continues to campaign on his issues and ideas – perhaps because he actually has some. His candidacy is designed to inspire voters with hope for their future and the confidence that they can use their government to improve that future. In short, he is running as a Democrat.

Reilly, by contrast, has decided to run as a NOT-Democrat.  If he were running in a NOT-Democratic primary, it would be a terrific strategy – but that’s not the contest Reilly has to win.